[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Interviews]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> February 2 2025 Insider: [[Peter Beck]] Source: [The Dom Harvey Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U17It-CH4o4) Date: February 2 2025  🔗 Backup Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U17It-CH4o4 ## 🎙️ Transcript >[!hint] Transcript may contain errors or inaccuracies. **Dom Harvey:** Today Sir Peter Beck, welcome to my podcast. **Peter Beck:** Oh it's a pleasure to be here, Dom. **Dom Harvey:** How does that... it's only been like six months ago that you got the knighthood. How does it sit with you? **Peter Beck:** It's very odd to be fair. It's very odd and it takes a while to process that. Obviously a huge honor, but you know the way I look at this one is it's for all the entrepreneurs and engineers in the country, because there's not that many of them that get a title. So you know, I take great pride in the fact that it's not really for me, I think it is for those type of people. **Dom Harvey:** Is it your email handle now? **Peter Beck:** No. **Dom Harvey:** What about when you fly and the forms you have to fill in? **Peter Beck:** No, no. **Dom Harvey:** Oh come on, lean into it! **Peter Beck:** It's only the people I don't like that you got to call me Sir. If I don't like you, then that's when you know. **Dom Harvey:** It's great to have you here. You've been like a - this is going to sound like an excuse, but it's factual - you've been like a dream guest for the podcast. I happened to bump into you a couple of weeks ago at this art gallery in Parnell of all places. So I went up and introduced myself, and I got the surprise of my life - you said you're familiar with the podcast. **Peter Beck:** Yeah, no, I really, really enjoyed the work. Congratulations on building a great platform. **Dom Harvey:** Likewise. I said to you I'd love to get you on the podcast and you palmed me on to Morgan, who's your Vice President of Communications. I thought that was going to be the end of it. I thought this is Sir Peter's get-out-of-jail-free card, but she responded that same day and we locked in the date and here we are. **Peter Beck:** There you go. System works. **Dom Harvey:** I've done so much research on you the last couple of weeks. I've just about read and watched everything there is to see about Peter Beck. One thing I've noticed is there's not a lot of personal stuff online. Is that by design, or is it because the interviews you do are just way more interested in this amazing company you've built? **Peter Beck:** It's by design. I try and keep family life out of the rocket business, and that's a conscious decision. It's a tough enough thing by yourself, let alone dragging your family through it. So I try and separate those two if possible. ### Daily Life and Work Ethic **Dom Harvey:** So what does an average day look like? **Peter Beck:** America starts at about 3:00 a.m. in the morning. Quite often there'll be a few - I really try and avoid the 3:00 a.m. morning meetings, those ones throw me a bit. Two is fine and four is fine, but for whatever reason, three I really struggle with. So the day starts pretty early, and then America wakes up, and then New Zealand goes to sleep. When New Zealand goes to sleep, we don't have any operations in Europe, thank God, because if it was in Europe there'd be zero chance to get any sleep. **Dom Harvey:** I saw a quote online from the NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, and he said, "I work from the moment I wake up till the moment when I go to bed, and I work seven days a week. When I'm not working, I'm thinking about working, and when I'm working, I'm working." Does that sound about right? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, it really does. My family have got photos of me on every family holiday - it's just like the family joke. There's everybody doing an activity and there's me stood to the side on my cell phone. There's photos of us all around the world as a family doing that. But it's the way it is. You don't achieve something big on an 8-to-5, 5-days-a-week timeline. If you want to achieve something big, it just has to be all-consuming. **Dom Harvey:** You just love it though. You've just got like dead aim - you've got this goal and you know what you want to do and nothing's going to stop you. **Peter Beck:** I think it's really important what we're trying to achieve. There's a tremendous amount of type-three fun. **Dom Harvey:** What's type-three fun? **Peter Beck:** Well, type-one fun is just actual fun. Type-two fun is not that fun at the time, but still relatively enjoyable. Then type-three fun is it absolutely sucks the whole time, and then maybe a couple of years later, you look back on it and go, "Oh, that was actually fun." **Dom Harvey:** I've never heard that before. Where did that come from? **Peter Beck:** Well, I don't know, I thought everybody knew that. ### Public Recognition and Motivation **Dom Harvey:** How well known are you in New Zealand? Do people come up to you and have selfies, or are you aware when you go to restaurants of people staring at you? Do people come up and talk to you? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, that happens a bit. **Dom Harvey:** How does that sit with you? **Peter Beck:** It used to be super odd, but people always have just the loveliest things to say. Being a public company now, so many people are shareholders in the company, so they feel like they have a little bit of ownership as well. It's always been really lovely. **Dom Harvey:** So the public company thing - I bought some stock in Rocket Lab when it first went on the NZX. When was that? **Peter Beck:** 2021. **Dom Harvey:** And it sort of went down and then it's just sort of been sitting there, a very small amount in my share account doing not much. Then earlier this year I had Paul Henry on the podcast and he told me I should put some money on Rocket Lab, so I put some more money in and it's gone exceptionally well for me. I've got 600 shares in the company. How many do you have? **Peter Beck:** About 10%, just a bit over 10% of the company. **Dom Harvey:** The night we met at the gallery in Parnell, you became a billionaire overnight on paper. You went to sleep and then overnight you made like $200 million or something crazy like that. **Peter Beck:** I guess I don't really think of it like that. As you say, it's on paper. We're trying to build value in the company for everybody. To be honest with you, the more satisfying thing is seeing a whole bunch of staff all of a sudden having all their hard work recognized, and also investors who have been along for the journey. That's much more gratifying than seeing some things on paper. **Dom Harvey:** You're just not driven by the money at all? **Peter Beck:** If I wanted to make a billion dollars, I could think of a thousand things easier to do than this. So for me, that's not the motivation. Of course, we're a publicly traded company so we need to maximize value for the shareholders. But for me personally, the thing that wakes me up in the morning with a jump in my step is that the space industry is one of the few things in the world where you can have tremendous amount of impact. The way to think about the space industry is it's like infrastructure. When you put up a satellite into low Earth orbit - say it's a weather satellite - it provides weather data down to people on Earth. But the reality is it provides weather to literally millions, if not tens of millions, if not billions of people. I don't know any other infrastructure project that can have so much impact. If you go and build a new Harbor Bridge crossing, that's great - it affects everybody in Auckland, doesn't matter a toss to someone in Invercargill, but it affects a relatively small amount of people in a positive way. But you put something into space, and every 90 minutes it is orbiting the planet, and every 90 minutes you have a chance to have a huge impact. The projects that we've got to work on are just incredible. National security missions where people's lives matter, communications missions, Earth observation missions - we've had a part in a lot of those things. And then in the Space Systems division, we built all of the solar cells for the James Webb telescope, some of the NASA probes going to the sun right now have all our solar cells on them. Mars Ingenuity helicopter, all of the surface rovers have Rocket Lab components on them. So we get to play in just the most amazing things that have tremendous amount of impact. **Dom Harvey:** And then there's other stuff you're doing. I got a DM on Instagram from someone that said, "Sir Peter is a legend on the East Coast, so generous to the area during Cyclone Gabrielle. My