Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / This is SpaceMob

Transcript

This is SpaceMob · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

• 0:07
  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
• 0:11
  Where we just basically from the phone being seamless, regardless
• 0:15
  of where you are, we don't want the user even to know that it's
• 0:18
  connected by satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
• 0:23
  have is very, very, very large. Everyone thanks for joining this
• 0:30
  space. I just wanted to pull one
• 0:32
  together and I guess talk about this article that just came out,
• 0:37
  which, you know, several of us, Kook Katzie, myself, Tanner,
• 0:45
  Kevin, and actually a few others who I'll give a mention to Brian
• 0:50
  O'Connor and and also Pranya. They they contributed to this
• 0:55
  article as well. But I guess because it got too
• 0:57
  long, perhaps they were they got the they got yanked.
• 1:01
  But but yeah, it's it's interesting to read something in
• 1:06
  print. You know, the journalist Senna
• 1:10
  Pashankar had interviewed a number of us over several
• 1:15
  months. I think it went back to maybe
• 1:18
  it's like fall of last year or late fall.
• 1:20
  And I believe the article, they were hoping to release his
• 1:24
  article sometime with, you know, with launch.
• 1:28
  But then of course, I think the the news around Iran and some
• 1:32
  other things, of course launched didn't go to coordinated plan.
• 1:35
  Perhaps they delayed it. But but yeah, it's it is funny
• 1:39
  to to read about the various cast of characters in Space Mob
• 1:44
  and and of course to see the company that we we hold dear HT
• 1:50
  Space Mobile to be subject of of this type of article.
• 1:52
  And so I think, yeah, maybe I'll just kind of go through the
• 1:56
  article or talk at a high level about it and then also respond
• 2:01
  to some people's reactions, which I think, you know, for me
• 2:05
  personally, obviously the the headline SpaceX rivals or 6000%
• 2:10
  OK, that's good. And then perhaps meme, meme
• 2:13
  stock mania lives on. I don't, I don't like that
• 2:17
  association with memes. But I think you have to put
• 2:19
  yourself in the shoes of the journalist and the editor.
• 2:23
  I have no idea who ended up with that title, but for Bloomberg,
• 2:27
  you know, this is a, a piece that's of, you know, if
• 2:32
  something that they want readers to engage with and, you know,
• 2:35
  catch their eye to, to actually go and, and be, I guess,
• 2:39
  entertained. And so I, I can see why they
• 2:42
  went with certain angles. And of course, like any
• 2:46
  independent written, independently written article is
• 2:50
  never going to be what you expect it to be or what you'd
• 2:53
  like it like it to be. It's going to be another, you
• 2:58
  know, person's perspective, right?
• 2:59
  And so I think we have to take this all with a grain of salt
• 3:02
  that at the end of the day, like the fact that Bloomberg wrote
• 3:06
  this type of article is good in terms of spreading awareness
• 3:09
  because, you know, part of the article rings true that AST
• 3:12
  space mobile is not a household name, especially amongst
• 3:14
  institutions. And so just getting more
• 3:17
  awareness out there where someone might be prompted to
• 3:20
  then go read Kook's research or pull up some of the research
• 3:25
  from Wall Street, which quite candidly is, is, but at least
• 3:29
  it, it, it sparked some type of interest where then someone is
• 3:33
  going to spend some cycles, whether it's a retail investor
• 3:37
  or it's an institution. And they, they learned like, oh,
• 3:39
  hey, ASD space mobile, this is an interesting company.
• 3:42
  They're they're doing the only broadband directed device
• 3:47
  cellular service from satellite and they're working with AT&T,
• 3:51
  Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, Telefonica, Orange, you know,
• 3:57
  Google, a whole host of companies, right?
• 4:00
  Globally, they've got 50 M and OS, they've got 3800 patents and
• 4:04
  patent penny claims. They've got strategic investors
• 4:08
  amongst all those folks who who I just named.
• 4:12
  And yeah. And so that's if that sparks the
• 4:16
  interest and and then of course, these people read about the fact
• 4:18
  that the company is doing work with the Department of War.
• 4:22
  They've got Golden Dome awards, then all, as they, as they say,
• 4:26
  you know, all, all publicity is good publicity, right?
• 4:30
  And so I think, but obviously, like, I think, you know, there's
• 4:35
  probably some level of for for space mob, the community, I
• 4:40
  think there's probably some level of disappointment.
• 4:43
  It's like, hey, how could they boil us down to this sound bite
• 4:45
  of meme? But if you read the article, you
• 4:48
  know, they try to be balanced and cover some of the not only
• 4:52
  cover some of the parts of the space mob story.
• 4:55
  And you know, the fact that you know, this, this investor
• 4:58
  community does has done a tremendous amount of research.
• 5:02
  And it's not, while some of the IT may feel a bit like, you
• 5:09
  know, some of these meme stock situations, it's not because
• 5:12
  there's real research behind it and real belief.
• 5:14
  And people are long term shareholders are not, you know,
• 5:18
  they're not, I guess, investing on the short or trading on the
• 5:22
  short term. But yeah, I, I think, I think
• 5:26
  the article overall, you know, obviously there, there are parts
• 5:28
  again, that I think I would have changed, but but I didn't write
• 5:32
  it. And so by interviewing a number
• 5:36
  of folks. And then, of course, you know,
• 5:40
  Sana did interview some skeptics who I guess they're, you know,
• 5:44
  professional money managers who who are skeptical.
• 5:47
  You know, they try to provide a balanced view.
• 5:49
  But but yeah, overall, I thought it was an interesting article.
• 5:53
  I mean, that's the most that you can ask for.
• 5:54
  They, you know, she talked about the Kook bottom.
• 5:57
  I guess Kook is our, our, the space mob, our, our leader,
• 6:02
  which I actually agree with. For someone who spends week in
• 6:07
  and week out doing a space every Sunday night and talking about
• 6:10
  the week's developments, he's committed significant a portion
• 6:14
  of his time and energy. And so I, I agree, I think he's
• 6:18
  like the appointed leader. And so hopefully, you know, he
• 6:21
  we have key man risk here, like hopefully he stays healthy and
• 6:25
  has a long life and he'll continue to be the leader.
• 6:29
  But. But yeah, the the article, I
• 6:33
  guess I'll just kind of breeze through this a little bit.
• 6:35
  Yeah, I think it's, it's a fun article.
• 6:37
  Like I think she did a good job of balancing how this community,
• 6:41
  like the camaraderie around it and obviously the ups and downs
• 6:45
  of being an investor in this company.
• 6:47
  You know, you know, making a comparison to the fact that the
• 6:50
  company's market cap is of a certain size and only had
• 6:53
  71,000,000 of annual revenue this past year.
• 6:56
  Like that's fair. But I think, you know, Bloomberg
• 6:59
  obviously could have put what the company's expected to do,
• 7:02
  like in terms of their project, the street consensus for
• 7:04
  projections, right, in terms of revenue and EBITDA.
• 7:07
  But, but you know, that's, that's kind of the next layer,
• 7:11
  right, where people, if they read this article and are
• 7:13
  interested, then if they have Bloomberg or if they have other
• 7:18
  tools, they'll, they'll go research and, and understand
• 7:21
  that, Oh, this company, ASD space mobile, while it is early,
• 7:25
  it's not free revenue, which is good, but they are expected to
• 7:30
  do, you know, 71 million in 2025.
• 7:33
  However, projecting that out 177 million in 2026, that grows to
• 7:38
  710 million in 20 seven, 1.65 billion in 2028, two and a half
• 7:44
  billion in 2029. In 2029, EBITDA by the streets
• 7:49
  estimates is going to get to 2.3 billion.
• 7:52
  So, oh, this company is growing very rapidly, right?
• 7:55
  So what, what's, why is it it projected to have such high
• 8:00
  EBITDA margin and, and rapid revenue growth.
• 8:02
  And so I think again, I think that's the key that an article
• 8:06
  like this would draw people in to actually research and do more
• 8:09
  work around this obscure company as they call it.
• 8:13
  But yeah, it's it's just kind of going through this article, I
• 8:17
  guess in the beginning. Yeah, maybe I'll just go through
• 8:19
  the beginning there. There's a reference about to
• 8:22
  where, you know, Space Mob and that kook.
• 8:24
  It talks about the Kook bottom and that he's not anonymous
• 8:28
  oddball character, which I think Kook would agree with and that
• 8:32
  he's rah rah bull most days firing off post.
• 8:35
  But then when things go South, you know, we he you know, for
• 8:40
  someone who has a massive position, he he wears his
• 8:43
  emotions on his on his sleeve, right.
• 8:45
  And so hence where the Kook bottom came from.
• 8:48
  Like when Kook feels pretty awful, you're going to have
• 8:51
  these situations where, and for him, he, he will make a known
• 8:56
  that it's, it's, it's a tough time.
• 8:59
  And it, what's interesting is they did interview us and they
• 9:02
  asked us for our position sizes, which I think, you know, they,
• 9:06
  they probably felt comfortable in disclosing Tanners, but they
• 9:09
  didn't disclose ours, which I think for most of us, we would,
• 9:15
  I would have been OK with them disclosing it.
• 9:17
  But then I think for Kook, for example, he felt quite
• 9:20
  uncomfortable, which, you know, he's got a massive position.
• 9:23
  But but I think, you know, that that sticking to journalistic
• 9:30
  integrity, they probably just wanted to disclose Tanner's
• 9:34
  because he's he's, you know, docs versus US who are, who are
• 9:37
  anonymous. But but yeah, let me let me just
• 9:41
  kind of go through this. But, but you know, there's,
• 9:43
  there's a picture of the Cardiff of Kook, which is where Kook
• 9:46
  gets his name, which I thought was a pretty cool little
• 9:49
  reference there. Let me see here.
• 9:56
  And, you know, it's, it's interesting because I, I think I
• 10:00
  didn't expect this, but I think Tanner, which which is great.
• 10:02
  I think he was highlighted pretty well throughout this
• 10:05
  article, which I think is important because for readers,
• 10:10
  it's in it. It's easier to kind of connect
• 10:13
  with someone who isn't anonymous and because the details of
• 10:18
  Connor's back or Tanner's background are disclosed that
• 10:21
  he's an oil engineer and and you know, he's got a family and he
• 10:24
  sunk most of his life savings into the company.
• 10:27
  I think by kind of using him as the, the, the character that you
• 10:33
  can or the person that you can relate to, I think is, is
• 10:36
  helpful. But yeah, it's pretty funny.
• 10:37
  Like they, they do this market cap comparison where they put
• 10:40
  United Airlines, Kraft Heinz AST space with Will Tyson, Cruz
• 10:43
  Charter, Ralph Lauren. That was a pretty funny
• 10:47
  comparison, but let me just look through here.
• 10:51
  But yeah, I think, you know, the, the part where I think
• 10:53
  people have issues with is this, you know, this comparison to G,
• 10:59
  you know, GameStop and and AMC, just given that how much we have
• 11:04
  rallied, which I think, you know, for the company, for those
• 11:08
  that have invested for a long time.
• 11:10
  I think that, you know, the fact that the article didn't touch on
• 11:13
  the fact that there was a, a period of, you know, where the
• 11:17
  stock was in the doldrums, right and near $2.00.
• 11:19
  And it wasn't always this positive, you know, good vibes
• 11:24
  rally of 6000%. But there were many years that
• 11:29
  of difficult times in terms of holding the this stock and, you
• 11:33
  know, continue to have conviction and underwriting the
• 11:36
  investment by, you know, having copious amounts of due diligence
• 11:40
  and and kind of sticking with that.
• 11:42
  And so perhaps like I think the article could have touched upon
• 11:46
  that, which we actually talked about quite, or I talked about
• 11:49
  quite a bit in my interviews that it, when we went through
• 11:52
  those really difficult times, that was a period when, you
• 11:57
  know, this, this idea of space mob was galvanized right, where
• 12:01
  people were tested in terms of the resolve.
• 12:04
  And by conducting due diligence and having that conviction, it
• 12:09
  enabled people to not only ride the stock from, call it, you
• 12:13
  know, I think it peaked in 2021 like at 15 or so, but all the
• 12:17
  way down to 2 and not only ride it all the way down to two, but
• 12:20
  add on the way down. But then the resolve to, you
• 12:25
  know, once AT&T's commercial agreement was, was executed.
• 12:29
  And then you had Verizon come in as a strategic partner with
• 12:33
  their strategic investment of $100 million.
• 12:35
  When that was, when that happened in June 2024.
• 12:38
  It was also the, the opposite, right?
• 12:39
  Having the resolve to hold on 'cause like in those early days
• 12:44
  right after that announcement came, I, I do recall very
• 12:48
  vividly that there were a number of investors who 'cause, you
• 12:51
  know, we were conditioned on this, right?
• 12:53
  Like every time there was a rally or positive reduce, it
• 12:55
  would get sold. And so when when when the stock
• 13:00
  rallied on the Verizon news and traded up into the 8910 levels,
• 13:05
  there were quite a few people who actually sold And they were
• 13:07
  like, you know what, this this rally is going to get faded.
• 13:09
  I'm going to buy back lower because they were conditioned
• 13:12
  that AST over the previous years would rally on some positive
• 13:15
  news and go immediately straight down.
• 13:17
  But then of course, like it didn't, it didn't go back.
• 13:20
  It maybe had some small draw downs, but it continued to rally
• 13:23
  over that summer and then hit 39.
• 13:26
  And so I think as many of you know, having the resolve to
• 13:32
  write it down all the way to 2 and add and then actually having
• 13:35
  the resolve to hold it all the way up to 39.
• 13:38
  And even you know that drawdown from 39 to I think as low as 17.
• 13:42
  But then if you didn't hold it all the way up until, you know,
• 13:46
  our for example, with the latest high, which was what 122 or so,
• 13:50
  I think intraday was like almost 13128, but the close was 122.
• 13:56
  That just shows like the level of conviction that people have
• 13:58
  in terms of understanding, you know, knowing what you own,
• 14:02
  understanding the investment and the opportunity and having the,
• 14:07
  you know, the conviction to hold through the UPS and the downs.
• 14:12
  So I think perhaps the article could have focused on the at
• 14:15
  that aspect quite a bit, but but it didn't, which is which is
• 14:18
  fine. But yeah, just moving on in this
• 14:22
  article. Let's see, I, I do think at
• 14:25
  least in you know, there is an acknowledgement that while it
• 14:28
  seems that there are some parallels to meme stock, what I
• 14:32
  think Sana did a good job is saying that, you know, but this
• 14:37
  is this is very different. Whereas like AMC and GameStop
• 14:42
  are, are two highly shorted companies.
• 14:44
  And I try to convey this to her as much as I could like those
• 14:47
  are two highly shorted companies that had no financial or
• 14:50
  operational prospects, right? Whereas this company was highly
• 14:54
  shorted, but then has technology that is game changing, right,
• 15:00
  that it's going to disrupt the wireless industry.
• 15:03
  It's going to bring connectivity to the under, to those who don't
• 15:07
  have any alternatives, You know, the underserved populations of
• 15:10
  developing nations, but then also, of course, eliminating
• 15:13
  dead zones and then, you know, in more developed countries like
• 15:15
  the US, the Middle East, Europe, Asia.
• 15:18
  But then on top of that, you know, delivering A broadband
• 15:21
  service that is going to augment the terrestrial wireless
• 15:24
  network. And so I think she at least did
• 15:29
  a good job there saying that. I mean, specifically here, she
• 15:34
  says AST isn't one of those. It's got promising technology
• 15:37
  that beams signals from satellite straight to mobile
• 15:39
  phones, plans to significantly expand its network and deal and
• 15:42
  deals with major telecom companies like AT&T, Verizon,
• 15:45
  Vodafone counts as accounts Alphabet, Google's parent among
• 15:49
  its shareholders and space mobbers.
