Molly O’Shea (@MollySOShea)
@MollySOShea
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Fmr SpaceX CIO Ken Venner joined in 2012 when it was *only* a $1B company.
Today, post-IPO $SPCX briefly touched ~$3T in market cap..
"SpaceX wasn't a name. I had no idea who they are."
All it took was a factory tour & @elonmusk's vision to "save humanity from itself by colonizing another planet" to win him on the mission.
Here's the story behind why Ken took the job:
"He invited me up one day to just do a tour of the factory. I wasn't looking for a job, but he invited me up.
I did this tour of the factory, which is in Hawthorne, downtown LA-ish. Here they are building big metal objects supposedly cheaper than anyone else in the world in downtown LA, and I'm like, 'Well this is crazy.'
But I have manufacturing in my blood. My entire career's been in manufacturing. I'm like, 'Well this is a pretty interesting place.'
I have no idea who they are. I don't know what they do for a living, 'cause SpaceX wasn't a name back in those days, and they're an hour at least away from where I live.
So he offered me a job, and I'm like, 'I don't know that I wanna drive an hour up to this place.'
But it was such an interesting story that Elon was going to save humanity from itself by colonizing another planet, 'cause we're gonna screw this one up & we need to keep humankind going.
And it was another scaling opportunity, so I thought about it, talked to my wife, and in the end decided to bite the bullet and take it.
It was a great move."
"Elon had hired me 'cause he wanted to build the digital nervous system for the 21st century rocket company."
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BREAKING: @Senra_Systems Raises $65M Series B co-led by @lowercarbon & Interlagos
Total funding hits $112M+
Full interviews:
› Co-Founder & CEO @jordan__black
› Ken Venner Chief Tech & Product Officer (fmr SpaceX CIO)
› Factory tour
Wire harnesses are the nervous system of every rocket, car, & missile. Up to 25% of a vehicle's cost, & still 100% built by hand.
Senra Systems is rebuilding wire harness manufacturing around software.
Series B participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Dylan Field, CIV, 8VC, The Friedkin Group, Jaws Estates Capital, Sozo Ventures, & Alumni Ventures
We cover:
› $65M round & Factory 3
› Ken Venner on scaling Broadcom & SpaceX
› Quitting SpaceX to build harnesses on an apartment carpet
› Supplying the fastest-scaling defense companies in America
› Amp, their operating system
› Where the name Senra comes from
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Jordan Black, Co-Founder & CEO & Ken Venner, CTPO at Senra Systems
(00:57) Senra raises a $65M Series B
(01:36) What Senra Systems actually builds
(05:18) Why they built two very different factories
(07:00) The reindustrialization of America
(09:09) Commercial vs. Government: who's really buying?
(09:52) The origin story
(17:35) Turning a 2-year training pipeline into 4 weeks
(25:06) Bringing on SpaceX legend Ken Venner
(29:23) Why Jordan became obsessed with wire harnessing
(31:46) The investors betting big on wire harnesses
(34:16) The real story behind the name "Senra"
(36:49) Will the SpaceX IPO fuel Senra's growth?
(39:32) Ken Venner
(41:40) Scaling lessons from Broadcom and SpaceX
(43:21) Why Ken left Broadcom for SpaceX
(44:40) Life as SpaceX's CIO
(46:11) The secret to Elon Musk's management style
(47:15) What it's really like working with Gwynne Shotwell
(51:28) Scaling with AI vs. pure headcount
(55:04) Factory tour with Jordan
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"When I joined SpaceX, it was ~1,000 employees producing ~1 booster/yr."
"We scaled it up to 40 boosters/yr & 9,000 employees across multiple locations."
Former SpaceX CIO Ken Venner's biggest lesson from scaling SpaceX:
Every stage of growth requires a different behavior from the company
"You always have to assume: smart people, stupid systems. Let the right people do the right thing in the moment, but track them."
"When you're 10 people, it's a network of us just talking to each other. I need very little process or systems. It's smart people just doing the right thing."
"You get to 100, you need a little more process, but not too much."
"You get to 5,000 or 10,000, it's like, everyone knows the piece they know, but they don't understand how the whole business works."
"Bringing that information together & presenting it to the top level people so they can understand how the whole company is operating together is kind of the focus."
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FULL INTERVIEW: Former SpaceX CIO Ken Venner on Scaling Broadcom & SpaceX
"@elonmusk was really good about keeping the mission as a forefront focus for what we were doing, & just energized everyone to get it done."