dad has been an employee at Rocket Lab in Mahia cleaning at the launch site and looking after staff houses. He loves the company and their values." So it's not just the stuff you're doing up there, you're doing a great job down here on the ground as well. That must be incredibly gratifying. **Peter Beck:** It is. I think that's - look, the technology is exciting and all of it, but at the end of the day, as I was growing up, the only message I had from my parents is: have the most amount of impact you can have with your life, because you're here for a short period of time. That is a measure of success - how much impact can you have to people, to society, to the planet in the time you've got on this planet. So that's kind of the guiding light. ### Early Life and Aspirations **Dom Harvey:** I noticed you just rolled one of your Rs before. You did mention Invercargill as well, so we'll get into your roots, because that's part of the story, part of the Sir Peter story that I love. I had my cousin on the podcast a few weeks ago, Sonia Williams, she's one of the founders of Three Shores. She's from Levin, and I said to her, "Part of the inspiring thing about your story is that there might be some kids sitting in Waiopehu College..." When you're in a small town, it's hard for other people to understand, but you do have these sort of limiting beliefs to a degree. I think you must find it - being from Invercargill... **Peter Beck:** Not really. I think a lot of people do. Maybe it's sort of changed now - you and I are a similar age - but I feel like there is something about being in a small town or a small city that sort of holds you back a little bit. **Dom Harvey:** Never for you? **Peter Beck:** Never for me. I was lucky to grow up in an environment where anything was possible. If I came home and said that I was going to build a rocket, for example, it wasn't, "I'll be careful with that, I'm not sure you should do that, that could be dangerous." It was, "Well, if you're going to build one, make sure you build a really, really big one." So there was never any kind of ceiling on what we could achieve as boys in my childhood. **Dom Harvey:** But you even got that from - I know a story about the school calling your parents and saying, "Peter's dreams are too big." What was the story with that? You talked about this in a TED Talk. **Peter Beck:** I knew exactly what I was going to do - work in the space industry. **Dom Harvey:** At what age? **Peter Beck:** It was earlier than that. I remember writing a report on Halley's Comet, and that must have been in standard four or whatever year that is now. I can't remember, but it was like '86 that Halley's Comet was... **Dom Harvey:** Yeah, something like that. **Peter Beck:** I always knew I wanted to work in the space industry and have something to do with space. It was very clear. What was less clear was how I was going to get there, but the goal was to go and work for NASA. When it came to the obligatory careers advisor session, I said, "Yeah, I'm going to go work for NASA, build rockets and do this stuff." I was very good with my hands in the workshop, and in Invercargill, the thing you do if you're good with your hands is go be an apprentice at the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter. They'd say, "You'd be a great welder," and I'd say, "Yeah, I can weld, but I've got bigger aspirations than that." **Dom Harvey:** Did the careers counselor call your parents? **Peter Beck:** They called them in: "We need to have a chat. Pete's got these unrealistic expectations. We need to make sure he doesn't go off the rails." I remember we all just sat there nodding away, and there was no conversation on the way home in the car. There was no acknowledgement of what was said, and we just carried on. **Dom Harvey:** That is so cool of your parents. And then there's other adults that were on your side - I heard a story about Mr. Childress, your technology teacher. He talked about what a wonderful student you were, and he mentioned you and two mates - he gave you like the keys to the workshop basically. **Peter Beck:** He literally just fisted over the keys to the school workshop, and we were in there all days, all hours of the night, all weekend, just welding and turning and machining and building stuff. **Dom Harvey:** Have you seen him since? **Peter Beck:** I haven't seen Graham for quite some time, but it's a few years since I've seen Graham. **Dom Harvey:** That's a huge honor. I think that shows a lot of trust, giving a school kid the keys to a workshop. **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I imagine now it would be pretty difficult for someone to just give you the keys to the school - health and safety and all manner of issues. **Dom Harvey:** Four years ago you did an AMA on Reddit. Do you remember that? **Peter Beck:** No, it wasn't me. Well, it could have been, but a lot's happened since then. **Dom Harvey:** So four years ago - I'm assuming it's you, it seemed legit - this is a quote from you in a comment form: "Rocket Lab is about 30% finished, still much more to do." So fast forward four years, where are we at? **Peter Beck:** I think it's a baseball cap with a chocolate bar on a string for sure. It just keeps moving. You set out a goal and then you go and achieve it, and then there's always the bigger thing. **Dom Harvey:** So you're always going to be at 30% finished? **Peter Beck:** It does feel a little bit like it. **Dom Harvey:** There's always going to be like another frontier. **Peter Beck:** The projects just get bigger. We built Electron, and now we're building a big rocket, Neutron. Now we're chasing after a multi-billion dollar program with NASA doing Mars sample return to try and bring samples off the surface of Mars. The opportunities keep getting bigger, so the aspirations keep getting bigger. **Dom Harvey:** Another four-year-old quote, this from your TED Talk: "Launch frequency is the absolute most important thing." Funnily enough, just a couple of days prior to us doing this podcast, you had two successful launch missions in less than 24 hours from two different hemispheres. Even Elon hasn't done that. Do you know Elon? Have you met? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, yeah. **Dom Harvey:** What's he like? **Peter Beck:** He's a great engineer and great businessman for sure. **Dom Harvey:** So SpaceX is a lot bigger than Rocket Lab? **Peter Beck:** I think we're... it depends on what metric you want to use. If you look at pure revenue, ULA is probably bigger than us. But with respect to launch cadence and what people generally expect, we'll be the real competitor. It's sort of generally accepted. **Dom Harvey:** You've met him, you've hung with him? Is he all right? All right guy? **Peter Beck:** He's an intriguing guy. I'm a big fan of the stuff he's done. **Dom Harvey:** Is he sort of like a nemesis? **Peter Beck:** No. The crazy thing about the rocket industry is it does attract these kinds of folks. You've got Elon and Jeff [Bezos] who are probably our two biggest competitors. But in their own rights, they're super passionate people, super driven to achieve those things. Maybe it's the South Island thing, but people are just people. They're just normal people with their own drives and aspirations. I wouldn't call them nemeses or anything. They're just people doing a similar thing. **Dom Harvey:** But you wouldn't be caught dead in a Tesla, or do you have an X account? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I have an X account. I don't have a Tesla though. I prefer internal combustion. I'm old school. ### Launch Experiences and Company Culture **Dom Harvey:** How do you feel with each launch? Do you get anxious, and when it goes well, is it a relief? **Peter Beck:** I hate launch. Absolutely hate a launch. It's terrifying. **Dom Harvey:** Why? Just like your stomach turning, nerves? **Peter Beck:** Well, I don't puke in the toilet anymore, so we've moved on from there. But you have to understand that when you're launching someone's satellite, they may as well just pass over the keys to their company to you, because if you screw that up and put their satellites in the drink or destroy them, their business can be over. It's tremendous responsibility. It's very, very difficult to do. There's really only two private companies in the history of this planet that have managed to scale. There's a lot riding on every launch. I'm naturally a very paranoid person, so launch day is not an enjoyable day. **Dom Harvey:** So the puking in the toilet thing - how long was that for? **Peter Beck:** Probably the first 30 flights or something like that. **Dom Harvey:** What are we up to now? **Peter Beck:** 56. **Dom Harvey:** Oh my God. So getting better recently? **Peter Beck:** Getting better. **Dom Harvey:** And leading up to it, what would your wife say? Are you a pain in the ass to be around? A bundle of nerves? **Peter Beck:** You can tell that there's something on your mind. Everyone knows launch day - don't go near Dad, just leave him alone. I just go quiet. **Dom Harvey:** You're like an All Black on the day of a test match? **Peter Beck:** It is like that though. A launch is a huge orchestrated event. We have to monitor space weather, we have to close down airspace, we have to close down marine space. A typical launch is one year in the making from when the customer first comes to see you to the day you launch. In that year, you're optimizing orbits, you're creating structures, sometimes you've got to change the rocket. There's international licenses, local licenses. It's a huge event. That's why I think people tune into a live stream to watch a launch, and then they go on with their life. But what you see there is a year of work by hundreds and hundreds of people to make that a success. And the stakes are very high. **Dom Harvey:** I went out to Rocket Lab last week for a tour, and it was touch and go as to whether it was going to be postponed because there was a launch potentially happening at around the same time. Where are you for launches? Are you sometimes watching it at home on a screen, or are you always at work? **Peter Beck:** It depends on where I am around the world, but I've certainly never ever missed a launch. Absolutely not. **Dom Harvey:** Going back to that tour of your factory - I think most New Zealanders would be surprised by what's going on there. It's incredible. It used to be the Avanti bike factory, and now you're making rockets there. Everything is made on site. There was even almost like a hardware store inside Rocket Lab, so if someone wants to get some screws, they need to go to this hardware store inside because if the wrong screws are in the wrong holes, it's going to screw everything up. **Peter Beck:** When you take a screw, we can trace that screw to when it was made, where it was made, right down to the material certification which will say at which steel mill that particular piece of metal that the screw was made out of came from. That's just the level of detail you have to go to, because a rocket has a safety factor at best of 1.2, meaning if something can stand 100 PSI, at 120 PSI it's exploded. The safety factor is really low on everything, so if you put the wrong screw in there that's slightly less ductile or whatever, you can fail the rocket. It's literally one screw can bring it down. **Dom Harvey:** Another big surprise to me was how many staff were wearing Rocket Lab merch. There were a lot that weren't, so I'm guessing it's not mandatory - they're wearing it by choice because they love being there and being part of the company. **Peter Beck:** Everybody's super proud of the company, and they should be because their work is absolutely incredible. It's one of the peculiar things about the rocket industry - every launch is followed by thousands and thousands of people. If you have a good day, then thousands of people have watched and that's great. If you have a bad day, you are on CNN, NBC, international news around the world. So they should have a lot of pride in their work and what they achieve, because it's amazing. In that factory, one rocket rolls off that production line every 18 days. Everyone looks so happy. It's the most - I suppose I was expecting it to look more sterile, lots of white boiler suits or something. But there were people wandering around in Nike shorts and Warriors t-shirts, and in each different zone there was a different boom box playing a different genre of music. It's a very kiwi-looking setup. **Peter Beck:** If you go across all of our divisions - the New Zealand factory has about 700 people, and there's about 2,200 in the company across five different states in the US - everywhere you'll see the black walls and everyone wearing the merch and a similar thing. There are no ties at Rocket Lab - that doesn't help the machine go faster. **Dom Harvey:** How much time do you spend on the floor these days? Are you busy on the phone and in boardrooms? **Peter Beck:** I try and spend as much time on the floor as possible. On the Electron floor, not very often because those guys are just machines - they're just cranking. But I'm still the engineer for the company, so Neutron, our big rocket, is our biggest project. I'm all over that, both in the US and New Zealand. To be honest with you, that is the best part of my job - getting hands-on and amongst the ways, putting engines together and solving problems. That's the best part of the whole job. **Dom Harvey:** You love it. **Peter Beck:** The coolest reception area I've ever seen in a business in New Zealand - it's amazing. Did it remind you of 2001: A Space Odyssey as you walked in? **Peter Beck:** I'd seen an interview with you beforehand and you explained that. I can't remember the movie exactly, but it's just really cool. It feels like suddenly you're out in space, and there's a big glass window with a bunch of people getting ready for this launch that's happening somewhere else in the world. I'm familiar with you and I've followed the Sir Peter Beck journey and what you've been doing, but I probably had really no idea of the scale of what was going on here in this factory in little old New Zealand. **Peter Beck:** That's the littlest factory in the whole place. **Dom Harvey:** But you turn into this street in Mount Wellington and suddenly it's just hard to find a park on the street. **Peter Beck:** Rocket Lab - people don't like us about that. We're not very popular with the neighbors right now. **Dom Harvey:** As someone that spends a lot of time in New Zealand and now in the US - that's Rocket Lab USA it's called now - but it's a New Zealand company and you're from Invercargill. What do you think are the big differences between New Zealand and the US? **Peter Beck:** I think New Zealanders are much more willing to take risks in areas that they don't know anything about. The old adage where a Kiwi has to do everything is very true. If you go around a lot of our US factories, you'll find a lot of Kiwis in senior leadership positions. The cultures are different but similar in a lot of respects. The cultural elements of just working hard and making things happen are kind of consistent. But I'd say the one thing we tend to notice is the Kiwis tend to be a little bit - maybe it's, you know, if you're a Kiwi, unless you build your own deck, there's something the matter with you. You should know how to concrete, you should know how to put posts in, you should know how to deck and all of those kinds of things. I think that's probably one thing in the New Zealand culture that's a little bit different to the US culture - in the US you tend to have a concrete expert and a specific expert rather than someone who's willing to just go "she'll be right" and start, you know, go to Hirepool and get a post hole digger and just get stuck into it. **Dom Harvey:** That sounds like a pro. What about the cons? Have you experienced "tall poppy" syndrome? **Peter Beck:** To be honest with you, I don't think tall poppy exists with Mom and Dad at home. I think tall poppy only exists in the media. Because you talk to your average mom and dad at home, and they want everybody to succeed. I actually only think it's a construct from New Zealand media that seems to want to cut people down. But I think your average Joe Blow at home loves to see people being successful. **Dom Harvey:** I love that. That's a really good take - I've never thought of it like that. How's your run been with the media in New Zealand? **Peter Beck:** We don't do much. We do a fair bit of international media, but even then we don't really do much. This is only one of the few interviews I've done certainly in New Zealand, but not many even in the world. We don't do it a ton. I think that's probably one of the things about Rocket Lab compared to some of our competitors - we just sort of quietly go about getting stuff done rather than making a big song and dance. **Dom Harvey:** I feel like it's a missed opportunity for the New Zealand media. I'm not sure if they've been trying or if it's "thanks but no thanks" on your behalf, but it was astonishing for me having a look around this factory and just seeing what's going on in little old New Zealand. I was walking around your workshop with goosebumps, quite frankly. It's made me really proud to be a New Zealander. **Peter Beck:** Awesome, that's great. **Dom Harvey:** It was so cool. I feel like we should get Sir Peter Beck on one of the dollar bills. **Peter Beck:** No, one day, no. **Dom Harvey:** But what you're doing, and also the