Tyler Cowen interviews Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic in Colorado, the company leading civilian supersonic transport development. Scholl previously worked at Amazon and Groupon, bringing insights from tech industry speed and decision-making to aerospace innovation.

The conversation explores Scholl's vision for revolutionizing not just supersonic flight, but entire transportation systems including airports, security, and manufacturing. Key topics include the regulatory barriers that prevented supersonic development for decades, the inefficiencies of current airport and airline operations, and how government-led innovation often produces impressive tech demos rather than viable commercial products.

Scholl discusses how Atlas Shrugged anticipated the importance of capitalist motivation for supersonic innovation, contrasting Ayn Rand's 1957 insights with the failed government-led Concorde program. The interview covers Boom's progress, including breaking the sound barrier in early 2024 and the recent repeal of the US supersonic ban.

Revolutionary Airport Design: Underground Terminals and Airside Efficiency

Scholl envisions airports with underground terminals and above-ground airside, using escalator jetways and crossbar switch design to eliminate tugs and reduce infrastructure complexity

Current airport revenue model limits income to $5.60 per passenger, forcing airports to trap people in shopping malls as their only profit center

Scholl plans to create Overture-specific terminals with 15-minute arrival-to-departure guarantees, eliminating current buffer time inefficiencies

TSA Security Theater and the Post-9/11 Regulatory Ratchet

Scholl accidentally carried box cutters through SFO, Seattle, and London Heathrow security on his honeymoon, demonstrating that current screening doesn't stop actual weapons

Only two post-9/11 changes meaningfully improved safety: reinforced cockpit doors and passenger awareness to fight back, as demonstrated by United 93

International security harmonization spreads the worst rules globally to enable passenger connections without re-screening, creating regulatory cardinalization

Safety regulations create one-way doors where bureaucrats face career risk for reducing security but no consequences for perpetuating ineffective measures

Manufacturing Crisis: Six-Month Turbine Blades and Congressional Districts

A 3D-printed turbine blade costing $1 million takes six months to produce across multiple states when it could be made in 24 hours under one roof

"When something seems stupid, ask yourself, what would have to be the case for this actually to be smart?" - Blake reveals Congress spreads manufacturing across districts for political reasons

Boom is building a Denver factory with raw materials entering one side and finished airplanes exiting the other, eliminating truck transportation between process steps

Six-month iteration cycles create analysis paralysis among engineers, while 24-hour cycles enable rapid testing and design freedom

The Concorde Failure and Government Innovation Problems

Concorde flew only 52% full over 27 years with $20,000 inflation-adjusted fares and uncomfortable Ryanair-quality seats with ashtrays

Atlas Shrugged anticipated in 1957 that supersonic transport required capitalist motivation rather than socialist approaches, as referenced in Galt's speech

Government-led innovation creates cost-insensitive supply chains and self-perpetuating bureaucracies, as seen in both Concorde and Apollo programs

The 1973 US supersonic ban lasted until July 6, 2024, preventing minimum viable product development and creating 51 years of stagnation

Supersonic Travel Economics and Route Transformation

Tokyo business trips currently require three calendar days (Saturday departure for Monday meetings), while Overture enables 24-hour round trips with no jet lag

North Atlantic red-eye flights will become comfortable daytime flights, saving entire days on business travel schedules

Pacific routes save two full days on round trips, with 8 AM SFO departure arriving 8 AM Monday Tokyo time (six hours later)

At 60,000 feet altitude, passengers can observe Earth's curvature, leading Scholl to joke about settling flat Earth debates

LLMs and Regulatory Paperwork Revolution

LLMs excel at generating 100-page regulatory documents like lightning strike protection test plans that previously required two months of specialized engineering work

Creative engineers can now edit and fix LLM hallucinations quickly, transforming large armies of documentation specialists into small creative teams

Change aversion disappears when document updates become inexpensive, enabling rapid iteration in previously change-resistant regulatory environments

Domain Switching and First Principles Thinking

Scholl kept a "confusion list" during Boom's first year, aiming to resolve one item weekly, though the list grew without bound

"By the time you become an expert, you're almost certainly useless because now you're steeped in the status quo" - Blake advocates for domain switching to maintain first principles thinking

Early Boom hiring required candidates to "teach me something," prioritizing teaching ability over domain expertise