Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - The future is NOW

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Anpanman - The future is NOW · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and.
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We just basically come your phone be seamless regardless of
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where you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite.
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Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
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Hey everyone, thanks for joining.
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As I said last night, there's probably going to be another one
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of these spaces because there'll be more news out and then I'll
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have to, I'll have to do another space.
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But yeah, I decided to do just that.
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Post another space. There's been some information
0:49
that's come out overnight. And then of course, I stood a
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bit, thought about what Scott had presented at UPS and, you
1:00
know, kind of piece together what some of the implications
1:02
are. And so I just wanted to talk
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about it. So yeah, one thing we learned
1:08
yesterday evening was that American Tower filed a 144.
1:14
This is in regards to the shares that they own.
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And so for those that don't know, American Tower has been an
1:21
early strategic investor. They invested in the company
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before it was public, I think that was a Series B round.
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And then they also invested in the company's IPO in 2021.
1:34
And so the company, sorry, American Tower had about two
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points. I see here they basically 2
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point, what was it, 2.52 point, 5 million Class A shares and
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then 2.2 million Class B shares. And yesterday they filed, you
1:54
know, after the market closed in the evening that they had on a
1:58
144 basis had planned to sell 2.29 million of their Class A
2:04
shares. And so that would bring their
2:07
total ownership down to around 2 point, was it 2.4 million
2:13
shares. And for some context, in
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American Tower is not in the private BC investing game.
2:22
I remember hearing from Ed Knapp, the CTO or former CTO,
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he's not retired that American Tower never really makes, you
2:29
know, venture that investments or investments in other public
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companies. And so I think yesterday's
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transaction was to essentially take some money down and
2:38
recognize a gain. And so American Tower, based off
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of their private investment and their public investment, you
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know, the Class A shares they bought at $10, I think the
2:47
private shares they bought at much lower levels, maybe it was
2:52
the three level. So I think the average is around
2:54
6:00. So for a $31 million investment,
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they turned that into $341 million.
3:00
And so that's not a bad return, 1000% return on investment.
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And you know, I think one thing to keep in mind is that American
3:09
Tower was an early investor and supporter.
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And in many ways, I think it was an opportunity for them to kind
3:17
of hedge their bets and see this what this potential industry was
3:21
going to morph into. And back then, they probably saw
3:26
the potential, but didn't didn't really, you know, fathom the
3:32
potential disruption of the industry.
3:35
And so Fast forward to today, when you look at American Tower
3:39
and Crown Castle and SBSBC, like their, their business is
3:44
actually D rated quite a bit. The reason why that is, is this
3:48
whole idea of direct to sell and satellite coverage, you know,
3:52
blanketing rural areas or areas where it's uneconomic that
3:56
actually crimps quite a bit of growth for these tower
3:59
companies. Now obviously they're, they're
4:00
still going to be relevant and they're going to charge rents
4:02
for the towers, but the opportunity to extend out and
4:09
capture additional CapEx dollars for them and OS like some of
4:12
that's going to be evaporated, right.
4:14
And perhaps I'll focus more on densification of urban areas
4:19
and, and whatever. But yeah, there, there is a, a
4:24
leg of their growth that's being kicked out.
4:27
And the other thing that exacerbated this and caused a
4:30
big D rating in the stocks is the fact that Echostar decided
4:33
to get out of the mobile network operator business.
4:37
And so, you know, Dish Networks, which eventually merged into
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Echostar, I think it's spent like $10 billion on CapEx and
4:45
building out their network to deploy their spectrum.
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And they still had a long ways to go to meet coverage
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requirements for the FCC. And as a part of that, obviously
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they didn't, according to the FCC, they didn't meet their
4:57
requirements. And then the FCC was like, well,
4:59
guys, you got to sell your spectrum.
5:00
And then Charlie Aragon in a bind decided to sell his AWS 4
5:06
and parts of AWS 3 spectrum to Starlink.
5:09
And So what does that mean? Well, for the tower companies,
5:12
Dish was driving a significant part of growth for the entire
5:15
industry in building out towers to deploy the network.
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And then Echostar was like, you know what, we give up.
5:22
And so that entire growth factor is gone.
5:26
But not only that, like you're that, that that area of growth
5:30
is gone. But then that spectrum that was
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supposed to be deployed terrestrially is actually going
5:35
to Starlink and Starlink is going to bring that to bear to
5:39
provide coverage across the US for direct to sell.