backstory which we'll get to now - being from the bottom of the South Island - it's simply remarkable. You've dreamed big, too big for your school teachers, and you're actually doing it. You're following through, and it's the coolest thing. You're very humble about it. **Peter Beck:** It's just how I was raised. **Dom Harvey:** Your brothers as well, I'm guessing they're immensely proud of you, but they're just like, "Oh yeah, it's just Peter being Peter." **Peter Beck:** There's no room for big kids in the family. Everybody makes sure everybody's on an even keel. **Dom Harvey:** Do you get to catch up much now? **Peter Beck:** As often as we can. We'll get down to Central Otago as often as we can. They still live in Invercargill. My wife's parents live in Dunedin, so Central Otago is kind of the collection point of all the families. ### Early Memories and Family Influence **Dom Harvey:** How old are you now? **Peter Beck:** 47. **Dom Harvey:** I'm 51, and no one gets to our age of life, the perk of reaching middle age, without going through some sort of adversity. Life just kicks you in the ass a couple of times. Losing your dad, is that your biggest adversity, or what else has there been? **Peter Beck:** I'd say I'm tremendously lucky. I look at a lot of my friends and other people, and they've had to deal with a whole much worse stuff than I have had to today. Of course, losing a parent is always a difficult thing, but I don't know, maybe you become desensitized. It does feel like a fire hose 100% of the time, and you ask any founder running a company, that is the reality. There's never plain sailing. But I think I've been tremendously lucky compared to what other people have had to endure. **Dom Harvey:** So you finished school at James Hargest. Why no university? What was the plan? **Peter Beck:** The plan was to go to university, but I wanted to build rockets and there was no courses at university, no aerospace degree. To me, the best engineers - this is a gross generalization - but the best engineers are engineers that can design it and then go down to the workshop and build it, because you get what's practical to build and what's practical to design. So I went off to Fisher and Paykel and did tool and die making, which was the most precise engineering that I could do within the country. If you wanted to build rocket engines, that's a skill that you needed. The plan was always to go to university, but I just wanted to get a trade under my belt before I went there. **Dom Harvey:** You leave home at 17 and move to Dunedin. Did you have any friends or network in Dunedin? **Peter Beck:** No. **Dom Harvey:** That's a big call. That's a big move at 17 - you're very young at 17. **Peter Beck:** It didn't feel like it, honestly didn't feel like it. **Dom Harvey:** So you've got this job at Fisher and Paykel. I believe - I might have this wrong - but you move into a two-bedroom flat, you're in one bedroom, the other bedroom is like a home workshop? **Peter Beck:** For the first year or so I moved in with a family. That was Mom's way of making sure I ate, because one of the challenges was I would just go down to the workshop at school and just never eat. If you look at photos of me when I'm young, I'm emaciated - it's because eating is just an unfortunate thing you have to do. **Dom Harvey:** A distraction? **Peter Beck:** A total distraction. She'd just slide the plate under the workshop door, and I'd trip over it on the way to bed. So she put me with this family so I didn't die basically. It's one of the reasons why I'm married to my wife - because she was worried I was going to die too. She used to cook meals for me. At Fisher and Paykel, everybody used to worry about my health, so they would invite me around and cook me meals. **Dom Harvey:** This must have been further down the track - I must have got the timeline wrong - but you're living in a flat... **Peter Beck:** I bought a house. **Dom Harvey:** At what age? **Peter Beck:** 19 or something like that. **Dom Harvey:** That's impressive on apprentice money. **Peter Beck:** It wasn't a good house. **Dom Harvey:** But you weren't having smashed avo on toast every week. **Peter Beck:** I spent everything on rockets, but I managed to save enough to buy this little house in Mornington. The rooms got converted - had one drawing room just designated for drawing, and one room just designated as a workshop. Then I had a little garden shed out the back that was actually a hydrogen peroxide distiller so I could distill the propellants. **Dom Harvey:** I can see now why you had to buy your own place. No landlord would... **Peter Beck:** I can remember I got visited by a census lady, and it was the most inopportune time because I was outside up my driveway with this garden shed. These days it would look like a P-cook facility because it was a garden shed with compressors in it and a bubble reactor column to distill the hydrogen peroxide to propulsion grade. This thing just ran 24/7 with lights and sounds and hissing. I was doing a change - because safety first - you only distilled about 200 milliliters at a time in case it went bad, because the explosive radius wasn't big enough to take out my house. I was in the middle of a swap over, and I couldn't afford the proper PVC suits because if you get hydrogen peroxide on you as organic, it just instantly combusts. If I tipped it on this shirt, the shirt would just start on fire. So you're supposed to use these PVC suits, and I fashioned myself a PVC suit out of rubbish bags - multi-layer thick rubbish bags. The census lady came up the driveway and I'm in this black rubbish bag PVC suit with a welding helmet on, literally holding this beaker of 98% proof hydrogen peroxide. **Dom Harvey:** How are you not dead? **Peter Beck:** It was perfect. It always sounds dodgier than it was, but it was all perfectly safe. It's no different than in a laboratory environment. The suit was perfectly impervious, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. **Dom Harvey:** You're definitely a hyper-fixator, aren't you? **Peter Beck:** Probably, yeah. Which is your superpower, definitely. **Dom Harvey:** That's amazing, what an amazing story. So then you worked in New Plymouth for a while on boats or something? What's your recollection of that time? **Peter Beck:** I was a project engineer for building a 123-foot super yacht. At the time I didn't really enjoy it, but I look back now and realize that was such an important part of shaping me. In the morning I would have to work with the welders, some of whom were completely illiterate, and explain to them all the weld details and what we needed. Then in the afternoon, I'm with the owner that's flying in on the helicopter. Being able to operate in those two worlds, I think, was really informative. That's my life now. I have to operate in a whole bunch of different spheres, whether it be political spheres, raising money, public company stuff, right down to swinging a wrench on an engine. Having the ability to translate across all of those people and disciplines is super important. **Dom Harvey:** I watched a ton of stuff about you on YouTube, and in one of the early clips, you were with Paul Henry on Breakfast TV in 2009. Then you see the progression of Sir Peter Beck through the years, and you speak - you're definitely a lot more comfortable now with that public-facing stuff, not that you weren't then. I suppose it just comes with maturity and experience? **Peter Beck:** Not really. I do not enjoy it. **Dom Harvey:** Absolutely not? **Peter Beck:** No. But I can see why you've managed to win over rooms of venture capitalists or whoever else, because you're so determined and so fixated on what you're doing, and it's quite intoxicating. People, I think, are probably buying into you and your vision. **Peter Beck:** Look, especially raising capital out of venture capital - you have to be a good storyteller. You can't just go up there and present a thesis. You have to be a good storyteller and distill very complicated things into very consumable things that people can understand and get behind, for sure. **Dom Harvey:** But I suspect that's part of the necessary evil for the job for you - something that doesn't necessarily come naturally. You'd rather just be in the workshop tinkering, but you understand. **Peter Beck:** Don't get me wrong, I love the thrill of the chase of a deal. There's definitely that side of it. I love the thrill of a chase. Business is a lot like a game of chess. You'll spend a long time positioning pieces that may be completely useless. I've had thousands upon thousands of meetings that I've walked out thinking, "Man, that was a waste of time." And then it's the one time where you might be at a customer and they go, "Oh yeah, I remember I met Pete 10 years ago and we were talking about this," and all of a sudden that meeting is really important. ### Founding Rocket Lab **Dom Harvey:** So Rocket Lab - you launch it, and then how long is it before you meet Mark Rocket? **Peter Beck:** I started the company, and then obviously I needed to find some backing for it. I heard Mark on the radio - he just changed his name to Mark Rocket and done very well out of his internet businesses. I thought, "Well, here's an interesting thing - has some money, check, and is passionate about space, check." So I managed to find Mark, got a hold of him, gave him a ring, and he came and visited. That provided the first bit of funding to start the company. **Dom Harvey:** How much did you get from him? A couple hundred thousand or something? **Peter Beck:** Yeah. **Dom Harvey:** For half the company? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, yeah. **Dom Harvey:** Worst deal ever? **Peter Beck:** Well, no, that's not true - best deal ever, because that's what started the company. But if anybody's trying to build a company, that is commercial suicide to sell your company in the A round for 50% of your company. It's like you went on Shark Tank and got ripped off. But if it wasn't for Mark, none of this would have happened because he was the first person to put some money in. All credit to Mark. Ultimately, I bought Mark back out, and that was critical because you can't turn up to Silicon Valley with half your company sold. This is one of the things that early New Zealand venture capital makes a huge mistake on - the riskier the company, the more they need to own. And that's how you destroy a company. **Dom Harvey:** So how long was he in the company for before you bought him back out? **Peter Beck:** A few years. **Dom Harvey:** Did he do well out of the deal? **Peter Beck:** I think he did very well. I don't think you'd have any complaints from him there. **Dom Harvey:** Did he keep any stock in the company? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, yeah. He's still in. Well, I don't know if he's still holding, as it's a public company now. **Dom Harvey:** You're very different. He was one of these - was he on one of the first Virgin trips to space? **Peter Beck:** He signed up to go on one. **Dom Harvey:** So did he go? **Peter Beck:** No, Virgin hasn't gone yet. **Dom Harvey:** You've got no interest in going to space? **Peter Beck:** The challenge is that I understand all the engineering extremely well, so I have all of the knowledge and none of the courage. I think an astronaut is an incredible person because they can climb aboard something with a good knowledge of what's going on and just turn that off. I just wouldn't have the ability to climb on board and turn that off. **Dom Harvey:** What about eventually, if 20 years from now that's where Rocket Lab goes or the industry goes? **Peter Beck:** Never say never. But look, rockets have not changed since the 1950s. They've improved, but they're still fundamentally one - you sort of 3% to 5% of the total mass of the rocket is the thing you get into orbit. It's 92% fuel. There's no way to make 92% fuel completely safe. ### Media and Early Successes **Dom Harvey:** I've mentioned this a couple of times - the Paul Henry interview in 2009 when you were 32 years old. When was the last time - have you ever gone back and watched that? **Peter Beck:** No, no. **Dom Harvey:** He kind of - I don't know, I got the feeling he was sort of like he didn't believe you necessarily. **Peter Beck:** Of course he didn't believe me. That's why I made the bet. **Dom Harvey:** He starts by saying, "Oh, you look very young," and you're like, "Thank you." Your answer catches him off guard. You can tell that he's sort of thinking with a bit of side eye like the producers have organized this guy, and the guy is not going to amount to anything. He's a huge fan of yours now, but what bet did you make? **Peter Beck:** I think we bet $20 that I wouldn't get to the moon or I wouldn't get to orbit or something like that. The bet was that if he lost, he had to dress up in a bunny suit. So he dressed up in a bunny suit - full credit to Paul. **Dom Harvey:** Are you friends? You've caught up with him in Palm Springs? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, I haven't seen Paul for a long time, but he's a great guy. **Dom Harvey:** What are your recollections of that first launch in 2009, 15 years ago now - the first suborbital launch? Can you remember your quote? **Peter Beck:** There's a few. I don't know which quote - there are kind of infamous ones and less infamous ones. But it was a big day for sure because we had no money, that was it. There's been a number of times throughout the company's history where it's all on the table, and that was the first time. **Dom Harvey:** When you say... the quote I'm talking about is, "You fucking beauty!" That's the most raw and honest and unfiltered thing. Had you not thought about the significance of the moment and what you should say? **Peter Beck:** It's right up there with "We knocked the bastard off" from Sir Edmund Hillary. No, for two years it's just 24/7 work to get to that point. It's engineering execution - there's no time for that kind of nonsense. When you say it's all on the line, what do you mean? If it failed, if that blew up on the pad, we had no resources to have another crack. If it didn't fly well, we had no resources. That launch - straight after that launch, I got on a plane and went to America. That was the time to make hay, the time to turn something into something else. Following that, we ran the company as a little advanced technology house. We did work for US Government research houses, Lockheed Martin, and we built this little skunk works of doing crazy difficult things and then achieving them. Ultimately, that led to the point where I thought, "Right, it's time. I've got enough credibility and enough capability to go and build an orbital rocket." That's when I went to Silicon Valley. **Dom Harvey:** I don't know if this is something you even thought about then, but from 2009 - if you could imagine yourself 15 years into the future, what did you imagine? Could you have imagined what we're at now? **Peter Beck:** I think we're behind schedule to be honest with you. Everything - you expect everything to go way faster than it did. We got the first bit of money for Electron in January 2014, and we had our first flight in 2017. I was running around telling everybody we're going to have our first flight in 2015. How naive it was then. The timeline always feels longer than it should be, but it's part naivety, part optimism, and part impatience, absolutely. **Dom Harvey:** You just wanted it done. **Peter Beck:** There are parallels with you and Elon. In this book I was telling you about that I listened to, I think it was him making a public statement about how many Teslas they were going to roll off the production line in the next five years, and it was some outlandish figure. His point of view was that if they don't make it, at least they'd push the team to get as close to that as possible. **Peter Beck:** I think mine was pure naivety, to be honest. **Dom Harvey:** This is fascinating stuff. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time today. ### Celebrity Encounters and Recent Events **Dom Harvey:** The building launch in 2018 - you had William Shatner over? **Peter Beck:** It was super cool. **Dom Harvey:** How did that come about? **Peter Beck:** We saw he was in town. **Dom Harvey:** Was he coincidentally in town? **Peter Beck:** He was coincidentally in town. We heard he was coming to town to do a show, and they were starting to advertise for it. My EA, Christie, I remember going into work the morning and she said, "Christie, I know who's going to open the building - it's got to be William Shatner." All credit to her, she just made that happen. He is such a nice guy, such a generous guy. I take a few life lessons from him. One day he was having a few tough times, and one day he just decided he's going to say yes to everything, and he just lives his life saying yes. So when we rang him up and said, "Hey, can you open this rocket building?" he's like, "Yes." We took him around the factory, and he stole an ethernet cable around the factory. Then when he went to open the building, he did this great comedy gig where he said, "Oh, I was just looking at your rockets," and he pulled this wire out from his sleeve - it was just an ethernet cable that he grabbed off someone's desk - and said, "I pulled this out of the rocket. Does anybody mind?" He's just an incredible guy. **Dom Harvey:** That's great. And he's - I find him inspiring because he's so old but still so vibrant. **Peter Beck:** He's so sharp and so