Rocket Lab CEO practices founder mode like Elon Musk – but he prefers panning for gold on Earth to living on Mars

• Rocket Lab’s stock price has reached new highs following strong earnings.

• CEO Peter Beck said BI competing with better-funded rivals like SpaceX was its “superpower.”

• Beck, who practices Founder’s Mode, has broken down his morning routine, which starts before 5 a.m. and doesn’t include coffee.

Peter Beck runs a space company, but he has no desire to go into space.

“I have all the knowledge of the risks but none of the courage to accept them,” Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, told Business Insider.

Rather than colonizing Mars as Elon Musk envisions, Beck would much rather stay in Earth’s atmosphere, spending his free time flying helicopters or panning for gold in New Zealand.

“There is nothing more calming than just digging a stream with a shovel looking for some sort of supernova remnant in the universe – and in the form of a gold nugget,” Beck said.

Beck, who was knighted earlier this year in recognition of his contributions to the aerospace industry, commutes between New Zealand and Rocket Lab’s five US facilities. He said his schedule fluctuates depending on the time of year and the company’s launch schedule, but on average he travels to the United States every few weeks.

Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Rocket Lab employs more than 2,000 people worldwide. It is an “end-to-end space enterprise,” providing launch services, spacecraft, satellite components and on-orbit management.

The company’s stock price has been steadily climbing over the past three months and surged as much as 53% on Nov. 13 following its strong third-quarter earnings, briefly surpassing its all-time high of 20.72 $.

Rocket Lab also announced a two-mission deal with an undisclosed commercial satellite constellation operator for its medium-range reusable Neutron rocket, which is expected to debut in 2025.

The Neutron rocket represents a central element of Rocket Lab’s activity, designed to deploy satellite constellations, carry out national security missions or carry out scientific and exploration projects.

While Beck described the stock rise as a small “internal congratulations,” he said it was business as usual in the office as the company focused on its rocket launches and development programs.

“It’s great to see the stock respond to a strong quarter and all that,” Beck said. “But there is still a lot of work to be done.”

“Physics doesn’t care how much money you have”

While Rocket Lab enjoys its stock market rally, Beck’s main rival, Elon Musk, celebrates his big bet on Donald Trump’s success. The billionaire CEO of SpaceX, who has the ear of the president-elect, is now ready to take on a leadership role within the Department of Government Effectiveness.

Beck said he expects Musk and the Trump administration to “follow the rules” and does not foresee the relationship between the two leading to “funny business” with SpaceX’s government contracts.

In fact, he’s optimistic about the future of space businesses, given early indicators that the administration is focusing more on space and efficiency.

“If the space does well, we do it well,” Beck told BI.

For Rocket Lab, competing with SpaceX is a bit of a David and Goliath dynamic. SpaceX, one of the world’s most valuable startups, was last valued at $210 billion. Rocket Lab is valued at a fraction of that, with a market cap of around $9.5 billion.

Beck doesn’t mind. The CEO recounted when Virgin Orbit, which invested about $1.2 billion to put its first rocket into orbit, was expected to win the small launch race.

“That’s $1.1 billion more than we spent,” Beck said.

Virgin Orbit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2023. Shortly thereafter, Rocket Lab acquired one of Virgin Orbit’s facilities in a bankruptcy auction.

Electron, Rocket Lab’s partially reusable two-stage rocket that launched 198 satellites, beat Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin into orbit — a feat Musk once told his biographer was “impressive.”

Beck said that while “money certainly helps,” success comes down to execution and focusing on the right areas.

“Sometimes it’s your superpower,” Beck said of startups facing better-funded competitors.

Rocket Lab named one of its rocket engines “Rutherford” after Nobel Prize-winning New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford because of his quote: “We don’t have money, we have to so think.”

Beck said the quote has become a guiding principle for the company. Being constrained by capital forces people to find solutions that are, by nature, more competitive, he added.

“Physics doesn’t care how much money you have at the end of the day,” he said.

Founder’s Fashion Without Coffee

Beck considers himself a detail-oriented CEO who prefers a hands-on approach. Although he appreciates his management team, he says he doesn’t believe in a purely hierarchical leadership style.

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” Beck said. “No, roll up your sleeves.”

“If it’s really a shit job, you should be there with everyone else,” he added.

Fully embracing the founder’s lifestyle, Beck starts his day between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. in New Zealand, diving straight into emails on his phone.

He skips breakfast and avoids coffee altogether.

“I can’t drink coffee,” Beck said. “It completely knocks me out and puts me to sleep.”

The CEO typically spends his days in the office, comes home to have dinner with his family, and then returns to work until the day’s tasks are completed.

Beck doesn’t sleep the standard eight hours. He said he wishes he could be the kind of person who can “just turn off and go to sleep happily.”

“I’m just not someone who can turn off and go to sleep without a care in the world,” Beck said. “I’m more of a toss and turn type.”

He said it was the nature of who he was – and the job of running a rocket company. His daily schedule is dictated by company projects.

“The rocket launches when it’s supposed to launch,” Beck said. “So if it’s 2:00 a.m., it’s 2:00 a.m.”

While Beck jokes about his lack of sleep, the reality is that running a space company is very stressful and the stakes are high.

Beck said the company needs to make the right decisions from a technical and business perspective. If you focus on bad technology, the results are usually unrecoverable, he said.

Beck describes running a rocket company as “running through a maze in the middle of the night.”

You have to run fast, he says, because there’s a bank balance chasing you.

“You can’t afford to get into a dead end,” Beck said. “You’re going to fall off the cliff and die.”

Read the original article on Business Insider