E6 - Hypersonic Airplanes
Episode description
Hermeus CEO AJ Piplica joins us to talk about the hypersonic airplanes they’re building, breaking the SR-71 speed record, their go-to-market strategy, the parallels to Top Gun Maverick, and a ton of other stuff.
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Links
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* AJ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajpiplica/
* AJ Twitter https://twitter.com/AJ_Piplica
* Hermeus https://www.hermeus.com/
* Hermeus Twitter https://twitter.com/HermeusCorp
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Show Notes
(00:57) intro
(5:45) AJ’s origin story
(7:25) how old were you?
(8:24) not a space person
(10:11) sequestration
(10:48) missiles to aircraft
(12:41) Monospony the board game
(13:12) Raising money the right way
(15:04) the name?
(16:42) how Hermeus was funded
(18:33) AJ loves our ChatGPT rap song
(19:16) AJ's spicy take on defense profits
(22:06) climbing the food chain
(23:14) using a T-38 engine to go Mach 4
(24:08) Top Gun Maverick
(25:52) Quarterhorse
(28:52) breaking the SR-71 speed record
(31:04) Darkhorse
(33:41) avoiding the Valley of Death
(40:09) lobbying is the price of entry
(41:22) AJ's Christmas Tree
(46:05) why do it at all?
(49:00) Hermeus has one competitor
(51:28) Halcyon
(55:51) how the Pentagon prices things
(59:52) outro