The Founder of Rocket Lab on Competing with Billionaires to Lead in Space

In November 2025 Rocket Lab launched its 75th Electron rocket into space. At face value it seemed like a standard mission, deploying yet another satellite to low earth orbit. But the milestone was hugely significant: We hit it faster than any other space company in history. The space industry is a critical and fast-expanding one. Space touches almost everyone’s life every day, yet few people realize how much they rely on it. Every time you check a weather app, use Google Maps, take a flight, or even simply pay for something with a credit card, you’re relying on satellite technology. Someone has to design, build, launch, and operate those satellites, and that’s where Rocket Lab comes in. In 2025 alone we launched a record 21 rockets, opened our fourth launchpad, and built two satellites that are now on their way to Mars for NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission. We also launched hypersonic test missions at an unprecedented pace in support of U.S. national defense, and we are building satellite constellations that will deliver critical communications, defense, and scientific services to millions of people. A publicly traded company since 2021, we employ more than 2,500 people across three countries and our annual revenue is approaching $600 million. The space economy is expected to be worth almost $2 trillion in the next decade, and of all the companies vying to capture a piece of it, Rocket Lab is far from the largest or best funded. It’s no secret that the rocket business is an unforgiving one—most ventures fail. So how did we take on billionaires and legacy aerospace firms to become one of the most prolific launch and space companies in the world? It started when I was a kid, looking up at the night sky. Childhood Dreams Growing up in the lower region of the South Island of New Zealand, my parents always told me that I could be whatever I wanted in life—a cleaner, a carpenter, a rocket engineer—as long as I did my job extremely well and with the greatest possible positive impact. Gazing at the stars from the observatory my father built, space became an early obsession for me. And I found that I much preferred tinkering on engines in our family’s workshop to formal schooling. After high school I figured I’d need to know how to build things in order to work in the space industry, so I did a tool-and-die apprenticeship at appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel. I went on to project manage superyacht production at Fitzroy Yachts before landing a role as a materials researcher at a government lab, Industrial Research Limited (IRL). All the while I spent my evenings and weekends experimenting with rocket engines and propellants in my garage. My dream was to work in the space industry, but I was stuck: New Zealand simply didn’t have one, not even a government space agency. In 2006 I set off on what I call my “rocket pilgrimage” to the United States, hoping to work for NASA or a company doing groundbreaking things in space. As it turned out, NASA doesn’t hire any foreign nationals, let alone one without a college degree. That didn’t stop me from showing up at the organization’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, uninvited, and taking photos of anything I could. (I was ushered off the premises.) I visited several holy-grail space facilities—as many as would let me in—but ultimately I was disappointed. No one was tackling what I saw as the biggest challenge and opportunity in space at the time: dedicated small launch. Satellites were shrinking thanks to advances in electronics, but rockets hadn’t kept pace with that streamlining. Small-satellite operators faced two bad options: Hitch a ride on a large rocket, where they could share the cost with a bunch of other customers but sacrifice control over launch timing and orbit, or buy out an entire rocket for exclusive use at a cost upward of $60 million—unaffordable for most. It was clear to me that the industry needed a smaller, cost-effective rocket designed specifically for small satellites. Recognizing that no one was doing this well, as I flew back to New Zealand I decided to simply start my own private rocket company. That was the beginning of Rocket Lab’s hustle culture: If you can’t do it one way, find a different solution and get on with it. I invited a colleague from IRL, engineer Shaun O’Donnell, to join me, and in 2006 we set up shop using my personal savings. Over the next year I worked on small-rocket designs while Shaun focused on guidance and control systems. By November 2009 we had built and successfully tested our first small rocket, the 20-foot-tall Atea-1, in New Zealand’s inaugural space launch. Fueling Growth Atea’s success brought attention from the U.S. defense industry, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and companies like Lockheed Martin. It quickly became clear that our customers, investment, talent, and future were in the United States, so we became a U.S. company in 2013. We also secured $5 million in funding from Silicon Valley firm Khosla Ventures, and in time other top venture-capital firms followed. Atea-1 was an effective proof of concept that furthered our progression to the real goal, Electron. Standing about 55 feet high, Electron was designed to launch up to 300 kilograms of satellite mass into orbit and to be manufactured at high volumes, enabling frequent launch opportunities for small satellites. It was the world’s first carbon-composite orbital rocket and was powered by the first-ever 3D-printed, battery-powered orbital rocket engine, which we called Rutherford after physicist Ernest Rutherford, who split the atom. At the same time, we built the world’s first