Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Kook's Weekly - February 22 - Inventing the Market: The SpaceMobile Category Creator

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Kook's Weekly - February 22 - Inventing the Market: The SpaceMobile Category Creator · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:11
Just basically from the phone, be seamless, regardless of where
0:14
you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite.
0:21
Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:27
Good evening, everyone. I'm sure there's a lot of us
0:29
that are fully exhausted having woken up to watch hockey, which
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I frankly don't even really understand all the rules.
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So I'm sitting there going, what's a power play?
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But then it's exciting. Although I do see an opportunity
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for the NHL to offer dental benefits.
0:49
That was kind of a glaring need state for some of these players.
0:54
But that's pretty cool that US won.
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I mean, everyone's really tired. So I'm exhausted and I can't
1:01
wait to go to bed, but I am making amends for not having
1:07
done ASTS push ups. I knocked out 75 today and I'll
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keep a tracker so people know when I actually cross.
1:12
Getting back on par and that will probably be the bottom for
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the stock. But obviously I have to do the
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spaces on Sunday otherwise apparently all the superstitions
1:22
go go to hell. What is not going to hell but
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instead going up into the heavens is FM 2.
1:30
And so it is happening. Seeing this thing sealed up in
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New Glen 3 is really neat. The fairing is really cool.
1:40
Another superstition I have is every time we have a successful
1:44
launch on a new type of rocket, I order a custom model rocket
1:51
made in Kazakhstan. And I got my PSLV over the
1:57
weekend, which took three months to get through customs and
1:59
everything because it's actually export controlled because it
2:02
counts as a rocket. Which you know you have a pretty
2:04
cool model rocket when the Kazakhstan government stops it
2:09
for inspection. So what today I ordered my what?
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I ordered my LVM 3 and my Falcon 9, but I did not order my New
2:20
Glenn 3 because until that is a successful launch, I will not
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order it. So that's my new new
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superstition. What I really liked about the
2:30
tweet from a bell is this quote. We did not follow a market, we
2:35
invented one. I know everyone saw this quote,
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but I do think it's important to stop and reflect on that because
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for me, this was always a very important first principle when
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thinking about not just the investment, but the sizing of
2:53
the investment because these are two separate concepts.
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I'm not a portfolio manager, kind of almost got there, but
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that's not how I'm wired. I don't, I don't really like
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doing that. I like being an analyst and, and
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finding the big bet versus sitting around figuring out what
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my kurtosis is. And the sizing though, is the
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portfolio management part. And so for me, I have a
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imprudently large position. So no one should do what I'm
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doing, but the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing, for those
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who are curious to know whether I'm, you know, there's some
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method to the madnesses. It's very difficult in life to
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find a company that invents a big market.
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Just because you're going to do it doesn't mean you're going to
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be successful. And so this, this investment in
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particular, I felt at times like I was going to lose my
3:49
investment and had a mental breakdown in the process of it.
3:52
Now it looks like a bet that will work.
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And it is a bet that is by all accounts too big for a person to
4:00
have. But here we are.
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But the reason why it's so big for me and only from my
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perspective, I'm not saying anyone should do what I'm doing.
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And you know, really reflect on what's right for you.
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But when you find a category creator in a big market, my
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personal perspective was to swing big.
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What I do for a living, I see a lot of ambitious companies
4:26
trying to do this or that. More often than not, I see
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someone that's gunning into kind of like a man market and at best
4:35
is going to try to be a tenth player.
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When I find or when my firm finds something that is a
4:44
category creator. As someone who has a significant
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amount of influence on on what what we do at my firm, when when
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a team member comes to me with something and I see a glimmer of
4:57
category creation, I get into risk on mode.
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That's where I really pound the table to get something across
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versus something that's like a me too.
5:09
I don't want to have My Portfolio exposed to things that
5:13
are going to be distant number threes.
