Jared Isaacman inspires Lehigh crowd with space success

A few hundred Lehigh University students, alumni and leaders in the local business community were at the Zoellner Arts Center Tuesday night to hear a talk from a high school dropout on what he’s been doing lately. Spoiler alert – he missed out on his last job opportunity. 

But don’t feel bad for him. The speaker at the inaugural Makers Speaker Series at Lehigh was none other than Lehigh Valley businessman and astronaut, Jared Isaacman. 

The reason he dropped out of high school in 1999 at 16 was to start a payment processing business that he was developing out of his parents’ garage, which eventually became Shift4, the company that made him a billionaire. 

And while he jokingly referred to himself as a “failed nominee” to lead NASA, he’s still keeping pretty busy. 

After President Donald Trump nominated him to lead NASA, Isaacman stepped down as CEO of Shift4 but remains as the company’s executive chairman. 

Under his leadership, the company has grown into a global leader in integrated payment processing solutions, employing over 6,000 individuals and processing over $250 billion in payments for more than 200,000 customers worldwide. 

Even his hobbies have been successful. He developed an interest in aviation to offset the stress of his dedication to his payment processing company. 

“I was burning myself out and was waking up on my keyboard in my parents’ garage. I needed a hobby and I always had a passion for aviation,” Isaacman told the crowd. 

That “hobby” led him to establish a second company in 2012. 

 Isaacman co-founded Draken International, a provider of tactical aviation services for all branches of the U.S. Military, Department of Defense and allied militaries. He sold the company in 2019 to Blackstone. 

Most recently, he became famous for commanding Polaris Dawn last year, a five-day mission to space whereby he reached the highest Earth orbit ever flown and conducted the first commercial spacewalk.   

But despite all of his success, Isaacman had a clear message to the students in the crowd — “stay in school!” 

He said he was incredibly lucky that he was able to turn his high school obsession into a successful company without a high school degree. He did note, however, that he did go back and get his GED and eventually graduated from college while developing the business. 

“A lot of things had to go my way to end up where I ended up,” Isaacman said. “I think my parents were insane for allowing that.” 

He also dismissed the notion that success is all about hard work. 

“Create your own luck is total b******t,” he said. “A lot of luck bounced my way. That doesn’t happen for many people.” 

He said successful professionals like himself should always remember that and be grateful for the opportunities they have, always seeking to give back to the community that supported them. 

After his stints in space, Isaacman told the crowd he’s more excited than ever about the space economy and talked about how essential it is to get private investment in space exploration so that it’s not perpetually funded by tax dollars. 

He said there is Helium 3 on the moon and rare minerals in asteroids that would greatly benefit the world economy. He said we just need to do more research on ways to get into space more efficiently and economically. 

Right now, he said there are more rocket launches than ever, and he expects that to continue. 

“Space is only 62 miles away, but it’s hard and expensive to get there. What we’ve done so far is just scratching the surface of what we can do,” Isaacman said.