private orbital-launch complex, on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula—a departure from the government-owned sites used by other launch providers. Importantly, by operating our own sites we can control schedules and costs and streamline operations, and we don’t have to jostle for launch windows with competitors at neighboring pads. We finished construction of Launch Complex 1 in the fall of 2016. By May the following year we completed Electron’s maiden launch, initiating a new era in access to space. In the years since, Electron has become the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket annually, behind only SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Our launches have deployed hurricane-monitoring satellites for NASA, national-security missions for the National Reconnaissance Office, technology demonstrations for DARPA and the U.S. Space Force, entire constellations for Earth observation and communications companies, and even experiments for high school students. To keep up with demand, we built more launchpads, including an additional one in Māhia and one in the U.S. at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, in Virginia, specifically tailored for U.S. government missions. But launch was only the start. Our next move was to expand beyond rockets into satellites and their components and subsystems. Launches get all the glory since they’re visually spectacular, but at the end of the day rockets are just delivery vehicles, albeit highly complex and beautiful ones. The satellites do the actual work in space to deliver data and services back to Earth, and they provide the larger revenue-generating opportunity. We built that part of our business through organic product development and acquisitions. In 2019 we bought Sinclair Interplanetary, the world’s top producer of star trackers (optical sensors that help satellites maintain their orientation and location) and reaction wheels (inertia devices that enable satellites to reposition themselves in orbit). Since then we’ve carried out five more acquisitions—Advanced Solutions (simulation, guidance, and navigation), Planetary Systems (satellite separation), SolAero Technologies (solar panels), Mynaric (optical communication), and Geost (electro-optical and infrared-sensor payloads)—bringing more technology and talent into the Rocket Lab fold. We’ve scaled production capacity for all these components, making them more easily available to the wider space industry as well as using them in our own satellites developed in-house. Today we operate extensive satellite-production facilities, building everything from entire constellations for national-security customers to bespoke spacecraft for NASA, supporting scientific missions to Mars. As of 2025 our Space Systems division accounted for around 70% of our revenue. Rocket Lab: From Dream to Liftoff Courtesy of Rocket Lab Beck’s “rocket pilgrimage” to the U.S. in 2006 Courtesy of Rocket Lab Beck watching the launch of Rocket Lab’s first Electron mission Courtesy of Rocket Lab Electron rockets being built at the Auckland, New Zealand, production complex Courtesy of Rocket Lab A Rocket Lab technician working inside the tank of an Electron rocket Courtesy of Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, located at the southern tip of Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand Courtesy of Rocket Lab Various Rocket Lab mission patches Courtesy of Rocket Lab Various Rocket Lab mission patches In August 2021 we took the company public on the Nasdaq via a special purpose acquisition company. The deal valued Rocket Lab at $4.8 billion and raised $777 million in gross capital. This funding fueled a lot of development, with around $300 million of it earmarked for a major new program: the development of the Neutron rocket. Capable of lifting 13,000 kilograms of payload mass to orbit, versus Electron’s 300 kilograms, this new launch vehicle will unlock an entirely unprecedented market of constellation deployment, national-security missions, and deep-space exploration. Neutron is poised for its debut launch this year. In getting to this point, four principles stand out. Fierce Efficiency From the beginning, and even through our venture-capital-funding rounds and public listing, our competitors have typically had far more resources at their disposal than we have. But I’ve always seen that scarcity as a blessing rather than a curse, because it has made Rocket Lab a tougher, more innovative, and more resilient organization. Indeed, early on the overcapitalized small-launch startups were seen as the front-runners, but many ultimately had dismal results. Virgin Orbit, for example, was the expected winner, thanks to its strong brand and founder Richard Branson’s $1.2 billion investment. But its rocket was too expensive and didn’t work; the company eventually went bankrupt. Electron, by comparison, was developed for less than $100 million, with a team of about 150 people. Scarcity keeps us both frugal and resourceful. Every hour and expense is scrutinized, with orders of more than $30,000 coming directly to me for approval. Our status as a public company, in contrast to that of our privately held competitors, also enforces financial discipline. Being self-sufficient is our specialty. If we can’t get a valve because there’s a long waiting list, we don’t throw our arms up and accept the delay. We 3D-print our own valve. Likewise, our composite team built its own industrial ovens for curing materials. And once, in our early years, when a fitting necessary for an engine test went missing, possibly thrown away by accident, I jumped into a dumpster full of garbage to try to find it so that we could complete the test. We have achieved what we have with a team