5:44
And so not only did you lose that growth vector, now it's
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being basically used against you in sense that that, you know,
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any potential build out in some of these areas that might need
5:57
coverage might just get covered by ASD space Mobile or, or
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Starlink. And so, so that's why, you know,
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the towers have been derating recently and you've seen
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American tower raise additional money.
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I mean, they're always, you know, they're always raising
6:09
money, but these these tower companies are pretty leveraged.
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American Tower in particular has 1.9 billion of cash, but they've
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got, I think like over 50 billion of debt.
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And so by monetizing some of the stake, I mean, it's probably a
6:24
smart corporate finance move and something that the board was
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like, hey, you know what, we're not speculators.
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It's, you know, our relationship is strategic.
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And for those unfamiliar, you know, American Tower actually
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has right of first refusal to build the, the gateways the, the
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ground. Well, the, the, the ground
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stations that will have the gateways, but also host racks of
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the E node BS that integrate into the M and OS court network.
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And so they, they are strategic in that sense that they're a
6:53
partner. But then, you know, if they from
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the right of first refusal, they decide not to do that, then then
7:00
we'll just partner with someone else.
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But but yeah, that, that sale yester, which typically when you
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have a 144 filing, the sale happens the same day.
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And so we saw yesterday the stock like for a very short
7:12
period of time dipped under 70 and it was like a sloppy seller.
7:15
I don't know who at Barclays was, was working the order for
7:18
them, but they, I think they screwed that up.
7:21
But that, you know, selling 22 million shares and change over
7:26
the course of the day, probably early in the day relative to at
7:30
11,000,000 volume day, that's going to have a pretty big
7:33
impact on the stock, which is why we saw it flat.
7:35
But but that, that just goes to show some of the industry
7:39
disruption, you know, there's for a company like American
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Tower, which is viewed as like the gold standard for towers.
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And it's always been a stable business.
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They're kind of, you know, in a strategic crossroads, especially
7:51
with direct to sell becoming more of a reality.
7:54
But anyway, I did want to talk about the UBS conference
7:58
yesterday. And so there were a few things
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and I, I did discuss it, but I, you know, thought a bit more
8:04
about it. And one thing I noted is that,
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you know, Scott was a bit, quite a bit more forthright in terms
8:10
of his discussion about the company's business.
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And, you know, he gave us quite a few Nuggets.
8:16
And so if he kind of tie those Nuggets together, it actually
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gives you a pretty interesting picture.
8:20
And so the first thing I'll touch on is that, you know, he
8:24
specifically mentioned that they are about to secure additional
8:30
manufacturing space, which will be solely focused on
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manufacturing microns. And so I think you would do that
8:37
because you, you know, you obviously want to optimize
8:41
production and, and have a dedicated facility where, you
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know, it's not juggling multiple things at once.
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But I think this this whole notion of having a focused
8:52
effort on pumping out more microns, I think that kind of
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hints at other potential applications.
8:58
So if a factory is dedicated to just building, you know, the,
9:03
the Micron with the solar panel and then you know, the, the
9:07
slots for chips and batteries, but then not necessarily putting
9:11
the finishing array on, you could see that being utilized as
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a building block for other applications.
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And so I think that was an important nugget that the
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company hasn't disclosed before. And, and obviously, you know,
9:23
we're at 500,000 square feet of production and now they're
9:27
looking to expand that further. And then the other thing that
9:31
ties with that is the fact that the company or, you know, Scott
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specifically mentioned additional shells.
9:38
And so not only did you talk about a couple of shells, which
9:41
is, you know, block 1 low band shell and then, I'm sorry, block
9:45
2 low band shell and then what will be block 3 mid band shell?
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He also talked about a government shell.
9:50
And so that's never been disclosed before.
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And so that I think, you know, hey, we're going to, we're going
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to ramp up production of microns in in particular are going to
10:03
have it in a completely separate space, which to me says like
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we're going to be on 6, you know, enough Micron production
10:11
for six, enough for six satellites a month.
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I think they're, they're looking to but up to 11:50.
10:18
But then even beyond just for their needs that are going to be
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making these microns for other applications.