• 15:50
  Unlike some and the meme stock crowd insists they are in it for
• 15:53
  the long haul. So, so I think, you know, she
• 15:55
  did a pretty decent job of balancing out the fact that, you
• 15:58
  know, this is not one of those situations where for, for
• 16:02
  GameStop and and AMC and and cost and some of those others
• 16:08
  who who, you know, folks remember those were situations
• 16:11
  that were highly shorted, questionable fundamentals.
• 16:14
  And those were like retail traders going to get the man,
• 16:18
  the man made like hedge funds, like, you know, the various
• 16:21
  funds that got blown up during that period of time who were,
• 16:23
  who were heavily short. That was really a technical
• 16:27
  squeeze to go after and take money back from Wall Street to
• 16:31
  Main Street. Whereas this of course, is, is
• 16:33
  very different, which I, I think she did a decent job of
• 16:36
  acknowledging that while from the, and, and I think it is
• 16:41
  important, like for outsiders looking in, they are going to
• 16:45
  come at it from the perspective of what she's written, right?
• 16:49
  That that is a meme stock. And then what I think she's
• 16:51
  attempted to is, is peel back the layers and show that there's
• 16:55
  actually, you know, a tremendous, the, the business
• 16:58
  has tremendous potential. It's got key strategic partners
• 17:02
  who have not only partnered with the company that, you know,
• 17:05
  contributed spectrum, they've also made investment as well.
• 17:09
  And so, you know, I I think the by differentiating, at least she
• 17:14
  shows that, yeah, from the outsiders, this is what it looks
• 17:17
  like, but it's actually different, which I think was
• 17:20
  good. You know, there was some.
• 17:24
  We were always wondering, could we?
• 17:25
  We did talk about Tim Farrar at length, how he has served to be
• 17:29
  a perfect foil as like the boogeyman.
• 17:32
  Like the boogeyman who has no idea what he's talking about,
• 17:35
  but yet he's got Wall Street eating out of his hand and, and
• 17:39
  has caused people to lose on the institutional side, you know,
• 17:42
  short sellers and, and I guess people who haven't invested and
• 17:45
  could have and they've missed out on potential for returns.
• 17:49
  But you know, we had talked about him as being a useful
• 17:52
  foil, like this villain, right to who is the the face of short
• 17:57
  sellers, right? And he's obviously has fed a lot
• 18:00
  of these guys and they've lost their shirts over the years.
• 18:03
  But interestingly, he wasn't, he didn't make any of the article.
• 18:06
  I don't know if they interviewed him, but what I think is funny
• 18:09
  is that she did interview some of these like old school
• 18:12
  financial advisors like this guy Peter Atwater, president of
• 18:15
  Financial insights Insights spelled with AY.
• 18:19
  So I guess that's like pretty hip sounding.
• 18:21
  But you have a lot of these guys.
• 18:24
  They interviewed him and they interviewed Matt Mailee of
• 18:27
  Miller Tabak, which is like this small, tiny, you know, sell side
• 18:32
  firm. When I was working on Wall
• 18:35
  Street, I never dealt with Miller Tabak.
• 18:38
  You know, it's some small firm. It, it, you know, if you want to
• 18:41
  talk about obscure, like that's an obscure firm.
• 18:44
  But you know, she, she tries to balance it by interviewing some
• 18:46
  of these guys who, of course poo poo.
• 18:48
  You know, this guy says the stock's a disaster waiting to
• 18:52
  happen. Predicted that sooner or later
• 18:54
  it'll crater some 50%. Maybe it'll go another 20%.
• 18:58
  Yeah, this guy has no idea about AST Space Mobile.
• 19:01
  He's just kind of throwing stuff out there.
• 19:03
  You know, you probably looked at a chart for a second and was
• 19:05
  like, yeah, it's going to create a 50%, which I think of course
• 19:08
  it did at the time that probably when they interviewed him, it
• 19:13
  has corrected. And that's just as we've talked
• 19:15
  about in the past, like that's part of holding a high upside,
• 19:20
  high beta name. You're going to have wild swings
• 19:23
  in the stock and you've got to be prepared.
• 19:25
  And that's why we've talked about this whole notion of not
• 19:28
  being on a margin like you've got to have staying power,
• 19:30
  right? You don't want to be tapped out
• 19:31
  at the wrong time. But but I think it is
• 19:34
  interesting. They they and she, she calls
• 19:36
  them too. She calls them out.
• 19:38
  She says too many old school market veterans, folks like Matt
• 19:41
  Maley at Miller Tabak. It all remains a bit absurd.
• 19:45
  Asked back in January for his assessment of the rally.
• 19:48
  And so, yeah, it was January Maley, who's a Maley, who's a
• 19:53
  strategist, started out on Wall Street in the 1980s.
• 19:55
  So, so he even predates me like I, I didn't start out on Wall
• 20:00
  Street until the late 90s. This guy started out in the 80s.
• 20:03
  So he's, he's like a bigger dinosaur, I guess.
• 20:06
  But but he was calling the stock a disaster.
• 20:08
  What didn't happen? Predicting sooner or later it
• 20:10
  would crater some 50%. And then of course it did.
• 20:14
  You know, she talks about how in February it sank by 29, then by
• 20:17
  early May it, it dropped 48% from its January peak.
• 20:20
  And then I guess they went back to him for a quote and he said.
• 20:25
  The route is heating up. It could crater another, it
• 20:27
  could go down another 20%. So, so if that's like the
• 20:31
  skeptics that they're going to interview, those are pretty
• 20:35
  weak. But in some respects, like I was
• 20:38
  hoping that Tim Farrar would get interviewed and he'd make it
• 20:41
  into the article and then people would kind of research this guy
• 20:44
  and see some of the stuff that we've posted about him and and
• 20:48
  you know, laugh, but but alas, he didn't make it.
• 20:53
  Let's see here. So just going through the
• 20:54
  article, there was AI think someone and I was just going on
• 21:01
  Reddit because I posted on Reddit.
• 21:03
  Someone was was complaining that they the that she wasn't
• 21:06
  specific enough about saying that the Blue Origin launch was
• 21:10
  their failure versus our failure.
• 21:12
  But I mean, it says here those plans were dealt a major blow in
• 21:14
  April when its first launch of the year upon a Blue origin
• 21:17
  rocket failed. I mean, I guess she could have
• 21:20
  said, well, I, it kind of implied there right upon a blue,
• 21:24
  Blue Origin rocket failed. But yeah, I, I think again,
• 21:28
  it's, it's important to note that when you have these types
• 21:33
  of articles, like not everyone, there's never such such thing as
• 21:37
  a perfect article as like 'cause if I wrote the article or if
• 21:39
  Kook wrote the article, then it would be absolutely 100%
• 21:42
  bullish. It would be probably really
• 21:44
  entertaining and interesting for anyone invested in AS TS people,
• 21:48
  perhaps. Well, it probably would be
• 21:50
  entertaining and interesting for people who aren't invested.
• 21:52
  But, but for Bloomberg, you know, they're, they're going to
• 21:55
  try to put forward something that is balanced and, and again,
• 21:59
  they're going to try to incorporate the outsiders
• 22:03
  perspective, which is the whole wrapper of meme stock, right.
• 22:08
  But I, I do think by doing so it, it, it's going to draw in
• 22:13
  like more interest, right. So moving on the article, you
• 22:16
  know, she talks a bit about Abell and, and I, I think it's
• 22:19
  good that they don't, they don't really focused on the company as
• 22:23
  much or the personalities there. I mean, I do like that she talks
• 22:27
  about here how Abell keeps a relatively low profile, which is
• 22:31
  true as CEO. Like he's a, he's a guy who
• 22:33
  executes. He's not, he's not someone who
• 22:36
  is PR hungry. And this is something that that
• 22:39
  the company for my early interactions with them has
• 22:42
  always been the case. I remember talking to a board
• 22:45
  member at the first Blue Walker three launch about how, you
• 22:48
  know, one of the biggest criticisms I think of any retail
• 22:52
  investors have had for the company is the fact that they
• 22:55
  aren't splashy. They don't do a ton of PR,
• 22:58
  they're not media savvy. And I, I remember speaking with
• 23:03
  this board member and they, you know, I was like, well, I think
• 23:05
  the company could be more commutative and have more PR,
• 23:08
  which this person agreed. But then they also acknowledge,
• 23:11
  like, you know, Abel is, he's an engineer and he's all about
• 23:14
  execution and developing the technology.
• 23:17
  It's not about flashy PR, which, you know, I think over the over
• 23:22
  the years, the company has gotten better.
• 23:23
  But you know, for some of the criticisms where people have
• 23:27
  said they they need to communicate daily or put P more
• 23:31
  PR out, you know, I I don't think that's the company's DNA.
• 23:35
  And quite candidly, like if you had the choice between a company
• 23:38
  that was very flashy and did a lot, you know, hype versus a
• 23:42
  company who's focused on the technology building the business
• 23:47
  and the Moat around partnerships and, you know, pursuing defense
• 23:52
  contracts, Like, I'd rather they focus on the actual fundamentals
• 23:56
  of the business versus the the PR angle.
• 23:58
  But here, you know, in the article, it talks about how he's
• 24:02
  relatively low key versus guys. I mean, this is, I guess she
• 24:06
  picked an extreme example, but like Palantir's Alex Carp or
• 24:09
  Musk. And so, you know, she also makes
• 24:14
  a reference to Adam Aaron of AMC who embraced the celebrity,
• 24:19
  which I I would argue Adam Aaron's a pretty questionable
• 24:23
  guy in what he did to MC Shoulders.
• 24:25
  But you know, as a fiduciary of that company, they they took
• 24:28
  advantage of, of that, you know, what was going on and helps de
• 24:34
  deleverage that company and, you know, carve out a more
• 24:38
  sustainable future for it, even though I guess like at the
• 24:41
  expense of shareholders. But anyway, let's see.
• 24:45
  So going back, you know, there is a Blurban article talking
• 24:48
  about how AST has acknowledged its debt to the space mob.
• 24:51
  And and this reference goes back to the difficult times when, you
• 24:56
  know, after the company had de SPAC and gone public.
• 25:00
  If if for those people, it was a very painful time.
• 25:02
  But over the course of 2022 and 2023 out of coming out of the
• 25:07
  pandemic, when inflation was, you know, it was we had runaway
• 25:10
  inflation in the US And so the Federal Reserve aggressively
• 25:14
  raised interest rates. That was a period of time when
• 25:17
  any company, especially pre over new companies, which is what AST
• 25:20
  was at the time, suffered heavily, right?
• 25:23
  Because when rates rocketed up, valuations got squeezed.
• 25:27
  And then for companies that needed capital for like ASD,
• 25:31
  they were starved. They were starved to capital,
• 25:33
  right? And so over that period of time,
• 25:35
  it was that was when the company had to dial back research
• 25:39
  development CapEx. You know, some people would
• 25:42
  would argue that, you know, hey, these guys didn't execute
• 25:44
  according to their plan in the SPAC, which in the in the plan,
• 25:48
  I think once the company went public, there were there were
• 25:50
  ideas that they were going to be able to raise capital at
• 25:53
  attractive valuations. But of course, the environment
• 25:56
  of 2021 became a very negative environment in 2022 and 2023.
• 26:01
  And so over that period of time, you know, after companies had
• 26:05
  gone public via SPAC, a lot of them had no institutional
• 26:09
  support. I mean, there was there was a
• 26:11
  handful of of institutions that believed in the story.
• 26:15
  But beyond that, I mean, ASD was pretty much a retail name.
• 26:19
  And so acknowledging in in the article, she talks about how the
• 26:23
  company acknowledged its debt space mob and how executives
• 26:27
  take questions from individual investors first on their
• 26:30
  earnings call, which I think is pretty, pretty damn cool.
• 26:32
  I mean, now the company is a $25 billion company working with
• 26:38
  the, you know, the the the top M and OS globally, obviously got
• 26:43
  FCC approval for its consolation is viewed as, as, you know, one
• 26:47
  of the leading companies in this this category that it created
• 26:51
  the fact that it takes investor questions from retail first
• 26:56
  before research analyst. I think is, is I mean, there I
• 27:01
  don't, I don't think there's any other company out there.
• 27:02
  Maybe maybe Palantir does. Maybe they do it like after I
• 27:06
  actually, I haven't listened to a Palantir call, but, but I'm
• 27:09
  pretty certain we, you know, we as in the company started this
• 27:13
  started at 1st. And I think that is a testament,
• 27:16
  right to the acknowledgement, acknowledging that how much
• 27:20
  retail support during the, the Valley of death, right?
• 27:23
  When the stock got down to $2.00, how critical that was for
• 27:26
  the company's rival. Because I think it's, it's, and
• 27:30
  we can all say this now in, in, in retrospect, but back then
• 27:34
  the, there wasn't, there wasn't a certainty that the company
• 27:38
  would survive financially, right?
• 27:39
  Because fortunately, I mean, there, there was like ongoing
• 27:43
  discussions with space mob between me, Kook, Katzie, Steve
• 27:49
  and a whole host of other people.
• 27:50
  It's like, is this company going to make it?
• 27:52
  Because you know, fortunately they, they never had to disclose
• 27:56
  in A10Q or 10K the bankruptcy risk, right?
• 28:01
  Like that they were at a point where they were potentially
• 28:04
  going to be under 12 months of liquidity.
• 28:07
  And you know, when a company has to disclose that in a filing,
• 28:10
  that's no bueno, right? And so the company did its best
• 28:15
  to fund the business to have runway to be well beyond 12
• 28:19
  months. But then beyond that, you know,
• 28:22
  continue to innovate, right? So we talked about the old days,
• 28:27
  like for example, when Blue Walker 3 was launched and, and
• 28:30
  full, you know, successfully deployed and they started
• 28:32
  testing, you know, it's, it's, it's unfortunate that Blue
• 28:36
  Origin, the second stage failed. And, and by the way, like Blue
• 28:40
  Origin knows the, the issues and it they're very, very minor,
• 28:44
  which I've talked about this before, but I think the FAA is
• 28:47
  going to get Blue Origin New Glenn up and running very soon
• 28:50
  versus like skeptics out there are saying.
• 28:51
  But back then, if, if Blue worker 3 did not get to orbit or
• 28:56
  didn't open up, that would have been potentially existential,
• 29:01
  you know, extinction level event, right?
• 29:04
  Because at that point, the company didn't have a ton of
• 29:06
  cash, right? And it needed that satellite to
• 29:09
  go up and prove itself and do what it needed to do in order to
• 29:12
  then continue funding, right? Because in the at the end of the
• 29:15
  day, like for any growth company, there's no such thing
• 29:18
  as like I'm fully funding, funded from here to eternity.
• 29:21
  You just like in any start up, like you're gonna fund yourself
• 29:26
  to the next important milestones and have enough cushion.
• 29:28
  You get to those milestones, you demonstrate yourself.
• 29:30
  And, and we see this in biotech, then you raise money at a higher
• 29:34
  valuation. Back then, people forget that
• 29:36
  because the market was so brutal in terms of where rates were.
• 29:41
  And obviously it was very the rates were really high and it
• 29:45
  was hard for start up companies, especially like any companies
• 29:48
  that went public via SPAC, which by the way, like includes Rocket
• 29:51
  Lab and you know, later intuitive machines and to some
• 29:55
  of these others that actually ended up surviving.
• 29:57
  But if you were a SPAC, there was like this terrible stigma,
• 30:00
  right? And so it was hard to raise
• 30:02
  money. And so the fact that AST was
• 30:04
  able to during that period of time survive.
