How Blake Scholl Built The First Independent Supersonic Jet

Blake Scholl explains how a former Groupon PM with no aerospace background built the XB-1, the first independently developed supersonic jet, using a spreadsheet model and cold LinkedIn outreach.

• Concorde failed due to economics—$20,000 inflation-adjusted tickets, half-empty flights—not technology; Boom targets business-class pricing.
• Overture will carry ~65 passengers at Mach 1.7 on 100% sustainable fuel; target: passengers flying by 2029.
• Tokyo–Seattle in 4 hours, New York–London in 3h45m at roughly today’s business-class fares.
• Boom solved the overland Sonic boom problem, removing a key barrier that grounded past supersonic programs.
• The entire XB-1 prototype was built by a team of ~50 people on a modest budget by aerospace standards.
• Scholl had zero aerospace contacts on day one; he broke in via a Groupon colleague who played hockey with a SpaceX employee.
• His hiring strategy: ask every expert for their top-5 dream teammates, repeat recursively until reaching the best people on the planet.
• Experts cited qualitative objections (market too small, Sonic booms too loud) to what were actually quantitative questions—a solvable spreadsheet problem, not a physics barrier.

2025-02-14 · Watch on YouTube