The Man Who Took Elon to Russia & Why His New Company Phantom is SpaceX's Unfinished Business with Jim Cantrell, CEO of Phantom Space (#427)
This week Chris sits down with Jim Cantrell, Co-founder & CEO of Phantom Space. He co-founded Phantom Space in 2019, where he is now trying to mass produce rockets.
He was employee number four at SpaceX and its first VP of Business Development. Jim is one of a handful of people who was actually in the room at the start.
They discuss:
• How getting arrested for espionage in Russia is the reason Elon Musk ever called him
• What a fishing trip in Florida taught him about raising money
• Why he believes SpaceX only exists because the Russians said no
• What Carl Sagan asked him in a traffic jam
• Why the rocket companies that worked spent a few hundred million and the ones that failed spent billions
• What he means when he says he is building the Henry Ford of space
• Why he thinks the only sovereign place left for a data center is orbit
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:00) Getting Into Space by Accident
(07:06) The Real Soviets and Getting Arrested for Espionage
(13:54) The Cold Call From Elon Musk
(20:27) The Moscow Trips That Created SpaceX
(31:55) From SpaceX Employee Number Four to the Skybox Exit
(39:12) Searching for Serendipity in Hotel Boardrooms
(43:06) Faith and the Unfinished Business Behind Phantom
(53:29) The Case for Mars and SpaceX as a Nation State
(57:04) Why America Has to Win Space
(1:05:42) Becoming the Henry Ford of Space
(1:10:49) Why Data Belongs in Space
(1:20:27) Why Phantom Builds Its Own Rockets
(1:28:54) Seeing the Future and Staying Under the Radar
(1:35:52) The Executives Who Wanted to Destroy Elon
(1:40:50) The Launch Shortage and Data Centers in Space
(1:49:04) Keeping Space Free of a New East India Company
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