• 30:09
  And you know, any, as I mentioned before, any positive
• 30:12
  event would get sold off. Like after Blue Walker 3 was
• 30:14
  launched, you know, that was when famous Kerris Dale came out
• 30:17
  with a short report right before, you know, after they had
• 30:19
  launched, but before they had opened up the satellite.
• 30:21
  And of course they created the stock.
• 30:23
  But that was a point in time when when the company, you know,
• 30:26
  it was, it was desperate times that they had to raise money.
• 30:29
  And a lot of that we keyed off of retail support because, you
• 30:35
  know, back in the day when they did equity offerings, they would
• 30:37
  have to price it down like 20% to 30% 'cause there was no
• 30:40
  institutional demand. The only institutional demand
• 30:42
  were either guys who are covering their short and they
• 30:44
  participate in the offering that way, or capital markets desks
• 30:47
  who are like, hey, I want you guys to price the offering down
• 30:51
  20, down 30, 'cause I want to be able to flip it for a profit,
• 30:54
  right? But and who are they flipping
• 30:56
  to? It's going to be retail.
• 30:57
  And and that's just kind of how it works if you don't have true
• 31:00
  institutional demand. But yeah, back then it wasn't,
• 31:05
  it wasn't all, you know, rainbows, right?
• 31:07
  Like the company was. If you guys recall at the end of
• 31:12
  2023 when the company was looking at for financing package
• 31:16
  and, you know, here the the bears came out, the skeptics
• 31:19
  were like, they're not gonna be able to raise money.
• 31:20
  Like I even Tim Farrar called it.
• 31:22
  He's like, oh, the the fund, the strategic fundraising failed.
• 31:25
  It must have failed. Like he, he made this assumption
• 31:28
  based off of some of the disclosures from the company,
• 31:30
  which is something he always does.
• 31:32
  He likes to extrapolate whatever, whatever is disclosed
• 31:37
  into his own narrative. But but yeah, back then it was,
• 31:41
  it was a tough time, right? And even with the Block 1
• 31:44
  launches, which had you had a failure then it would have been
• 31:48
  really rough. But of course, you know, they
• 31:50
  successfully launched those five satellites.
• 31:52
  They unfolded all them. They they were able to
• 31:55
  demonstrate service. Then we also had Bluebird 6 of
• 31:59
  course go up on Israel LVM 3. And by the way, like people
• 32:03
  forget I, I know it's, it's brutal and it's painful that BB7
• 32:07
  failed, but BB 6 was a success. And it's given us the ability to
• 32:11
  say that these early steps towards improving spectrum
• 32:15
  efficiency are panning out right.
• 32:17
  Like we have got over 150 megabits per second performance
• 32:21
  from that satellite for each beam cell, right.
• 32:24
  So, so that's, that's tremendous.
• 32:26
  But, but yeah, I think the company has acknowledged and
• 32:31
  will continue to pay homage to retail investors who have
• 32:36
  basically stuck the company through thick and thin, right
• 32:38
  Where in the article it talks specifically about the company
• 32:43
  inviting folks down to launch, obviously this past April 19th,
• 32:48
  but then also for previous launches as well.
• 32:51
  But anyway, I, I will say it is funny because they, they, they
• 32:56
  put together, I guess it's AI picture of, of, of us as
• 33:00
  characters. And I in order to perhaps like,
• 33:05
  you know, not, not get copyright infringement.
• 33:08
  They, they have a picture of me with as an pin man, but but
• 33:12
  modified with like a single tooth and, and like a patch of
• 33:15
  hair on top, which I joke that I guess maybe, maybe that's what I
• 33:18
  do look like now. They look a bit ragged.
• 33:20
  But anyway. But yeah, in this article they
• 33:23
  did ask for to take pictures of us.
• 33:25
  And I did want to stay anonymous, which is why I guess
• 33:28
  they chose this picture of me with my back turned, which was
• 33:31
  good. But yeah, I guess maybe people
• 33:33
  in real life who know me, they might be able to recognize my
• 33:36
  the backside of my profile. So, but anyway, let's see here
• 33:42
  what, what I did like is they, you know, she, she did talk
• 33:44
  about Steve Larrison, who is a software engineer from Arizona,
• 33:48
  and then about how Katsy and Pan B and Pan and Kook, we all kind
• 33:54
  of got together and, and started a little chat back in the day,
• 33:58
  which I went back and looked, she didn't put this in the
• 34:00
  article, but as she was doing fact checking, she had sent me
• 34:05
  an e-mail with follow up about additional facts for the
• 34:09
  article. And she'd asked, you know, when
• 34:10
  did you guys put together that chat?
• 34:13
  And so we actually had a chat that predated this NATO alliance
• 34:16
  1. And it, it, it did include, but
• 34:18
  it wasn't until later that we changed the name and we, we used
• 34:22
  NATO alliance because Cassie is out in Sweden.
• 34:24
  And at that time we, we felt, and throughout this entire
• 34:29
  journey, we felt that like it was US against the world, right.
• 34:31
  And so we wanted, I don't know, we, we felt this camaraderie and
• 34:35
  decided maybe it was Cassie who came up with NATO.
• 34:37
  No, actually it was, I think it was Steve Larrison who came up
• 34:41
  with like NATO alliance. But but yeah, that's that was
• 34:45
  the cool. That was like how that name came
• 34:47
  up. But when I went back and looked
• 34:49
  to see when we started Discord. So I think I posted my first
• 34:56
  Twitter thread on ASD Space Mobile back in December of 2020.
• 35:00
  So it was literally maybe a week after the company announced
• 35:03
  their SPAC transaction with NPA. And so I remember talking with a
• 35:08
  few people on the old ISS Discord about the name.
• 35:11
  And I kind of tested my, the thesis that I had that I was
• 35:14
  writing and, and previewed it, previewed it with them.
• 35:18
  And then I published that note. And then it wasn't until it was.
• 35:22
  December. January that on StockTwits, I
• 35:26
  came across the Kook and we, we started chatting briefly and
• 35:29
  then we found out that we had similar backgrounds financially
• 35:33
  and, but, but he, you know, he had a high level of conviction
• 35:35
  in, in AST. And so then Kook and I became
• 35:38
  friends and then it was like maybe over the course of it was
• 35:43
  definitely after NPA went public.
• 35:46
  And then that's, I believe Katzie that he had told me that
• 35:49
  he had read one of my threads and then he became involved.
• 35:53
  And then, you know, on Discord, we, we met Katzie and then Steve
• 35:58
  Larrison as well. And so that's when we formed
• 36:01
  this chat group. And so that Discord was
• 36:04
  actually, I went back and looked, it was started in
• 36:08
  October, on October 16th, 2021. So it's kind of hard to believe
• 36:13
  that that was almost five years ago.
• 36:16
  But from there, you know, we, we actually created this little
• 36:18
  group 'cause we were like, Hey, we all have a common interest of
• 36:21
  doing research and, you know, based off of everyone's
• 36:26
  expertise and interest. We, we were like, OK, this was
• 36:28
  kind of the, the, the brain trust of, you know, like all of
• 36:35
  our work. And so I, I went back and it
• 36:38
  was, it was actually, I mean, it's kind of crazy.
• 36:40
  Like there's just so much in that chat of regulatory
• 36:43
  findings, technical analysis in terms of the underlying
• 36:49
  technology from from Catsy, Steve Larrison talking about
• 36:52
  production and engineering. But yeah, it went back.
• 36:58
  I mean, there's a ton of content there and it I mean, it kind of
• 37:01
  like brought didn't bring me to tears, but I was, I was
• 37:04
  emotional because I there I could read all of Steve
• 37:07
  Larrison's, you know, writings, which kind of felt like he's
• 37:10
  still there, you know, with us. But but but yeah, it's it's I do
• 37:16
  in the article, you know, she talks about developing that that
• 37:19
  chat, which I thought was kind of cool.
