[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Interviews]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> June 18 2018 **Insider**: [[Peter Beck]] **Source**: [DRAKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_0i2pA0_U) **Date**: June 18 2018  🔗 Backup Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_0i2pA0_U ## 🎙️ Transcript >[!hint] Transcript may contain errors or inaccuracies. **Mike McRoberts:** Kia ora everyone and welcome to today's Dream Team session brought to you by the Sir Peter Blake Trust. My name is Mike McRoberts and these Dream Team sessions feature inspiring Kiwis who want to encourage Kiwi kids to follow their dreams. Thanks so much for joining us. These inspiring people follow in the footsteps of one of our greatest leaders, Sir Peter Blake, who led Team New Zealand to victory in the America's Cup for the first time in 1995. Sir Peter was also a leader for the environmental work he did, in particular encouraging people to care for our oceans. Well today we're going to hear from rocket man Peter Beck. Peter grew up in Invercargill and always knew he was going to build rockets. His parents were even called into a meeting with a school careers counselor, because what he wanted to do with his life didn't fit any pre-defined boxes. Peter has since founded Rocket Lab in New Zealand, the first private company to reach space in the southern hemisphere and is revolutionizing access to space for small satellites. We're thrilled to have Peter with us today to share his story, welcome Peter. **Peter Beck:** Thanks very much Mike. ### Early Inspiration **Mike McRoberts:** How did you know you wanted to build rockets? We'll get to your many, many achievements shortly, but how did you know at that young age, that boy that was called into the careers counselor's office, that you wanted to build rockets? **Peter Beck:** I think it came from when my father first took me outside. I don't know how old I was, I must have been very, very young and he pointed up to the sky and I saw a shooting star, a satellite go overhead and he said to me, "You know, that's been created by humans, by us down on earth." And I said to him, "Well, are all those other stars also created by humans on earth?" and he's like, "No, no, those are suns and they have planets around them." And I remember the question was, "Well, you know, is there people on those planets looking back at me?" And you know, the jury's still out on that one. So it blew my mind. That was kind of the overview effect for me. It blew my mind to think that we didn't even know we could be the only life in the entire universe. And from that day onwards I always looked up. **Mike McRoberts:** And of course Invercargill - such a great vista for stargazing isn't there? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yep. **Mike McRoberts:** But you must have thought and people must have said to you...are you crazy? **Peter Beck:** Yeah. Yeah, I mean if I had a dollar for every time somebody said no, or you're crazy, I'd be a very wealthy man. And that's just the reality of when you want to do something disruptive and something big, you've got to push against the tide a little bit, you know a few times. ### Following His Dream **Mike McRoberts:** Did you have that dream? So did you have that dream then, did you know this is what I want to do, I wanna build rockets and send them up into space or was it something that evolved? **Peter Beck:** It evolved a little bit, but I would say by the time I was at high school, I knew exactly what I wanted to do at the beginning of high school and it was always about the rocket for sure. **Mike McRoberts:** Okay, and so you just went to the instruction manual that said this is how I achieve this right? Because - no - what there was nothing like that! No one in New Zealand had done that, no one around the world had probably done that apart from maybe some NASA scientists. **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I mean where I started was I started reading books, and you know, there's an awful lot you can learn, and over the years I always took jobs and, you know, directed my career to a point where I could go and do something that I really wanted to do in space. So I ended up at a government research lab doing advanced materials and structures and superconductors, and it was the last job that I had before I started Rocket Lab. Arguably the last real job I actually had! ### The Importance of Passion **Mike McRoberts:** How important is it to love what you're doing to achieve success? **Peter Beck:** It's absolutely critical. You have to be 100 percent, in fact, 110 percent passionate about what you want to do and what you want to achieve, because there's good times and there's also really tough times and you know, it's that passion, that drive to push you through the tough times. **Mike McRoberts:** I think what might be handy to know for everyone watching at the moment is how do you overcome those tough times, those obstacles? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I mean, I think it's belief and not necessarily always belief in yourself but belief in the goal that you're trying to achieve. Most people think that Rocket Lab builds rockets. Yes, we do, but it's not what wakes me up in the morning. And what really wakes me up in the morning is the fact that we can touch billions of people with what we do and if you think about a satellite - a satellite is a very unique piece of equipment. So a satellite is overhead New Zealand right now. It can provide weather to New Zealand right now. 10 minutes later it's over Australia and it's providing weather to Australia. 