5:15
And, and why is that? So a lot of times you'll have a
5:17
company that the distant #3 in my mind right now, I'm thinking
5:20
about the online car sales guys because I, I had been involved
5:25
in Carvana and then there was like shift and there is another
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one. I forget what it was called, but
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that's kind of the point. You forget what it's called
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because it, it went away. And I'd actually been working
5:35
with the CEO of this company. I already forgot its name,
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trying to do a, a merger with something else I owned.
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And the problem is being a distant #2 or distant #3 means
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that if there's a downturn or a, a hiccup in the market, you're
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toast. You're roadkill and if you're #1
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and you if you create a category, the probability of
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having a massive outsized market share that's durable is, is
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pretty high. And that's going to cause you to
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have more economies, better margins, better access to
6:08
capital, these things that compound on themselves to start
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creating very defensible moats. And so, Long story short, a bell
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basically played to my heartstrings, if you will, of
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saying exactly what has guided my conviction in sticking with
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an investment like this in this size for this long is the
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invention of a market. So I've spoken a lot about this
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kind of in circles. I'll move on.
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But it is important to think about this concept.
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And it is something where, you know, if people are wondering
6:41
like, why is this guy at the Kook Report spend this much of
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his life right in his weekly newsletter doing all these
6:46
spaces, doing all these push ups, doing voodoo and incense
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and rituals and sacrifice of himself to this cause?
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Like, why isn't he doing that for Hims or for Palantir, You
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know, whatever. And frankly, I wish I had owned
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Palantir. I don't know that I totally
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understand it. And that's the one reason I
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don't own it. But you know, sometimes you you
7:11
see the pictures in life that you see, I am no Ted Williams.
7:16
I am not someone that is going to see the ball all of the time
7:19
and hit all of the time. I am a one hit wonder and I am
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OK with it. And so I kind of think about
7:28
myself as the band Spacehog, which is one of my favorite
7:38
songs of all time, is In the Meantime.
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And I think that's the only song that they really are known for.
7:46
And so pretty ironic, ironic. And I think about it that one of
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my favorite songs of all time is Space Hog, which is not so far
7:56
if you say it quickly enough from Space Mob.
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And you know, here I am now and it's a one hit wonder and I
8:02
think I am too. But I'm OK with it because if
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you have a hit like in the meantime, you major contribution
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to culture and society and you can feel like you've done
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something worthwhile. And that's, that's space mobile
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for me because I, I see the ball clearly on a category creator
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and I put all my chips in it. And if it works, I won't ever
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have to make a new investment again.
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And that's kind of the plan. So this bet being right does
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entail timelines and actually launching A constellation.
8:33
We cannot be a paper constellation forever,
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unfortunately. And So what we have is Bluebird
8:40
7 FM 2 encapsulated and we're now waiting for a couple things.
8:46
So they have to do a static fire of New Glenn 3, which will be
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quite exciting and then you have to have the range clear.
8:54
So what we learned over the weekend was that Artemis, which
8:57
actually would have been really cool rocket to see launch has
9:01
all sorts of problems. And so I guess this goes back
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all to also to some of the issues with public initiatives
9:09
versus private initiatives. Artemis I think is ungodly
9:12
expensive, not totally clear what needs state it serves.
9:16
It isn't about to be served by New Glen, for example, and seems
9:21
to always have some problems. And you know the history of this
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thing. It's a lot of pork.
9:26
It's a lot of congressman spreading it around to
9:30
constituencies. But in any respect, it Artemis
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appears to not be able to launch in March, which clears the range
9:39
for new Glen to go, which might be as soon as March 6th.
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We're all monitoring this very closely and we'll all find out
9:49
pretty soon. Would be great if they could do
9:51
launch on like a Thursday or Friday, which would kind of
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clear calendars up it. Hopefully a lot of us could go.
9:58
And so Abell, you know, you could say that there's a song by
10:03
Ja Rule of I'm Always on Time. Abell has not listened to that
10:07
song, but he gets it right. And so, so far in this company's
10:12
history, literally nothing has been on time.
10:16
But by space standards, it's OK. And so Perfecto.
10:22
And so it is a little delayed, but they've gotten it right.