that, by industry standards, is mind-blowingly small. I don’t believe in throwing more heads at a problem. I believe in throwing the right heads at a problem. Rocket Lab people are unshakably devoted to the work. It’s common for team members to put in relentless early starts, late nights, and plenty of weekends. But we’re very transparent about having superhigh expectations, and hustle seems to attract hustle. If you’re a great engineer but don’t want to work weekends, our advice is to join another company. If, on the other hand, you’re talented and hardworking, there are no limits to what you can do at Rocket Lab. For example, a guy who started out mowing the lawns at our first launch site is now one of our lead launch technicians. He had the attitude and commitment, we gave him the training, and now he’s taking on world-leading tasks. Show, Don’t Tell It’s easy to promise the world on a PowerPoint. It’s a lot more challenging to show up to an investor or customer meeting with hardware that works—but that’s the approach we’ve taken since the very beginning in order to prove that we are the real deal and to build instant trust and credibility. The ability to execute on a promise is often lacking in the space industry. When we announced the Rutherford engine at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, we arrived with a complete machine, not drawings. We only announced the first Rocket Lab–built satellite, Photon, after it was already successfully operating in space. We won our customers’ business by inviting them to our factory and showing them that, unlike competitors who had lots of rocket-making machines but no rockets, our rockets were already made. When our clients trusted us with their payloads, we put their cargo into orbit reliably, launch after launch, while our rivals failed to make it past initial test flights. Thanks to this track record we’ve been awarded NASA missions to the moon and Mars, selected as a prime contractor for the Space Development Agency to build a $515 million national-security constellation, and entrusted by the Department of Defense to conduct frequent hypersonic test launches on a modified Electron. We’ve continued to satisfy repeat customers and gain new ones, as well as raise capital, because we keep doing exactly what we say we will—with excellence—time after time. Smart Speed As many leading technology companies do, we embrace the mantra “Fail fast.” On any project we first identify the most challenging element and figure out whether we can accomplish it, before we do anything else. For example, when we built the Rutherford engine, we started printing parts even before the design was refined, in order to make sure the process would work. And when we experimented with carbon-fiber composites, we first built small, unoptimized vessels to see if they could carry cryogen propellant. We recognize that we work in a high-stakes industry requiring robust risk management, but with the right protocols our pace doesn’t need to slow. Consider this scenario: A team member assembling a rocket on the shop floor notes that a part is registering as nonconforming. This is flagged in our corporate cloud, alerting an engineer who can walk over within 30 seconds to investigate. That person can then consult with the component’s designer, who sits upstairs. If they agree to trigger a risk register or readiness review (in addition to the formal, scheduled ones), other colleagues are pulled in. Within minutes the risk is either accepted or rejected. At other organizations that same process might take weeks. Adhering to smart speed takes maintenance. As organizations grow, they invariably become more bureaucratic, so I spend a fair amount of time making sure we don’t. That includes sticking to several rules about meetings—the most important being that they’re for decisions, not discussions, and anyone not adding value has permission to leave immediately. At Rocket Lab we want to stay squarely focused on the work: experimenting, innovating, evolving, and overcoming any unexpected challenges. Vertical Integration The commercial space industry started with specialization: Companies typically built one component, or they focused on launch, flight software, or some other element. Meanwhile, governments typically still controlled launch sites. See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals Our strategy has been to disrupt that paradigm by building and acquiring all the capabilities needed to design, build, launch, and operate spacecraft. Our customers can buy a single solar panel from us or an entire end-to-end space mission. In time this vertical integration will also give us the keys to operate our own space constellations. This approach gives us control over production speed, cost, and quality—we’re never beholden to someone else. The U.S. government has made no secret of its desire for efficiency and value for money, which is what we deliver. A great example is the twin spacecraft we designed and built for NASA’s EscaPADE mission, which will enable scientists to understand more about how the sun stripped away Mars’s atmosphere. The entire mission is being done for around $80 million, well below the billion-dollar cost of a typical Mars mission. As far as the space industry has advanced since my rocket pilgrimage in 2006, we’re still only scratching the surface of what’s possible. The big legacy defense primes and billionaires will undoubtedly play their part. But I look forward to applying Rocket Lab’s battle-tested principles and having an outsize impact on the way humanity uses and benefits from space for generations to come.

The Founder of Rocket Lab on Competing with Billionaires to Lead in Space

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