Blake Scholl: Started from Zero at 33 — Now He’s Building a $1B Airline

Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, the company revolutionising air travel with supersonic jets. Blake openly shares the mindset shifts that helped him overcome rejection and industry skepticism, transitioning from a software engineer at Amazon to leading an aerospace company valued at more than $1 billion.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Teaser

0:54 - His early career, 14 years in tech

2:12 - "People have to declare big things for big things to actually happen."

3:31 - Working at Amazon with Jeff Bezos, the lessons he learned there

7:38 - What led him to transition from a corporate job to starting Boom

8:20 - Why he quit his stable job at 33, with newborn twins and a toddler daughter

9:06 - How much money he saved for his startup 9:44 - How he managed his time with family while building a startup 10:30 - How he started a company without formal education

12:57 - How he moved from theory to practice

14:30 - Challenges in hiring the right people

15:50 - "When I told people I was building a supersonic jet, they said, 'Are you crazy?'"

17:18 - Why you shouldn’t listen to industry experts and should check the information yourself

19:20 - No one can tell you what you’re capable of, except yourself 19:56 - The failures that can turn out to be winning moments 20:33 - The hardest day at Boom

21:17 - 3 weeks from bankruptcy – What separates a successful founder from a failing one?

22:00 - Why 99% of startups fail

22:30 - How close they are to launching

24:00 - Legal bans and challenges that stopped them

26:12 - How everything can change in just 4 weeks

26:20 - How to navigate the challenge of 3x the carbon emissions that jets use

28:58 - The costs of flying on a supersonic jet

30:18 - Why increasing speed is important and how it can drive growth in other fields

32:45 - How he manages work-life balance while working at a startup

33:35 - "The world is really open to supersonic right now. We have to move fast. I haven't had a day off in 4 months."

34:40 - The story behind the Trump photo

37:00 - Advice for someone who’s stuck with their idea of building a startup but is facing obstacles

38:00 - Stop being afraid of failure 39:18 - What he would say to the younger version of himself