Hello, everyone. My name is Ishay Levin and I follow the automotive, the software, and the space industries at Bessemer Venture Partners. Our next speaker is Gwynne Shotwell, the President and COO of SpaceX. SpaceX has been disrupting the space launch industry with its reusable rockets. In 2023 alone, the company launched close to 100 times, nearly matching all other launch providers combined. It is also deploying an internet from space offering called Starlink, now serving millions of users globally. As President and COO, Gwynne's role is to make the SpaceX vision a reality. Under her leadership, the company has grown significantly from a small startup to the leading space company. Please welcome Gwynne Shotwell.
All stations verify ready for launch. FTS, FTS is go. Prop, props are go. ABI, ABI is go. GNC, GNC is go. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Hi, Mr. Levin. How are you? I love you. Love you, too. Hey, everybody. I'm so glad it's not raining.
Me, too. Um so, welcome, Gwynne. This is your second time here.
And must feel really cool working for someone who's so low-key. You never see him anymore. So, here by the way, this is a private company, SpaceX. You can't just buy stock in the stock market. And yet, there's probably not a day that I don't read an article about SpaceX. It's unbelievable. So, it's because of you. And when we started investing, I was speaking with the CFO the other night of the launch business. It's two businesses, launch and Starlink satellites. And I was speaking with her the other night, and I was saying, you know, we were talking about growth, and she said, Ron, when you started to invest in 2017, we had linear growth. We now have exponential growth. The growth is really accelerating right now. And the things that we're doing are just remarkable. People clamor to try to own stock. So, you never read about this. It's in the first page of the New York Times saying that in order to own stock in SpaceX, you have to know someone. And if you know someone, then they'll do you a favor, then they rip you off with a really high fee. With us, you get to invest at the same price we invest in it without the high fees. At least we don't think they're high. So, anyway, thank you very much.
So, I'm asking you to share the call to join me, too. And I sent Gwynne topics that I wanted to talk about, and there are a couple topics that she said that she didn't think were that good to talk about, so I left them off.
Or my team said it wouldn't be useful for me to talk on the subject.
Yeah. And oh, by the way, one more thing. I read that you called him Starman, and so I started calling him Starman, too. And he was supposed to come this afternoon, but he's doing other stuff. He's tied up. He's pretty tied up. So, he couldn't. So, what I was interested in is, first of all, MechaZilla. Where'd you get a name like that? Is that Godzilla or MechaZilla?
I think it's like a mechanical Godzilla. I'm pretty sure Elon came up with the name, too. He is really quite brilliant in many things, but also in naming. So, can I talk about MechaZilla just for a second?
Yep. So, did you all see the capture of the Super Heavy Booster?
Yeah, that was extraordinary. My team said it wasn't going to work, so they were sandbaggers, obviously.
We got the next launch coming up hopefully on Tuesday. Knock on wood. We're going to try to catch it again. We did have some issues, obviously. You can understand this is a very complex system, and the things that we're trying to do are very difficult. We're going to try to repeat that success on Tuesday. So, fingers crossed, all the good things that go into that. But let me tell you just a little bit about Starship and how Starship is really going to change the world. And when I say the world, I don't just mean Earth. I mean Earth and the moon and Mars.
I don't want to interrupt, this one second. I really jumped ahead. I shouldn't have done that. But basically, the idea here is that the competitive advantage we have in SpaceX is that we launch rockets and we can use them again. No one else can do that. So, everyone else sends up a rocket one time, costs 100, 200 million dollars, and then it's gone. It burns up. And we use it, we take it up like an airplane, and then we bring it back down again, and then we use it over and over again. And this MechaZilla, what that is is that when we went out to visit the facility and we saw this structure, it catches a rocket when it lands with its arms. Catches it and holds it. And the reason for it is that then when it lands, it's not only we use it again, but all we do is refuel it and send it up again.
Anyway, I'm sorry. You don't need me, Ron.
You're so good at this. You know it. You probably know more than I do.
