Boom CEO on pivoting to gas turbines after Rolls-Royce walked away
Y Combinator · youtube · 2026-11-07
Y Combinator's Social Radars podcast interviews Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl about one of startup history's cleverest business model pivots: after Rolls-Royce pulled out as Boom's engine supplier, Boom decided to build engines in-house.
Key points:
- In-house engines enabled "boomless" supersonic flight and unlocked a huge new gas turbine revenue stream to fund the airliner
- The AI power shortage creates a major opportunity for the turbine business; the talk also covers why America stopped building power
- Also covered: designing engine and airplane together, rethinking passenger experience, and why hard tech is so difficult to fund
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