Now Chief Tech & Product Officer, @Senra_Systems
Ken Venner spent 11 years at Broadcom, joining at 1,000 people and $400 million in revenue and leaving at 10,000 employees and $8.6 billion, across 52 acquisitions.
Then he became CIO of SpaceX, where Elon hired him to build the digital nervous system for a 21st century rocket company. The result was Warp Drive, the custom operating system that helped scale SpaceX from about 1 booster a year and 1,000 employees to 40 boosters and 9,000 employees.
He recently joined Senra Systems as Chief Technology and Product Officer, this is a sit-down on how he scales companies.. wish we had more time.
"Scaling up & scaling out are my core skills."
We cover the Broadcom years & why process kills growth if you add it too early, the tour of the Hawthorne factory that got him to leave, working for Elon & @Gwynne_Shotwell, why he spent two years thinking Warp Drive was a terrible idea.. & what changed in year three.
Ken also breaks down Elon's playbook: first principles thinking, "remove before automate," and the responsible engineer model where one person owns a part from requirements through post-flight with no handoffs.
Plus: why he had 175 engineers building core platforms at SpaceX and only needs 6 at Senra, the law of threes for scaling factories, why he still works after one of the largest wealth creation events ever, and his winery in Sonoma.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
00:00 Meet Ken Venner
00:17 Why Join Senra
01:26 Scaling Playbook
02:08 Broadcom Growth Lessons
03:48 Broadcom Jump to SpaceX
05:16 Building SpaceX Systems
06:39 Elon Leadership Principles
07:43 Gwynne & SpaceX Culture
09:39 Why Keep Working?
11:14 Law of Threes - Scaling
11:56 AI & Automation Changing the Game
13:35 Senra Name Story
14:07 Winery Side Project (Auteur Wines - Healdsburg, CA)
14:55 Next 12 Months Outlook
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FULL INTERVIEW: Former SpaceX CIO Ken Venner on Scaling Broadcom & SpaceX
"@elonmusk was really good about keeping the mission as a forefront focus for what we were doing, & just energized everyone to get it done."
Now Chief Tech & Product Officer, @Senra_Systems
Ken Venner spent 11 years at Broadcom, joining at 1,000 people and $400 million in revenue and leaving at 10,000 employees and $8.6 billion, across 52 acquisitions.
Then he became CIO of SpaceX, where Elon hired him to build the digital nervous system for a 21st century rocket company. The result was Warp Drive, the custom operating system that helped scale SpaceX from about 1 booster a year and 1,000 employees to 40 boosters and 9,000 employees.
He recently joined Senra Systems as Chief Technology and Product Officer, this is a sit-down on how he scales companies.. wish we had more time.
"Scaling up & scaling out are my core skills."
We cover the Broadcom years & why process kills growth if you add it too early, the tour of the Hawthorne factory that got him to leave, working for Elon & @Gwynne_Shotwell, why he spent two years thinking Warp Drive was a terrible idea.. & what changed in year three.
Ken also breaks down Elon's playbook: first principles thinking, "remove before automate," and the responsible engineer model where one person owns a part from requirements through post-flight with no handoffs.
Plus: why he had 175 engineers building core platforms at SpaceX and only needs 6 at Senra, the law of threes for scaling factories, why he still works after one of the largest wealth creation events ever, and his winery in Sonoma.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
00:00 Meet Ken Venner
00:17 Why Join Senra
01:26 Scaling Playbook
02:08 Broadcom Growth Lessons
03:48 Broadcom Jump to SpaceX
05:16 Building SpaceX Systems
06:39 Elon Leadership Principles
07:43 Gwynne & SpaceX Culture
09:39 Why Keep Working?
11:14 Law of Threes - Scaling
11:56 AI & Automation Changing the Game
13:35 Senra Name Story
14:07 Winery Side Project (Auteur Wines - Healdsburg, CA)
14:55 Next 12 Months Outlook
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Former SpaceX CIO Ken Venner explains what makes @elonmusk a "genius" operator:
"Elon hired me because he wanted to build the digital nervous system for the 21st-century rocket company."
"I'm like, this is either the smartest thing or the stupidest thing we've ever done, and I have no idea right now whether this is smart or stupid."
"For the first 2 years, I didn't think it was such a smart idea. By year 3, when we really had the software working well and the company was really using it, I'm like, this man is a genius."