10:25
And you can see this picture here of a bell on the cherry
10:29
picker, whatever these things are called, inspecting the
10:32
satellite. This is a hands on executive,
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this is his satellite. This is a Mark Zuckerberg, Elon
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Musk, Bezos back in the day type of founder.
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And that's the important thing. He's not on the road doing
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analyst calls and analyst meetings.
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He's in the clean room inspecting.
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And that's the type of founder energy going back to it is
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category creator, but also then a true owner operator.
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These are the types of things that give me the personal
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comfort to have the size investment that I have.
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Again, not suggesting anyone should should emulate me, but
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that is what is supporting my decision to have a 90 Vol
11:19
personal net worth, which is certainly not good for my
11:23
cortisol levels, which ironically I was trying to
11:25
manage with peptides and then created a entirely new problem.
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So it just goes to show you don't disrupt Feng shui because
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then it all comes apart. But the things that are not
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coming apart are the investment merits of this.
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And so it's nice to see Deutsche Bank come out, really just stay
11:46
out with their estimates because they have a model.
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I have a model, but it's nice to see how these things can tie up.
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But interestingly enough, Deutsche Bank has an estimate
11:58
now of 356 satellites in orbit by 20-30.
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So that's a lot of satellites. But importantly, that's more
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than 243 satellites last time I checked, which implies an
12:09
additional shell. So why are they doing that?
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Who knows? The guy could have just, you
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know, dragged to the right the Excel formula.
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And that's just kind of what's popping out.
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But it's also probably coming from conversations with the
12:24
company where they're explaining that, hey, we're not done at
12:27
2:43. There's more Tam out there.
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In fact, we've actually heard Scott speak to this effect.
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So this is going to be very repetitive for anyone that's
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listened to me talk every weekend in my life.
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But they're going to have additional shells.
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There's going to be government shells, for example.
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And that is just very additive because the economics of any new
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shell are are going to have to be supported by the economic use
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case with it. We shouldn't just means that we
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have more MPV of future growth then many of us are probably
13:02
contemplating and we don't have to contemplate at all.
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What you want to do as an investor is position yourself
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where the reinvestment or the growth opportunity just keeps
13:13
expanding and you don't have to worry about it.
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You just need to know that a company is dynamic to pursue new
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markets and it has a flexible global infrastructure offering
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that allows for that. And that was something that was
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really interesting to hear from one of my Discord friends back
13:33
in the Discord days. And if if anyone knows Seal, he,
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he's a very interesting guy. I was kind of, I don't know what
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I was doing, you know, late night pillow talk.
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It's basically what I was doing and just kind of talking about
13:48
like, well, how do we find the next trillion dollar companies?
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And he just kind of said, well, you need to find AUS based
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global infrastructure provider. That's kind of the commonality
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of the things that have been able to reach the trillion
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dollar number. And I thought, well, first of
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all, that's a really good observation.
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And to a man with a hammer, the world looks like an ASTS
14:10
investment, which then I could see how we too fit that mold,
14:16
which which is exciting. And so when we have that many
14:21
satellites up, that's going to convert to revenue at some
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point. And so we need to translate.
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I thought it was pretty funny here, Hardy har har, but
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translating the birds into attendees.
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So you can have a flock of chickens, but you could still be
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hungry unless you create a Chick-fil-A.
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So then you turn chickens into money.
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And so we're going to be converting birds into money.
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And it is again, Deutsche Bank translating that and saying,
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well, we think they could have $12 billion in revenues by 20-30
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and they go through their estimates of that.
14:54
Well, that's very exciting. Scott think that that's weak
14:59
sauce right there. He thinks that they're sending
15:01
the company out for 10s of billions of dollars.
15:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But hey, if we get to $10
15:06
billion, that's pretty exciting because if then, if there's then
15:10
very strong growth at that point, which I would strongly
15:14
suspect there would be, we should be trading at a really
15:17
great multiple. And now we're getting a pretty
15:19
good sense of where the market wants to value what I would call
15:23
kind of A next generation cable asset, because it kind of I
15:26
think SpaceX is really going to be in this bucket with charter
15:32
and and these things mostly because SpaceX is nuking charter
15:37
and things like that. But that's kind of the big money
15:40
category where there's a lot of market cap versus the satellite
15:43
sector, which is kind of crappy Iridium and global star like
15:46
kind of PO s s. So it's got to find its own
15:48
industry home. And you can see that, you know,
15:52
something's perceived as a high mote cable company that can
15:55
trade at a really high valuation when there's growth attached to
15:58
it. And you know, again, it's nice
16:01
to see Deutsche Bank really being creative and seeing where
16:04
the puck could go. Meanwhile, the old guard has a
16:08
very difficult time adjusting to new information.
16:11
And I can hate to say that I sympathize with Tim, but I can
16:16
sympathize with Tim. I've been there in my career
16:18
where I was the quote UN quote expert.
16:21
And when you're an expert, which is a very dangerous thing to be
16:25
and you never want to be 1. I pride myself now kind of as
16:30
I'm older, of not being the expert so that I can have more
16:36
mental flexibility. But Tim, poor, poor Tim.
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Tim, his only real justification of his existence is to put
16:45
himself out as the expert, the guy that has the history, the
16:50
knowledge and the Gray hair, which he definitely has.
16:56
And so he's really locked into this world in the 90s.
17:03
So I too have studied what has happened before.
17:05
If you look at my pin tweet, the DD, there's a whole section
17:09
where I painstakingly went through all of the former Leo
17:15
companies that were born and died in the 90s and early 2000s.
17:21
So it's like when this guy the other day, Bill Martin, who a
17:26
nice enough guy, actually kind of said, well, this, you know,
17:30
this is Iridium, you know, easy short.
17:33
It's like, come on, dude, you know, there, there's some real
17:37
differences here. And we won't go into radium.
17:38
It's pretty obvious. But but Tim just makes his pitch
17:46
on the failed Tam of the 1990s crop.
17:52
But it's so easy to dissect his bear case because those were all
17:56
proprietary closed systems and we've been through this million
18:01
times on spaces. So I won't belabor the point,
18:04
but the whole point of ASTS is to be a standard based open low
18:10
friction system. Low friction, meaning it works
18:13
on your existing device. So it can provide these services
18:16
at an extremely low cost. And so a frictionless experience
18:20
to a consumer at a low cost should have near infinite demand
18:24
versus an Iridium product narrow band with your own terminal.
18:30
Very expensive is a high friction.
18:33
Well, that obviously didn't work.
18:35
And it's been clear as day what a bell has been targeting.
18:38
So there shouldn't be any mystery.
18:39
But the experts still cling to this false analog.
18:43
And it's a it's a good pitch. If you're, you know, hedge fund
18:47
you, you've got 40 names to cover and you're like, oh, yeah,
18:49
OK, we've seen this movie before.
18:51
All these Muppets, these retail guys, like just don't understand
18:54
all these things went bankrupt. Like, oh, I bet these guys that
18:56
weren't even born Iridium is well, yeah, we do.
18:59
You know, actually a lot of us are aware of what these things
19:03
are and or live during them. And it's very important to be
19:07
able to separate false analogs from true analogs.
19:11
It's easy to do the five second elevator fly by and scare the
19:15
crap out of someone of like, well, I've seen this before and
19:18
I actually get accused of this all the time in my day job.
19:21
It's like, I have actually seen a lot of things.
19:25
And so I'll look at, you know, look at a new name and say,
19:29
well, here's actually what's going to happen here.
19:31
And you know, the 24 year old pitching it to me really wants
19:36
to do this deal is, you know, always like, well, you're just
19:39
not, you know, not seeing how it's different this time, blah,
19:42
blah, blah. So I get it.
19:44
But you really do have to understand when a false analog
19:47
is being pushed on you, that's where the variant view can come.
19:51
And not that you have to be a contrarian.
19:52
I've I've sort of realized being a contrarian is not necessary to
19:57
make a lot of money investing. What's necessary is patience.
