22 korrents from this recording
Every claim below is a statement made in this recording, quoted word for word and linked to the second it was said, so you can hear it rather than take our word for it. The wording comes from the transcript published alongside the recording; the sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording.
Their wordsIn 1969, we landed on the moon for the first time and the same year we flew Concord, the faster than the speed of sound airliner. The future was supposed to be faster and better. where we're supposed to look forward to innovation in air and in space. And yet, half a century later, we can't go to the moon and we can't fly faster than the speed of sound.
Their wordsIt now takes Lockheed more than two years to build a new Patriot missile interceptor. This is crazy. This is no way to build the future and this is no way to win a war.
Their wordsBut if we fast forward half a century, this is the 787, their latest airliner, which by the way was launched more than 20 years ago. You can't spot the difference. It doesn't fly any faster. It doesn't make the world any more accessible.
Their wordsThose first jetliners truly did double the speed of what had come before them. And was they doubled the speed of air travel, the most important changes were on the ground. Hawaii was simply not a tourist destination before the speed of the jet.
Their wordsWell, no. They're not even building new airplanes anymore, let alone innovative new airplanes.
Their wordsby making the sonic boom disappear entirely, we are able to put aside a question that had long plagued people talking about supersonic flight, which is how quiet is quiet enough? If there's no boom at all, there's nothing to argue about.
Their wordsPeople talk about isn't it a bad idea to build in a regulated industry? Turns out you can change the regulations. And the way you do it is just by building the thing and communicating why it's okay.
Their wordsThe 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.
Their wordsBut great airplanes are incredibly integrated and everything affects everything else. uh the the best airplane design is interplay of propulsion, of aerodynamics, of structures, of all kinds of optimizations, how you fit the systems into it.
Their wordsWe said all of this engineering that historically exists in spreadsheets really should exist in software. The spreadsheet engineering is like it's like baby software.
Their wordsYou can't get to product market fit on a supersonic jet by building it and seeing if anybody likes it. You have to analyze very carefully the art of the possible and also what will maximize the market opportunity.
Their wordsone 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.
Their wordsThis is a supersonic engine adapted for ground power generation that can ship without the rest of the airplane, thereby generating the test data, the learnings, the reliability, and also the capital that we need to go big.
Their wordsThere are many many unsolved problems in the world, many great ideas hiding in plain sight that were actually solvable that could have been multi-billion or multi-t trillion dollar businesses a while ago, but nobody's building them and not for any reason other than nobody went and did it.
Their wordsso I I deeply believe that you should pick a problem that you want to go solve in the world and don't worry too much uh about the answer to why now. Uh the answer to why now can be because I started now.
Their wordsit it won't work to try to repatriate uh the the manufacturing that left the US. Um that's a uh you you don't you don't beat China at its own game. What you do is invent the future, invent the next wave of manufacturing uh and build that here.
Their wordsBy 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.
Their wordsWhy? We engaged early. We made the regulators part of the team and we worked together. We made it boom plus FAA versus the problem, not Boom versus FAA.
Their wordsSo I think the worst advice is like work on what you know. Uh what you know can be changed. Particularly in a world where you everyone has personalized AI tutors. Anybody with passion and dedication can learn new knowledge and learn new skills. But what you can't change easily is what you love.
Our reading
Cheaper software has increased the number of software engineers a company needs, not reduced it.
Their wordsAt 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.
Our reading
Becoming a deep expert makes you useless, because what an expert is steeped in is the past.
Their wordsdon't try to become a deep expert. The moment you become an expert, what you're steeped in is the past and then you're completely useless.
Their wordsIt 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.