Rocket Lab’s CEO practices founder mode like Elon Musk — but he’d rather pan for gold on Earth than live on Mars

Rocket Lab’s CEO practices founder mode like Elon Musk — but he’d rather pan for gold on Earth than live on Mars

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

“I have all of the knowledge of the risks and none of the courage to accept them,” Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, told B-17.

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

“There’s nothing more soothing than just digging in a creek with a spade looking for some kind of leftover from a supernova 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, goes back and forth between New Zealand and Rocket Lab’s five US facilities. He said his schedule fluctuates based on the time of the year and the company’s launch schedule, but on average, he travels to the US every few weeks.

Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Rocket Lab employs over 2,000 people globally. It’s an “end-to-end space company,” providing launch services, spacecraft, satellite components, and on-orbit management.

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

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

The Neutron rocket represents a pivotal part of Rocket Lab’s business, designed to deploy satellite constellations, carry out national security missions, or conduct science and exploration projects.

While Beck described the stock surge as a small “internal congratulation,” he said the office has remained business as usual, with the company’s focus on its rocket launches and development programs.

“It’s great to see the stock for sure responding to a strong quarter and all of that,” Beck said. “But there’s still a lot of work to do.”

‘Physics doesn’t care how much money you’ve got’

As Rocket Lab savors its stock rally, Beck’s chief rival, Elon Musk, is celebrating his big bet on Donald Trump paying off. The billionaire SpaceX CEO, who has the President-elect’s ear, is now poised to take on a leadership role in the Department of Government Efficiency.

Beck said he expects Musk and the Trump administration to “follow the rules” and doesn’t foresee the relationship between the two to lead to “any funny business” with SpaceX’s government contracts.

In fact, he’s optimistic about the future landscape for space companies, given early indicators of the administration’s sharper focus on space and efficiency.

“If space does well, we do well,” Beck told B-17.

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

That doesn’t faze Beck. The CEO recounted when Virgin Orbit, which invested around $1.2 billion in getting its first rocket into orbit, was expected to win the small launch race.

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

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

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

Beck said that while “money is certainly helpful,” success is about execution and focusing on the right areas.

“Sometimes that is your superpower,” Beck said of startups going up against better-funded competitors.

Rocket Lab named one of its rocket engines “Rutherford” after the Nobel Prize-winning New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, because of his quote: “We’ve got no money, so we’ve got to think.”

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

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

Founder mode sans coffee

Beck considers himself a detail-oriented CEO who prefers a hands-on approach. While he values his management team, he said he doesn’t believe in a purely top-down leadership style.

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

“If it’s a really shitty job, you should be in there with everybody else,” he added.

Fully embracing the founder-mode 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 at the office, comes home for dinner with his family, and then heads back to work until the day’s tasks are complete.

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

“I’m just not someone who can turn off and just go to sleep and not have a care in the world,” Beck said. “I’m more of your tossing and turning kind of person.”

He said that’s the nature of who he is — and the job of running a rocket company. His daily schedule is dictated by the company’s projects.

“The rocket launches when the rocket needs to launch,” Beck said. “So if that’s 2:00 AM in the morning, it’s 2:00 AM in the morning.”

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

Beck said the company needs to make the right decisions from both an engineering and business standpoint. If you focus on the wrong technology, the results are generally irrecoverable, he said.

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

You have to run quickly, he said, because there’s a bank balance that’s chasing you.

“You can’t afford to run into a dead end,” Beck said. “You’ll just fall off the cliff and die.”