Blake Scholl
Founder & CEO, Boom Supersonic. On 3 shows, 2 appearances, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveengineer@bscholl ↗LinkedIn ↗boomsupersonic.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, an aerospace company building commercial supersonic aircraft. He previously worked as a software engineer at Amazon and co-founded Kima Labs, which was acquired by Groupon.
3shows
2appearances
54statements
5resolved
3supported
1contradicted
60%fully supported
21said about them ↓ Everything Blake Scholl said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Scholl: Boeing and Lockheed Martin have terrible corporate cultures
“And it has only kind of big companies, Boeing, Lockheed, et cetera, that are really terrible cultures.”
Scholl: The need for deep hardware experience is a lie by legacy companies
“This is one of these lies told by old people at big, dumb companies, and it's just not true. And by the way, all those people suck. So don't worry about it. Go build real things.”
Conventional wisdom that commercial supersonic flight is economically unviable is false
“Six years ago, when we were starting Boom, the conventional wisdom was no one would pay enough to be able to fly supersonic, that it would have to be really That the sonic boom was an insurmountable barrier that would take decades of R&D to solve. And it turns…”
Scholl: Boeing is no longer building new or innovative airplanes
“Well, no, they're not even building new airplanes anymore, let alone innovative new airplanes.”
Scholl: The US cannot beat China by repatriating legacy manufacturing
“Is it possible for America to actually compete with China on manufacturing at scale? Yes, absolutely. The but we have to do it smartly. It won't work to try to repatriate the manufacturing that left the US.”
Scholl: Boom needs more software engineers post-AI because development costs dropped
“At Boom, we need far more software engineers in a post AI world. They would need it 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 ma…”
Scholl: Overture is designed to be profitable at $5,000 fares
“And then for Overture One, we've said, look, we want to focus on business class. And so we've designed that airplane such that it will be profitable for airlines at fares a quarter of what was charged on Concorde.”
Scholl: Boom will produce first Overture by 2026, test in 2027
“We're breaking ground on the plant to build it, and we will be in production by the end of 24. We'll have the first airplane in 26, and we'll start flight testing it in 27.”
Scholl: Boom aims for Overture passenger certification by end of 2029
“And our goal is to spend two years in that flight test campaign and then be certified to carry passengers by the end of 2029.”
VC pattern matching rewards SpaceX copycats over broader aerospace innovation
“The industry as a whole pattern matches very strongly on exactly what successes have existed previously. So for example, for today, it's really easy to raise money for a rocket company because SpaceX is a success, but that doesn't strongly translate over into …”
Scholl: Jeff Bezos passed on Boom's 2015 seed round
“One of my very many failed investor pitches was in 2015 when Jeff Bezos passed on our seed round at Boom. And then he wrote the 2015 Amazon shareholder letter about how there's certain things that only big companies can do. And he cited airliners as one of the…”
Scholl: XB-1 Broke Sound Barrier Six Times With No Ground Boom
“XB one broke the sound barrier on two flights, six times through the sound barrier. Each time, no audible sonic boom in the ground.”
Scholl: US legalized supersonic flight 115 days after XB-1 broke sound barrier
“And so it was about 24 hours from breaking the sound barrier to be invited to the West Wing, and a 115 days from breaking the sound barrier to an executive order making supersonic flight legal again in the U.S.”
Scholl: Boom's proprietary software cuts engine blade design time to real-time
“And Blade Runner allows us with really just a couple engineers to change a blade design in real time and see exactly how it's going to behave structurally and aerodynamically. This reduces literally to real time, a process that previously would have taken doze…”
Scholl: Major aerospace incumbents lack co-located design and manufacturing shops
“This is a room that does not exist at GE or Rolls-Royce or Boeing or any other large aerospace company.”
Scholl: Boom will deliver its first natural gas turbine within 12 months
“The first super power turbines under construction right now and goes to the first customer in less than 12 months.”
Scholl: Boom's underlying technology existed ten years before the company launched
“The technology for supersonic flight existed actually a long time before Boom was founded. Technologically, the company could have been created 10 years earlier, but nobody started it.”
Scholl: Douglas Aircraft in 1921 was the last startup to build airliners
“The last company entrepreneur founded that went on to build a commercial airliner was Douglas Aircraft in 1921.”
Scholl: The FAA approved Boom's XB-1 flight permit in just 90 minutes
“The approvals process for XB-One, that even for an R&D airplane can stretch on for months, actually happened in 90 minutes. From when we said we think we're ready to fly, and FAA said, here's the paperwork, we agree, go. We got the first ever permit for flying…”
Scholl: Groupon had $100B potential but IPO'd before operational readiness
“My synthesis of Groupon is it's a story of massively lost potential. In, in, in my view, that company had all the potential to be worth 30 or a hundred billion dollars and really to have earned it. But they made kind of one critical mistake, which was taking t…”
Scholl: Successor executives optimize companies instead of pushing product boundaries
“Founder led companies tend to push what the product can do. And then when the founders retire, what happens in those companies? Well, they promote the most successful executive. That reported to them who by definition is really different than the founder becau…”
Scholl: XB-1 is the first independently developed supersonic jet in history
“This is the first independently developed supersonic jet ever. Like previously it's been governance and military.”
Scholl: All long-haul airplanes will ultimately adopt synthetic fuel
“This is what I think ultimately every long-haul airplane is going to do. This is the way we decarbonize long-haul air travel.”
The other half of the tape: Blake Scholl's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 20 times in 5 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Paul Buchheit 11Jared Friedman 5Josh Buckley 2Michael Seibel 1Harry Stebbings 1
Statements about Blake Scholl, by other people (1)
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 17
20VC 3
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- Jared Friedman - Advice for Hard-tech and Biotech Founders · Y Combinator
- 20VC: Why The Best Entrepreneurs Are Cockroaches, What Everyone Underestimates About Customer Acquisition & What You Don't But Need To Know About Payback Periods with Josh Buckley, Founder & Chairman @ Mino Games
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 11 mentions in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Blake's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Boom Supersonic | 1 | 15 | 0% 0/1 | full record on 20VC → |
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Boom Supersonic | 1 | 13 | 75% 3/4 | full record on How I Built This → |
| Y COMBINATORLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Boom Supersonic | 0 +1 | 26 | — | full record on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast → |