No, they started in 2000, two years before SpaceX. I didn't apply, they called me. At the time, two things prevented me from going past phone screens. The first was the fact that there was no way I could float the few thousand dollars it would have taken to purchase a same day flight across the country, and rent a hotel and a car for a week in a post 9/11 world. They literally wanted me to fly out that evening, be there Thursday-Sunday for interviews, and fly home on a redeye. Second was the salary they were offering was an absolute joke. I will give them credit, they were upfront with what they were offering, but a friend that I knew had family in Seattle put me in contact with one of them. In a two minute conversation they told me "ha ha that's not worth shit out here, you're a fool for even considering that." When I explained to my contact that I didn't have the credit capacity to float that kind of money, is there another way we can work this (and probably couldn't get a flight that quick,) all I got back was a single word email - "Gotcha." Didn't get a chance to negotiate salary, which would have needed to be double what they were offering. edit: I guess they've had some success at putting payloads in orbit, so apparently they've been doing something with their time.