Jared Isaacman: What went wrong at NASA | The All-In Interview

**David Friedberg** (0:00)
Jared Isaacman was nominated by President Trump to become the 15th Administrator of NASA in December. He passed out of the Senate committee in May and was set to be confirmed by the full Senate this week. However, on Friday, President Trump withdrew his nomination for Isaacman. We asked Jared to sit down with us for conversation. We dive into everything, his experiences as a successful entrepreneur, fighter jet pilot, commander of the world's first all-civilian space flight, and the first civilian to conduct a spacewalk. What he saw in his six-month studying NASA, how American government bureaucracy has eroded its performance and puts the nation at risk in the great space race underway with China. And what really happened? Was it a discovery about prior donations to Democratic candidates, or an association with Elon Musk that lost him the nomination? Here's my conversation with Jared Isaacman.
Jared, welcome. I, like many space enthusiasts, was thrilled for your nomination to lead NASA as the 15th Administrator of the Agency. Founded in 1958, the year after the Russians put Sputnik into orbit, NASA's perhaps, in my opinion, the US government's most pioneering agency, having organized and led our exploration missions to the moon, Mars, the outer solar system and beyond, as well as the launch of important scientific missions to observe the Earth, to observe our solar system and the deep universe, and of course, the installation and operation of the ISS. And you seemed really qualified for the job as a business manager, a successful entrepreneur, a flight and space enthusiast. So I'm really curious to hear your views on NASA, the space industry overall, the race with China, and frankly, hear a little bit about what the heck just happened with your nomination. A lot of people have a lot of questions that we'd love to hear your point of view on. So I thank you for joining me today, Jared.

**Jared Isaacman** (2:17)
I'm thrilled to be here to chat. And as someone who's been a space enthusiast since kindergarten, whether it's through the lens of commercial space or the great space race from the 1960s or NASA of today, these are all subjects I get pretty charged up about. So I'd love to chat about it.

**David Friedberg** (2:34)
What inspired you to get into space? You went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and you later became an entrepreneur, but were you always kind of obsessed with space? And did you always dream of doing what you got to do last year, which was walk in space?

**Jared Isaacman** (2:51)
Yeah. So this is all my parents' fault. They skimped out on a babysitter as a kid and just put me in front of the TV. So I was watching movies like Top Gun, The Right Stuff, Space Camp, the movie, 1980s movie where if you go to space camp, a robot's going to launch you into space. This was all stuff in my elementary school years.

**David Friedberg** (3:13)
I just showed it to my kids last week, by the way. So funny that you say that. I pulled up Space Camp. I had to buy it because it's not on any of the streaming services to show it to my kids.

**Jared Isaacman** (3:22)
Okay. I've been to Space Camp to speak to the students a number of times and I ask them, all right, raise your hands if you've seen the movie Space Camp here and know who Jinx is. And no one raises their hands. And that just goes to show I'm old.

**David Friedberg** (3:35)
So you were always into it. Is that what you wanted to do to work in aeronautical engineering or as a pilot or what were you thinking of doing?

**Jared Isaacman** (3:43)
Yeah, I mean, so kind of an interesting start to the story. I mean, I started my day job, which is shift four. You know, it's a pretty large fintech now when I was 16 And I was just like most, you know, as you know, entrepreneurs, you're burning yourself out, waking up on the keyboard. And, you know, I said, I need a hobby in life. So I picked up my passion for flying. And I basically had parallel careers, you know, in aviation and in business. And I started flying air shows in 2010 and 2011 And I was flying with a bunch of really talented ex-military, even current military pilots. And they were like, you know, you could fly in the, you know, in the Air National Guard or the Reserves. And I found out, well, wow, that's amazing. You can fly fighter jets part-time and serve the country. You need a college degree. I never had one because I started my business at 16 So that's actually why I went back to school, went to Emory Riddle, because it's an aviation school. I think it graduates more Air Force pilots every year than the Air Force Academy. But anyway, that's ultimately why I got my degree. But my pursuits kind of in parallel of business and aviation has existed, you know, really since I was a teenager.