He Spent 15 Years Quietly Buying SpaceX Shares. Now His Stake Is Worth $20 Billion.
Justin Fishner-Wolfson’s firm, 137 Ventures, made its first SpaceX investment in 2011. He never looked back
While Elon Musk’s friends and board members are set to make fortunes from SpaceX’s IPO, Justin Fishner-Wolfson took a quieter path. His secret weapon was patience. His firm, 137 Ventures, made its first SpaceX investment in 2011, when the company was valued at just $1 billion. It has never sold a single share, . That stake now exceeds 1% of SpaceX, worth roughly $20 billion at the company’s $1.77 trillion IPO valuation.
His faith in SpaceX nearly blew up on the launchpad. In 2008, as a 26-year-old junior investor at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Fishner-Wolfson watched a SpaceX rocket explode two minutes into liftoff. His firm had just put $20 million into the company. He asked SpaceX’s president what they would do next. She said they’d build another rocket and try again. They did, and that $20 million is now worth billions.
“This will most likely define my career,” Fishner-Wolfson said. Sometimes the best investment strategy isn’t rocket science. It’s simply refusing to sell.
While Elon Musk’s friends and board members are set to make fortunes from SpaceX’s IPO, Justin Fishner-Wolfson took a quieter path. His secret weapon was patience. His firm, 137 Ventures, made its first SpaceX investment in 2011, when the company was valued at just $1 billion. It has never sold a single share, . That stake now exceeds 1% of SpaceX, worth roughly $20 billion at the company’s $1.77 trillion IPO valuation.
His faith in SpaceX nearly blew up on the launchpad. In 2008, as a 26-year-old junior investor at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Fishner-Wolfson watched a SpaceX rocket explode two minutes into liftoff. His firm had just put $20 million into the company. He asked SpaceX’s president what they would do next. She said they’d build another rocket and try again. They did, and that $20 million is now worth billions.
“This will most likely define my career,” Fishner-Wolfson said. Sometimes the best investment strategy isn’t rocket science. It’s simply refusing to sell.
