"SpaceX was running out of money." "One more failure could have ended the company."
This is how U.S. media and space industry officials assessed SpaceX in 2008. Its cash was running dry, and three consecutive rocket launches had failed. Investor confidence was also wavering. CEO Elon Musk would later recall: "If the fourth launch had failed, SpaceX would have been finished."
In fact, SpaceX lacked even the funds to prepare for a fourth launch. Musk had already invested most of his personal fortune, and as the financial crisis began, securing additional investment was difficult. Tesla, too, was simultaneously on the brink of bankruptcy. SpaceX, Tesla, and Musk himself were all standing at the edge of a cliff.
Yet 18 years later, the same company has succeeded in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history. What changed? Many people talk about rocket technology. Some talk about Elon Musk's genius. But from an investor's perspective, SpaceX's real secret was not technology but time.
We often think of innovation as a matter of technology, but innovation does not begin with technology. It begins with questions that doubt conventional wisdom. Born in South Africa and having moved to the United States by way of Canada, Elon Musk studied physics and economics. He did not take the existing order for granted. "Why must rockets be expensive?" "Why can't humans go to Mars?" "Why do people think only governments can run the space industry?"
But asking questions different from others alone does not change the world; for a question to become reality, time is needed. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and succeeded in its listing in 2026. That took a full 24 years. We focus on market capitalization and returns after the listing, but from an investor's perspective, what matters more is the holding period. Musk, an early investor, waited 24 years. Founders Fund and DFJ also waited about 18 and 17 years, respectively. Today their returns are regarded as legendary, but returns are merely a result, not a cause. The real cause was the time they could afford to wait.
Here we confront a structural question facing Korea's venture investment ecosystem. If the SpaceX of 2008 had undergone the screening of Korea's policy funds today, could it have passed? With three failures, an uncertain market, an unstable financial structure, and an absence of exit track record, it likely would have received low scores on most quantitative metrics of the time.
Paradoxically, it was precisely in that period that the greatest investment opportunity existed. Innovation does not come from past data. Innovation that changes the future begins with questions that cannot be explained by existing data. That is why, in the field of national strategic technologies, there is a need to evaluate not only past internal rates of return (IRR) or exit track records, but also the founder's problem awareness, understanding of technology, long-term investment capacity, and the potential to transform an industry.
What the government must do is share the time risk that the market finds difficult to bear. SpaceX, too, was not a company that grew on private capital alone. Its contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) became the foundation of trust that allowed private investors to keep waiting. The government did not grow the company on its behalf; it shared the risk that the market found difficult to bear. This is priming-water investment in the true sense.
The ultra-long-term growth funds and long-term technology investment funds recently under discussion are not simply a matter of extending fund maturities. They are about building the institutional foundation that allows Korea to take on areas it has so far found difficult to invest in. Of course, long-term funds are not a cure-all. The longer the time, the more the accountability and performance management of general partners (GPs) must be strengthened.
Korea already possesses outstanding technology and talent; what it lacks is not technology. It is capital and institutions that can trust and wait for founders who have good questions. In 2008, U.S. media said of SpaceX that "one more failure and it's over." In 2026, the market calls the same company "the largest IPO in history." What existed in between was not rockets but time. Is Korea truly prepared to wait 20 years for the next generation's SpaceX? The answer to that question will determine the success or failure of future industries.
