1. Smart people can learn new things. Musk was also a SWE before starting his companies. I don't know what he demonstrated to convince investors, but if nobody

1. Smart people can learn new things. Musk was also a SWE before starting his companies. I don't know what he demonstrated to convince investors, but if nobody else is pitching you a supersonic jet company and you think a supersonic jet company is a good idea, you don't have the option of a different founder, you have the option of the deal in front of you. 2. People want to work on cool stuff, if you have the cash for it, it's not actually that hard to find talent, particularly if you are working on something without a competitive hiring market (ie jets, not AI atm). 3. I feel pretty confident they can build a plane, there are many people who have worked on planes, many components are off the shelf, etc. The question in my mind is if they can meet somewhere in the middle on sonic boom reduction with regulators in a reasonable amount of time.