Blake Scholl

Dynamic congestion pricing for roads could be a trillion-dollar company

Scholl flags traffic as a solvable problem nobody is attacking the right way. He frames road usage pricing plus smart routing as a trillion-dollar opportunity hiding in plain sight.

“And there are other things in that category like traffic. I don't think— I am unaware of anybody attacking traffic in the right way. And it's a very solvable problem. It could be a trillion-dollar company.”

Steal thisBuild dynamic, usage-based road pricing with smart traffic lights and routing; take 10% off the top for running the system.

Dynamic congestion pricing for roads could be a trillion-dollar company

Scholl flags traffic as a solvable problem nobody is attacking the right way. He frames road usage pricing plus smart routing as a trillion-dollar opportunity hiding in plain sight.

“And there are other things in that category like traffic. I don't think— I am unaware of anybody attacking traffic in the right way. And it's a very solvable problem. It could be a trillion-dollar company.”

Steal thisBuild dynamic, usage-based road pricing with smart traffic lights and routing; take 10% off the top for running the system.

Roads fail because they're free at the point of use, like grocery stores would

Scholl's mental model: roads are oversubscribed because we pay once via taxes and then feel entitled to unlimited use. Imagine grocery stores funded that way: permanent lines and empty shelves. The fix is a dynamic price system.

“so imagine for a second if grocery stores worked like roads do, meaning you pay for them with your taxes, and once you've paid your taxes, you feel you're entitled to use it whenever you want, as much as you want. So what would happen to grocery stores? There'd always be a line out the door and the shelves would always be empty, right? That's what we've done with roads.”

Steal thisWhen a shared resource is always congested, look for the missing dynamic price; free-at-point-of-use guarantees oversubscription.

Concorde charged a $20,000 fare for 100 uncomfortable seats

Scholl says the facts make Concorde's failure obvious: a 100-seat plane with uncomfortable seats and an inflation-adjusted $20,000 fare that still couldn't fill seats or make money.

“Here's, here's a 100-seat airplane with 100 uncomfortable seats and adjusted for inflation, a $20,000 fare. And you can't fill the seats. You can't make any money.”

You only need to beat 1960s Concorde tech by ~10% to match business class

Scholl's back-of-envelope math: matching the total economics of a business-class flatbed seat requires beating Concorde's 1960s fuel economy by less than 10%, while Boeing's newest plane already beat its predecessor by ~20%.

“And then it was like, great, you'd have to, you have to do about 10% better than Concorde to match the total economics. If you wanted to match the fuel burn per seat mile, it's a bit more than that. But there are all these other, you know, utilization benefits from speed. And then the next question was, well, how much better is Boeing's latest airplane versus the one that came before it? And the answer was something like 20%. I'm like, wait a minute, you can't find, you can't find 10% over 50 years?”

A high school dropout taught himself calculus to vet a jet company

Lacking aviation credentials, Scholl spent a year in his basement doing remedial calculus and physics, then worked through aerodynamics textbooks, tossing any book whose problem sets he couldn't solve and buying another.

“And, and so I went back and I started taking remedial calculus and physics because I hadn't had any since high school. And I didn't know how to get through an aerodynamics textbook without way more math and physics. And then I read the aerodynamics textbooks and I did the problem sets, and if I couldn't figure them out, I threw them out and I got a different book and did those problem sets.”

Two mental skills: first principles thinking and knowing when you're confused

Scholl names the two skills he considers most valuable: first principles thinking (understanding causality, not pattern-matching) and the metacognitive skill of knowing when you're genuinely confused versus genuinely clear.

“It's first principles thinking, and it's super, super important, and it's like the most, I think there are two mental skills that are really valuable. One is first principles thinking, and the other is knowing when you're confused versus when you're clear. And if you have both of those, you can do anything.”

Steal thisBuild the habit of labeling your own state: am I actually clear here, or just confused and pretending? Then reason from causes, not patterns.

Don't accept a qualitative answer to a quantitative question

Scholl's rule: people make sweeping claims about measurable things without measuring anything. Every objection to supersonic flight was a qualitative claim about something you could actually go calculate.

