[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Interviews]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> January 17 2025 **Insider**: [[Peter Beck]] **Source**: [NewstalkZB](https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/holiday-breakfast/audio/sir-peter-beck-rocket-lab-founder-on-the-strength-of-the-company-his-career-history/) **Date**: January 17 2025 <iframe title="" src="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/75437914/episode/258470192/?embed=true&pname=newstalkzb_web&sc=podcast_episode_embed" allow="autoplay" frameborder="0"></iframe> ## 🎙️ Transcript >[!hint] Transcript may contain errors or inaccuracies. **Speaker 1 (00:09):** You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZEDB. Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. **Speaker 2 (00:16):** Well, it's about time we heard from Rocket Lab, isn't it? The Auckland aerospace company that has had a big year last year. Only recently, the company broke through a glass ceiling by launching two rockets into space in a twenty four hour period from different hemispheres. It helped put us in the world stage, meaning the United States States now has another launch company that's capable of conducting launches in twenty four hours. And Rocket Labs CEO Peter Beck joins me, Now, good morning morning. So well, let's start off with the big stuff. I mean, it seems all big stuff. The launch of two rockets from different hemispheres in twenty four hours. How big was that for you you guys at rocket Lab. ### Two Rocket Launches in 24 Hours **Peter Beck (00:59):** Well, it's something that we've always wanted to do. In fact, truthfully, we want to do it simultaneously. But we certainly set a world record on that one. Anyway. You know, it's hard to launch two rockets at once, you know, or back to back, but to do it from two different hemispheres, I guess you know that that's a little bit of a flex of the team because you know, having having two launch two complete launch pads, two complete launch sites. You know, it was it was a good milestone be looking for for. **Speaker 2 (01:26):** People who are listening. I mean, obviously it's it's pretty high for loot and stuff. In terms of technology and coordination and just the science of it would be beyond my understanding, I imagine. But in a simple way, what sort of what kinds of skills and work goes into making that event happen? **Peter Beck (01:42):** Yeah, I think I think people see a rocket launch and it would be very easy to kind of, you know, miss all of the planning and stuff that goes into that prior to that launch. No, typically it takes somewhere between six months and a year, you know, of preparation for a launch, whether you know the customer is obtaining licenses and building their satellite, and and then you know on launch to itself. You know, we have airspace closures, marine space closures, we have to worry about space weather, We have to interface with NASA with you for the International Space Station, and a whole bunch of operators. So we don't have any conjunctions on orbit or you know, bump into people in orbit, and then you know, it's a whole lot of licensing and regulatory stuff, so it's tremendous. Each each rocket launch is really like an orchestrated event. It's like a wedding, if you will. And you know, it's it's easy when you're launching them frequently, it's easy, easy to forget. But and the team's got really efficient at it. But it's still you know, it's still a big day. **Speaker 2 (02:42):** Did did one have anything to do with the other? From a was one rocket launch related to the other and anything apart from the time and the fact you wanted to try and get them as close together as possible. **Peter Beck (02:53):** No, not at all. **Speaker 2 (02:54):** So it just separate missions. **Peter Beck (02:56):** Completely, separate missions. ### Early Interests and Education **Speaker 2 (02:57):** Yeah, what came Look, if we go back a little bit, maybe a little way, what came first with you? Was it? Was it your fascination with space or was it a fast, fast nation with rockets and technology or a little bit of both. **Peter Beck (03:12):** But of both. So you know, I'm an engineer and a mcgeek, and I love space. So if you mix those two things together in a pot, you end up with a guy who liked to build rockets because you know, rockets from an engineering perspective, are really the peak of aerospace. They're the hardest thing you can imagine to do and the coolest, So so always a bit of both. **Speaker 2 (03:34):** How many of your skills are self taught? **Peter Beck (03:39):** Well, a lot, I guess, but I mean it depends how you define self taught, because yep, it's true. I don't have a university degree, but you know, university in a lot of ways teachers you how to learn. And and you know, we see it with young graduates here that they come with a good base. But you can talk to any of them that come