active, so much going on. **Dom Harvey:** Trump's recently been reelected, and he and Elon Musk are incredibly tight. What sort of impact do you think this will have on Rocket Lab or yourself or space exploration in general? **Peter Beck:** Under the new administration, space is clearly a priority, so that's great for us. What's also a priority is a very commercial approach to space. Space is kind of bisected into the old dinosaurs who do cost-plus contracting and then the new space folks like SpaceX and ourselves that do firm fixed price. So under the new administration, firstly space has a great priority, and also that way of working has a great priority. These are great things for us. ### Mission to Venus **Dom Harvey:** And you're keen to explore Venus? **Peter Beck:** Absolutely. **Dom Harvey:** Elon's into Mars, you're into Venus. Why? **Peter Beck:** For very different reasons. I mentioned before that my father took me outside to look at the stars and posed that question about life. That's remained in my head - we really need to answer that question: are we the only life in the universe or not? Venus has a set of clouds, and at 50 km altitude in the Venusian clouds, there's a very interesting atmospheric layer. It's kind of okay - it's still raucous, but it's okay. There's enough environmental conditions at that 50 km altitude that life could theoretically survive. Very famous friend and scientist Sarah Seager made the discovery of phosphine gas in that particular cloud region. The only known way to make phosphine gas is through organic symbiosis, so it's like a sign of life. Armed with that, we put together a plan to build this probe to go to Venus. It's like a go/no-go gauge for life. We get about 200 seconds to transit through this atmospheric cloud and measure whether or not we can find life. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do. It's the only private mission to another planet ever. It's a nights-and-weekends thing, so it's constantly delayed, but we're targeting 2026 when Venus and Earth are aligned enough that we think we can have a crack at answering that question. I think if you can answer that question, two things happen: if you don't find life, then we continue thinking that maybe life is not that prolific through the universe. If we find life there, then you've answered the question - we are not the only life in the universe. Moreover, if you find it in the clouds of Venus, chances are it's prolific throughout the universe. And I think that's a question worth answering. **Dom Harvey:** How far away is Venus? **Peter Beck:** A long way. Takes about a year and a half to get there at the shortest transit. **Dom Harvey:** You wouldn't want to do that in economy. **Peter Beck:** The crazy thing is that the hardest part of that mission is the probe interface with the atmosphere. The probe heats up because it's interfacing with an atmosphere, and during that 200 seconds, we have 12 watts worth of radio power amplifier that has to make its way all the way back to a dish here on Earth to receive the signal. That's non-trivial. **Dom Harvey:** What about the original moon landing in 1969 with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin? Did they go, or is it a film set? **Peter Beck:** Come on. It just seems very film set-y when you see the footage. **Peter Beck:** Anybody who has a doubt with that, I always say go to Cape Canaveral and stand under a Saturn V rocket. Then look at the hundreds of thousands of engineers and scientists - if you can fool hundreds of thousands of the smartest people that lived at the time, and arguably ever lived, then that's some kind of cover-up. Because you can't hide that stuff. **Dom Harvey:** Going by that answer, I'm taking it you're a curved-earther as well? **Peter Beck:** Very much a curved - we live on a spherical planet, for sure. **Dom Harvey:** Some of the footage I've seen from your launches - the footage is just exceptional when the launch first goes off. What's all the debris and stuff that's flying everywhere? **Peter Beck:** Water. We spray the launch pad and mount with thousands of liters of water. We have to do that because the acoustic reflection or the noise from the rocket engine is so loud that it would rupture the rocket - the noise pressure would break the rocket in half. The water that we spray on the pad deadens all the sound. **Dom Harvey:** All the rockets you've done have all been beautiful, they've all been aesthetically really nice. Is everything to do with performance, or does aesthetics come into it? **Peter Beck:** The one and the same for me, absolutely the one and the same. There used to be a saying up on the wall in headquarters in America - they may have taken it down because apparently it's not polite to say "crap" in America - but the saying on the wall said, "Make everything a work of art, because if it looks like crap and doesn't work, you have nothing. At least if it looks good, it looks good." You can walk into a Rocket Lab facility, whether it's a boardroom table or a rocket or a spacecraft, and everything is beautiful and everything is beautifully made. I think that's super important because there is no room for error in this industry, there is just none. The moment you start cutting a corner, you're for sure going to end in failure. ### Company Culture and Work Ethic **Dom Harvey:** You say there's no room for failure. Even though the share price at the time for Rocket Lab was very high, there'd just been a recent spike - when I went and had a look at the factory last week and met some of your team and saw the work they were doing, I went and put some more money in at what was potentially an overinflated price that night because I've just got so much more belief in what you're doing and the people you've got there. I've never seen a workplace where people are so happy. I get the feeling there's a lot of people there that aren't too concerned with work-life balance - they're happy to be there off the clock. **Peter Beck:** You cannot do amazing things 8-to-5, that is a fact. There are a lot of dysfunctional workaholics at Rocket Lab, and if you look at our nearest competitor being SpaceX, same thing. You cannot be competitive if you want to just have a cruisy life and not strive for big things. You cannot do amazing things in normal business hours, that is a fact. **Dom Harvey:** Generally, I mean you're the founder and the CEO and the chairman of the board, but for anyone else - if you want to get further in your career, whatever it happens to be, whether it's Rocket Lab or something else - you get out what you put in? **Peter Beck:** 100%. You can make up for a lot with just hard work. As we're looking to employ people, we naturally get the most wonderful CVs, but the people that end up actually being employed in the company are not necessarily the people with the multiple PhDs and A grades. They're the people that demonstrate passion and the people that demonstrate that they will go that extra mile, because that's what it takes. The best CVs - all the qualifications look the same. Just flip that page - what I really look for is what do you do in your spare time? What is the project that you've undertaken? What is the thing that you've really stretched to achieve, whether it be engineering or sporting or whatever? Those are the people you want. **Dom Harvey:** If some wide-eyed, naive kid like you were when you went to the states came and knocked on the front door of Rocket Lab with a head full of dreams, what would you do? **Peter Beck:** It depends on what their dream was. It's one thing to just knock on the door and say, "I've got a dream," but there's been people that turn up at Rocket Lab - they've built complete rockets and they just turn up with a rocket. We had one guy who came from Canada, hired a car, parked it in the car park, and didn't leave. He just stayed there. He said, "I'm not going back to Canada until I get a job." **Dom Harvey:** What happened? **Peter Beck:** We gave him a job. **Dom Harvey:** How long was he there for? **Peter Beck:** Not long. But that's the kind of person you want, because you can teach mathematics, you can teach a lot of things, but you have to transplant someone's brain to have that level of motivation. **Dom Harvey:** Do you think some of it is people - you might not be able to answer this, this might be a question for someone else - but do you think some of it is people just buying into your vision? **Peter Beck:** I think it's important to have good leadership in a company, for sure. As you walked in the facility, the first thing you would have read is that "We go to space to improve life on Earth." That means different things to different people. If you're working on the Mars team, that means going to Mars. If you're