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And so then, you know, he disclosed that this whole idea
10:29
of a government shell, right? And so I haven't heard that said
10:33
before. And so if you kind of tie those
10:35
two things together and what we're on the cusp of, which is
10:38
hearing back about Golden Dome, I think he's kind of tipped this
10:43
cap that we're expecting some type of Golden Dome award soon,
10:48
right? And so in particular, like
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during the conference, he talked about some of the applications,
10:54
which is I've got to go back when you talk about radar very
10:59
specifically and sensing just go here.
11:06
But yeah, that's, that's the first time I've heard the
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company talk in granularity about other applications.
11:15
You know, he, he also discussed connecting various, you know,
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digital assets that are on the battlefield, you know, for
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example, for those who were following like Anderol, you
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know, these headsets and goggles and things that will be
11:28
connected. And, and obviously, like the key
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thing about which Catsy has pointed out for a connected
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battlefield is the fact that, you know, soldiers are going to
11:36
be overwhelmed with so much information, right?
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So a soldier typically like, if you're not that I'm, I'm even
11:43
close to qualified to talk about this, but I can imagine if
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you're on a battlefield and you've got maybe a headset and
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you're listening to something in the old days and then you're
11:51
looking through your eyes, that's kind of the information
11:53
that you're receiving. Whereas in the future,
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everyone's going to be connected.
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You're going to have a heads up display in your goggles,
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goggles, and there's going to be all kinds of information coming
12:02
in. And a lot of that stuff is
12:03
probably not going to be usable. And so you're going to need some
12:07
level of AI processing to bring the critical pieces of
12:12
information to the for, for your, you know, your, your
12:17
soldier on the ground. And that's, that's actually
12:20
interesting because I think one of these folks who was talking
12:23
about, I think his name is Gavin Backer.
12:26
He, he had talked about like AI data centers in space and how
12:30
having, and this was in particular talking about
12:33
Starlink, but having a, the ability to do AI compute in
12:37
space and then delivering that to a connected device on the
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ground, like you could see how that would be very powerful,
12:43
right? So if you had, you know, a
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number of troops or devices that are connected, but they, they
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need some level of AI compute, you could actually do that in
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space. And that that connection between
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space and the ground would be much faster than having to, you
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know, for example, send the signal up to space and then
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bounce back down to perhaps like some data center in the US.
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And and then it's processed, then it bounces it back and then
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sends it to to the, the, you know, the, the area where
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there's, there's, you know, this conflict happening.
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And so, yeah, maybe you in the future, you, you could have some
13:25
level of compute, maybe not a completely dedicated, you know,
13:29
satellite that that does AI compute, but it will have
13:32
connectivity to devices and then some level of AI compute on it,
13:36
which, by the way, like we already know AST 5000, the ASIC
13:39
chip that they have is going to have AAI layer.
13:43
That's or, you know, software that it will be running to
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optimize, you know, the beam forming and dedication of
13:51
resources, for example, like in a particular cell, if there's
13:54
more users versus a cell where there isn't, then perhaps like,
13:57
you know, the satellite will bring more processing power to
14:00
bear. And the other interesting thing
14:02
about the company's beam forming technology is that the antennas,
14:06
you know, we, the company's talked about said projecting
14:10
down thousands of fixed cell beams.
14:12
It can actually within the same array, it could actually focus 2
14:15
beams or three beams on the same cell and, and create a, a
14:19
situation where it's, it's like MIMO, right?
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And so, and there is a patent, I'll go back and try to find it.
14:25
But there's a patent where using the same exact array but
14:29
different elements, you can beam down multiple cells on at the
14:34
same place and improve throughput.
14:36
And so that's why, you know, AI compute is important for the
14:40
satellite already, because you want to be able to effectively,
14:45
you know, just like any, you know, wireless service, you're
14:49
going to have areas where there's there's not so much
14:51
demand in other areas where there is.
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And so you'll want to be able to dynamically allocate that.
14:56
But anyway, but yeah, I think, you know, it's, it's kind of
14:59
funny because, you know, Kook and I talked about this a while
15:02
back and from some of these initial posts, people have had
15:06
some level of skepticism and they should right.
15:08
This is like kind of an early, well, to us, to us who haven't
15:12
been steeped in it and living, eating, breeding it for for
15:15
years, it, it seems early. Whereas there's already
15:17
companies and that have been doing this stuff for quite some
15:20
time, right. Private companies, but also some
15:24
of the larger players as well. I mean, overnight or this
15:26
morning. Yeah, it was overnight.
15:28
There was an article on March Street Journal, which I, I
15:30
posted about how Blue Origin has, has already been working on
15:33
this effort around AI data centers.