20:02
That's my edge is no edge. And I really become quite
20:09
comfortable in knowing that I don't have any information that
20:14
anyone else doesn't have. But what I have is all of the
20:17
information that everyone has and the time to Stew on it
20:22
endlessly, and the willingness. To see a non linear potential
20:29
outcome and stick around for it versus over trade and get
20:34
sideswiped by volatility. And that's an important thing to
20:41
understand. So it's not that you have to be
20:43
a contrarian on these and believe something other people
20:48
don't, cause a lot of people believe in ASD space bubble.
20:50
I don't feel like I'm a contrarian.
20:51
And look, there's 200 people on this call right now that believe
20:53
in this company. So I don't have to believe more
20:56
than anyone on this call. I just have to believe longer
20:59
and for that thing to actually happen.
21:01
That's what I've kind of realized is my edge is slowing
21:05
down my pace of play. In a world where you have high
21:08
frequency traders, you have these armies of people that
21:11
Citadel and Millennium in .72, you have AI trading.
21:15
Now, I've always thought, you know, if I were ever sent into
21:18
battle, I would just sort of hide in the grass and not move
21:24
because moving is what draws attention and gets you blown up
21:28
just sitting still. People don't people don't see
21:31
you. And that's where I think you can
21:33
have some real success investing is just stay still and then you
21:38
won't get shot. And the things that are actually
21:45
definitely not standing still are the company.
21:47
And so ASTS got its ITU network code, which I don't know the
21:54
peculiaries of this, but inter alia 51, who's a very technical
21:59
person by the way, did flag this.
22:01
And it was interesting. You said that it's a key step
22:05
toward letting your normal phone connect to satellites as if it's
22:07
just roaming onto another counter carrier.
22:10
So it's really kind of the validation of the network by the
22:12
ITU saying this is a real thing and then your phone accepts it.
22:15
And this goes to the seamlessness of the system of
22:19
your phone just does it and the user is unaware that something
22:24
has happened, which is great. And so there's just continuity
22:28
of service. And you know, then the consumer
22:33
has service and they're, you can actually say like the, the
22:36
problem with that is if it works so seamlessly, people are
22:40
unaware that it's working. And So what is their propensity
22:44
to pay for something sort of like oxygen?
22:47
It's like if you're breathing, you're enjoying the benefit of
22:51
oxygen, but you're not sitting there going, well, I really like
22:55
that breath. I would be willing to pay 5
22:57
bucks for each breath, which you probably would.
23:00
But when oxygen is taken away from you, then you certainly
23:03
understand the price of oxygen. You know your marginal demand
23:06
for oxygen goes to Infinity real fast.
23:09
And so it's kind of interesting thing to think about is once
23:11
people get AST space mobile on their phone and just never have
23:14
dead spots or all these things, do they keep paying until they
23:18
go, well, I am going to cut back on something and they cut it and
23:20
then they're like, you know, and get pissed off kind of lack of
23:24
oxygen and then realize they miss it.
23:27
Be kind of interesting versus other networks that are much
23:31
more active. You're sort of engaging with the
23:33
user on like, hey, use this app to get connectivity that's high
23:36
friction, but then people know it and they're more aware of it.
23:40
Something to think about clearly as S S solution is superior
23:45
because it's seamless, but it is kind of one of these things
23:48
where if it's invisible, you know, that could be luxury on
23:53
one hand, but also then how do you remind people how great the
23:56
service is on the other hand? But we will find out high class
24:02
problem. So we also have some cool stuff
24:05
coming out. Which of these pictures which
24:09
shows of the launch adapter with FM 2 in the fairing and it's
24:14
once again showing the optical inner satellite links on these
24:19
satellites, which is which is pretty cool.
24:21
And so Catsy had some analysis of this.
24:24
But what we think is happening is FM 1 is patiently waiting for
24:29
its lightsaber partner to be shot up into orbit.
24:31
So they can have two of these satellites working in tandem
24:34
with each other and testing out these interlinks and these other
24:38
capabilities, which are going to be useful for the military and
24:41
potentially useful for some of these galactic AI data centers,
24:46
which we learned a lot more about with Terra Wave when
24:50
Amazon announced that the other day.
