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Always love hearing from Boom. By far the most impressive YC startup I know of. In a sea of interchangeable SaaS and mobile app ventures, they are out there doi

Always love hearing from Boom. By far the most impressive YC startup I know of. In a sea of interchangeable SaaS and mobile app ventures, they are out there doing hard things and actually trying to make a reality the kind of future we all dream about. Inspirational. They certainly have some daunting challenges to overcome but hope they pull through. I'm rooting for them.

diminish 6y ago
> hard things by hard things, you refer to non-software; thinking writing software isn't hard :thinking
- hxegon 6y ago
  I... honestly can't make heads or tails of this sentence
  - necovek 6y ago
    While not perfectly worded, it's clear to me GP points out how "building software" is not considered "hard" by the parent (hard as in complicated). Assuming you are not simply being sarcastic over their "chat" form, of course.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      I think the OP as a valid view, but I'd refine it a bit: building software can be "hard" in the same way building a supersonic jet is, but "interchangeable SaaS and mobile app ventures" are not hard this way. The difficulty in the latter tends to be in code bureaucracy, not in the domain of the problem the product is trying to solve. Which is to say, it's a bit self-inflicted.
      - diminish 6y ago
        > in a sea of interchangeable SaaS and mobile app ventures, they are out there doing hard things. This is a bit offensive against saas and mobile apps and has a wrong vision that software is easy and hardware is hard. 1. A supersonic jet also may include saas & mobile apps at some point in addition to a lot of software. 2. With competition, supersonic jets may also prove interchangeable, unless GP wants monopoly.
        reallydontask 6y ago
        > This is a bit offensive against saas and mobile apps and has a wrong vision that software is easy and hardware is hard. A large amount (the majority?) of software isn't hard. The hard part is getting the requirements
exogeny 6y ago
The amount of commenters on here that are hating on it without actually reading out what they're doing or understanding their business plan leads me to believe that they're going to be very successful.
- deepGem 6y ago
  I get the hating. By that argument, even private jets are an abomination and so is the lifestyle of almost every billionaire out there. It is no surprise that the top 1% account for all of the pollution of the bottom 50% of the population. Depending on your perspective, every expenditure and experience that money can buy, can be viewed as wasteful and harming the environment. For someone with no access to water, a long shower feels very wasteful. If we don't actively come out of this dogma and not embark on some ground breaking technology, our lives won't change at all. So many new technologies from aircraft and space technology have made it to mainstream - Kevlar, carbon fiber to think of a couple. So, even if Boom ends up building only billionaire's toye, there is a possibility that second and third order inventions can make it to mainstream society and bring about change at scale.
  - reallydontask 6y ago
    > Depending on your perspective, every expenditure and experience that money can buy, can be viewed as wasteful and harming the environment. For someone with no access to water, a long shower feels very wasteful. You seem to be searching for a binary answer to something that most people would agree is a gradient. A long shower is not even in the same ballpark as a private supersonic jet, you clearly know this. > If we don't actively come out of this dogma and not embark on some ground breaking technology, our lives won't change at all. It's not an either/or proposition
idlewords 6y ago
Not all of us dream of a future where the ultra-rich get to shatter everyone else's windows with their sky toys.
- ktta 6y ago
  Isn't the bulk of today's commonplace technology previously something only the the rich could afford?
  - nickik 6y ago
    People never understand that argument. With literally every new technology for over 200 years the same argument is made.
  - crispyporkbites 6y ago
    Not really, most tech starts in industry or the military. Most things aren’t pioneered by billionaires- you could make the argument that millionaires are often the early adopters that commission/bring tech down to the rest of us. But there will never be a future where private jets are economical for the masses (even private cars aren't really economical for the long term for everyone globally), and I doubt the tech Boom are developing will make it into widely used commercial planes, but perhaps it will.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    When it comes to electronics: Sure, that has gotten cheaper by a thousandfold or however much it has been. When it comes to transport: Partially; air travel has become fairly accessible for a lot of people now compared to a hundred years ago. Cars are also pretty common now - although driving is still quite expensive. But I don't see how we can ever have personal airplanes be as affordable and accessible as cars. Not going to happen. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.
    - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
      Boom isn't in the market for making personal airplanes as affordable and accessible as cars. What they are trying to do is to make normal air travel, as it already exists, faster. Because very large jets cost a lot of money to design and develop, they start with smaller ones and work their way up. This first demonstrator is a two-seater. The next jet they are designing is the Overture, designed for the ~50 seater business jet segment. And as the name hints, they don't intend to stop there.
TomSwirly 6y ago
Funny, I'm rooting against them entirely. But then I believe the human-caused climate emergency exists and is important enough to do something about. However, it's pretty clear that I'm in a tiny minority, and we'll keep obsessively consuming and burning fossil fuels until it's all destroyed.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > I believe the human-caused climate emergency exists and is important enough to do something about How is being a Luddite an answer to a novel problem? Boom is developing supersonic passenger jets. That involves a myriad of thermodynamic, aerospace, materials, tooling and other R&D. Nobody is saying if Boom makes an aircraft every hundred millionaire has a right to one. That’s the point of regulation. Arguing we should ban even thinking about new technology on the grounds that it might make climate change worse is dogmatic adherence to a cultlike level.
- timwaagh 6y ago
  its important to be realistic about it and realize that whatever is going on is not being caused by the very few flying in superironic jets, but the many living in concrete houses, driving, heating their houses, having children etc. we have 6 billion people on this planet all producing CO2. of those, approximately 0% will ever fly business class. I know it's not a truth people like to hear, because climate activism is supposed to be for the people, but ultimately those are going to get punished by it, not billionaires and their jets.
- soapboxrocket 6y ago
  I'd love to see your math. I don't have any math to support my belief just a little bit of logic, but it works like this: 1) 787 burns X lbs of fuel per hour in flight 2) 787 takes Y hours to fly from point A to point B at Mach 0.85 3) X lbs of fuel * Y hours = Z polution 4) Boom burns Xf lbs of fule per hour in flight (could actually be less because it's smaller or could be higher because of additional needed thrust) 5) Boom takes Y.85 to fly from point A to point B at Mach 1 6) (Xf) of fuel (Y*.85) hours = H pollution So as long H is less than Z then Boom would be decreasing the impact on the environment. Now I know that there are a lot of missing numbers in here like passenger count production impacts, etc. But the solution you seem to imply is that flight just shouldn't happen and I'm not sure this is an option so if Boom can reduce the amount of pollution created by flying then it seems like something you should be for not against.

