Thrilled to host special guest John Coogan on the podcast. John's working on a video about us and took an hour to hop on the pod to chat about running startups, starting a YouTube Channel, and of course, fast airplanes! 00:04 – President for a day? Bring back the SR-71 01:47 – Technical recruiting in the early days of a startup 02:50 – John's background: Soylent and Lucy 06:40 – Lessons learned from building two companies 10:18 – Defense Tech and Founders Fund 15:15 – Is there a key indicator for startup success? 17:44 – Authenticity, communications, brand, and social media 28:02 – Different types of "risks" in venture-backed startups 36:55 – Skunk Works – what made them so special? 41:54 – John's impressions of Hermeus