Looks like Red Bull's wings aren't very good at keeping people ahead of the competition.


Today, Alan Eustace, a 57-year-old senior vice president at Google, broke Baumgartner's much-heralded world altitude breaking record. He went up into the stratosphere in a helium balloon and jumped out at around 135,908 feet (Baumgartner went up a paltry 127,852 feet). It took him 15 minutes to reach the ground, and on the way he smashed Baumgartner's record as he zipped to the earth at 800 miles an hour.


Eustace told the New York Times that Google was willing to assist him, but he declined out of fear it'd get turned into a marketing stunt. Eustace sounds pretty cool (he has a long history as a parachutist and did show flips on his way down).

Now, obviously Baumgartner's jump was badass, but the fact that a corporate executive was able to surpass the record in such a short period of time sure suggests that it's not so much about the feat being near-impossible as it is about the feat being an extremely expensive undertaking. Red Bull's XXXtreme marketing guys must be a bit glum today.

No word on whether Eustace consumed an energy drink beforehand, but you can watch his jump below:


[New York Times via Dave Weiner]