15:34
And then, you know, it seems like at least from the outside
15:38
looking in, SpaceX is now recognizing this is a huge
15:42
growth factor and is going to start trying to put some, some
15:46
level of AI compute capacity on their existing satellites.
15:51
And so, but, but now you're having your groundswell, right?
15:53
Like now the theme is in people's minds and it's it's an
15:59
area where, you know, people are going to start digging in and
16:02
under try, you know, trying to understand the physics more of
16:05
how do you solve these problems in space, for example?
16:08
You know, on the one hand, yeah, if you're not directly in the
16:12
sun, space is really cold. And if you can find the right
16:15
technologies to dissipate the heat, you know, there's no air.
16:20
But if you can use radiators and and other methods, being able to
16:25
cool a data center in space should be economically and
16:29
environmentally more, more attractive than doing that on
16:32
Earth where you'll need, you know, some amount of electricity
16:35
to pump water and then that water gets evaporated.
16:37
But you know that the water itself, you know that that's a
16:41
finite resource, right? Like do you want to use water to
16:46
water crops or do you want water to cool data centers, right?
16:50
Like, I guess the long term concern is that these data
16:53
centers will eat up so much resources.
16:55
There may not be much room left for humans.
16:58
And so it's, it gets back to in a crazy way, like when you think
17:04
about the matrix or or the Terminator, like the future
17:09
where where a just AI compute or some of these, these things in
17:15
general kind of usurp all the resources of Earth to the point
17:19
where there may not be room for humans.
17:21
But anyway, that's really far into the future.
17:23
But I think this whole notion of data centers in space helps
17:27
solve that problem and at least gives folks an alternative to,
17:33
OK, I'm going to acquire every square piece of land that I can.
17:37
And I'm going to build out nuclear reactors and I'm going
17:40
to put solar panels everywhere. And I'm going to have like water
17:43
pumps going. And I'm just going to build as
17:45
many data centers as I can because I think what we'll find
17:49
is that over the long run, that's just not sustainable.
17:51
And you're going to have to come up with other potential models.
17:53
And part of that for, you know, long term is, is putting these
17:57
things in space. I guess my, my biggest issue is
18:00
that the, because of these structures, you know, maybe they
18:04
last, you know, I think maybe 5-6, seven years, because
18:08
that's, I believe that's kind of the lifespan of, of typical, you
18:12
know, semiconductors, GPUs that are focused on AI compute.
18:16
But, you know, I think there will have to be a problem
18:19
solving, perhaps like Starship and Blue Origin.
18:23
Eventually, when you have a reasonable secondary stage,
18:26
hopefully you, you pick up some of these, these assets that are
18:30
floating on space that perhaps have, you know, run out their
18:33
useful, meaning, their useful life, and you bring them back in
18:37
one piece instead of trying to force all this stuff to just
18:41
deorbit and and burn up in the atmosphere, which long run, like
18:44
that's not sustainable either. And so, you know, that's
18:48
probably one of the biggest concerns, I think around
18:50
Starling, for example, is that they've got they're putting up
18:52
thousands of satellites up every year.
18:54
And it's not a one way St. like eventually those satellites,
18:58
thousands of them are going to start deorbiting.
19:00
And and so maybe in the early years, that's OK, but over the
19:04
long run, you know, what does that do to the atmosphere?
19:07
So that's, that's something to think about.
19:09
So which is why I think having, you know, larger satellites that
19:14
can last for instead of two to three to four years, last, you
19:18
know, 10 years or longer. And then obviously at some point
19:23
being able to have the technology to deorbit those
19:25
things safely where they don't have to be, you know, burn up in
19:28
the atmosphere. I think that's probably another
19:30
problem that I'm sure humans will focus on and try to solve.
19:34
But but yeah, so going back to this whole idea of, of idea data
19:39
centers in the future, like, you know, Scott, when talking
19:43
yesterday hinted at some of these things where and you know,
19:47
I, I've, I've talked with management and it I, I don't
19:51
think, I don't think all of us really comprehend.
19:54
And, and maybe perhaps at the right time, there will be some
19:57
discussion about it. But I think there, there is a
19:59
pretty wide road map out there for the company.
20:02
And and if you kind of take a step back, you know the, the,
20:07
the core market of what we're doing, which is direct to sell
20:10
and connectivity and comms. You know, that's a huge economic
20:13
opportunity and you have to produce something like that in
20:18
order to build the what I call the, you know, the, the, the,
20:24
the power in networking platform that will be up there in space.