working on the Electron production floor, that means enabling a customer to get to orbit to do the amazing things that they're doing. It means different things to different people, and I think every company has to have a vision or an anchor, because there was a whole bunch of happy people there, but man, they have shit days too - real shit days. I always say to everybody that when you have a shit day, go down to the factory and look at what you're building and look at the amazing things you're working on. Go and stroke the rocket appropriately - don't stroke it inappropriately - but go and just remember that's going to space and that's got your DNA on it. The amount of people that can put their DNA on a rocket that goes to space is extremely small on this planet. So you get to do the most amazing things. **Dom Harvey:** I get the feeling your love for space and what you do has not wavered at all. I'm thinking about my career - when I was a kid at school, I really wanted to get into radio. I love the idea of being on the radio, and I managed to do that. **Peter Beck:** Well, you're still here, so yours hasn't either. **Dom Harvey:** It's a different thing now, but when I started in radio, it was like, "I'd do this for nothing." I'm working in the middle of the night, I don't care, I just love it. I'd spend weekends there tinkering around in the production suite. Then it gets to the point you've been doing it a while, and there's no way I'd work on a weekend unless I was whatever. But I feel like you're cut from a different cloth - it's all in, and when you set your mind to something, it's all in. **Peter Beck:** That's intoxicating, mate. ### Mental Health and Personal Life **Dom Harvey:** One thing I'd like to ask all my guests about is some crunchy questions about mental health and things. How's your mental health? How are you today? How are you mostly? **Peter Beck:** I wouldn't have a clue, to be honest with you. What I've learned is I have to find some kind of switch-off release, because once I fixate on something, I definitely fixate on something. I have to force myself to do things that enable me not to think about Rocket Lab. That's why I started to learn to fly a helicopter and got my helicopter pilot's license, because you cannot sit in a helicopter and be thinking about rocket engine ISP because you will die. I have to find myself doing things where it's kind of forced shut-off, whether it's that or flying a jet or those kinds of things. That's what I think keeps my mental health sane - making sure I enforce that. But there's the same problem - then those things start to get out of control as well. Like gold mining - I always love gold mining and started off with a gold pan, which was great for the family, and we just puddle away in a river. Then, "Well, there's a better way to do this - we'll get a gold sluice box." Then, "Well, there's got to be a better way to do this - get a detector." Then, "Actually, now I need a gold claim." Then I need two gold claims, and now I've got diggers and a trommel. It starts to get carried away. **Dom Harvey:** Whatever you do, you want to do as well as what can be done. **Peter Beck:** It seems to be that way. I've learned that over time. **Dom Harvey:** What other hobbies - helicopters, gold panning? **Peter Beck:** That's pretty much it. Car racing as well, do a little bit of that. **Dom Harvey:** Are you able to watch television or movies? **Peter Beck:** No, no. It's a standing joke amongst my entire executive team - I'm a social idiot. Any movie or any book or anything is just completely lost on me, to the point that it's like taking the piss out of Pete as an executive team. Someone will mention a movie: "You seen that movie, Pete?" "Ah, Pete's never seen that movie." **Dom Harvey:** What about growing up? Were you obsessed with Star Wars, or just in the workshop 100% of the time? **Peter Beck:** 100% in the workshop. **Dom Harvey:** What about when you're doing family stuff? If you're involved with the wife and kids, are you able to go, "Okay, I'm going to be fully present for the next hour, two hours, however long it is"? **Peter Beck:** Well, you'd have to ask - I feel like I'm very present. You'd have to ask them. But all credit to my wife, the way our holidays work is: "Pete needs to go to the UK for some meetings," so that gets turned into a family holiday. I'll go and have meetings, and then I'll find myself at Stonehenge. "Oh, it's good. Stonehenge is quite good." That's the way - it's not me organizing the trip to Stonehenge. It's very much I'm being led. **Dom Harvey:** So you're at Stonehenge, but you're thinking, "I've got things I want to do"? **Peter Beck:** If we're honest, they probably got a photo of me on the phone at Stonehenge. **Dom Harvey:** Can the company be bigger than you? If you ever decide... **Peter Beck:** Super critical. One of the reasons why I decided to take the company public - a selfish reason - was because you talk to Jeff and Elon, and it's very clear that when they depart the planet, is that going to continue? I was terrified that - look, the one thing that my parents said to me is make sure you have the biggest impact you can have. The way to have the biggest impact is to have longevity, and you're only on this planet for a short period of time. So whatever you create, if you want to have big impact, you have to create it for a long time. I always worry that if I die, would Rocket Lab stop? That simply cannot be true. I've completely failed if that's the case. One of the reasons to go public was that it really enforces that generational thinking - building a multigenerational space company, building a profitable company that is enduring. It really forces discipline, and in the space industry, that's sorely lacking. You look at the space industry - there's tremendous amount of failure in the industry, and that's because a lot of people get enamored with technology before actually getting enamored with building a business that works. So for me, absolutely - the company is in great shape for sure and will only get better. **Dom Harvey:** But you're the founder, the CEO, the chairman of the board. Can you step back, or is there just no one that can at this point do any other job as good as what you can? **Peter Beck:** Truth be known, there's probably people that can do it better than me. But at this point, we're at a critical point in the company's history. There's a couple of really big milestones that we need to take that will be huge for the company. Look, the reality is you're going to have to take me out in a box. I'm going to die at my desk probably - that's the reality. Or somebody convinces me I'm no longer useful. But making sure that the company outlives me has always been a priority. **Dom Harvey:** You mentioned Jeff before just in conversation - Jeff Bezos. What's your relationship with him? **Peter Beck:** All the rocket guys - there's a mutual respect. It is extraordinarily hard to go to orbit. It's extraordinarily hard cubed to do it over and over again. So although they're competitors, there is just an incredible sense of mutual respect among everybody. I'm sure if anything needed to be done between any of us, we would all help each other out. There's a lot of mutual respect amongst everybody. I think Jeff and Elon don't get on, but there's still, I would say, a guarantee there's a lot of respect between the two, for sure. **Dom Harvey:** A lot of employees from the early days of Amazon say the criticism of Jeff is that apparently he had very little time for anyone that wasn't on his level of intelligence or higher. If staff were to pick on your worst flaw, what do you think they'd say? **Peter Beck:** Jeepers. I'm probably too intense. I micromanage. I get down into the details. I think those will be some negative traits, for sure. **Dom Harvey:** How are you with vulnerability? One thing I've got from doing a lot of these podcasts is the importance of guys in particular, I think, to be able to be open and vulnerable and talk about stuff that's on their mind. Have you got an inner circle of close friends that you talk to, or your wife, or are you a bottler? **Peter Beck:** I'm 100% a bottler. This is a very unpleasant thing we're doing now. A conscious decision - I never talk about work at home because you don't need to share that, especially the bad stuff. You don't need to share that - that just brings everybody down. So when I go home, to use your word, I try and be as present as I can, and I'm not talking about Rocket Lab at all. In fact, it's a constant frustration because my mother will ring me up, and she just wants to talk about Rocket Lab, and I always have to correct her. It's like, "Mom, we're not talking about Rocket Lab." **Dom Harvey:** How often do you