24:52
And so these systems start to look really interesting where
24:55
the Leo layers start to work with the Mio layer, sort of like
24:59
a highway and freeway system together.
25:03
The Mio satellites being like the big Interstate systems, but
25:07
then having to have a bunch of feeder feeder roads to get stuff
25:11
up and down. But we'll learn more about that.
25:14
But FM 2 is going to be great to help test capabilities,
25:20
especially as it relates to the military and government birds.
25:23
And you know what, what would a week be without AT&T chiming in,
25:28
which is really great and appreciated.
25:30
Just knowing our partners are so carefully monitoring the
25:33
situation as if we don't monitor the situation.
25:35
We are definitely monitoring the situation, but the fact that
25:38
AT&T is also monitoring the situation is pretty cool.
25:41
And so they had a really neat to eat.
25:44
One step closer to the bet. What are they saying here?
25:50
One step closer to the bet. A.
25:53
And remember, the waffles pack a bigger away, which means we can
25:57
achieve the same or better service with fewer satellites
26:01
than competitors. Yeah, they're just casting shade
26:05
on on SpaceX. That's the key thing people seem
26:08
to miss over and over again is people think, well, SpaceX has
26:11
5000 satellites up, They must be ahead.
26:12
Well, not really. And so size matters.
26:16
You know, it'd be like someone deploying, you know, 5000 little
26:19
rubber rafts. I mean, like we're going to take
26:21
on the US Navy. U.S.
26:22
Navy rolls up in the USS Abraham Lincoln and drops a nuclear
26:28
weapon. You know, like that's size.
26:31
Size can matter. And it's not just about size,
26:35
though as part of this, one must always remember that it's the
26:41
size, but the general architecture, which is what's
26:45
great. It's scalable.
26:47
This entire company was built for scale.
26:51
And so the base stations are on Earth, that's the E node B,
26:56
whereas SpaceX has that in space.
26:59
And so again, in reality of 51 always, always the the technical
27:04
person just clarifies for us all this is what enables our quote
27:08
cell towers in space. The base station is on the
27:10
ground which has the heavy computational work and the
27:12
satellite is the remote Radiohead that beams the signal
27:15
to the cell phones. This is why Asts will scale to
27:17
meet demand because of the same process M and OS use with their
27:21
terrestrial remote cell towers and that is important.
27:25
And this was all kind of brought upon by another patent that was
27:29
filed. And so it is again, just
27:33
realizing the company has replicated the terrestrial model
27:37
in space versus the closed proprietary systems that are
27:43
typically used in space, EG Iridium, Global Star and SpaceX.
27:50
And that's the big difference is the just the first principles
27:55
being deployed here then that I think will be very clear in the
27:59
investment thesis when we get out, you know, maybe a year.
28:03
But then, you know, the thing that I always find so
28:05
interesting is how all these things work in tandem.
28:07
And so the scalable architecture, the first
28:10
principles thinking sets up for this massive revenue potential.
28:14
But also as as Katzie, you know, has said for years now, that
28:19
spectrum will find the most efficient way to be utilized.
28:25
And so too are many things in life like capital.
28:28
So capital flows to the most efficient capital allocators,
28:32
the best companies have the lowest cost of capital, things
28:35
like this. And so ASTS should end up being
28:40
a spectrum aggregator. And this is really like an oil
28:44
company getting oil concessions because they're the best
28:47
operator. The, the, the upstream resource
28:51
here is the spectrum. That's what's finite and that's
28:54
what ultimately is value. Everything else is around
28:59
operationalizing that spectrum and commercializing it.
29:03
But without the spectrum, nothing else matters.
29:06
And so ASDS continues to meet with the FCC about two gigahertz
29:11
spectrum access and so broadening their purview.
29:14
And I think this is going to be a winner.
29:18
I think we're going to end up getting a lot more spectrum
29:20
access over time in in many countries.