"He figured out what we needed to do, how we needed to get it done."
"It became one of the major differentiators for how SpaceX could scale and keep all the information together and connected with each other."
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BREAKING: @Senra_Systems Raises $65M Series B co-led by @lowercarbon & Interlagos
Total funding hits $112M+
Full interviews:
› Co-Founder & CEO @jordan__black
› Ken Venner Chief Tech & Product Officer (fmr SpaceX CIO)
› Factory tour
Wire harnesses are the nervous system of every rocket, car, & missile. Up to 25% of a vehicle's cost, & still 100% built by hand.
Senra Systems is rebuilding wire harness manufacturing around software.
Series B participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Dylan Field, CIV, 8VC, The Friedkin Group, Jaws Estates Capital, Sozo Ventures, & Alumni Ventures
We cover:
› $65M round & Factory 3
› Ken Venner on scaling Broadcom & SpaceX
› Quitting SpaceX to build harnesses on an apartment carpet
› Supplying the fastest-scaling defense companies in America
› Amp, their operating system
› Where the name Senra comes from
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Jordan Black, Co-Founder & CEO & Ken Venner, CTPO at Senra Systems
(00:57) Senra raises a $65M Series B
(01:36) What Senra Systems actually builds
(05:18) Why they built two very different factories
(07:00) The reindustrialization of America
(09:09) Commercial vs. Government: who's really buying?
(09:52) The origin story
(17:35) Turning a 2-year training pipeline into 4 weeks
(25:06) Bringing on SpaceX legend Ken Venner
(29:23) Why Jordan became obsessed with wire harnessing
(31:46) The investors betting big on wire harnesses
(34:16) The real story behind the name "Senra"
(36:49) Will the SpaceX IPO fuel Senra's growth?
(39:32) Ken Venner
(41:40) Scaling lessons from Broadcom and SpaceX
(43:21) Why Ken left Broadcom for SpaceX
(44:40) Life as SpaceX's CIO
(46:11) The secret to Elon Musk's management style
(47:15) What it's really like working with Gwynne Shotwell
(51:28) Scaling with AI vs. pure headcount
(55:04) Factory tour with Jordan
显示更多
BREAKING: @Senra_Systems Raises $65M Series B co-led by @lowercarbon & Interlagos
Total funding hits $112M+
Full interviews:
› Co-Founder & CEO @jordan__black
› Ken Venner Chief Tech & Product Officer (fmr SpaceX CIO)
› Factory tour
Wire harnesses are the nervous system of every rocket, car, & missile. Up to 25% of a vehicle's cost, & still 100% built by hand.
Senra Systems is rebuilding wire harness manufacturing around software.
Series B participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Dylan Field, CIV, 8VC, The Friedkin Group, Jaws Estates Capital, Sozo Ventures, & Alumni Ventures
We cover:
› $65M round & Factory 3
› Ken Venner on scaling Broadcom & SpaceX
› Quitting SpaceX to build harnesses on an apartment carpet
› Supplying the fastest-scaling defense companies in America
› Amp, their operating system
› Where the name Senra comes from
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Jordan Black, Co-Founder & CEO & Ken Venner, CTPO at Senra Systems
(00:57) Senra raises a $65M Series B
(01:36) What Senra Systems actually builds
(05:18) Why they built two very different factories
(07:00) The reindustrialization of America
(09:09) Commercial vs. Government: who's really buying?
(09:52) The origin story
(17:35) Turning a 2-year training pipeline into 4 weeks
(25:06) Bringing on SpaceX legend Ken Venner
(29:23) Why Jordan became obsessed with wire harnessing
(31:46) The investors betting big on wire harnesses
(34:16) The real story behind the name "Senra"
(36:49) Will the SpaceX IPO fuel Senra's growth?
(39:32) Ken Venner
(41:40) Scaling lessons from Broadcom and SpaceX
(43:21) Why Ken left Broadcom for SpaceX
(44:40) Life as SpaceX's CIO
(46:11) The secret to Elon Musk's management style
(47:15) What it's really like working with Gwynne Shotwell
(51:28) Scaling with AI vs. pure headcount
(55:04) Factory tour with Jordan
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Jesse Pollak (@jessepollak), Creator of Base says "We're basically seeing every asset in the world get tokenized on Base."
"Everyone is replacing their legacy financial back with stablecoins, & they're doing it on Base."
