All-In PodcastBlake Scholl: Why Plane Speed Stalled, Supersonic Commercial Flight, & Revolutionizing the Engine
All-In Podcast
A Founder Takes On Boeing 0:00
Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, opens by noting that Boeing has not built a new airplane in twenty years, and jokes that this is a David and Goliath story except Goliath is asleep. His company's aircraft is built by roughly fifty people and has 130 orders from major airlines, flying at Mach 1.7. Scholl frames the mission as bringing back supersonic passenger travel and making the planet more accessible.
Concorde Ban And A Cardboard Mockup 1:00
Scholl points out that in 1969 humanity landed on the moon and flew an airliner through the sound barrier, yet more than fifty years later commercial supersonic flight is banned in the United States, a political legacy of Concorde. Twelve years ago he was a software engineer at Amazon and Groupon, and in 2015 he pitched Jeff Bezos on Boom's seed round. Bezos passed and later wrote in Amazon's shareholder letter that no entrepreneur could build an all composite airliner in a garage startup. Boom's early pitch deck featured a supersonic mockup made from cardboard, plywood, and Office Depot seats. Last year Boom became the first private company to build a supersonic jet, flying it with the first supersonic Starlink installation so people worldwide could watch footage filmed on an iPhone.
Breaking The Boom And The Ban 4:31
In 2025 Boom's XB1 became the first privately developed jet to break the sound barrier, using a technique called boomless cruise, which relies on the atmosphere's natural refraction to bend the sonic boom upward before it reaches the ground. After the flight, the president agreed that if there is no sonic boom there should be no ban, and the 1973 ban ended on June 6 of last year. The Supersonic Legalization Act then passed the House and Senate Congress unanimously.
Building Its Own Engine 6:01
Outsourcing engine development to Rolls-Royce failed publicly, and people declared Boom doomed, so the company decided to build its own engine from scratch, including its own turbine blades, using advanced digital design and manufacturing tools. The first vertically integrated engine core is being assembled now and will reach a test stand next month. Scholl argues that engineering and manufacturing must work together to reindustrialize America with next generation technology rather than just restoring what was lost to China.
Data Centers And A New Factory 8:00
By removing the fan and adding a generator, the supersonic engine core, built to run hot without needing water, can produce 42 megawatts of behind the meter power for data centers from a couple of trailers. Boom is building what it calls the world's most advanced jet turbine factory, making parts from raw materials through assembly and testing in house, aiming to scale to multiple gigawatts a year and add more than ten gigawatts to the grid over five years. Demand has been overwhelming, with tens of gigawatts of interest already in Scholl's inbox.
Timeline, Price, And Flight Experience 10:32
Scholl gives concrete numbers: a round trip across the Atlantic at Mach 1.7 would take three hours with a break even fare around 3,500 dollars round trip. The company's goal is four years to launch, though Scholl says being fast matters more than being predictable, putting a realistic target around 2030. Boomless cruise works up to about Mach 1.3, fast enough for a 9am New York departure to land in San Francisco around 9:30am local time, while over water the aircraft can fly full speed since no one is present to hear the boom.
A Vision For Every Passenger 15:02
Scholl shares a story about his young daughter being upset that a model rocket did not land back on the pad, having only ever seen rocket landing videos, and draws a parallel for supersonic flight: success means speeding up travel for every passenger, from a supersonic Air Force One to supersonic private jets to supersonic commercial flights available to every class of traveler. He says this will take many generations of airplanes but Boom is not giving up. He also notes the current administration has moved quickly, with the airplane model reaching the Oval Office days after breaking the sound barrier, though the executive order still took 115 days to sign.
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