20:29
But once you do that, like you can start putting all these
20:31
other applications on top of it, right?
20:33
So in 2020, one 2022, we know we talked about the consumer
20:38
market, but then this whole idea about military applications was
20:42
was far fetched, right? Like I remember Katzie writing
20:46
about it at length and he was an early proponent of it.
20:49
And then, you know, who can I speculated about it?
20:53
You know, you could easily make the case for electronic warfare.
20:56
Like you've got this huge phased array that can beam down signals
21:01
And you know, we, you know, I with our experience with
21:03
Starlink about the interference they caused.
21:05
Like, imagine if you purposely try to do that, like you try to
21:08
jam, you know, in a particular cell where there's military
21:11
operations going on, it's like, oh, it'd be convenient to take
21:14
down a threshold network while our operations are ongoing,
21:19
right? And so that's, that's a pretty
21:20
straightforward use case. But then, you know, Katzie
21:23
stepped in, talked about PMT position navigation timing,
21:26
which is back up to GPS, which is now pretty much all the rage.
21:30
Like everybody's talking about that.
21:32
But that's something that our satellites can do.
21:33
And then radar sensing 'cause if you have this large, powerful
21:37
phased array and can send signals under Earth, you can see
21:40
quite a bit of things in detail that that traditional radar
21:44
can't see. And so that's, I think what's
21:47
been one of the key applications for the government's interest in
21:52
ASD space mobile satellites for Golden Dome.
21:56
But but yeah, I mean, the reason why I bring this up is, you
21:58
know, back in 2022, talking about the idea of military
22:03
applications, people would kind of laugh it off.
22:05
It's like you guys are crazy. You're just trying to hype it
22:07
and pump it. But the Fast forward today, it's
22:08
like, oh, we've got 9 military contracts.
22:11
We're going to be generating, generating material revenue in
22:15
this coming year. And we're on the cusp of getting
22:18
Golden Dome contracts, which I believe, you know, where there's
22:21
two areas, 11 is quite large and the other one is, is pretty
22:25
large. But we're on the cusp of getting
22:28
a contract for Golden Dawn. And so when I hear like from the
22:34
criticisms about bringing up the, the whole notion of AI data
22:37
centers in space, it's like, and this is, this is kind of for the
22:42
regular people, which I include, you know, myself included.
22:47
When you talk about some of these new areas and themes, The
22:50
initial thing is to and, and this is what we are, this is our
22:54
default, right? Like as an investor, you're
22:56
taught to be a skeptic and to always look at things with a, a
23:02
view of not disbelief. But you know, hey, before I look
23:06
at any investment idea, I'm going to look at it with that
23:09
high degree of skepticism. And eventually I'm going, you're
23:12
going to, you know, based off of my work, I'm going to have to
23:15
address these areas before I'll even consider making an
23:19
investment, right. And so this whole idea about AI
23:21
data centers, I remember when Star Cloud released their video
23:24
and they had this massive solar array floating out in space.
23:28
The first thing I thought was like, oh, Kessler syndrome, like
23:30
how did that thing going to survive?
23:32
If, if it gets hit, you know, that, that, that looks like a
23:36
big target. And you know, perhaps like their
23:38
approach is not the right one where you're, you're probably
23:41
going to perhaps have smaller satellites, like a, a Bluebird
23:44
satellite that can generate, you know, 100 to 120 kilowatts of
23:49
power versus this massive phase, this massive solar array.
23:54
And then, but I think I think it's important because like now
23:58
you're seeing the Nuggets kind of dropping where Google is
24:01
already in the pilot program with Planet Labs to put up two
24:04
cubes hats star cloud, I think this morning released that they
24:09
had did their first, they had just executed their first AI
24:12
workload on the NVIDIA processor that they put up in space in the
24:16
cube sat and and yeah, I mean, Elon Musk, like, God bless him,
24:20
like the the guy knows like where the action is.
24:23
Like he will, he will see a market opportunity and he will
24:26
go pursue it. And you know, that happened with
24:28
direct sell. I kind of joked with someone
24:31
that star cloud, it's kind of a blessing and curse, right?
24:35
Like when you have Elon Musk say, hey, this is a market
24:39
that's worth pursuing, I'm going to go do it.
