Post by Andreessen Horowitz

In 2001, Elon Musk went to Moscow to buy a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile. The Russians didn't take him seriously. On one occasion, a chief designer spat on him and his team to display his contempt. On the second trip, Musk asked how much a missile would cost. $8 million each, they said. When he countered with $8 million for two, the response was something like: "Young boy. No." On the flight home, his aerospace advisors ordered drinks and clinked glasses, glad to be out of Moscow. Musk sat in the row ahead of them, hunched over his laptop. Then he turned around: "Hey guys, I think we can build this rocket ourselves." He showed them a spreadsheet listing the raw materials in a rocket — aluminum, titanium, copper, carbon fiber — the materials cost only 2% of the quoted price. Within months, he decided he could risk $100 million on a rocket company — more than half of what he received from the sale of PayPal. He offered five people spots on the founding team. Three said no. "In 2002, SpaceX basically consisted of carpet and a mariachi band. That was it,” Musk would later joke. In 2025, SpaceX launched more mass to orbit than the rest of the world combined, by a factor of more than five. Read the full piece by Marc Andreessen & Michael McGuiness: https://lnkd.in/es2XzpME