here and they've learned more in a year at Rocket Lab and they've learned in their entire academic career. So so I guess, you know, it's a different way of learning. And you know, self taught, I guess in the early years, yep, just read books and just made it happen. But but you know, as as as you as you kind of grow and you have other interactions with other people and whatnot, then then yeah, it's all just learning. **Speaker 2 (04:26):** Well, you were forging your own path in New Zealand obviously, so I guess I was just curious as to obviously know without the formal education, how you sort of learned your key lessons that got you on the journey to where you are now. **Peter Beck (04:40):** Yeah. Well, I mean, look, I'd always wanted to work in the space industry, and truth be known, the plan was to go and work for NASA, as all young kids would imagine to right, and you know, I went into a tool and die making trade to start with. The plan was always to go to university, but I went. I did that trade because I needed the hand skills to build the rockets because there was no courses to go and there's no there's no you know, there was no university degree in anything that I was interested in. **Speaker 2 (05:06):** The Bachelor of Rocket Science. **Peter Beck (05:08):** Yeah, yeah's apart from engineering of course. So so you know, I was building rockets and I needed the hand skills to you know, to build more and learn more and and and that that's kind of just the you know, the way it started. And they just continually got larger and larger. And then it wasn't until I actually I was working for Industrial Research at the time and we didn't see old d SAO or Callahan innovation. I think it's cool now, and you know, I went on this rocket pilgrimage to the United States and you visited a whole bunch of Nasser facilities and and and whatnot, and sites as well as commercial space companies, and it became really really clear that you know, me working FINASA had a probability of approximately zero because you know, firstly, I'm a foreign national to your point, with no university degree. Had had a great cv of rocket engines and rock on bits that I built. But it's very, very difficult for a foreign national to go and work in the space industry in the United States because the space industry is all due use, meaning that it's it can be used for peace and it can be used for defense. So it's very very difficult to the foreign national at the best of times to get in there, let alone one that came from a country with no heritage of space and no degree. So the only logical and practical thing left to do was just just to come back to New Zealand and start rocket Lab. ### Risk Management and Work Ethic **Speaker 2 (06:30):** Peter, did you ever have moments where you go, oh, that was a bit dangerous. **Peter Beck (06:36):** Not not tremendously. So you know, if you have a good understanding of the energy the you're working with, then then you know you have a healthy respect for it. I think I think if you, you know, if you don't have a good understanding of how much energy you're trying to harness, then it would be very easy to be a bit cavalier. But no, I mean I always, always. You know, always had a disciplined approach to the science, ardre Per. **Peter Beck (07:00):** I mean even today, my job is I'm employed to take big risks and then mitigate them until they don't happen. And that is that is the definition of a rocket CEO. **Speaker 2 (07:10):** Yeah, okay, you've described If I've seen some descriptions of your your own superpowers, if we can use that word, three things popped out. I think micromanaging, workoholism, and paranoia. **Peter Beck (07:23):** Uh, which on sound great? Do they? I wish I never said that now, because. **Speaker 2 (07:28):** No, I think that if people can can understand how you'd probably need a bit of that to get where you've got. Which one wouldn't you be without? **Peter Beck (07:35):** Well, I mean I could do it, that would do without the paranoia. That would make life much more enjoyable. But I honestly, look, in this game, there is there is there is there is no kind of second chance, like it either works or it's it's everybody knows that it didn't work so so so you just you just have to be you know that that kind of fastidious around evening. Everything you build and nobody achieves greatness at eight to five. Nobody you look at all the great if you look at all the great companies in the world and all the great achievements of the world, they didn't do it working eight to five Monday to Friday. Do you feel that's just what it takes. **Speaker 2 (08:12):** Do you feel you work hard or is it just because you love doing what you're doing. Before you know it, you know, the sun's going down, you're into the night and you're still going and you're loving it. **Peter Beck (08:20):** Yeah. Look, some days definitely feels like work. And I think you know that