24:40
On the one hand, he sucks the oxygen out of the room, but on
24:43
the other hand, he brings education and interest.
24:46
And so similarly, in, in August of 2022, when when Musk
24:51
announced with, with T-Mobile to try to, you know, win the
24:54
marketing battle, like, hey, we're creating this new market
24:56
called direct to sell. And we're we're it's going to
24:59
change the world. And you're going to be able to
25:01
use your regular phone and connect in space and there's
25:04
going to be no dead zones. And of course, like, for those
25:06
that have been following it, like, you know, a bell created
25:08
AC Space Mobile in 2017, has has been working on it for a number
25:13
of years. But you know, of course, much
25:15
said like we're going to do, we're the first to ever do this.
25:18
It's novel. And of course, yeah, of course
25:21
for an ASD space mobile shareholder, like that was a bit
25:24
of heartburns. It's like, Oh my God, now we've
25:27
got to figure out like how to do message to people and you're,
25:32
you're defending your investment.
25:33
You're like, OK, yeah, he's entering the market because, and
25:36
this is the positive side. It's like because it's huge,
25:38
it's massive. He it's, there's a tremendous
25:41
amount of opportunity and he's not going to go enter into a
25:45
market where there's, you know, it's like a few 100 million
25:47
size. No, he wants to enter markets
25:49
that have hand ham of billions of dollars.
25:53
And so for the the skeptics back then, they were like, well, I
25:56
can't be that big. And you know, you know, if they
26:00
knew about AST space mobile, it's like, oh, you know,
26:02
Starlink's going to crush you guys.
26:03
Of course they didn't know anything about the company.
26:06
But Fast forward to today, you know, you've obviously that
26:08
market's going to be huge. You've it's basically forming
26:12
around two players, which is Starlink and AST space mobile.
26:14
You know, Starlink has, I think I've got to update my numbers,
26:18
but I think they've got like 10 or 11 M and OS globally and
26:22
we've got 50. They cover I think like 3400
26:26
million subscribers, maybe no 300 million.
26:28
And then we, we cover 3 billion subscribers.
26:32
And so that's a big market, right.
26:34
And to his credit, he saw that opportunity and he's pursuing
26:38
it. And, and it just, if you look at
26:42
Starlink's growth, a lot of a big majority of it's going to
26:46
come from direct to sell over the coming years.
26:48
Like if you look at Morgan Stanley or some of these other
26:51
research analysts that cover SpaceX, you'll look at
26:54
especially on the subscriber side, of course, a majority of
26:57
the growth is coming from, will be coming from direct to sell.
27:00
And then in terms of financials, I think, I think it's like 2/3
27:04
contribution of top line growth and profitability will be coming
27:08
from direct to sell. And so that's good.
27:11
I mean, you've got two players and a duopoly and that's a huge
27:15
market. That's where you want to be,
27:18
right. And, and so I think the reason
27:22
why I bring this stuff up is that now, you know, Musk is
27:24
talking about data centers and, and everybody, the initial
27:28
reaction, just like mine was, you know, maybe a a month or two
27:31
ago was like, ha ha, yeah, whatever.
27:33
But then you, you dig into it and it's like, oh, this actually
27:35
makes a ton of sense. And, and that's where I think,
27:39
you know, I, I tweeted this morning about 2026 being the
27:43
year of space investing. I absolutely believe in that
27:46
mean we're now it's almost like a coming out party where for
27:51
those people who've been invested research the sector
27:54
for, you know, four or five years now, it was kind of it's
27:58
space has been a backwater and it's been like a niche thing and
28:00
and, you know, people kind of poo poo it.
28:02
But now you've got SpaceX going public, you know, as soon as the
28:06
end of the summer next year at a $1.5 trillion valuation, like
28:12
there, the amount of capital and mindshare and investor interest
28:17
that that's going to draw is going to be huge, right?
28:19
And so leading up into that, you're going to have just like
28:22
we're seeing, I mean, overnight, you're going to have a drum beat
28:25
of articles from the popular press, from financial press,
28:29
like, Oh my God, this thing's going public.
28:31
And you know, what does it mean? What are they doing?
28:33
And in, in the article, like in Bloomberg overnight, you know,
28:38
they people, folks at SpaceX specifically, you know, the
28:42
sources specifically said like the 30 billion on IPO, like a
28:45
big part of that allocation is going to go towards this effort
28:48
of building data centers in space.