29:24
And so that's going to be the fuel on monetization capture far
29:33
beyond what any of us could have anticipated two or three years
29:37
ago. So back when I again, I kind of
29:39
speak in oil terms, back when I thought of this as really a
29:41
downstream company, kind of like a refinery is to the oil value
29:46
chain. Then all of a sudden our
29:48
refinery bought the oil, which is the spectrum and that
29:52
continues to happen. And with that comes incredible
29:56
opportunity. So what we're seeing here is the
29:59
company delivering into the opportunity by hiring.
30:02
And so people have done a great job here.
30:04
We have a tweet from Justin just showing how many of these jobs
30:10
are being posted. They're hiring like crazy.
30:13
You don't do that unless you're delivering into a big boy
30:18
opportunity, which I believe we are.
30:19
So all of the pieces really triangulate quite well here,
30:24
never mind the stock price, which is like blood and guts in
30:27
the past couple weeks. But you have to look at the
30:29
fundamentals to figure out again what's happening in the long
30:33
term and use well. I'm not telling you I want to do
30:36
anything, but I am using my patience as my strategic weapon
30:40
because February will be over pretty soon.
30:43
Ides of March will be over pretty soon and then a lot of
30:47
really exciting things start to flip.
30:49
Nothing really will have changed on the fundamentals of the
30:51
company, but just simply accepting and internalizing
30:54
what's happening here and keeping a long term perspective
30:56
and I'm pretty sure that's going to work out really well for me
31:00
by again just sitting still. The things that we're going to
31:04
see happen is the initial monetization will become clear.
31:10
The tell tales keep coming out, so Vodafone's IOTCEO explains
31:17
why 2026 is going to be the year of satellite IoT.
31:21
So this is what I believe will monetize the fastest because you
31:25
can have very valuable services provided via intermittent
31:29
service versus maybe pretty annoying if your phone only had
31:34
voice service for 15 minutes per hour.
31:36
I mean, yeah, you'd rather have 15 minutes than 0, but that's
31:39
still going to be an annoying thing versus the IoT market.
31:42
And a lot of these B to B markets will be just fine with
31:45
that. And I think we could start to
31:47
have, you know, some eyes open in terms of, well, hold on,
31:52
where's this revenue coming from?
31:54
And this this isn't about dead spots, you know, this is
31:57
entirely new beast. So I'm I'm of the view we're
32:01
going to have this rolling monetization happening and that
32:05
will be pretty exciting. I highly recommend everyone read
32:09
this interview that Ampan man posted the tweet that I have it
32:15
and it's called hear about it from the team.
32:18
You have to read this interview. It's just doesn't tell you
32:21
anything that you probably don't know, but just hearing it
32:24
cohesively from another company member just lets you know why
32:28
we're on the right path. One really interesting point was
32:31
the M and OS blocked SpaceX because the interference.
32:34
And so SpaceX when they were testing it just screwed up all
32:38
the spectrum because of the very wide side lobes and the high
32:43
adjacent channel leakage ratio, which is just basically the spam
32:46
as Catsy is kind of dumbed down for all of us and what's really
32:50
happening there. And that's interesting.
32:52
You know, it's really the M and OS are saying we're not working
32:55
with those guys and they're working with Asts.
32:57
And it's a great interview. And I remember I was reading it
33:01
last week and just felt, I mean, as if I need to be more bullish,
33:04
but just felt very good about the research that I've done with
33:11
all of you and the conclusions I've had and really the
33:15
ownership I have of this company.
33:17
It just made me feel really good as an owner.
33:19
And the other thing that is going to be, I think a real nice
33:22
surprise this year is just how aggressive Blue Origin is.
33:26
And so Blue Origin is really ramping up its schedule.
33:29
We're starting to see St. As for New Glen, 5:00 and 6:00.
33:33
So if you kind of again think about what's happening in the
33:35
next year, I think it's very possible we have a Blue Origin
33:39
is starting to look like it's breathing fire down, down SpaceX
33:44
and we're the marquee client there.
33:48
So we have a lot of launches booked with SpaceX in my
33:51
opinion. And I don't believe the company
33:53
is really clarified that to the extent the market might, would,
33:58
might want, but that's for negotiating leverage.