30 minutes later it's over America providing weather to America. So that one little box of electronics has the ability to touch billions of people and influence their lives and that's what really, really gets me excited. What we're trying to do here is actually build infrastructure in orbit to affect people's lives down here on earth. ### Private Space Companies **Mike McRoberts:** And two private companies in the whole of the world have done that - yours and another. **Peter Beck:** Yeah, Elon Musk and SpaceX have one private company launching satellites to orbit and Rocket Lab is the only other. **Mike McRoberts:** Wow. Do you pinch yourself when you think of that? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I mean, I'm not that much of a reflective guy, there's an awful lot to go yet through the forward. But you know, it's a massive, massive accomplishment by the team. Not only did we go to orbit, but we went to orbit with the smallest team and the smallest amount of capital in history. **Mike McRoberts:** You raise a very good point there. I mean, are you continually looking forward to the next thing? Is that how it works for you? **Peter Beck:** Yeah well, I mean like I said, the definition of success for what we're trying to achieve here is that everybody's life on Earth is different because of what we've done. That's what we're trying to achieve. **Mike McRoberts:** Fantastic, listen, we've got some questions from some students if you don't mind me asking you a couple of those. ### The Hardest Part of Starting Rocket Lab **Mike McRoberts:** What was the hardest part about starting Rocket Lab? **Peter Beck:** Deciding to start it. Absolutely. I mean, you know, it's an old cliche that you can do absolutely anything you want to and you can be whatever you want to and it's absolutely true, but the hardest thing of any of these kind of goals is actually deciding that you're going to do it. Once you've decided you're going to do it, the rest of it is just behind you. It's, you know, it's plain sailing pretty much. And you know the key to actually achieving these things is: 1) deciding you're going to do it and 2) just work. Work is what resolves it all. **Mike McRoberts:** One of the things we tell students is to write down their dream. I mean, how did you visualize or capture your dream? **Peter Beck:** Well for me, it was very easy. I knew exactly what my dream was. So, you know, I had to be doing something in space and as the years went by it kind of sharpened exactly where I could have the biggest impact. **Mike McRoberts:** And you've never been backward in coming forward in terms of telling people exactly what your dream was. ### Coming Forward with Your Dreams **Mike McRoberts:** Is that part of how you work? You know, if you put it out there it will happen? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I mean it's probably a fault because for me, it's very obvious and you know, I mean when I first started Rocket Lab, you know, I went and spoke to the New Zealand government because you know launching rockets is, it has impacts, you know, politically and economically. So, you know, I remember talking to the ministers there and they kind of thought that I was crazy and it was the first really significant pushback that I had where I thought, why can't you see this? This is so blatantly obvious, and it was only a few weeks later after that though, that a minister - the same Minister actually - opened Rocket Lab, so it was a very quick conversion. ### The First Successful Launch **Mike McRoberts:** Well when you did have your successful launch, it led the news here in New Zealand, it led the news pretty much all around the world. How did you feel on the day of the launch? This is one of the questions from the students - how did it feel when that rocket launched? **Peter Beck:** Well I mean when we went to orbit, we were the second ever private company as you mentioned. New Zealand became the 11th nation to ever send something to space. It was the world's first electric turbo pumped and first carbon composite rocket. There was a lot of firsts there - first private orbital launch site. And you know reflecting back I can say nothing other than it was a great day. It really was a good day. **Mike McRoberts:** And you need to enjoy those successes, don't you? **Peter Beck:** You do, you do. Yep, but you know, there's always the next hill to climb and it's about having that goal and that drive and that passion to make sure that you don't stop halfway through. And that's something that's very easy to do as you achieve sort of half of what you want to achieve and it's easy to stop, but the key is to just drive to the end. ### Why New Zealand is Good for Rocket Launches **Mike McRoberts:** Another great question here from a student who says: Why is New Zealand good for rocket launches? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, so New Zealand has a really fantastic space in the world, so when you're launching rockets, you can't launch over another country. You can't launch over any people, you have to shut all the airspace down and shut all the marine and shipping and shipping lanes and everything down for about two thousand kilometers. So being a small island nation in the middle of nowhere with very little air traffic and very little sea traffic is the perfect thing when you're launching rockets. **Mike McRoberts:** And of course you've been launching from Mahia peninsula. I remember going to Mahia peninsula as a youngster to go fishing. Yeah, spending Christmases there. They must love that it's really put Mahia on the map! **Peter Beck:** Yeah, and look it's such a fantastic community and then having the support of that community has been really key for our success. So, you know, it's marvelous to be down there and being able to operate out of there. ### Being a Kiwi on the World Stage **Mike McRoberts:** What difference does it make being a Kiwi operating on the world stage? **Peter Beck:** I think Kiwis have a different kind of approach to problems. Kiwis tend to see through problems rather than kind of stall on them and also, I think on the world stage New Zealanders are very well respected, we're, you know, we hold very high ethics and I think most people will say that you can trust a Kiwi. So when you're raising capital, and we had to raise hundreds of millions of dollars of capital, when you're doing those kinds of things, coming from New Zealand is very beneficial. **Mike McRoberts:** And when you're overseas, when you're talking about Rocket Lab, do you feel like you're representing your country? **Peter Beck:** Definitely yeah, yeah for sure. Even though we are, you know, a global company, certainly, you know purely the fact that the launch site is down in New Zealand. Whenever we bring customers or dignitaries, VIPs down, it's a New Zealand experience starting from Air New Zealand all the way. And it is a privilege and a responsibility in a lot of respects for us to do that well. ### Making Dreams Work **Mike McRoberts:** We're asking students to write down their dreams. What would your advice be to them in terms of actually making those dreams work? How do you set off that pathway? **Peter Beck:** I guess my first advice would be think big, think really, really big. **Mike McRoberts:** Really? **Peter Beck:** Absolutely. Because, what I've learned is that it doesn't matter if you're going after to solve a small problem or a really big problem, the work is the same. The effort is the same. So you may as well not mess around and just go really, really big. So that'd be my first advice, is think of the biggest problem you can, and that means that's the biggest opportunity, and start solving that. That would be the first piece of advice and then the second piece is just start working. Because it's all about work. Nothing gets done without work. **Mike McRoberts:** And I guess when we look at our most successful people we see them often as solo or lonely figures. But it takes a lot of support doesn't it to get to this stage? You need a good support base of people around you. **Peter Beck:** Oh, absolutely, I mean from Rocket Lab's perspective, you know your company is your team. The company is your people, your company is not the colour of your rocket or the branding of it, it is the people in it. And investing in the people in it and hiring - for us hiring the best people in the entire world to come work for us is really, really critical. ### Conclusion **Mike McRoberts:** So for a student it might be getting mum and dad on board, or their brother or sister, or you know their friends. **Peter Beck:** Absolutely yeah, yeah. Bring in the people that can add huge amount of value and if somebody, you know, the opposite to that, if somebody is giving you a hard time and doesn't believe in your vision, don't waste any time trying to convert them or letting them get in the road. Just walk right past. **Mike McRoberts:** Fantastic, and if they come against an obstacle or a bit of pushback, if it's their dream, what do they do? **Peter Beck:** They just keep on pushing through. I mean there is always inevitable obstacles and sometimes you'll stand at the base of them and think they're not solvable, but they're always solvable and as you solve more and more of them, they become less and less stressful. I mean when I first started the company, there was a couple of real clangers where we couldn't get an engine to work no matter what we did. We just could not get an engine to work and I didn't sleep for a month, and we just couldn't get it to work. Then we got it to work and then you know next time we couldn't get an engine to work, it was still stressful but far less stressful. Whereas now, I have such confidence in the team where if something doesn't work, I don't get too worried because I know we're going to solve it. I mean it'll take work and effort, but we will solve it. **Mike McRoberts:** Because you've learnt from that experience and you know, you'll overcome it. **Peter Beck:** Yep, absolutely. Nothing. Nothing is impossible, that's the truth. **Mike McRoberts:** The sky is not the limit! **Peter Beck:** The sky is not the limit, no. **Mike McRoberts:** We're getting good with the cliches now. **Peter Beck:** That's right. **Mike McRoberts:** Peter it's been fantastic having you here. Thank you so much. **Peter Beck:** My pleasure, Mike. ### Closing **Mike McRoberts:** Well, thank you Peter for sharing your story today. You're inspiring the next generation of Kiwi leaders, and we're excited to see where their dream takes them. If you're watching at home, now's the time to think about your own dreams both for yourself and for New Zealand. So go to dreambank.co.nz and submit your dreams. Writing your dream down is the very first step towards achieving it. Remember to check out our other Dream Team sessions with incredible Kiwis at sirpeterblaketrust.org. Enjoy Leadership Week everyone, and remember dream big and believe you can.