28:51
And so, you know, whether people like it or not, they want to poo
28:55
poo it, you know, it, it's happening and it's going to
28:57
happen. And whether it's successful or
28:59
not, who knows? But the amount of CapEx dollars
29:01
are going to be thrown at it. It, it's, it's real.
29:04
And it reminds me of like I remember Steve Leyerson was
29:07
telling me and Kook back in 2022, he was telling us about AI
29:13
and machine learning because, you know, one of his specialties
29:15
was machine learning. And he's like, yeah, this is
29:17
going to be huge. And, and for us, like there was
29:20
no real way to invest in it. And I kind of poo pooed it
29:22
because I was like, OK, yeah, artificial intelligence like,
29:27
that sounds great and all, but then for me in terms of
29:30
practical application, like, what do I care?
29:32
And of course now, like I got a subscription to ChatGPT and
29:38
Gemini and I use both daily. Like I don't, I, I almost rarely
29:42
surf the web. I just like throw shit
29:44
questions, like everyday questions like, Oh, the I'm
29:48
having a plumbing issue or how do I optimize this?
29:51
Or the kids have a little rash like that.
29:53
Like everything goes into these two chat bots and, and Oh yeah,
29:58
I want to create a meme. I want to do something stupid
30:00
like I just wrote in there or I want to make a video.
30:03
And so Fast forward what, 234 years and that's a very short
30:08
period of time. Like I'm using in my daily life.
30:12
I use AI constantly. And so now that I use it and now
30:17
I believe in, I'm like, Oh yeah, that, you know, AI makes a ton
30:20
of sense. And you know, I subscribe to
30:22
Google Gemini and now it's like integrated in all my apps.
30:25
And, you know, my wife and I, for example, I mean, just just,
30:29
you know, we, we applied for a, a, a program for one of our
30:33
children and we had to write this letter and we wrote like
30:36
general ideas and, and you know, we wrote like the, the meat of
30:39
it, but then we ran it through it through ChatGPT and it, it
30:43
put together like such a better reading letter.
30:47
But it's just stuff like that, right?
30:49
And so if you can imagine how quickly like technology changes
30:55
and how we are dismissive of these initial themes.
30:58
I mean, two years ago, three years ago when Akolo and SMR
31:03
were going public and I saw them as fax, I was like, yeah,
31:06
whatever. Like, OK, modular reactors.
31:09
And I saw the projections like they're not going to be
31:11
deploying these things until post 2030, right?
31:14
Like they're going to have some test reactors and all this
31:16
stuff. But I just dismissed it like an
31:17
idiot. I just Pooh poohed it and then,
31:22
you know, these things went public like SMR and Ocolo like
31:24
big cratered after desebacking. They they were at 10.
31:27
They went into the low single digits or mid single digits and
31:30
I was and of course, as any investor, you, you have that
31:34
like smug reaction where you're like, ha, see, like I was right.
31:37
I didn't invest, thank goodness, when in fact, like, you know,
31:40
that was just the dynamics of of a SPAC going public and stupidly
31:45
like I should have just pulled the trigger and bought some
31:46
speculatory, but I didn't. And then those things re rated
31:49
like, you know, SMR went to what the 30s and then Akala went to
31:56
what, 170 a 180 because people then this AI theme became really
32:01
big. And then people are like, well,
32:02
how they're going to power this thing.
32:03
And then it's like, oh, well, nuclear is going to be a big
32:05
part of it. And and they pulled forward
32:07
expectations on on these highly speculative companies.
32:10
And similarly, like I think that is what will happen in with
32:15
space, right? Like you today, the skeptics
32:19
will see AC space mobile and you can pick any number of other
32:22
companies, Rocket Lab, you know, some people have talked about
32:26
red wire, but these companies and people look at them and say,
32:30
well, they only do this thing. And so why should I ascribe any
32:34
value for this potential opportunity?
32:36
Well, the first thing I would say is that in space, yes, there
32:40
there haven't been many large profitable markets.
32:43
The biggest market is communications and, and that's
32:46
something that AC space mobile is, is pursuing and it's, it's,
32:50
it's defining and creating a new category within communications.
32:53
But outside of that Earth observation, you know, it's been
32:56
pretty small, although that's, that's probably growing a
32:59
reasonable clip. And then you've got military, I
33:02
mean, military, there's a whole host of applications.
33:04
So there, there hasn't been much.
