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MTS · 2 min · Sep 17, 2026

NASA retains talent by taking on work others cannot

Jared Isaacman says NASA can attract applicants but struggles to retain them when its work overlaps with companies offering stock options. He argues unique, difficult projects give people a reason to stay.

Jared Isaacman

Jared Isaacman is an NASA administrator.

Commanded Inspiration4, the first all-civilian orbital flight, and founded Shift4 payments; now runs NASA.

  • Theo Jaffee, Host · Co-founder & host, MTS

    One of the first members of a16z's new media team; earlier hosted the Emergent Ventures-backed Theo Jaffee Podcast.

  • Sophia Dew, Host · Host, MTS

About this segment

Jared Isaacman says NASA can attract applicants but struggles to retain them when its work overlaps with companies offering stock options. He argues unique, difficult projects give people a reason to stay.

From “NASA Chief: How To Reach Another Star System | Jared Isaacman”, Sep 17, 2026. Watch the full episode

“That's why we're building nuclear powered spaceships, something no company, no other agency, no other nation is capable of doing but NASA.”
Jared Isaacmanat 3:34 · MTS3:34

Takeaways

  1. NASA has little trouble attracting applicants.
  2. Private-sector overlap can make retention harder.
  3. Isaacman says NASA must focus on work others cannot do.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 5:09The Moon is a proving ground for Mars and interstellar travel2:55
  2. 8:49Pausing AI progress hands an advantage to rivals3:04
  3. 15:31Nuclear power helps spacecraft work far from the Sun3:01
  4. 0:29Most Space Academy graduates are expected to spend time at NASA2:41

  5. 2:47NASA retains talent by taking on work others cannot2:27

Up next · The MAD PodcastImpossible tasks and weak sandboxes can turn agents rogue3:33

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 3:00

    talent to NASA? And, you know, especially competing with the private sector, which is like private sector and space is bigger than it's ever been. What a great question. So I would tell you first, it is not hard for us to attract talent. You know, the NASA logo, the meatball, as we call it is pretty widely recognized around the world. The hard part is going to be retaining it because right now a substantial portion of what we do at NASA does in fact overlap with industry. And that's a dangerous place to be because you can graduate from school. You can be really excited. I'm going to NASA. I'm going to work on chemical propulsion rockets. And then you're there for four or five years and you're like, but there's companies that are doing this and they're landing their rockets on ships and I get stock options. So why do I want to stay at NASA? And that's why you can't

  2. 3:41

    have overlap with industry. NASA always has to recalibrate back to doing the near impossible. That's why we're building nuclear powered spaceships, something no company, no other agency, no other nation is capable of doing but NASA. So that's how you recruit your talent, but then you retain them because they're working on things they can't do anywhere else. Why do you think NASA has so much aura compared to like literally any other government agency?

  3. 4:04

    Like there's lots of other government agencies. sees that do cool things. But it seems like NASA is the only one that has like... You don't think the IRS does cool things? Or like Social Security? Yeah, they do some cool things, but you know, people don't get like merch with the Social Security logo on it. It's just NASA. And like, similarly, it's so... Like everything they do is so bipartisan. Like when the Artemis II launched, like I couldn't think of anything I've seen that was more like universally beloved.

  4. 4:27

    Because we're going out to unlock the secrets of the universe. Yeah. I mean, our job is to answer the question, are we alone? I mean, what kid, you know, didn't at some point as like a child look up at the night sky and just imagine the possibilities? We have to do that for a living. I mean, that is so cool. So whether it's our humans going into space, our astronauts going to the moon or building a moon base or building nuclear spaceships or launching great telescopes of discovery to, again, try and unlock the secrets of the universe.

  5. 4:54

    We have the coolest job, really, on behalf of all the American people, but really the space-loving, curious dreamers all around the world. It's awesome.