Peter Beck on Rockets, Dinner with Elon and the Future of Space

**Peter Beck** (0:00)
The difference being is that you can make bad decisions for a longer period of time, if you have billions of dollars to put in behind it. But I think we're proof that it doesn't take billions, it just takes the right decisions at the right time.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:29)
All right, I could not be happier about an episode. We are going to talk to Peter Beck today. A lot of you will know who Peter is, but if you don't, he's the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab is a space company, a rocket company based, well, it started in New Zealand, it's based in California these days. Peter has an incredible life story, he's a self-taught rocket engineer, didn't go to college, built Rocket Lab in Auckland, in New Zealand, that shouldn't be possible either, since New Zealand has no aerospace industry. Obviously, if you follow my work, I documented a lot of Peter's story in When the Heavens Went On Sale, my book, and Wild Wild Space, our film on HBO. And so look, Peter's near and dear to my heart, I've always found his story incredible. I always enjoy talking to him. Just to set the stage for those of you who are not rocket buffs, Rocket Lab has traditionally been making this smaller rocket called Electron. It is now heading towards a bigger rocket called Neutron, which puts it in head-to-head competition with SpaceX. It's also got a satellite business, a spacecraft business. It's turned from a rocket company into a full-on space company. Peter is just barreling forward and this should be a big, fantastic, interesting year for Rocket Lab. We'll talk to Peter in a second. Once again, I want to thank E1 Ventures for being the sponsor of this podcast. Go to E1 Ventures for all your venture capital needs. Find people, find decision makers in whose podcasts they're going to support. Thank you for all your likes and reviews. Please keep them coming. And with that, let's go talk to Peter Beck.
Peter Beck, hello.

**Peter Beck** (2:32)
Congrats on your company, by the way, Ashlee. It looks like it's going great.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:35)
Thank you. Congratulations on your company.
You've had one for much longer than I have. But thank you. Thanks, Pete. Yeah, it's been an adventure. Thanks for making time for us, Pete.

**Peter Beck** (2:48)
No worries.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:50)
Gosh, where to begin? We haven't chatted in a little while. I realized, I think it's been about 10 years since we've known each other just about.

**Peter Beck** (3:00)
Yeah, probably is. Yeah.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:02)
Yeah. To give people a little background, I mean, I went to New Zealand, I think for the first time in 2016, and I had heard these rumors about this crazy engineer who had actually, this was like, 2016 was a weird time. There are rocket startups appearing everywhere, and most of them, you could tell, were not real just by the website and the language they used. But I kept, all my friends in the business kept telling me, there was this real human in New Zealand who actually knew what he was doing. But I was skeptical the first time I went down to visit you, and then that I was blown away when I saw three electron bodies right there on the floor. Yeah, amazing. I can't believe how far you guys have come.

**Peter Beck** (3:56)
Yeah, well, 10 years, it feels like a very long time. I think you've aged better than me, though, actually, to be honest.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:02)
No, no. Sadly, I must say, I think Chris Kemp has aged better than any of us. He always looks youthful.
Well, Pete, I mean, there's a million questions I have for you. You guys just reported some earnings and gave some updates. I mean, why don't you, in your own words, you want to give us the latest and greatest Rocket Lab news? And keep in mind, this isn't like a full space audience.

**Peter Beck** (4:34)
Yeah, I mean, look, the big sucking sound of all resource time and cash in the company is Neutron, so we're plowing towards getting that vehicle on the pad and launched. So a lot of the earnings, we spend a lot of time covering that. The company continues to grow, I think, this quarter, we're 32% over last quarter of this time, of this period last year. So it's just continued growth. And the team now is knocking on 2600, I think, or more. And we have like 40 spacecraft in backlog. And it was a big quarter for Electron, so we flew five and booked eight.
So that product continues to grow and grow in demand. So, no, it was a good quarter.