• 37:24
  And yeah, I mean. I guess at the end of this at
• 37:27
  the end of this certain passage, she she talks about how they
• 37:31
  started posting their findings online to prove to the world
• 37:33
  they said that I was sleeping on what could be the next school or
• 37:36
  NVIDIA. And I think actually in Steve
• 37:37
  Larrison's word, it would be the next Amazon, right, Because he
• 37:41
  famously during periods of time when there, you know, the
• 37:45
  company would have, would have draw downs and people, you know,
• 37:49
  they they would get, you know, they'd be down emotionally.
• 37:53
  He would always talk about his experience of having day traded
• 37:57
  Amazon back when the I guess the equivalent of the Amazon price
• 38:01
  back then split adjusted was like in the single digits.
• 38:04
  And he would tell people like, I'm I, I've found the next one
• 38:08
  Amazon and I'm not going to make that mistake again.
• 38:10
  I'm buying to hold this. And he actually to his grave,
• 38:14
  unfortunately, when he passed away, but he he still held his
• 38:18
  shares right. And so so that that reference,
• 38:22
  you know, I guess they could have used Amazon, but I think
• 38:25
  maybe maybe that came from Kook talking about the next Google or
• 38:28
  NVIDIA let. Me see here.
• 38:33
  But yeah, it talks a little bit about the due diligence.
• 38:35
  And so the fact that the group monitors the number of cars in
• 38:39
  the parking lot of ASD, that was like an early thing where I
• 38:43
  think one of the signs of life or proof of life for companies
• 38:48
  is the fact that, you know, and we, we, we track, you know,
• 38:50
  employees and all that stuff. And there's some pretty funny
• 38:53
  stories that go around counting cars in the parking lot, Which
• 38:55
  is it? It's an old school tactic that
• 38:57
  hedge funds do especially like if you're covering retail names,
• 39:01
  right? So let's say you want to figure
• 39:03
  out if Best Buy is going to beat or meet or disappoint on
• 39:07
  earnings. One of the one of the things you
• 39:08
  can do and expert networks or, or data operators can do this is
• 39:11
  like they can count parking cars in the parking lot, right?
• 39:14
  And so if there's a lot of customers at the Best Buy over
• 39:17
  the same period of time, then maybe there's a good chance
• 39:20
  they'll beat earnings results, right Or if there's a dearth of
• 39:23
  cars, there aren't that many they might miss.
• 39:25
  But here we were trying to track like, you know, is a company at
• 39:29
  a point where they are adding headcount and things are
• 39:32
  positive, right, 'cause it for anybody who, if you, if you're
• 39:37
  looking for edge, like in the hedge fund world, we call things
• 39:41
  when you're looking for edge, it's like non, non traditional
• 39:44
  data points, right? And so, you know, if, if you're
• 39:47
  looking to short a company, you might see if they're under
• 39:51
  financial duress, they might start cutting employees, right?
• 39:54
  And that that signal is going to happen before they actually
• 39:57
  announce earnings or announce cuts, right?
• 39:58
  So if the car count goes down, if they're not hiring, if hiring
• 40:02
  kind of plateaus. I remember Kuka talked about
• 40:04
  this. For some of the SPAC's in 2022,
• 40:09
  it's like if they keep continue, if they continue hiring, that
• 40:12
  means like prospects are good, like they're, they're, they have
• 40:15
  line of sights to additional financing.
• 40:16
  They feel good about the financial plan.
• 40:19
  The perhaps they're going to get more strategic partnerships that
• 40:22
  that are going to continue to extend the runway then that's a
• 40:26
  positive thing. And so, you know, it's part of a
• 40:28
  hard diligence, you know, counting cars in the parking lot
• 40:30
  at Midland was part of it. And we have a pretty funny story
• 40:34
  where there was this one short seller, Mr. Pink, I think he was
• 40:38
  on, he was on Twitter and you know, he's like one of these
• 40:41
  junior hedge fund guys. He, he, it was funny because he,
• 40:44
  he and this is endearing. He, he chronicled his journey to
• 40:47
  Midland. So he like took a picture of a
• 40:49
  seat on, on a jet plane, an airline and said, I'm going to
• 40:53
  Midland. And then of course, this guy
• 40:57
  drove out to the headquarters in Midland and he talked about how,
• 41:02
  you know, the company was in financial trouble because there
• 41:05
  was no, he, he said he couldn't see any satellites And there
• 41:08
  were, there were no employees. You know, that there, it didn't
• 41:11
  look like there was activity that indicated that the
• 41:13
  satellite was going to be shipped.
• 41:15
  And that was one of the funniest thing because everyone dressed
• 41:19
  him down on, on X 'cause we're like, well, which location did
• 41:22
  you go to? And, and he had gone to the
• 41:24
  Midland headquarters, which is not where they built the
• 41:27
  satellites. He, he, this guy, which similar
• 41:29
  to a lot of hedge funds of his ilk, like didn't understand that
• 41:33
  the company's largest production facility is actually in Odessa,
• 41:37
  which is, you know, quite a bit, you know, it's away from the
• 41:39
  Midland headquarters. And so of course, everyone
• 41:41
  corrected him. And then this guy ended up keep
• 41:45
  making his account private or deleting it because he had, he
• 41:48
  had claimed success when in fact, by posting about his
• 41:54
  findings, he actually showed his, the, the whole idea of, you
• 41:58
  know, 5 minutes or due diligence, his ignorance.
• 42:00
  And so that was pretty funny. But I I do like how in this
• 42:04
  article, you know, she talks about how Space Mob has found
• 42:08
  ways to tap military radar and astronomer data to follow
• 42:11
  satellites, you know, track corporate jet flights, build
• 42:15
  software to find ASD regulatory filings, which, you know,
• 42:19
  there's, yeah, there's a lot of tools that Space Mob has built
• 42:22
  to stay on top of the information flows.
• 42:24
  And then one of the cool things about retail.
• 42:28
  Investing is that. And you know, for, for hedge
• 42:31
  funds and this, this is like this is a very important point
• 42:35
  for hedge funds. If you're in a team with a
• 42:38
  portfolio manager and you've got like 3 analysts, 4 analysts,
• 42:40
  maybe you're covering TMT sector, maybe you're event guys,
• 42:43
  you're covering all sectors. But you, you while you do have a
• 42:47
  financial resources at your fingertips, your ability to
• 42:51
  conduct a deep level of due diligence is very limited,
• 42:54
  right? Because you have a limited
• 42:55
  amount of time in your day. You might have like, you know,
• 42:58
  1020. Each analyst might be covering
• 43:01
  10 to 20 names at any given time.
• 43:03
  The portfolio might have, if it's very concentrated, it might
• 43:05
  be 15 to 20. If it's more diversified, it
• 43:08
  might be 30 to 40 names at, you know, various sizing, you know,
• 43:11
  you might be ramping up a position, ramping one down.
• 43:13
  But but their level of due diligence is talking to
• 43:18
  management, talking to Southside analyst and then talking to
• 43:21
  industry experts. And that can come either by
• 43:25
  calling someone as daft as Tim Ferrar, but then also going to
• 43:29
  Tigas or some of these expert networks, which we've seen, by
• 43:31
  the way, a flurry of Tigas interviews over the last few
• 43:34
  weeks. And so Ryan O'Connor, which I
• 43:38
  fully agree with, he, he has said, you know, I view Tigas
• 43:41
  interviews as the perfect inverse indicator, right?
• 43:45
  And so whatever, because you have to remember, like the
• 43:48
  people that get pulled into these expert networks, they are
• 43:51
  typically people who have, if it's a direct someone who worked
• 43:55
  at ASD, they left the company maybe 1-2, three years ago or
• 43:58
  its competitors who, who may or may not have any insight.
• 44:03
  And so they're all a lot of, you know, and you've got to think
• 44:08
  about like, what are the motives of some of these people?
• 44:09
  So they may have left the company because they got fired.