“People make all kinds of claims about issues that are measurable without measuring anything. Like, uh, it would— to pull on this example, people— supersonic flight costs more, passengers prefer cheaper flights. You have to solve sonic boom to be able to fly over land in order for the market to be big enough. Therefore, you can't do any of this. And like every single thing in there is some qualitative claim about a thing that's actually measurable.”

Steal thisWhen someone asserts a measurable claim with no number, go build the spreadsheet yourself before believing it.

The 'teach me something' interview question you can't fake

Scholl's favorite interview question is simply 'teach me something.' He keeps asking why and slowing the candidate down until it's clear whether they truly understand a topic or just memorized soundbites. You can't cheat it even if you know it's coming.

“Like my favorite interview question is teach me something. And it starts a conversation exactly like what you're describing. So hang on, I didn't understand what you said. Why is that? Can you walk me through that?”

Steal thisIn interviews, ask 'teach me something' then probe each claim with 'why?' until you can tell understanding from soundbites.

If the product gives you money, you're definitely the product

Scholl reframes VC: VCs aren't the people with money, they're money managers selling startups as an asset class to LPs. Their incentive is to show quick marks to raise the next fund, which makes them flee long-payoff businesses like Boom.

“if the product is free, then you're the product. But by the way, if the product gives you money, then you are definitely the product, right? And the VCs are in the business of selling startups as an investment class to LPs.”

Boom showed up at YC Demo Day with $5 billion in LOIs

Scholl says Boom presented $5 billion in letters of intent at Y Combinator Demo Day, which Sam Altman tweeted was a record unlikely to be beaten soon.

“Yeah, it was actually $5 billion in LOIs.”

Don't ask for money, ask for a commitment to want the product

When Branson hesitated because Virgin Galactic was already a lot, Scholl reframed the ask: not money, just whether Virgin would want the first airplanes if it worked. That hand-raise let him raise the capital elsewhere, and it closed the deal.

“I said, Richard, we're not asking you for money. We're asking if when this works, if you'd like the first few airplanes to be for Virgin, if you want them. 'Cause if you'll raise your hand and say, I want these, the product makes sense, then I'll go get all the money elsewhere. And that turned out to be the thing that worked.”

Steal thisInstead of asking a marquee partner for cash, ask only for a public commitment of demand; use that to raise the money elsewhere.

Be a 'dark matter founder' rather than never trying

Scholl divides founders into the famous ones who chased big missions and won, and the invisible 'dark matter' who set big goals and failed. He consciously chose to risk being dark matter over playing it safe with another mobile app.

“And then there's probably like the dark matter of founders, and the dark matter of founders are the people who go for big things, who set big goals, but it doesn't work. And would I rather be in the dark matter of founders, or would I rather be in the like, I didn't try and I just had a job, or I started another mobile apps company. And I made the conscious decision that I'd rather be a dark matter founder.”

Steal thisDecide in advance you'd rather chase the big mission and fail invisibly than play it safe; that frees you to actually start.

The emotional piggy bank: harder struggle, bigger payoff

A nine-year Boom veteran's metaphor: every time you push through a hard problem you drop a quarter in an emotional piggy bank, and you only break it open when you finally succeed. The harder the road, the more joyous the victory.

“He calls it the emotional piggy bank. And he's like, every time you're struggling with a problem, and you push through, you're putting a quarter in the piggy bank. And when you finally succeed, you get to break open the emotional piggy bank. And the harder it was to get there, the more joyous the victory.”

Boom plans first passenger flights by 2029

Scholl lays out the roadmap: full-scale engine prototype running end of 2025, first airplane off the line in 2027, flying in 2028, and ready for passengers in 2029, while acknowledging it could take longer.

“And our, our goal is to roll the first one off the line in '27. Fly it in '28, and be ready for passengers in '29. And there's a good chance that like it could take longer than that, but those are the goals.”

Ask the most important question nobody else asked

Scholl's recurring management discipline: in any review, ask yourself what the single most important question is. Often nobody has asked it, and it's neither hard to find nor hard to ask.

“The thing I try to challenge myself to do is at any given, like, management review or working with a team, I try to ask myself, what's the most important question? And many, many times what I find is no one's asked the most important question. It's actually not hard to find it and not hard to ask it.”

Steal thisBefore any review ends, stop and ask: what is the single most important question here, and has anyone actually asked it?