speak? **Peter Beck:** Every week. **Dom Harvey:** Well, she's just so proud though, right? **Peter Beck:** But we can be proud about other things. **Dom Harvey:** What frustrates you? By the way, thanks for being so open about these things. You said just before it's uncomfortable for you to talk about, but you wouldn't know - you're very frank and forthright. **Peter Beck:** Good illusion. **Dom Harvey:** What frustrates you? **Peter Beck:** I have a sense of urgency, so when things are too slow - everything is a little bit slow, but when things are just very too slow, that's incredibly frustrating. Just bad decisions or indecision - I'd much rather someone make the wrong decision than not make a decision at all. People just mucking around and not making decisions. People that don't work hard - you get what you put in, and the people that put in the least were always the people that moan they get the least out. **Dom Harvey:** This is something Elon said when he took over X (Twitter that became X). It was seen as very controversial at the time, but he said, "I want people here that want to be here early in the morning and be here late at night. I don't want anyone working from home." It was seen as a controversial statement, but it's like if you want the best out of your own life, you have to work hard at whatever you do. **Peter Beck:** Point to any company that has been incredibly successful, that goes down in history, that's worked 8-to-5. I can't name a single one. **Dom Harvey:** If anyone at Rocket Lab is fixated on the work-life balance thing, do they sort of get naturally chewed up out? **Peter Beck:** We're very upfront with everybody that this is - if you're looking for work-life balance and you want to cruise, this is not the place for you. The reality is that we did the statistics, and it's twice as easy to get into Harvard than it is to get into Rocket Lab. The bar is extraordinarily high. You're not going to be successful in the company if you just want to turn up and do your thing and go home. But likewise, the flip side to that is if you have drive and motivation, you can do anything. One of the guys - we hired a young guy, and he mowed the lawns at the launch site. That was his job. He said, "I want a job at Rocket Lab." "Mow the lawns at the launch site." So he mowed the lawns at the launch site, and he's a great guy. Then he got promoted, and he would do the weather balloon releases. Then he got in charge of logistics, and then he started taking on more responsibilities on the launch pad and so on and so forth. That guy runs an entire facility in Baltimore now, one of our new factories - young Kiwi guy. So the flip side to that is that if you're hungry and you're passionate, you climb as high as you want. The opportunities are everywhere. **Dom Harvey:** That's inspiring. How much time of the year are you in the US - about half the year? **Peter Beck:** Yep. **Dom Harvey:** It's full-on, isn't it? **Peter Beck:** It's a lot of flying. The flying must drive you crazy. Do you manage to have work that you can get done on the flight? **Peter Beck:** Yeah, yeah. Although Air New Zealand does a great job. Those nighttime flights - you have a nice meal and a wine, and then you try and get a few hours sleep, and you wake up in the morning good to go. That works pretty well. **Dom Harvey:** Are you a drinker? You have a wine with your meal? **Peter Beck:** I have a wine with a meal, but I'm super lightweight. That's about my limit. **Dom Harvey:** Do you have any vices? You're not even a coffee guy - you were telling me before... **Peter Beck:** Makes me sick. I love the smell of it, I love the taste of it, but unfortunately, it makes me sick. I think my vices are that I just get hyperfocused and just won't stop. It's probably the worst thing. I'm sure if you asked my wife, she'd comment on plenty of things. **Dom Harvey:** What would she say your best and worst habits are? **Peter Beck:** Jeepers. I think I probably mansplain way too much, but it's stuff that I don't need to mansplain - about the symmetry of the spoons in the drawer and how they should be all symmetrical. That probably doesn't need explaining, and I have to check myself because I know that upsets everybody. I have to pull away because otherwise, I'll just drive everybody insane. **Dom Harvey:** Do you notice things like that - so towels have to be on the rail evenly? **Peter Beck:** Absolutely everything has to be straight and neat, absolutely. **Dom Harvey:** What about your kids' bedrooms? Do you just walk away? **Peter Beck:** Walk away. ### Reflections and Future **Dom Harvey:** What about regret? Any regrets? **Peter Beck:** Look, there's plenty, but I'm always of the view to look forward, not back. Your biggest mistakes and some of your biggest regrets, I think, are the most influential on your future decisions and who you are as a person. You make a bunch of silly mistakes and bunch of silly regrets, but I think ultimately that's only bad if you just don't log them. If you log them in your brain, then I think it's all good, but as long as you can log them, then I don't really have any regrets. **Dom Harvey:** That's a great answer. Mistakes should be seen as like a stepping stone to success. **Peter Beck:** Otherwise, it's like you were saying before - they never feel like that at the time, it sucks, but sometimes you need to make what seems to be a big mistake at the time to avoid a much bigger mistake in the future. **Dom Harvey:** Where do you see yourself at 55 or 60 years old? Still at Rocket Lab, obviously? **Peter Beck:** That's a long time. We joke at Rocket Lab, it's like dog years, right? One year here just seems a crazy amount of time. We've got a lot left to do at the company, and we've got a lot of big projects and stuff to do. As we were saying before, it always seems like the next big thing is bigger than the last, and we keep running towards it. But I think the definition of success for me is when it's time to clock out, to reflect back and ask: did you really do everything you could to have the amount of impact that's possible? That's how I measure everything against. **Dom Harvey:** What about legacy? **Peter Beck:** I think your legacy is your impact. That's the only way you achieve immortality - actually achieving something for the planet and everybody on it. Nobody remembers anything else. **Dom Harvey:** Mate, this has been super inspiring. How's it been for you? **Peter Beck:** Unpleasant. Unpleasant. **Dom Harvey:** Why so? **Peter Beck:** I mean, the rockets and Rocket Lab - that's the priority. Nobody enjoys talking about themselves, for sure. **Dom Harvey:** You'd be surprised - some people do. It's been okay? It's an unpleasant experience? That's not the goal I have for my guests. **Peter Beck:** Nothing to do with you, though. It's a fascinating insight into you as a person. I got the feeling when I cornered you at this gallery and asked you to come on the podcast that you were reluctant to do so, but you kindly did. It's been bloody great. Why didn't you just weasel your way out of it? You could have told me to message Morgan, and it could have just fizzled out. **Peter Beck:** Part of being a good leader is to really trust your people. Morgan does a great job. She told me to go on here, so I'm here. **Dom Harvey:** He does listen to some people! Sir Peter Beck, you're a great New Zealander. Mate, this has been an absolute dream scenario for me, even more so after having a look around the Rocket Lab establishment last week. It's incredible what you're doing, and I just cannot wait to see what you and your team at Rocket Lab do in the future. **Peter Beck:** Thanks very much, that's very kind. It is a team - massive team. People look back at Rocket Lab, and it's like the 17-18 year overnight success, but if I look back through the history of the company and all the things that needed to go right and all the rest of it, there are so many hundreds, probably thousands of people that helped along the way, that believed in me or believed in the company that things just wouldn't have happened. Whether it's Michael Fay letting me use his island to launch a rocket from, or NASA awarding us a contract for what turned out to be the third flight of our Electron rocket - they took a huge bet on a little company down in New Zealand. It is a big team and a lot of people that end up creating these successes. **Dom Harvey:** I honestly believe that those examples like Michael Fay and Great Mercury Island and NASA and everything else - it's people buying into your vision because you're very intoxicating. **Peter Beck:** I don't know a lot of what you've said today, but I believe every word of it. **Dom Harvey:** Sir Peter Beck, thank you so much. **Peter Beck:** Thanks Dom, appreciate it.