diminish 6y ago

> hard things by hard things, you refer to non-software; thinking writing software isn't hard :thinking

hxegon 6y ago
I... honestly can't make heads or tails of this sentence
- necovek 6y ago
  While not perfectly worded, it's clear to me GP points out how "building software" is not considered "hard" by the parent (hard as in complicated). Assuming you are not simply being sarcastic over their "chat" form, of course.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I think the OP as a valid view, but I'd refine it a bit: building software can be "hard" in the same way building a supersonic jet is, but "interchangeable SaaS and mobile app ventures" are not hard this way. The difficulty in the latter tends to be in code bureaucracy, not in the domain of the problem the product is trying to solve. Which is to say, it's a bit self-inflicted.
    - diminish 6y ago
      > in a sea of interchangeable SaaS and mobile app ventures, they are out there doing hard things. This is a bit offensive against saas and mobile apps and has a wrong vision that software is easy and hardware is hard. 1. A supersonic jet also may include saas & mobile apps at some point in addition to a lot of software. 2. With competition, supersonic jets may also prove interchangeable, unless GP wants monopoly.
      - reallydontask 6y ago
        > This is a bit offensive against saas and mobile apps and has a wrong vision that software is easy and hardware is hard. A large amount (the majority?) of software isn't hard. The hard part is getting the requirements

exogeny 6y ago

The amount of commenters on here that are hating on it without actually reading out what they're doing or understanding their business plan leads me to believe that they're going to be very successful.