Yeah, but so, Starship is going to change the world both on planet Earth and off. And the difference between Starship and this other extraordinary product that we have called Falcon, Falcon 9, is both the first stage and the second stage of Starship is reusable. So, the big breakthrough, as Ron mentioned, was reusability. You know, Elon founded this company in 2002 with the singular purpose and sole vision to build the transportation systems necessary to put people on other planets. And his vision is currently on Mars, but we're all starting to look beyond Mars, as well. Um, if you think about current-day rockets, they're one use, both the first stage and the second stage. So, first stage gets dumped in the ocean. Second stage generally gets dumped on orbit, creating havoc for the satellites that everybody has on orbit. So, Starship will change everything. The cost of getting people and cargo to orbit will drop dramatically because we're not throwing out the rocket. Neither part. Falcon first stage comes back. Second stage we bring back, but it burns up. The fairing we return. But there are still parts that you basically spend 10 million dollars on a part of a rocket, and it's single use only. So, it's ridiculously expensive. In addition, Starship is so big that the concept of how we put things in space, how people travel in space is totally different. Starship has the ability, because the second stage is reusable, you go to orbit, you let the satellite go. If the satellite's not working, maybe you bring it back into the Starship bay, have technicians work on it. If it's still not working, bring it home. Work it, fix it on the ground, and then relaunch it, because launch should be that inexpensive when the only real cost of the launch is going to be the fuel. So, now back to MechaZilla. The thing that separates this Starship is both stages are reusable, as I mentioned, and MechaZilla is necessary because basically, it's there right before launch. First stage and second stage connected, fly to orbit. First stage comes back, suborbital. Second stage, Starship, goes on to orbit, does its job. First stage comes back, gets caught gently down on the launch mount, and then it can move over and pick up another second stage that's sitting there, another Starship, bring it up, put it on, refuel, and go. So, this is the vehicle and the system that will make flying rockets much more like flying airplanes. Think about what life would be like if aircraft were one-time use. You know, you could fly here from Austin, Texas, and then they toss the aircraft. Life would be very different.
So, what are the issues as far as using it over and over again? At one point we want to launch two or three a day when we're going to have this long-term mission to get to Mars? I mean, how hard is it to get permission to do that?
Permissions are a different thing. Technology is easy. Physics is easy. People are hard. And regulator people are the hardest.
And why are the regulators so hard and how are we going to deal with it?
Well, regulations, if you think about SpaceX and what we've done in this industry, a big year for a space company is 10 launches a year, maybe 12 launches a year. We flew 96 last year. We'll do something over 130 launches this year. The regulatory regime and the rules associated with that were built for that 10 launch a year per company, not 100 or 130 or 160. And so, if you launch 10 times a year, like let's say roughly, once a month, the regulatory system has time to license that launch. It's got at least a month before the next one. I launch Falcon every two or two and a half days. And the regs just weren't built to keep up with that.
So, how do you get that to change?
Well, regs take 5 years to change. So, we'll be working through waivers, they're called guidance papers, to try to operationalize the regulatory regime. You know, we never complain about regulation. It's not that there is regulation. It's that regulation in the US, maybe globally, maybe not China, but maybe everywhere else, regulation is slowing technology down. It's not helping, it's slowing. And all we ask is regulate industries, make them safe, make them right, make them fair. But you got to go faster, much faster.
Is anyone else trying to land rockets over and over again and use them over and over again?
China has had some success in that. And there are other organizations in the US that are also trying to land rockets. We're now doing more satellite business. Instead of just launching other people's satellites, we're making them ourselves. Yes, we make a lot of satellites, 50 or 60 satellites a week. We build. And I mean, grown up in this industry, by the way, I started my aerospace career in 1988. My two children say it was just after the ice age. And in that time frame, one satellite launch per year per company was a big deal and it would take 10 years to develop that satellite. We developed the Starlink system. We're on version, we call it version two, but it's probably like three and a half. We started the program in 2015, we launched in 2019. And we're on version three, roughly three and a half, call it version two now. And we build 60 satellites a week.
And we're doing this also for Starshield?
Starshield is a very interesting area. Starshield, let me explain what that is. So, Starlink is the commercial product that we have. Who has Starlink?
Wow, you guys need to buy Starlink. It's the best internet available. How could you not own Starlink? I have seven of them. I have one on my car, in fact, because I live in Central Texas and I used to drop calls when I was chatting with Elon or in meetings with Elon and I knew that was a loser. So, I got a mini and put it on ski racks on my Model S Tesla. So, I don't drop calls with Elon anymore. It's way better. It's way better.
So, Starshield? So, Starshield is basically a derivative of the commercial product Starlink for government use, government applications.
So, you once told me that one of the only things that's preventing my grandchildren from speaking Mandarin is SpaceX.
Oh, no, that was very bold of me.
Probably true. But the idea about Starshield, that protects our nation?
It does some mission areas. It is certainly not the entire suite of things that are important for national security. But it's a very important element of it. It's very important.
And the other satellites that we're building for mass use are what?