"One of the hardest challenges has been figuring out how do you build a decentralized blockchain inside of a big centralized public company.
That's not easy. If you look at the track record of other folks doing that, no one else has done that. Some people are trying to do it right now, but they're just getting started after us being three or four years in.
Being on the edge there and figuring out how do we manage the regulatory side, how do we manage the ecosystem side so it feels like Coinbase is one player among many in building this entire decentralized economy—that's been a real challenge.
But I also think it's our biggest opportunity.
Base has this very unique upside of having the trust that comes with Coinbase, the expertise that comes with Coinbase, and the distribution that comes with Coinbase, while also having this incredibly rich decentralized ecosystem that I think everyone is starting to participate in."
"One of the things that has made all this possible is @brian_armstrong. Having a visionary founder & CEO who so deeply believes in decentralization and has basically been willing to go to bat at every single point to say:
"We are going to build the blockchain for global finance, and we're going to decentralize it, and we're gonna make it something that everyone can benefit from."
That has enabled us to work through every hard decision & make Base the best possible place it can be."
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NEW: Inside Coinbase's Latest System Update
"We don't F around"
What it really takes to build the 'everything exchange,' from: strategy, brand, legal, & the chain it all runs on
BTS with @coinbase:
- CEO Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong)
- CMO Cat Ferdon (@catferdon)
- VP of Legal Molly Abraham (@mtothekg)
- Head of Base Jesse Pollak (@jessepollak)
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to System Update
00:34 Coinbase MCP: any AI agent can trade your account in plain English
00:53 Coinbase Advisor, the SEC-registered AI agent, and accounts for agents
01:19 Reaching 4 billion unbrokered people
02:10 The everything exchange, explained
02:47 Operating through four crypto cycles
03:54 Brian's hottest take: the agentic economy
04:29 Why AI agents need crypto rails, not banks
05:09 How many agents Coinbase runs today
05:51 Arbitraging AI costs: 80% of work to 99% cheaper models
07:07 Onshoring global liquidity
07:48 Cat Ferdon on reaching 4 billion users
08:37 Marketing through booms and busts
09:32 The biggest misconceptions about crypto
10:00 The campaigns: Subway Surfers and the NPC ad
11:11 Lessons from Cash App + Hot take: "you can't buy aura"
12:17 Molly Abraham on working with Brian in a regulated environment
13:05 Launching real tokenized securities the hard way
13:43 USDC, Circle, and stablecoins as the killer app
14:50 Suing the government and the open SEC and CFTC
15:10 How AI changes legal, and token maxing by Tuesday
16:40 Jesse Pollak: Base becomes the biggest blockchain in 5 years
17:25 Building a decentralized chain inside a public company
18:44 Base's biggest use cases: trading, payments, and agents
19:10 Tokenized equities and real agent businesses on Base
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NEW: Inside Coinbase's Latest System Update
"We don't F around"
What it really takes to build the 'everything exchange,' from: strategy, brand, legal, & the chain it all runs on
BTS with @coinbase:
- CEO Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong)
- CMO Cat Ferdon (@catferdon)
- VP of Legal Molly Abraham (@mtothekg)
- Head of Base Jesse Pollak (@jessepollak)
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to System Update
00:34 Coinbase MCP: any AI agent can trade your account in plain English
00:53 Coinbase Advisor, the SEC-registered AI agent, and accounts for agents
01:19 Reaching 4 billion unbrokered people
02:10 The everything exchange, explained
02:47 Operating through four crypto cycles
03:54 Brian's hottest take: the agentic economy
04:29 Why AI agents need crypto rails, not banks
05:09 How many agents Coinbase runs today
05:51 Arbitraging AI costs: 80% of work to 99% cheaper models
07:07 Onshoring global liquidity
07:48 Cat Ferdon on reaching 4 billion users
08:37 Marketing through booms and busts
09:32 The biggest misconceptions about crypto
10:00 The campaigns: Subway Surfers and the NPC ad
11:11 Lessons from Cash App + Hot take: "you can't buy aura"
12:17 Molly Abraham on working with Brian in a regulated environment
13:05 Launching real tokenized securities the hard way
13:43 USDC, Circle, and stablecoins as the killer app
14:50 Suing the government and the open SEC and CFTC
15:10 How AI changes legal, and token maxing by Tuesday
16:40 Jesse Pollak: Base becomes the biggest blockchain in 5 years
17:25 Building a decentralized chain inside a public company
18:44 Base's biggest use cases: trading, payments, and agents
19:10 Tokenized equities and real agent businesses on Base
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AI companies are on a buying spree:
SpaceX → xAI ($250B)
SpaceX → Cursor ($60B)
Google → Wiz ($32B)
Meta → Scale AI ($29B)
OpenAI → io ($6.5B)
Salesforce → Fin ($3.6B)
Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg (@winstonweinberg) says that a lot of the time with M&A, buying the technology doesn't actually matter.