that can be said but for everybody. But but no, I mean I'm having a blast, and I certainly you know it doesn't. It doesn't doesn't feel like we're to me that you know that. Yeah, I think I think the days go very very quickly. ### Company Growth and Management Style **Speaker 2 (08:35):** Well, of course, now rocket Lab is you know, valued in the billions, and the bigger your organization gets. My thoughts would be that the micromanaging would be one that you would it would be harder to hang on to that one because the organization just gets bigger and bigger. How do you handle that side of you all? **Peter Beck (08:52):** So I guess the micro imagining is is more more. I guess a better better representation of that is down in the weeds, so when needed, So if there is, if there's a particular problem, you know, some people's management style is I've got people for that and they'd sort it out. My management style is if I think I can be useful, I'm down there and down there as deep as a wrench. So that's probably what I mean. More about micromanaging is you know there is no offices at Rocket Lab, so that that kind of management style I just I just don't subscribe to. ### Competition and Innovation **Speaker 2 (09:28):** Where do you sit in competition with space X? And I guess there's a secondary part to that question is do you actually care about that competition or do you just do your own things, set your own goals? **Peter Beck (09:40):** Well it's it's hard to miss, that's for sure, but but no, Look, we have our own path. And you know the big difference with us, I guess is that we've never had in probably never will that the capital reserves of our two biggest competitors happened to be the too wealthiest people on the planet. So you know, we have a saying at Rocket Lab it's actually Ernest Rutherford saying, and we have no money, so we have to think. And what what that means is it forces you into into really innovative solutions and way different kind of ways of doing things. And I think if you look at our electron rocket or a number of our kind of satellites and whatnot, they don't look like normal people satellites do. And that's because you know, we're really forced to innovate and that's been a key strength and it set us apart from everybody else. ### Tall Poppy Syndrome **Speaker 2 (10:26):** How do you feel about the tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand? You have made a mark some of that a while ago. But I guess what are your reflections on our culture and that, because I would have liked to think we've grown up a bit on that. **Peter Beck (10:37):** Oh man, you're gonna hate my answer on this one. **Speaker 2 (10:38):** Oh I might love it. **Peter Beck (10:40):** Well, no, I doubt you will. So Actually, if you talk to talk to Joe Blow on the street, it doesn't exist. I honestly believe tall poppy exists in the construct of New Zealand media. I really do like honestly most I've never come across somebody like on the street or just a general public who is nothing but proud and supportive. **Speaker 2 (11:04):** But no, I love that ant sir. I'm all for the man in the street. And I think often the media get caught up in its own little bubble and you know, the story rights itself. **Peter Beck (11:14):** So honestly, yeah, I look, that's been my experience. ### Future Plans **Speaker 2 (11:17):** Yeah. Hey, so what next for Rocket Labor? What's on the cards for twenty twenty five? **Peter Beck (11:23):** Oh? **Speaker 2 (11:23):** Huge year. **Peter Beck (11:24):** I mean this year is a huge year. I mean, if you look at the growth of the company is enormous and just the scale we're able to achieve this year, but next year is even bigger. I mean, you know, our big rocket, Neutron goes on the pad. To put that into context, the current rocket we have list lifts three hundred and twenty kilograms to low Earth orbit. Neutron lifts thirteen thousand kilograms to low Earth orbit. So is a big rocket. So that goes on the pad next year and flies for the first time. And we've got a number of really big space systems projects, you know, satellites and things that are that are you coming to fruition and next year as well? And look we'll continue to grow and expand and bite off bigger and bigger things, but next year is a big one. **Speaker 2 (12:05):** Oh. Absolutely well, it's inspiring stuff. Oh gosh, thank you so much for your time chatting to us today and all the best for those grand plans for twenty twenty five. **Peter Beck (12:14):** Thanks very much, don't. **Speaker 2 (12:15):** Cheers gosh, that was fascinating. I love that. If you've got someone in your family who's a young person, who's a self starter, who wants to listen to a role model, direct them to our website to listen to that interview. Fascinating. That's Peter Beck. **Speaker 1 (12:30):** For more from News Talk sed B, listen live on air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.