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.
Groupon damaged its customer base by spamming emails for short-term targets
“Groupon honestly was very much the opposite. If a quarter was coming in soft, the response was often to, hey, send more email. You know, we'll pump up the short term, but it's a little bit like eating your stock seed because it burns up your core customer base…”
Boom Supersonic will take 10 to 15 years to carry commercial passengers
“Boom is a company that will probably be on the order of 10 to 15 years from founding to Carrying passengers in volume.”
Individual VC partners personally backed Boom after their funds passed
“It was very typical that we would make it to the full partnership stage, and the fund would end up passing, although individual investors in that group would come in personally.”
Boom's XB-1 prototype jet will fly and set records in 2021
“So that airplane will be finished this summer. They'll be flying and starting to set speed records next year.”
Boom's Overture airliner will fly New York to London in three hours
“And so that airplane will carry 75 passengers at business class fares on flights that are half as long as they are today. So think, you know, New York to London and three hours instead of seven, you know, fast enough, you can go across the pond, get business d…”
Scholl: Lockheed Takes Over Two Years to Build a Patriot Interceptor
“It now takes Lockheed more than two years to build a new Patriot missile interceptor.”
Scholl: US never progressed past supersonic airliner mock-ups before Boom
“Prior to boom, the closest the America ever got to a supersonic airliner was a mock-up.”
Scholl: Boom's XB-1 is the first independently developed supersonic jet
“Last year, XB-One became the first independently developed jet to break the sound barrier, more than a decade after founding the company.”
Scholl: Boom's board ordered him to shut down with seven days cash
“There was a moment where we got down to seven days of cash and the board told me to shut the company down.”
Scholl: Supersonic flight legalization passed the US House unanimously
“After the executive order, a bill dropped in the House and the Senate to make the supersonic legalization permanent. It passed the House Unanimously. And just last week, it got out of the Senate Commerce Committee again with a unanimous vote.”
Scholl: Boom's XB-1 is the first plane landed solely using augmented reality
“The first human piloted airplane landed solely on augmented reality with no natural view of the runway.”
Scholl: Boom machines digital engine prototypes in 24 hours in-house
“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.”
Scholl: Boom conducted the first supersonic Starlink livestream
“This was the first supersonic installation of Starlink, the first supersonic air-to-air livestream”
Scholl: Amazon's board and internal staff laughed at Jeff Bezos over AWS
“He was laughed at internally and laughed at by his board when he launched Amazon Web Services. He was laughed at by the world for e-commerce.”
Scholl: Overture will fly Tokyo to Seattle in 4.5 hours
“Just about the longest non-stop route would be Tokyo to Seattle. In four and a half hours, and just pause on that for a second, four and a half hours across the Pacific.”
Scholl: Boom secured major airline orders with nonrefundable deposits
“We've already built history's first independently developed supersonic jet. We've already gotten major airlines to place orders and make nonrefundable deposits.”
Founders must choose a mission they will never abandon
“If you want to be successful, you have to think about your personal motivation and pick a mission that you will never, ever give up on, no matter how hard it is.”
15-year startup timelines create an impedance mismatch for early-stage VCs
“And that time horizon, even though the IRRs and the multiples will be great, makes it an impedance mismatch for most venture capital funds in the early stages.”
Boom Supersonic rejects top technical talent lacking mission passion
“If you're not excited enough, we don't hire you because it's too hard, and if you're sane, you're gonna give up somewhere along the way.”
Group jam sessions reveal technical candidates' depth and leadership capability
“If you get a group of smart people talking about your problem space together in a room, you can quickly tell who really knows what they're talking about, And also, who has the personality and ability to lead in a room that you really want to go get in the tren…”
Boom rejected early candidates who couldn't teach something in their interview
“And if you couldn't teach me something, you didn't get hired at Boom.”
Stripe co-founder John Collison was Boom Supersonic's very first investor
“It was John Collison, the co-founder of Stripe. And this was in the relatively early days of Stripe before it was the massive success that it was today. John was a pilot. I met him through a friend and we went out to dinner or talking about what we were doing …”
Senior aerospace leaders with startup fit are the hardest hires
“The hardest thing to hire for is big leadership roles that require aerospace background. And that is because the background is crucial for us to have. If you're going to go off and build Overture, which is probably one of the most complicated safety critical t…”
Scholl: Boom engineers must consult experienced practitioners before solving known problems
“It is totally ok for a young engineer to do something they've never done before, just the way it's ok for them to do something that nobody has ever done before. But, ah, but if somebody has done it before in the world, ah, a rule is you have to go find one of …”
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 → |