• 44:12
  And so they might have a, an axe drawing or they've they've moved
• 44:16
  on, but the information they have a stale or they have a very
• 44:18
  unique perspective because they're in a certain department.
• 44:21
  But it's not, it's not a, you know, this is for former AST
• 44:25
  employees. It's not someone who has
• 44:27
  holistic view of everything that's going on.
• 44:30
  Or if it's competitor, obviously, like they're going to
• 44:32
  have a very specific point of view.
• 44:34
  And if they're competitor, it's going to be negative, right.
• 44:36
  And so, and by the way, like this is what Carris Dale did in
• 44:40
  their short report. They, they leveraged negative
• 44:43
  views from other people in order to put forward their view of
• 44:47
  that, you know, they want, they were short of the company, but
• 44:49
  the so, so when you're, you know, an institutional money
• 44:54
  manager, you're, you're the, the amount of resource you have is,
• 44:57
  is great to a degree, but it's also very myopic and it's, it's
• 45:00
  based off of stale information. And unless like you have a good
• 45:04
  relationship with management, but of course management's not
• 45:06
  going to give you MNPI, they're going to give you some
• 45:08
  indications of how things are going.
• 45:10
  But but then the great thing about retail investing is that
• 45:13
  you've got this whole army of people, right?
• 45:15
  And you've got like, you know, in space.
• 45:19
  Mob I. For the article, I pointed sauna
• 45:22
  out to the fact that Reddit has 50,000 members, but it's
• 45:26
  actually, you know, space mob. If you think about it globally,
• 45:28
  you know, not everyone's on Reddit, not everyone's on X.
• 45:30
  There's like Facebook, there's a whole host of people, There's
• 45:33
  people that are not on social media.
• 45:36
  So that that retail network is like pretty massive, right?
• 45:39
  And so this is the whole idea of like crowdsourcing due diligence
• 45:42
  where people know people in the industry, they know other
• 45:46
  people. And so there's like this mosaic
• 45:48
  of information that you can put together that is going to have a
• 45:51
  tremendous leg up versus versus, you know, institutional
• 45:56
  investors. And so like this idea where
• 45:57
  people are like, well, you know, New Glen is not going to launch
• 46:00
  from the three to four months. It's like, well, space mob
• 46:03
  happens to know people in various parts of the industry.
• 46:06
  And it looks like that launch is going to happen much sooner than
• 46:10
  people think. The FAA investigation is going
• 46:12
  to end sooner. There's the onus is on NASA and
• 46:18
  the Uus regulators actually, because they they want to get to
• 46:21
  the moon quickly. And so if the problem is
• 46:25
  definable and it was minor and it could have been avoided,
• 46:27
  which is I think what we understand that vehicle is
• 46:31
  needed to get to the the moon. And so that FAA investigation,
• 46:36
  as long as the company knows what it what happened and it was
• 46:38
  minor, it was not a design issue and they can rectify it very
• 46:41
  quickly, then the vehicles can get on the pad way sooner,
• 46:45
  right. And so, so I think that's like
• 46:48
  one of the big advantages of Space Mob 2 where we, we have
• 46:51
  this, this like massive network of people and, and by kind of
• 46:55
  piercing together information here and there, you're able to
• 46:57
  come up with a very good idea of what is actually going on versus
• 47:02
  it's like playing, you know, it's like the these
• 47:05
  institutions, the short sellers are like 1 legged, 1 legged man
• 47:08
  in ass kicking contest, right? Like they've got some
• 47:10
  information, but they don't have decent information.
• 47:12
  They don't have the they also don't have the continuity of
• 47:16
  being invested in the company for a long period of time and,
• 47:19
  and understanding the regulatory dynamics, competitive dynamics,
• 47:23
  you know, all these different aspects that go into investment.
• 47:25
  Like you'll have a lot of tourists who come in and like,
• 47:28
  oh, I just read this article about AST and, and it's a meme
• 47:32
  song, so I'm going to short it. And then they get their faces
• 47:34
  ripped off, right, because they actually don't understand the
• 47:37
  underlying fundamentals of what what what's going on with the
• 47:40
  company. They might see like, oh, Amazon
• 47:42
  bought global star. So they're going to get crushed.
• 47:44
  And it's like, well, no, global star is low band, you know,
• 47:48
  narrow band data service. They're going to utilize NBA
• 47:51
  space satellites for the next four to five years.
• 47:54
  And then they're hopefully going to develop something that is
• 47:56
  competitive to Starlink and AST. But beyond that, they've got to
• 48:02
  get through all these patents. They're they're way behind.
• 48:04
  But then also global star it, it's great that it's global
• 48:08
  spectrum, but it's not much, right?
• 48:10
  And so there's only if you assume like 3 Hertz, 3 bits per
• 48:15
  Hertz type of efficiency. It's never going to be a
• 48:18
  broadband service, right? And so they've, they've got
• 48:21
  they've, they've put like that initial Lego in place, but in
• 48:25
  order to build the entire set, like you've got to put all these
• 48:28
  other Legos together and, and that takes time.
• 48:32
  But anyway. But yeah, I, I, I mean.
• 48:35
  This at least in this part of the article, she does point out
• 48:40
  that, you know, our level of due diligence, like it's next level.
• 48:44
  I mean, I think most people would have said, you know, it
• 48:46
  would have been great if she focused more on the level of due
• 48:49
  diligence that space mob has versus like emphasizing the meme
• 48:53
  stock part of it. But again, I think it's
• 48:55
  important to understand like they, they're trying to get
• 48:57
  readers right and readers are interested in learning about
• 49:00
  meme stocks and like some of these like eccentric.
• 49:04
  Stories. Right.
• 49:05
  And so if it was like, there's all these retail investors and
• 49:08
  they're doing great research and they made a ton of money that
• 49:11
  doesn't inject like some level of, you know, controversy, which
• 49:16
  I think you know, for, for someone outside looking in when
• 49:19
  they read this article, being part of people who are like, oh,
• 49:22
  these guys are a bunch of yahoos.
• 49:24
  Like they don't deserve to make all that money, which is fine,
• 49:26
  right? It's, it's, it's that that's,
• 49:30
  you need that dynamic to, to get people engaged, right?
• 49:33
  And, and for there to be some level of discussion about it.
• 49:39
  But anyway, let's see. Excuse me, but.
• 49:44
  I do like how, as I mentioned before, there's a a big segment
• 49:47
  on Tanner where, and this is pretty cool where it talks and
• 49:51
  this is true, like where it talks about how he had come
• 49:55
  across the name back in 23 one and became intrigued.
• 49:59
  And during the period of time when his daughter was an infant,
• 50:03
  he would read Reddit after, put it, you know, while putting his
• 50:06
  daughter to sleep, which I think is a pretty cool touch, which is
• 50:08
  true too. But let me see here.
• 50:13
  But yeah, I, I think, I think like this part of the story is
• 50:16
  cool 'cause it, it kind of gives something for people to relate
• 50:19
  to, right? And especially having, you know,
• 50:21
  being a parent myself, going through those periods of time
• 50:24
  and, and of course, later, you know, we, we remember those,
• 50:29
  those times of, of having small children and it being a very
• 50:33
  trying time. But for the fact that Tanner was
• 50:34
  able to come across and be focused like, you know, he's
• 50:38
  he's trying to survive with his wife for this, his infant, but
• 50:41
  be focused enough to actually, you know, do due diligence on
• 50:45
  this name in particular and then have the conviction to go all in
• 50:50
  during that period of time is is kind of kind of crazy.
• 50:56
  And yeah, there's there's. Also here they they disclose
• 51:01
  Tanner Stake, which is worth some $8 million, which is great.
• 51:05
  I'm super happy for him let. Me see here and then.
• 51:10
  They they talk about Kevin Chen, which obviously most of you guys
• 51:12
  know of Kevin and his great contributions.
• 51:15
  I mean, it was cool that that he was incorporating the article.