It’s about the talent.
"If you are making an acquisition, the number one thing you should be looking at is just talent because you can build things so much faster now."
" It is a much better idea to buy really, really good teams regardless of if they worked in your space."
"If you look at the acqui-hires that we have done, they actually haven't been in the legal AI space or legal tech."
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" If SpaceX didn't work, Founders Fund would not exist."
" We bet our careers on SpaceX."
" At Founders Fund, we weren't trying to do portfolio management. We were trying to put the most money into the best companies possible."
— Brian Singerman (@briansin) on @elonmusk
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CEO & CTO of Impulse Space @GoToImpulse Tom Mueller @lrocket says the Moon is "more important than Mars" in the near term:
"@rookisaacman said we're going to build a base on the Moon and stay there."
"People are predicting we'll run out of copper in the next few years. Data centers require so much copper."
"We need to start getting copper from the Moon or from the asteroids. There's an almost infinite supply in our solar system of material—enough to supply us for thousands of years."
"We just gotta get ready to go get it."
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BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
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Data centers in space are a "no brainer."
SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller (@lrocket) on @elonmusk's plan to move compute into space:
"It makes the most sense of anything to move to space. All you need as an input is power, and all you have as an output is data."
"You move it to space, you have all the power you would ever need, and you transmit that data back down on a terawatt laser beam—it's solved. It's just so simple."
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BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
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SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller (@lrocket) on Starlink & SpaceX's "hockey stick" growth:
"All the naysayers said, 'There's no way they'll be profitable. They're going to crash.'"
"We're looking at it the other way saying, 'This will hockey stick the stock.'"
"Which it did."
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GOLDMAN SEES SPACEX AI REVENUE EXPLODING TO $322B BY 2030
Goldman Sachs projects SpaceX AI revenue rising from $3.2B in 2025 to $322B by 2030, a ~100x increase, forming the core justification for its $1.78T IPO valuation. Total revenue is forecast to reach $474B, with Starlink at $144B and rockets at $8.3B.
AI segment growth is tied to aggressive market assumptions despite current losses and execution concerns around xAI. Overall EBITDA is seen surging to $352B by 2030.
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Tom Mueller (@lrocket) says his "proudest development" as the 1st Employee at SpaceX was creating the Merlin engine:
"Currently flying on Falcon 9, it is the most reliable rocket engine ever developed, and also the highest thrust to weight of any rocket engine ever developed."
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BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
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BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
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SpaceX's 13th employee Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) says the biggest lesson he learned at SpaceX was how to iterate quickly.
In the early days, engineers would have to fly from LA to McGregor, Texas to test new hardware, only to occasionally discover they had brought the wrong part:
" We'd get on a jet and fly back there."
"At the time, the team in McGregor was one full-time employee. The rest of us would fly in, spend 10 days there, work for 10 days, come back to LA for 4 days, and we'd do that over and over and over again."
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BREAKING: Impulse Space Raises $500M Series D
Reaching $1+ Billion in Total Funding to Build In-Space Mobility Infrastructure
aka "Move Things in Space"
Full interview w/ President & COO Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) (SpaceX Employee #13#)
Founder & CEO Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX Employee #1#):
"We're building more than spacecraft: we're building the economic & technical engine that will power humanity's expansion into space. From Earth orbit to the Moon & beyond, the ability to move quickly, precisely, & affordably on orbit is the fundamental capability that will unlock a true space age."
