The S&P 500 was off 17 and the Nasdaq fell 61. Joining us now, Amazon founder and executive chairman, and importantly here on the factory floor for Blue Origin, the founder, Jeff Bezos. Thanks for having us.
Great to be here. Thank you.
Bret: You've been talking about the moon for a long time. You've been a moon guy. A lot of people talking about going to Mars. Now the country is putting pretty much all its chips on going to the moon in the near term. Does that make you vindicated in some way?
Well, I'm really glad to see the country put their energy behind the moon. Look, it's not good to skip steps. In general, you don't want to skip steps. We'll go to Mars and do other things. We need to go to the moon first.
It's a gift. You get there in three days and you don't have to wait for special launch windows, and it has all of these resources we can utilize. It takes 28 times less energy to lift something off of the moon because of its lower gravity than to lift something off of the Earth. So the resources we're working on, for example, building solar cells out of the dirt on the moon. It's 20% silicon. Very easy to do this. We can make solar cells on the moon, liquid oxygen, which is rocket propellant. We can find water on the moon. All sorts of things. And it's a natural body. When we explore it, there's positive surprises. We're going to the moon. Glad everybody is coming.
Bret: For the conspiracy theorists, we've been there before.
We have been there in 1969. Why is it so hard for us to do if we did it in 1969? What you have to know is we spent 3% of GDP when we did it in 1969. Almost 3% of GDP. So it was very expensive. Today we're going to do it at a lower cost and going to the moon to stay. It won't just be a mission and leave. It will be a real sustainable lunar base. That's how we'll explore the moon and find interesting things.
Bret: Your heavy lift orbital rocket, New Glenn — which is being built around you here. When does it fly again?
Bret: Probably December 31. But December of this year we're going to fly that vehicle again. Nobody believed we would after the anomaly that we had. But the team here has rallied and done a great job of repairing the launch pad. I'm proud of that team.
Bret: We'll talk about that and what happened back in May. What flies on it first?
Well, the first thing that will fly on it is a vehicle called Blue Ring. Blue Ring is a vehicle that is manufactured for moving payloads, interesting payloads, multiple payloads into different orbits all around Earth and even to lunar vicinity. It can take things to Mars. So it's a very versatile transportation vehicle for in-space transportation. That's the first thing we'll fly.
Bret: You're asking the FAA to go from 12 to 50 launches a year from one pad.
One a week. We're building three more pads. So we're building — have a total of four pads that are under construction right now. Our goal is to fly every day, and once we're flying every day, we want to fly every hour, and once we're flying every hour, we want to fly every minute. That's where I lose the team. They think I'm crazy to fly every minute. I've seen crazy things before come true. So at Amazon one time, I told people we would one day have 100 million Prime members. I thought the leadership team thought I was nuts. Today we have several hundred million Amazon Prime members. Things can happen. Space travel will be much more routine than it has to date.
Bret: You have any issues from the Space Coast neighbors? The homeowners' associations?
Cape Canaveral is a national treasure. It's designed for big launches. We have to use it more efficiently. It's a good point.
Bret: So for 25 years, Blue Origin was your money solely. How much did you put in?
I personally invested $28 billion in Blue Origin.
28 billion. We just raised $10 billion from outside parties for the first time.
Bret: Oversubscribed. Why let other people in now?
We may take in more than $10 billion. Why take outside investors now? One of the primary reasons is that I see the financial future of Blue with clarity now. I didn't want to take outside investors until I was sure it would be a good investment for them.
Bret: Does this put Blue Origin on the road to an IPO?
Yes. Someday Blue Origin will have an IPO. When? I don't know. It would be several years from now. Probably makes sense for Blue Origin to be a public company at some point.
Bret: There's a lot of competition. We hear about China and its ambitions when it comes to the moon. Do we beat China to the moon in your estimation?
We have to beat China to the moon. I believe we will beat China to the moon. It's a very important thing to do. NASA is very focused on it. And we have a bunch of very smart, hard-working people here at Blue Origin working on the goal of landing humans on the moon. Before that, landing cargo on the moon. We have to land cargo routinely on the moon to support a lunar base on the moon. So a lot of work to be done. There's every reason to believe that we can put humans on the moon in 2028.
Bret: All right. You wear a lot of hats. You're the co-founder of Promethean.
Bret: Explain Promethean to a guy in Ohio. You call it an artificial engineer. What does it do on a Monday morning?
Okay. Promethean, think of it as AI for atoms. The AI you're accustomed to using, ChatGPT and Claude, it's digital AI. It's talking to you, using it on your phone. It can't help you manufacture items. If you had an idea and you wanted to build this thing, you'd have to design that. Very difficult. You might use CAD software, CAM software. These tools are very difficult to use. So the dream — this is a dream that existed for decades — to have an artificial engineer that could actually help an engineer design it. So it's a sophisticated tool using modern AI techniques to help human engineers develop new products much faster. You know, Bret, I think one thing to really think about is that all civilization wealth — draw the box very big — it all comes from invention. 6,000 years ago, somebody invented the plough. And then the steam engine. We all got wealthier. That cycle has continued. What we want to do is speed that up. Speed up the rate of invention. So use AI to make physical things. We're going to make the tools so easy to use that anyone will be able to be an engineer.
Bret: You raised $12 billion for this company at a $41 billion valuation. What is the first product?
The first product is a set of tools to make it really easy for anybody — let me put it this way. Probably everybody watching this show right now, at some point in your life, you've had an idea for a product or service. You woke up and had an idea. It never left your head. You never built it. The reason you didn't build it is because it's too hard. It's too much work. So it has to be a giant idea and you have to hire people and form a company. What we want to do is make the distance between idea and actual manufacturing so much shorter. So much simpler. When that idea is in your head, you can build it very easily. That's what the tools we're working on. That's what they will accomplish.
It will drive huge productivity in the economy.
Bret: What number do you put on it?
