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← People and their mental models

Blake Scholl's mental models

5 claims Blake Scholl made fit 4 mental models. Most often: Feedback loops, Cheaper means more, not less, Incentives. Everything they said here.

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Feedback loops

Shorten the loop between doing and finding out; whatever a loop rewards is what you become.

Used by 60 others

A team of fifty can build a supersonic jet only by making hardware development look like software development and driving down the cost of iteration.

  1. Blake Scholl Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic The key thing is to make hardware development look more like software development to reduce the cost of iteration both in the world of bits and in the world of atoms. Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com · 28 Jul 2026 · 12:33 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    The key thing is to make hardware development look more like software development to reduce the cost of iteration both in the world of bits and in the world of atoms.

    Watch from 12:33 plays here

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com

    28 Jul 2026 · video · 50m · spoken · machine transcript

Iterating through outside aerospace suppliers is close to impossible, which is why a hardware startup should own its own machine shop.

  1. Blake Scholl Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic one of the most important things we discovered along the way is it's extremely difficult to iterate with outside suppliers, particularly outside suppliers in aerospace, which are let's just say I have no kind words for them. So we chose to build our own machine shop. And now we can go from a digitally designed engine part to a prototype part in about 24 hours. Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com · 28 Jul 2026 · 15:50 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    one of the most important things we discovered along the way is it's extremely difficult to iterate with outside suppliers, particularly outside suppliers in aerospace, which are let's just say I have no kind words for them. So we chose to build our own machine shop. And now we can go from a digitally designed engine part to a prototype part in about 24 hours.

    Watch from 15:50 plays here

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com

    28 Jul 2026 · video · 50m · spoken · machine transcript

Cheaper means more, not less

Make something cheaper to use and people use so much more of it that the total goes up (Jevons paradox).

Used by 10 others

Cheaper software has increased the number of software engineers a company needs, not reduced it.

  1. Blake Scholl Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic At boom we need far more software engineers in a postAI world than we need in a pre-AI world. Why? Because the cost of software development has dropped. anybody including hardware engineers can now become a coder and we need software engineers to make sure the architectures are right and make sense and are coherent. Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com · 28 Jul 2026 · 41:33 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    At boom we need far more software engineers in a postAI world than we need in a pre-AI world. Why? Because the cost of software development has dropped. anybody including hardware engineers can now become a coder and we need software engineers to make sure the architectures are right and make sense and are coherent.

    Watch from 41:33 plays here

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com

    28 Jul 2026 · video · 50m · spoken · machine transcript

Incentives

Look at what people are rewarded for; it explains more behaviour than what they say, your own included.

Used by 84 others

Most regulation does not come from anyone trying to keep the public safe but from an entrenched interest using government to shut its competitors down.

  1. Blake Scholl Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic By the way, this is the pattern in a lot of regulation. It doesn't come from like some well-meaning person trying to keep the public safe. It comes from some entrenched, frankly, lazy interest that doesn't want to have to compete and runs to DC or runs to the local regulator and tries to use the power of government to shut their competition down. I think this is deeply unethical, but it happens all the time. Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com · 28 Jul 2026 · 29:03 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    By the way, this is the pattern in a lot of regulation. It doesn't come from like some well-meaning person trying to keep the public safe. It comes from some entrenched, frankly, lazy interest that doesn't want to have to compete and runs to DC or runs to the local regulator and tries to use the power of government to shut their competition down. I think this is deeply unethical, but it happens all the time.

    Watch from 29:03 plays here

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com

    28 Jul 2026 · video · 50m · spoken · machine transcript

Learning machine

Keep learning after school, and learn from other people's mistakes as well as your own.

Used by 12 others

A young engineer may attempt what nobody has ever done, but if somebody has already done it they are obliged to call that person and hear their advice.

  1. Blake Scholl Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic It is totally okay for a young engineer to do something they've never done before just the way it's okay for them to do something that nobody has ever done before. But uh but if somebody has done it before in the world, uh our rule is you have to go find one of those people, call them, and ask them your advice. And you don't have to take it. You just have to hear it. Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com · 28 Jul 2026 · 43:39 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    It is totally okay for a young engineer to do something they've never done before just the way it's okay for them to do something that nobody has ever done before. But uh but if somebody has done it before in the world, uh our rule is you have to go find one of those people, call them, and ask them your advice. And you don't have to take it. You just have to hear it.

    Watch from 43:39 plays here

    ↗Blake Scholl: How 50 People Built a Supersonic Jetyoutube.com

    28 Jul 2026 · video · 50m · spoken · machine transcript