Boom Supersonic’s founder and CEO, Blake Scholl, joined How I Invest host David Weisburd of Weisburd Capital to share the journey of building the world’s fastest airliner, Overture. From the early days of Boom’s first Demo Day with Y Combinator to the historic first supersonic flight of Boom’s XB-1 demonstrator aircraft in January 2025, the conversation covers important lessons for founders learned on the company’s path to bringing back supersonic travel for everyone.
Key Highlights:
- High-Agency Entrepreneurship: From crashing a Virgin Galactic event to pitching Richard Branson over breakfast, Scholl demonstrated how bold actions can lead to breakthrough opportunities.
- XB-1 Prototype: The first civil supersonic jet developed outside of a nation-state, proving that supersonic flight can be achieved without an audible sonic boom.
- Market Expansion Potential: Why supersonic flights could unlock new markets larger and more profitable than subsonic travel.
- Raising Capital Directly from LPs: How Boom bypassed traditional venture capital to secure funding from bold investors like Reid Hoffman and Michael Moritz.
- Lessons for Founders: Advice on de-risking hard-tech ventures and focusing on pragmatic milestones to build audacious products step by step.
About Blake
Prior to founding Boom in 2014, Blake held leadership roles at Amazon and Groupon and co-founded mobile technology startup Kima Labs. He started his career at Amazon as a software engineer in 2001, where he developed software for personalized and automated merchandising and later owned a $300M P&L at age 24.
Blake is passionate about tackling big problems which the world has overlooked. After seeing Concorde in a museum, he dreamed of the return of commercial supersonic flight. A few years later, Blake dove into aerospace engineering—reading textbooks and taking classes—to figure out from first principles how to enable a supersonic renaissance. As a leader, Blake focuses on inspiring the best people from a range of disciplines to unite in pursuit of Boom’s vision.