So, we have the Starlink system, which is broadband, available globally where the beams will go down anyplace on the globe, but we still have licenses to get. I think we're in 114 countries and markets with about 100 or 120 to go. So, that is broadband. In your car, on your RV, in your home, camping, that's Starlink. Starshield is a derivative of that, again, for government use with slightly different concepts employed. And then we also have started launching what we call our direct to cell business. Some people call it direct to device, where your cell phone is communicating with low earth orbiting satellites. And right now we'll be rolling that out very quickly, probably within the next month or so. And initially it will be very light data and messaging, text messaging. And as we continue to evolve the product and the satellite system, it will do more.
Gwynne, can you talk about, you mentioned kind of a good space company before was able to do 10 launches, we do 100 or more. One satellite a year, we do a lot more than that, thousands. Why? How do we get there? Can anyone really catch up? And how?
Well, I hope others can catch up, right? Competition is good for industries. You guys should want competition. It keeps us tight, it keeps us very focused. But actually on launch and both satellite production and deployment, we are ahead. It will be hard to catch us on launch because launch, I actually think launch is harder than satellites. And that is not to diss my Starlink team by any stretch. But launches are hard, this is million pounds of explosion that you have to keep controlled and directed in the right way so that the rocket goes up. It's going to be hard to catch us, but I certainly hope people try.
But the crux is reusability or is it the learning algorithm or like?
Yeah. So, there's a couple of elements of magic to SpaceX. First of all, Elon started it at exactly the right timing. Timing was very important in our success, for sure. Elon is magic sauce for this company as well. He's not only kind of technology driven, but he's run companies, very successful companies, and he focuses on the technology in concert with the business itself. So, we've made technology decisions that ended up being very good for business. It wasn't like the business people on this side and the tech folks on this side. We've been a very integrated team since the beginning. And frankly, I have 15,000 of the finest employees on planet Earth.
They're amazing.
And then you mentioned that we with Starship potentially will get to a cost of a flight with just fuel. Largely just fuel. So, I think if I go back, I think in the shuttle the cost per kilo to lower orbit was around $50,000. We reduce it by 90% with Falcon 9, potentially reduce it by another 90%. Well, what does it mean for all of us if we can really get cost so much lower with space launch?
Well, what we're hoping to do with the work that we're doing is to allow ordinary people to go to space. I would love, I want to go to the moon. I think Elon wants to retire on Mars. I'm not interested in Mars. I don't like camping and I think it will be a really long time till Mars is nice enough, probably not in my lifetime. But hopefully we're also setting the, so we want people to fly to other planets, to go to the moon, to go to Mars, and hopefully, maybe certainly not this century, maybe hopefully next century, our great-grandchildren could fly to other planets beyond our solar system and find sentient life somewhere else. That to me is the coolest part of what we're doing.
Can you imagine going and meeting other people? Whatever, whatever, whatever. Yeah. Sentient beings. So, how many planets do you think there are that are the size of Earth that are the same distance from the sun that have nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen?
So, I just read last week actually that I think 20% of star systems have planets in what they call the habitable zone. So, it's billions of potential, more than billions. Because I think there's a billion trillion star systems. And roughly 20% of those would have planets. I'm not saying that they all have life. Certainly not evolved to where we are. Some might have evolved further than us. So, 14 billion years ago, the Big Bang, 13 and a half billion years ago the first light. And then Earth is 4 billion years old.
Yes. And humanity here has only been 20, 30, 40,000 years?
I think slightly older than that. There's actually quite a bit of disagreement in that, but roughly. Yeah.
But you have to match... By the way, I do believe that there are other sentient beings. I certainly hope it's not just us. That feels both egotistical and frightening at the same time. So, I do believe that there is other life. I don't think they've gotten here yet.
So, if you go argue about that over a glass of wine. Museum of Natural History...
I think I know one. So, the Museum of Natural History, when you go there in the dinosaur room in front of it, there is five boxes or six boxes that are glass and you look into them and it says that each one of these represents an extinction event on planet Earth of all life for six different times. Which is what Elon is talking about, how he wants to have another place to live if this happens or to figure out what we can do with our spaceships to prevent that from happening again. So, you obviously think that this is potentially to happen again.
I think it's inevitable. I think it's the cycle of planets. And luckily, those cycles are in millions of years. Even, well, yeah, tens of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years. So, I probably am not going to catch it on mine. But hopefully, progeny, well, not hopefully, I will have children, grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. But you know, at some point it is likely to happen. Just define the period of time of likelihood. And so, I think it's really important for humans to proliferate and to go to Mars and then go to Proxima and then wherever the next nearest star system is with a habitable planet.