deepGem 6y ago
I get the hating. By that argument, even private jets are an abomination and so is the lifestyle of almost every billionaire out there. It is no surprise that the top 1% account for all of the pollution of the bottom 50% of the population. Depending on your perspective, every expenditure and experience that money can buy, can be viewed as wasteful and harming the environment. For someone with no access to water, a long shower feels very wasteful. If we don't actively come out of this dogma and not embark on some ground breaking technology, our lives won't change at all. So many new technologies from aircraft and space technology have made it to mainstream - Kevlar, carbon fiber to think of a couple. So, even if Boom ends up building only billionaire's toye, there is a possibility that second and third order inventions can make it to mainstream society and bring about change at scale.
- reallydontask 6y ago
  > Depending on your perspective, every expenditure and experience that money can buy, can be viewed as wasteful and harming the environment. For someone with no access to water, a long shower feels very wasteful. You seem to be searching for a binary answer to something that most people would agree is a gradient. A long shower is not even in the same ballpark as a private supersonic jet, you clearly know this. > If we don't actively come out of this dogma and not embark on some ground breaking technology, our lives won't change at all. It's not an either/or proposition

idlewords 6y ago

Not all of us dream of a future where the ultra-rich get to shatter everyone else's windows with their sky toys.

ktta 6y ago
Isn't the bulk of today's commonplace technology previously something only the the rich could afford?
- nickik 6y ago
  People never understand that argument. With literally every new technology for over 200 years the same argument is made.
- crispyporkbites 6y ago
  Not really, most tech starts in industry or the military. Most things aren’t pioneered by billionaires- you could make the argument that millionaires are often the early adopters that commission/bring tech down to the rest of us. But there will never be a future where private jets are economical for the masses (even private cars aren't really economical for the long term for everyone globally), and I doubt the tech Boom are developing will make it into widely used commercial planes, but perhaps it will.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  When it comes to electronics: Sure, that has gotten cheaper by a thousandfold or however much it has been. When it comes to transport: Partially; air travel has become fairly accessible for a lot of people now compared to a hundred years ago. Cars are also pretty common now - although driving is still quite expensive. But I don't see how we can ever have personal airplanes be as affordable and accessible as cars. Not going to happen. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.
  - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
    Boom isn't in the market for making personal airplanes as affordable and accessible as cars. What they are trying to do is to make normal air travel, as it already exists, faster. Because very large jets cost a lot of money to design and develop, they start with smaller ones and work their way up. This first demonstrator is a two-seater. The next jet they are designing is the Overture, designed for the ~50 seater business jet segment. And as the name hints, they don't intend to stop there.

TomSwirly 6y ago

Funny, I'm rooting against them entirely. But then I believe the human-caused climate emergency exists and is important enough to do something about. However, it's pretty clear that I'm in a tiny minority, and we'll keep obsessively consuming and burning fossil fuels until it's all destroyed.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> I believe the human-caused climate emergency exists and is important enough to do something about How is being a Luddite an answer to a novel problem? Boom is developing supersonic passenger jets. That involves a myriad of thermodynamic, aerospace, materials, tooling and other R&D. Nobody is saying if Boom makes an aircraft every hundred millionaire has a right to one. That’s the point of regulation. Arguing we should ban even thinking about new technology on the grounds that it might make climate change worse is dogmatic adherence to a cultlike level.
timwaagh 6y ago
its important to be realistic about it and realize that whatever is going on is not being caused by the very few flying in superironic jets, but the many living in concrete houses, driving, heating their houses, having children etc. we have 6 billion people on this planet all producing CO2. of those, approximately 0% will ever fly business class. I know it's not a truth people like to hear, because climate activism is supposed to be for the people, but ultimately those are going to get punished by it, not billionaires and their jets.
soapboxrocket 6y ago
I'd love to see your math. I don't have any math to support my belief just a little bit of logic, but it works like this: 1) 787 burns X lbs of fuel per hour in flight 2) 787 takes Y hours to fly from point A to point B at Mach 0.85 3) X lbs of fuel * Y hours = Z polution 4) Boom burns Xf lbs of fule per hour in flight (could actually be less because it's smaller or could be higher because of additional needed thrust) 5) Boom takes Y.85 to fly from point A to point B at Mach 1 6) (Xf) of fuel (Y*.85) hours = H pollution So as long H is less than Z then Boom would be decreasing the impact on the environment. Now I know that there are a lot of missing numbers in here like passenger count production impacts, etc. But the solution you seem to imply is that flight just shouldn't happen and I'm not sure this is an option so if Boom can reduce the amount of pollution created by flying then it seems like something you should be for not against.