SpaceX: past, present, future – and finding the next world-changers

Baillie Gifford first invested in SpaceX in 2018, nearly eight years before its record-setting stock market listing. Investment manager Luke Ward, who championed the holding, discusses what first drew him to the business, why Starship is critical to its future, and reveals where he’s now looking for another company with industry-upturning potential.Background:Luke Ward is an investment manager on Baillie Gifford’s Private Companies Team and co-manager of Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust.In this conversation, he tells Short Briefings… host Leo Kelion how SpaceX’s first successful landing and recovery of one of its rocket boosters led him to explore an investment in the company, and how he gained access to its senior management.Ward also explores three growth drivers that could determine its future success: regularly flying a new, larger spacecraft, Starship, into orbitupgrading its Starlink broadband network with satellites that connect to smartphones directlyputting and operating datacentres in orbitIn addition, he discusses some of the risks in being a long-term shareholder in the Elon Musk-run endeavour.Ward also reveals why he thinks the construction industry is ripe for disruption from 3D-printing robots. Resources: Baillie Gifford Private Companies TeamEdinburgh Worldwide Investment TrustElon Musk by Ashlee VancePrivate companies: our philosophyQuantum, space, fusion: three firms engineering the futureSpaceX: the economics of the impossibleStarlink: broadband from aboveTitan robotic construction system Companies mentioned include: ·      Alphabet (Google)·      Anthropic·      Astranis·      Rocket Lab·      SpaceX·      TeslaTimecodes:00:05    Introduction02:00    A successor to the Space Shuttle03:55    Reimagining a market05:55    Reusable rockets06:30    Mars as a ‘forcing function’07:55    First encounter with Gwynne Shotwell10:10    The ‘scale of the Dutch East India Company’12:40    What we got wrong14:25    The advantages of early access17:50    Starship’s cost advantage19:40    Next-generation Starlink satellites22:30    AI and space-based datacentres27:20    SpaceX’s scale of ambition29:00    Governance risk31:05    Flywheels and stepping stones32:55    3D-printed homes34:25    A “nerdy” book pickGlossary of terms (in order of mention):Path dependency: The idea that earlier choices shape and constrain what becomes possible later.Rocket booster: The part of a rocket that provides extra thrust during launch, usually early in flight.Orbital-class craft: A spacecraft or rocket powerful enough to reach orbit around Earth.Market capitalisation: A public company’s total value on the stock market, calculated from its share price and number of shares.Vertical integration: When a company owns and controls more of its supply chain itself, rather than relying on outside suppliers.Point solution: A product or service built to solve one specific problem, rather than a broader system of related problems.Balance sheet: A financial statement showing what a company owns, owes and is worth at a point in time.Roadshow: A series of presentations in which a company and its advisers meet potential investors before a share sale or listing.Cost curve: The trend in how the cost of producing or delivering something changes as technology improves or scale increases.Geostationary orbit: An orbit where a satellite moves at the same rate as Earth rotates, so it appears to stay above the same point on the planet.Transistors: Tiny electronic switches used in computer chips to control electrical signals.S-curve: A pattern where progress starts slowly, accelerates rapidly and then slows again as a technology matures.Ancillary services: Supporting services or costs around the main product or technology, rather than the core hardware itself.Orders of magnitude: Very large multiples, usually powers of 10.Radiation hardening: Designing or adapting electronics so they can keep working despite radiation in space.Cap table: Short for capitalisation table, a record of who owns a company’s shares and on what terms.Thermal mass: A material’s ability to absorb, store and release heat, helping to smooth temperature changes.

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