Financing lessons from the final frontier

Few space geeks are geekier than Silicon Valley venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson: His office at Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, Calif., is festooned with far-out artifacts including salvaged parts from Apollo spacecraft and a pizza-sized slice of moon rock.

But for Jurvetson, space isn’t just a hobby – it’s a big part of his livelihood. He’s on the board of SpaceX, and helped throw a lifeline to billionaire founder Elon Musk when he was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008.

Today, privately held SpaceX is thought to be worth more than $21 billion, and as managing director of DFJ, Jurvetson can take some of the credit for Musk’s success.

During a fireside chat at today’s “New Space Age” conference, presented by The Economist at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, the 50-year-old investor shared lessons learned from his involvement with SpaceX, Planet and other ventures.

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