Obligatory quarterly post from me about optimism (or lack thereof on HN)! :)

It's unfortunate that so many people come out of the woodwork to tell people their ideas are terrible or won't work without actually understanding the idea, technology, or risk-adjusted return that investors may be considering. It's far far more interesting to consider how things may work or what you may be missing. I've listed a mini-FAQ at the bottom about Boom. I'm an investor in every Boom round, from before they were in YC so am clearly biased, but also know the company very well.

Props to everyone in the thread who is asking genuine questions and actually trying to understand what the team is building.

References

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Dropbox launch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
Coinbase launch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4703443
A 2012 thread discussing comment negativity where: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4363717
A classic thread from 2012 where PG talks about negative comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747

Mini-FAQ

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1. Isn't the most important part of reducing flight times the pre-flight experience (security, airport delays, etc.)?
Yes, you are correct. However, the long haul international market that is about 10% of the overall number of flights in the world is still a HUGE opportunity where the bulk of time is spent in the air. Boom is most effective in these longer 8-hour+ flight situations like SFO-Tokyo, LA-Syndney, etc. On these routes you would save a day round trip. For many people an extra day in the office or an extra day with family is a tremendous win.

Most people don't realize but travel to Hawaii 10x-ed in the decade after the jet engine became common because Hawaii became a five hour flight from the West Coast instead of an eight hour flight. Imagine if you could get from SFO to Japan or China as fast as SFO-NYC.

2 - How can do this for so cheap?
It will be capital intensive to get to the final plane, probably ~$2B. Most of this can be financed with debt, however, because there are many billions in pre-orders from airlines already. This round gets you to fly a one-third scale version of the plane and be ready to raise an even bigger round to build the full scale plane and get to FAA certification in the series C.

The Boom team has been very smart in their go to market by maximizing the amount of already FAA approved technology that goes on the first plane. For example, the carbon fiber composite is the same as that used on the 787. Fast tracking the components because they're already FAA approved dramatically reduces costs.

3 - What qualifications does this team have? How can they possibly pull this off?
The team includes 80 technical experts and leaders from Airbus, Boeing, SpaceX, Gulfstream, NASA, and Lockheed. Collectively, the team has made key contributions to 40+ successful air and space vehicles the SpaceX Falcon 9, Airbus A380, and the SR-71 Blackbird. The team has led the development of many planes that have gone from 0 to FAA approved and launched.

Hope the above is helpful to people reading through and wondering how this makes any sense. I think Boom is a once in a lifetime, category creating company (like SpaceX or Tesla). Happy to answer more questions if you have any.