34:02
It really doesn't benefit ASCs at all to tell exactly how many
34:07
launches they've scheduled with each vendor to keep everyone
34:09
kind of in balance. And so we have a lot of SpaceX
34:11
launches, which is great because that's the fall back.
34:13
But I think this Blue Origin ramp is going to drive down our
34:20
cost curve quite a lot. And that is good.
34:24
And we are really the the shiny object of that program.
34:29
And so that aggressive schedule is what we want to see.
34:32
And again, I, you know, really fingers crossed I'm going to be
34:35
doing all the superstitions at the same time for a new Glen 3
34:37
launch. Just hope, hopefully that will
34:41
be a successful third trip. So we're going to learn a lot
34:45
more next Monday, March 2nd. So there's earnings.
34:51
So for those of you who partake in trading volatility, just FYI,
34:55
I'd be careful trading or really selling Vol for the next week
35:03
because Vols going to be very elevated.
35:05
You can find yourself sort of trapped just a little lesson.
35:08
And so there's going to be some real Vega, probably it already
35:13
you can see it in the volatility curve, but it might get a little
35:16
bit more pronounced as people tee up for it.
35:17
So just don't get don't get caught sideways and don't forget
35:22
about golden Dome. And so, you know, I'm just
35:25
thinking about, I was thinking earlier today, just when Scott
35:29
put out that tweet just saying, hey, we're Golden Dome because
35:32
we got that contract that didn't specifically say Golden Dome,
35:34
even though we all knew what it was.
35:37
You know, we, we don't know when the next card is going to flip
35:41
on Golden Dome. That drove a lot of excitement
35:43
in the stock as well it should. And Frank, I hate seeing,
35:47
frankly, it was all given back, you know, the markets turned to
35:50
crap overall. So we've actually, you know,
35:53
held up pretty well all things considered considering the
35:56
macro, but we can have Golden Dome reinvigorate the narrative
36:02
on any given day. And so I have lost track a
36:06
little bit of the timing of these things, but the tell tales
36:11
we've picked up on over the past couple weeks have been very
36:14
consistent on space, space radar.
36:17
And then in the interview with Roy, he says specifically Asts
36:22
solution will also be part of the Golden Dome concept.
36:26
Well, we know, but it's nice to hear that again.
36:29
And also just think about the rapid pace of the hiring.
36:33
We've seen some new real estate pop up.
36:37
By all accounts, it looks like the company is ramping up for a
36:40
specific military production facility, which is a game
36:44
changer and puts us right in the same camp as the Palantirs and
36:49
the Andros of the world, except we're not totally reliant on the
36:53
government. That's just this extra path.
36:56
And it's a cool extra path to have because it could really
36:58
result in quite a lot of rapid value creation, especially as
37:04
the world keeps hitting up. And So what just happened in
37:07
Mexico is honestly just wild to me, but totally validates why
37:12
I'm risk of risk I and don't go to places that can all of a
37:15
sudden turn into war zones. But then you have Cuba is like
37:19
kind of silently being collapsed.
37:23
All the stuff going on in Iran. You know, the world is is a hot
37:26
place right now and where I hope it cools down.
37:30
But the need state for all of this next generation military
37:34
equipment is only going up. And I don't think that the
37:37
market has totally glommed on to how important ASTS is going to
37:43
be as as part of that next generation of defense
37:46
contractors. So that's what I have for this
37:49
week. Thank you everyone for joining
37:52
and looking forward to seeing as always all the research people
37:55
put out so I can aggregate it so that we can convene on Sunday
37:59
nights. Have a great evening and thank
38:02
you very much for joining. Thanks for listening.
38:07
To the AST Space Mobile podcast, if you enjoyed this episode and
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38:23
Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
38:29
We're doing something. Very, very big an activity
38:31
technology, we can really affect billion lives.
38:34
FTP Global is the only company that has good technology to
38:39
deliver several broadband connectivity directly through
38:43
faith to the everyday smartphone.
38:45
People will just basically turn their phone.
38:48
And be syndrome. Regardless of where you are, we
38:50
don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
38:53
satellite. Our role.
38:55
Is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the
38:58
enemy. Listen, Waffles.