He built a $12 billion rocket company without a college degree—but has no desire to go to space: It wouldn’t ‘be very enjoyable’
“Some people have this burning desire to go into space. I just have a burning desire to create things to enable others to go to space,” says Beck, 47.
The native New Zealander launched Rocket Lab in 2006 with no college degree or space industry connections. His Long Beach, California-based company now has a market value of $11.9 billion, as of Wednesday afternoon, with dozens of successful rocket launches — making it one of the world’s fastest-growing aerospace companies.
Beck has a net worth of $1.3 billion, Forbes estimated in November. Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, two other billionaires with aerospace companies, have made the trek to outer space. But Beck insists he’s not interested, citing one of the very traits that helped him successfully build his company: “a healthy degree of paranoia.”
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The Rocket Lab CEO says he’s extremely hands-on while planning and preparing Rocket Lab’s missions, and his obsession with the granular details would prove too distracting for him to relax and enjoy the space travel. He has “so much respect” for astronauts, particularly those with engineering backgrounds, who understand the danger of space travel and do it anyway, he says.
I would just be thinking of all the safety factors on the valves and the structures that are beneath me,” says Beck. “So I don’t think it would be very enjoyable at all ... There’s a rare group of people that can do that, and I’m not one of them, unfortunately.”
Never say never’
Beck isn’t completely risk-averse. He’s fairly comfortable taking big risks, provided the stakes aren’t potentially life-threatening, he says.
Founding Rocket Lab at all was a risky longshot, considering Beck’s lack of experience. Years later, when the company launched its first Electron rocket, “we were [only], like, 92% sure that it was going to be fine and work,” says Beck. That attempt failed to reach orbit due to an equipment glitch, but fixing it paved the way for future successful launches.
You have to take risks,” he says. “If you take no risk, there’s no reward ... [and] you end up as a traditional, dinosaur kind of player if you want to remove every last percentage of risk.”
Beck’s advice for anyone in the workplace: Identify the risks you feel are worth taking, and then do as much as you can to mitigate their potential consequences before taking the leap. That means doing a lot of research and preparing for every potential outcome — good, bad or in between — before choosing to take action, he says.
Broadly speaking, Branson shares a similar outlook on risk-taking. While the billionaire has a well-known penchant for thrill-seeking — leaping 400-feet off a casino, crossing oceans in a hot-air balloon — he’s adamant that the key to his success is the calculation behind those risks.
“I’ve always believed in protecting the downside, thinking through what could go wrong and how to limit the damage,” Branson told Forbes last month. “That’s the smart way to approach risk. At the same time, trusting your instinct is key. If something feels right, even when the odds are tough, I’m a believer in going for it.”
But Beck maintains a more analyticalstance when it comes to stepping foot on a rocket and propelling himself into outer space. “Never say never,” he says. “Look, I would do it if I had to. If my life depended on it ... [But] if you do it for enjoyment, that seems counterproductive.”
This story has been updated to clarify that Rocket Lab is one of the world’s fastest-growing aerospace companies.
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