So, the competitive advantage, why other people can't easily do what we do, is that we can use the rockets over and over again and they keep getting better and better and better. And I look at rockets and it's like a tube. It's like a tube to me. What's so complicated about it? And by the way, you talked to us about how Starship is so big. How big? How big is it? It's the biggest rocket ever?
Yes. It's very big. 30 stories.
It's a technical term. It's gigantic.
So, it looks like, have you gone for a launch? Yeah, you've been, right? It looks like a high-rise New York office building lifting off the ground. It's gigantic. It's like 30 or 40 stories tall. Yes. So, take a 30 or 40-story building in New York and put rockets on it and expect it to fly.
Remembering that rocket engines are just controlling a giant explosion in the chamber and directing the exhaust this way so that the rocket goes this way.
So, you're an engineer, too. I mean, Elon, I'm told about these skip meetings he has and every now and then you tell me, 'Well, he comes here and he gets a bunch of people in the room and then he says we should do this.' And people just look at themselves and they say, 'Well, how can we do that?' And then he leaves and you say, 'Well, if he says you can do it, you can do it.' And you figure out how to do it. So, he has these skip meetings. They call them skip meetings.
So, tell what those are. And he just goes into a meeting...
So, I actually think skip level meetings are a really important management technique for any company. What you want to do is make sure your direct reports are not withholding information or preventing bad news from rising. And it's natural tendency, right? It's not like these employees are bad. It's just that I feel like my job is to solve problems that people that work for me were not able to solve themselves. It's fine. They can't all solve all the problems. So, they come to me and then if I can't solve a problem, I'll send it to Elon and I try not to do that. And you don't like sharing bad news, but the earlier you share bad news, the better because then you have more time to solve the problem, right? And so, skip levels are important because sometimes people are a little more candid or a little more worried about that thing even if their manager thinks we're going to get it and they're going to solve the problem. It's just nice to know as early as possible. So, skip levels are very important. The other reason, by the way, not only to seek information and truth and real risk to a project timeline or technology, I think it's really important to meet the folks that work for you. If you think about 15,000 people, I couldn't meet 15,000 people every year. So, there are lots of people that I've never seen, never said hi to. And this is a really valuable opportunity to meet people. And skip levels don't just have to be one level. In fact, I love to meet with our technicians that are building our rockets and spaceships. Bring them into a room and chat with them in groups just to make sure things are going well because the further you get away from the visionary and the pulse of the company, I think the easier it is to kind of move off track. It's kind of human nature. And so, I think it's really important to tighten that up and make sure everybody understands what we're doing, why we're doing it. And it keeps people quite focused.
So, one of your directors is a friend of Elon's from college. And he's on the board of SpaceX and Tesla. And he was telling me he goes to these meetings and 15 people would come to a meeting where the supervisor is not invited, but the people who do the work in all these different areas, one person who does software and hardware and chips and whatever. And each one would have a separate discipline. And Elon would start off calling one of these 15 people, calling on them and saying, 'So, what do you do?' In a broad question initially. And then he keeps drilling down, drilling down, drilling down until he gets to this point where the person can't answer the question. He says, 'I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that.' And it was clear to everyone that Elon knows more about the discipline than the person who's performing the tasks. Is that accurate?
In many areas, he is extraordinary, by the way. I love working for Elon. I love working for Elon. I don't have to work. Like I don't have to work. And I love working for Elon.
And the problems that you face are problems like what? What goes wrong? What doesn't work right? I mean, everything?
Everything goes wrong. I refer to myself continuously as the president of parking and parties because those are things that matter deeply to people. And sometimes things go wrong with parties and I get an email or a text, 'Hey.' And then I'll find the right facility person. That hasn't happened very recently, but within a couple of years that's happened. And parking is meaningful to people. We operate in highly dense areas and people don't want to have to walk a mile to get to the building. They want to park and be efficient and get to the job. So, it could be something as simple and mundane as that. It could also be we're going to be incredibly late for a customer's launch and their business really needs to fly that satellite and we got to do it by the end of the year because of their stock or by the end of the quarter. And so, those are big things and you try to work with the team and do the right thing, the thing that's most fair and right for the employees, the customers, and all the customers.
So, if we have now 7,000 satellites...
We've launched over 7,000 satellites. They're just under 7,000, I think, on station operating.