We cover:
→ The $500M raise
→ Mira: precision maneuvering
→ Helios: same-day delivery
→ Caravan: GEO rideshare
→ Commercial vs defense
→ Space Force demand
→ SpaceX origins
→ Hiring 200+ roles
The Series D was co-led by @137ventures & BANNER VC. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, & Linse Capital.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Eric Romo, President & COO at Impulse Space
(00:58) Fueling the next phase with a $500M Series D
(04:30) Crossing the $1B funding mark
(06:00) The freedom to execute
(07:09) Why startups d*e from indigestion
(08:30) Building beyond SpaceX
(13:32) How defense became the real opportunity
(16:19) Impulse’s product stack: Mira, Helios & Caravan
(23:43) The economics of urgency
(26:23) "Closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat"
(30:40) The new era of space defense
(37:33) The SpaceX DNA at Impulse
(38:27) The biggest lesson from SpaceX
(44:23) Hiring world class engineers
(45:38) If not COO, then what?
(46:43) The road to first Helios launch
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BREAKING: Impulse Space Raises $500M Series D
Reaching $1+ Billion in Total Funding to Build In-Space Mobility Infrastructure
aka "Move Things in Space"
Full interview w/ President & COO Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) (SpaceX Employee #13#)
Founder & CEO Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX Employee #1#):
"We're building more than spacecraft: we're building the economic & technical engine that will power humanity's expansion into space. From Earth orbit to the Moon & beyond, the ability to move quickly, precisely, & affordably on orbit is the fundamental capability that will unlock a true space age."
We cover:
→ The $500M raise
→ Mira: precision maneuvering
→ Helios: same-day delivery
→ Caravan: GEO rideshare
→ Commercial vs defense
→ Space Force demand
→ SpaceX origins
→ Hiring 200+ roles
The Series D was co-led by @137ventures & BANNER VC. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, & Linse Capital.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Eric Romo, President & COO at Impulse Space
(00:58) Fueling the next phase with a $500M Series D
(04:30) Crossing the $1B funding mark
(06:00) The freedom to execute
(07:09) Why startups d*e from indigestion
(08:30) Building beyond SpaceX
(13:32) How defense became the real opportunity
(16:19) Impulse’s product stack: Mira, Helios & Caravan
(23:43) The economics of urgency
(26:23) "Closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat"
(30:40) The new era of space defense
(37:33) The SpaceX DNA at Impulse
(38:27) The biggest lesson from SpaceX
(44:23) Hiring world class engineers
(45:38) If not COO, then what?
(46:43) The road to first Helios launch
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BREAKING: Merge Launches ‘Agent Handler’
Control AI Access, Tokenmaxxed $$$ Bills, & Stop Mass Data Leaks
"We don't trust agents"
"The second you connect it to tools, that's where everything goes wrong."
OpenAI. Perplexity. Netflix. Uber. Mistral. Dropbox. JPMorgan.. all quietly run on @merge_api
Co-Founders CEO @Shensi Ding & CTO @GilFeig dive into it all
We cover:
- MASSIVE AI Security scares are just starting
- Tokenmaxxing bills
- Agent Handler
- Gateway routing
- Winning enterprise logos
- The SaaSpocalypse
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Shensi Ding & Gil Feig, Co-Founders at Merge
(01:04) Three products. One big bet
(03:20) How Merge made the AI pivot
(04:42) The Classic Innovator’s Dilemma
(05:58) Building culture around AI
(07:10) The leverage nobody’s talking about
(08:52) Codex vs Claude Code
(09:15) The scale nobody knew about
(09:47) SaaS, Finance, and the Biggest AI Labs
(10:46) Why AI companies buy differently
(12:04) What AI sales actually looks like
(13:04) The Fastest sales cycles in the market
(14:35) Why is Cybersecurity broken
(15:59) Merge's solution to agent security
(19:16) Mythos, Wiz, and the GitHub Hack
(22:34) 1,000 Bot signups in one hour
(23:23) Real reason companies pay ransom to hackers
(25:43) The State of AI Infrastructure Costs
(26:41) Internal AI Governance is the next big problem
(29:28) Most Popular Integrations on Merge
(30:54) Big Giants are planning big moves
(31:54) What does Salesforce going headless exactly mean
(33:41) Agents don’t need a UI anymore
(36:59) Can this AI generation actually adapt
(38:25) What Merge looks for in talent
(41:25) The SaaSpocalypse is real
(45:03) Are AI valuations actually insane?
(47:11) How Merge landed OpenAI, Perplexity, Netflix & Uber
(49:02) The Metrics that actually drive the business
(49:58) Biggest misconceptions in tech right now
(51:55) The market is finally catching up to Merge
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AI agents turn every employee into a security risk.
Introducing Agent Handler for Employees: secure AI access for every employee.
We’ll give you $10K if you get sensitive info from @JeanelleAgent.
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