• 51:18
  And again, I feel bad that Brian O'Connor and and Pranya got cut
• 51:23
  out of the article. I guess they try to keep it
• 51:25
  shorter, but let me see here. I do like the end where they,
• 51:33
  and this was a true where I think it was Tanner's wife's
• 51:36
  birthday. They were, they were going on a
• 51:38
  trip and similar to Tanner, you know, I, I had plans and I was
• 51:44
  like, well, you know, it's OK. Maybe I'll just miss this, this,
• 51:47
  this last launch and I'll just make the next one.
• 51:50
  But of course, like once they sent out the emails and, you
• 51:55
  know, highlighted that the launch date was set for April
• 51:58
  19th and they sent out invites, of course, like.
• 52:02
  While I convinced. Myself not to go I I dropped
• 52:06
  everything asked my wife she was like totally cool with it we got
• 52:09
  help and then I booked my stuff last minute and I went down and
• 52:12
  and of course it was great to see everybody down there.
• 52:15
  Unfortunately not the outcome that we we would have liked but
• 52:19
  but regardless like I think that's it's a testament to like
• 52:22
  how far the company has come where one launch failure is not
• 52:25
  going to be company ending. It's, it's just a blip in the,
• 52:29
  the arc of to the path to success.
• 52:32
  Like this is 11 set back, right? And it was a set back that we
• 52:36
  could afford, meaning Bluebird 7 was a backup to Bluebird 6,
• 52:40
  which was successful. And so Bluebird 7 would have
• 52:43
  been gravy in terms of, you know, being a demonstrating, you
• 52:49
  know, satellite launch and operations for the space SDA
• 52:54
  contract. And so, yeah, at at the end of
• 52:58
  the day, like it was great to go down there, see a bell, see
• 53:02
  Scott. And of course, meeting new
• 53:05
  people as well, which I met quite a few new folks on that
• 53:09
  trip. But but yeah, there's so there's
• 53:12
  this article which I posted. There's also a a video that
• 53:16
  Bloomberg, a short video where Santa kind of talks about the
• 53:20
  story. And there's a few details in the
• 53:22
  video that are not in the written story.
• 53:25
  So definitely recommend checking that out.
• 53:27
  I I posted the link and also, if you're not following Sana, I, I
• 53:32
  truly believe like I think she based off of our interviews, she
• 53:35
  probably was going to write a somewhat different article.
• 53:39
  You know, maybe not with all the meme stuff and, and what have
• 53:42
  you sprinkled in, but I think probably her editor forced her
• 53:45
  into, and I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm giving her a benefit of the
• 53:50
  doubt. I think her editor forced her
• 53:51
  into more of this flavour type of article, which again, I, I
• 53:55
  think is fine because at the end of the day, like it's all about
• 53:58
  getting, you know, having hooking new readers to, to take
• 54:03
  a look at this and, and then from that initial interest,
• 54:07
  digging more into the story. But, but yeah, I think, I think
• 54:10
  overall Sanda did a really good job and, and, and, you know,
• 54:14
  kudos to her and, and of course for everyone who contributed to
• 54:17
  the article. But I, I, but she is on, on, on
• 54:20
  Twitter and, or X And so you can follow her.
• 54:24
  She, she's a, she's a, you know, young lady who's, who started
• 54:29
  her journalistic career, I think at Bloomberg.
• 54:31
  And, and so cool thing about her is that she's writing now solely
• 54:35
  focused on space. And so I think it's important as
• 54:38
  a resource that she, you know, I, I've continued to, you know,
• 54:42
  have conversations with her time to time.
• 54:44
  And I think obviously as AST Space Mobile continues to
• 54:49
  mature, but also other companies like Rocket Lab, by the way, who
• 54:51
  had great earnings yesterday and, and great business
• 54:54
  partnerships, they announced in an acquisition, which is doing
• 54:56
  well. But you know, for for Rocket Lab
• 54:59
  AST, obviously, you know, SpaceX as it comes public, I think
• 55:04
  Sana's going to be an important person following the sector.
• 55:08
  And so I think for, you know, for people who who are
• 55:11
  interested in space, definitely give her a follow up.
• 55:13
  But anyway, I'm probably going to pause there and and the space
• 55:19
  here, although let me just take a look and see if people have
• 55:24
  any questions. Someone's saying articles
• 55:27
  paywalled. Can someone else share?
• 55:28
  I did share it. Just look at my timeline.
• 55:31
  I shared a maybe to the chagrin of Bloomberg, they probably
• 55:35
  didn't like that, but whatever. But I did share the article for
• 55:39
  anyone who's interested in reading it.
• 55:42
  So Arthur Kuziak, they should have interviewed you.
• 55:46
  Kook or Katzie, they did interview us.
• 55:48
  They interviewed all three of us, including Tanner and Kevin
• 55:52
  and actually a few others who didn't make the article.
• 55:55
  But as I mentioned before, like this is an independent
• 55:58
  journalist, it's Bloomberg, they're going to write the
• 56:00
  article the way that they want. And so is it perfect?
• 56:02
  No. What I've changed certain
• 56:05
  aspects of it, absolutely. But it is what it is.
• 56:07
  And I think overall it was is OK job.
• 56:12
  Let's see. The aerospace.
• 56:14
  I agree this is an engagement article.
• 56:16
  More eyes on ASC. Yes, wholeheartedly agree with
• 56:18
  that this person. Didn't like.
• 56:22
  Inexperienced investing community comment.
• 56:24
  Yeah, I mean, that's that was that was like that's probably
• 56:28
  that, that is a cheap shot. But I will say that a lot of
• 56:33
  there is a lot of inexperienced investors in the community.
• 56:35
  And so I think having, you know, over the years, kind of that
• 56:42
  that's been part of the journey, right, like getting people
• 56:44
  weaponized, you know, armed with the ability to be a better
• 56:49
  investor. And so I think that's been part
• 56:51
  of this journey where, you know, inexperienced, meaning that a
• 56:55
  lot of these investors in the retail community have day jobs
• 56:59
  and they they're they're engineers.
• 57:01
  They're, you know, they work in production floors, they're
• 57:03
  lawyers or accountants, they're in other walks of life.
• 57:07
  And so indeed, you know, they're not professional investors, but
• 57:11
  but I think for anyone who's been invested in AST over the
• 57:15
  years, they've moved from the inexperienced realm to
• 57:18
  experienced having survived. This far.
• 57:23
  But you know what? I think that's pretty much it.
• 57:25
  I've got a hop, actually. So.
• 57:28
  But yeah, I just wanted to fire up the space and talk about this
• 57:31
  article, which I think overall is a good thing.
• 57:35
  It's not the perfect article, but it's also not a terrible
• 57:37
  article and it's going to bring more interest and attention and
• 57:42
  I think that's only a good thing.
• 57:43
  So anyway, thanks everyone for joining and we'll talk again
• 57:47
  soon. We've got the quarterly update
• 57:50
  coming on Monday and of course, the first batch shipment, if
• 57:54
  they're going to make the June Falcon 9, mid mid June launch,
• 57:57
  that batch shipment could go out any day now, any day and up
• 58:01
  until the next two weeks. So thanks everyone for joining
• 58:04
  and we'll talk again soon. Take care.
• 58:15
  Thanks for listening to the. AST Space Mobile Podcast If you
• 58:19
  enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
• 58:21
  podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
• 58:25
  media, or leave a rating and review.
• 58:27
  To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
• 58:31
  sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
• 58:34
  next time. We're doing something very,
• 58:39
  very. Big.
• 58:40
  And I think with this technology we can really affect billion
• 58:43
  lives. AFP space globally is the only
• 58:45
  company that has full technology to deliver cellular broadband
• 58:50
  connectivity directly from space to do everyday smartphone.
• 58:54
  People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless
• 58:58
  regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
• 59:00
  know that it's connected by satellite.
• 59:03
  Our. Role is to.
• 59:04
  Bring this into reality, always in partnership with the animal.
• 59:14
  Listen, Waffles.