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Even if there was a business here, it is not a good _startup business_. Startups, especially if any hardware is involved, mostly need to be companies that are

Even if there was a business here, it is not a good _startup business_. Startups, especially if any hardware is involved, mostly need to be companies that are leveraging an entire stack of off-the-shelf, on-the-market, mostly commodity components into a product or solution which is mostly, at least at first, a packaging exercise on the HW side and perhaps novel go to market (AAS, for example), UI/UX, etc. experience on the SW and solution side. Very few startups are going to work outside of these guide rails, and even when they do the exit/invested is pretty poor at this point and has been getting poorer for at least 20 years. You get to tweak the last 5-10% of your tech stack in HW and had better have something really compelling as a result. There's probably _business_ in SST but between the tech stack, the dependencies, and just plain practical business issues like liability/etc. not a business that you get to as a startup.

credit_guy 4y ago
By this token, we should never see fission and fusion startups. Yet NuScale is quite successful. They are now a publicly listed company (ticker SMR) with a market cap of more than half a billion dollars. Not quite a unicorn yet, but then they did not ship any reactor either. Once they do, their market cap will shoot up. Helion is the startup that Sam Altman is so happy to talk about (e.g. [1]). Maybe it will not succeed. Scratch that, most likely it will not succeed. But if it has a 1% chance to succeed, then Sam will see his investment go up by a factor of 10000, so in expected value it is a winner. Boom is just the same. The chance it will fail is about 90%. But if it does succeed, it will return much, much more than 10x to their early investors. [1] https://blog.samaltman.com/helion https://blog.samaltman.com/helion
- foobiekr 4y ago
  You had it right at the first sentence. Becoming publicly listed at a time when total garbage was getting on the market via SPACs (which is what NuScale did) is not validation of anything. Boom has a 99.999% chance of failing. Without an engine lined up, they aren't even in the business they're claiming they are, and haven't been for years.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    It so happens that NuScale went public exactly 6 months ago. Since then S&P500 went down more than 15% while NuScale went up more than 30%. As for Boom, I have to admit, they have a problem. The problem is that companies like GE that make jet engines, can make quite some nice profits by selling to the military. The XA100 [1] most likely exceeds any requirements Boom can only dream of, but being military technology, it is off limits for them. If GE lands a fat contract to provide engines for the F35, then they'll sell thousands of engines, with very little uncertainty. Getting involved with Boom will only complicate their life. If they don't fully compartmentalize the two departments, they can get in trouble. If they do, there's no synergy. Plus, the doubts will always be there that they leak military technology to the civilian side. That's a shame. GE makes some incredible jet engines. Maybe the war in Ukraine will end and one day Putin won't be president anymore, and Russia won't be under sanctions. Then Boom could buy an engine from Saturn, such as [2], the engine that powers various Sukhois. The military-civilian tension will still be there, but Russia will need to export things, so maybe a deal could be made. [1] https://www.geaviation.com/propulsion/military/xa100 https://www.geaviation.com/propulsion/military/xa100 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_AL-31 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_AL-31
    - smachiz 4y ago
      A military engine is unlikely to be the answer for Boom. They just won't be cost effective. The math for efficiency and maintenance is just different for sovereign governments, maybe a derivative could be made more efficient with less maintenance required. Fighter jets require like 6 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight - sure, it's not just the engines, but it's a big part of it. The real problem boom has is the number of viable flights is _very_ low - really just the ones Concorde flew (NY-LON, NY-PAR), and Concorde never made money. A couple comments up someone claimed DXB-NYC being a route - more than half of the great circle route is over land, and it's more than 50% longer than the rosy projections Boom put out. Realistically, they'll be lucky if they're within 10% of their stated range. But of course, not without an engine. This is what 4,250nm would get you from JFK: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=4250nm%40JFK http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=4250nm%40JFK We also didn't care about being green back during the Concorde - but Supersonic flights will likely be 5x-10x worse on a per passenger seat mile basis for emissions. Really hard to get around wind resistance being a square of velocity.

credit_guy 4y ago

By this token, we should never see fission and fusion startups. Yet NuScale is quite successful. They are now a publicly listed company (ticker SMR) with a market cap of more than half a billion dollars. Not quite a unicorn yet, but then they did not ship any reactor either. Once they do, their market cap will shoot up. Helion is the startup that Sam Altman is so happy to talk about (e.g. [1]). Maybe it will not succeed. Scratch that, most likely it will not succeed. But if it has a 1% chance to succeed, then Sam will see his investment go up by a factor of 10000, so in expected value it is a winner. Boom is just the same. The chance it will fail is about 90%. But if it does succeed, it will return much, much more than 10x to their early investors. [1] https://blog.samaltman.com/helion https://blog.samaltman.com/helion

foobiekr 4y ago
You had it right at the first sentence. Becoming publicly listed at a time when total garbage was getting on the market via SPACs (which is what NuScale did) is not validation of anything. Boom has a 99.999% chance of failing. Without an engine lined up, they aren't even in the business they're claiming they are, and haven't been for years.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  It so happens that NuScale went public exactly 6 months ago. Since then S&P500 went down more than 15% while NuScale went up more than 30%. As for Boom, I have to admit, they have a problem. The problem is that companies like GE that make jet engines, can make quite some nice profits by selling to the military. The XA100 [1] most likely exceeds any requirements Boom can only dream of, but being military technology, it is off limits for them. If GE lands a fat contract to provide engines for the F35, then they'll sell thousands of engines, with very little uncertainty. Getting involved with Boom will only complicate their life. If they don't fully compartmentalize the two departments, they can get in trouble. If they do, there's no synergy. Plus, the doubts will always be there that they leak military technology to the civilian side. That's a shame. GE makes some incredible jet engines. Maybe the war in Ukraine will end and one day Putin won't be president anymore, and Russia won't be under sanctions. Then Boom could buy an engine from Saturn, such as [2], the engine that powers various Sukhois. The military-civilian tension will still be there, but Russia will need to export things, so maybe a deal could be made. [1] https://www.geaviation.com/propulsion/military/xa100 https://www.geaviation.com/propulsion/military/xa100 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_AL-31 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_AL-31
  - smachiz 4y ago
    A military engine is unlikely to be the answer for Boom. They just won't be cost effective. The math for efficiency and maintenance is just different for sovereign governments, maybe a derivative could be made more efficient with less maintenance required. Fighter jets require like 6 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight - sure, it's not just the engines, but it's a big part of it. The real problem boom has is the number of viable flights is _very_ low - really just the ones Concorde flew (NY-LON, NY-PAR), and Concorde never made money. A couple comments up someone claimed DXB-NYC being a route - more than half of the great circle route is over land, and it's more than 50% longer than the rosy projections Boom put out. Realistically, they'll be lucky if they're within 10% of their stated range. But of course, not without an engine. This is what 4,250nm would get you from JFK: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=4250nm%40JFK http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=4250nm%40JFK We also didn't care about being green back during the Concorde - but Supersonic flights will likely be 5x-10x worse on a per passenger seat mile basis for emissions. Really hard to get around wind resistance being a square of velocity.