33:06
And when you talk to, you know, folks in space, they'll tell you
33:09
like, yeah, there's not like there's a lot of hype in people
33:12
talking, but there's not really stuff going on.
33:14
What they mean by that is like, beyond just sending up cube sats
33:17
and little test things, like there's not real hardware being
33:21
put up in space that's doing real shit.
33:23
And so that's why this whole data center opportunity is huge,
33:30
because this seems like a logical application.
33:34
Like once you get over the, the this, you suspend your disbelief
33:38
and you, you get, you know, you put that aside and you kind of
33:46
think through the end game, right?
33:48
Which is like, OK, if we keep building data centers here on
33:52
earth, what does that do? Well, it's going to take up all
33:53
the land. It's going to take up all the
33:54
water, take up like electricity, your bill that's going up every
33:58
month. That's not sustainable.
34:00
Like the people are going to lose their shit and, and it
34:03
doesn't make sense. And so where can you do this?
34:06
Like I remember 3 years ago, there was a guy, you know, I do
34:10
some private investing too, and there was a company that was
34:12
pitching data centers on the moon.
34:14
And when I saw that and I was just like, yeah, that makes
34:17
absolutely no sense 'cause that's your first reaction.
34:19
You're just like, why would you put data centers on the moon?
34:21
And then, and then I Fast forward to today, like now that
34:25
data centers are eating up every single resource on Earth, it's
34:28
like, OK, I get it. Like we should move in some way,
34:32
shape or form, whether it's in orbit or on the moon or
34:35
somewhere else, like we need to move this shit off the planet
34:37
because it's just not sustainable.
34:39
And you've got to kind of view the the opportunity that way
34:43
that it's not sustainable. And so you've got to find
34:45
another place for it. And, you know, there's been some
34:47
discussions about putting data centers underwater, but that
34:52
that's like a whole host of other problems.
34:54
And you know, it's like, OK, yeah, let's go put that data
34:57
center underwater and let's like cook the ocean because that
35:01
that's going to be good. You know, so putting in space,
35:04
you know, that it it solves the cooling problem.
35:07
I mean, it's it's not an easy problem.
35:08
It's still complex, but at least you're putting that heat outside
35:12
and it and in some respects it's like exchanging the sun's heat.
35:16
You're running it through processor and then it's putting
35:17
it back out in space where where it was already going to be.
35:20
But but the thing about, you know, these companies that are
35:24
already doing this stuff is space is hard.
35:26
And we all know that. Like if you're a company that's
35:29
building a satellite, you know, all the hard things that go into
35:32
building something that's resilient against radiation that
35:35
can go through wild temperature swings, like hundreds of degrees
35:38
of hot and hundreds of degrees free, you know, of cold and
35:42
whatever, you know, whatever electronics and things that
35:46
you're putting together, it has to go through that, that cycle.
35:50
And so that's why these companies are well positioned
35:53
for the people who can look beyond just the current
35:55
applications. But it's like, oh, this guy is
35:59
building a satellite that's going to the moon.
36:01
Maybe they're they'll be good at building satellites that can put
36:03
a data center up in space. And that's why I think, you
36:06
know, bring it back to AC space mobile.
36:08
Like it's important to understand what the company is
36:13
doing right? So, so it's standing up
36:15
production facilities to build 6 satellites initially, but
36:19
eventually 11:50 satellites a month and people are like, OK,
36:22
yeah, they're building satellites.
36:23
So what? Well, those satellites can
36:25
generate 100 to 120 kilowatts of power and they're built to
36:30
withstand, you know, the, the harshness of, of space.
36:34
And so imagine like this big power generating satellite out
36:38
there that's then and already supports, you know, multiple
36:42
processors ask communication built in.
36:45
Like, OK, I mean, simplistically, you can then
36:49
imagine repurposing some portions that redesigning it and
36:53
making it a data center, right? Or a hybrid like a
36:56
communications and data center. And so, but then people are
37:00
like, well, yeah, but maybe other people could do that.
37:02
No, no, but they can't. I mean, they they eventually
37:05
will get there. But you know, this company has
37:07
3800 patents and patent Penny claims it has a a novel.
37:12
You know, one of the reasons why Starlink has not made a large
37:16
satellite is because it's hard to unfold.
37:21
You know, that much solar and in phased array like if you look at
37:25
startling satellite today, there's a tiny phased array that
37:28
sits under it. This is for fixed wireless.
37:29
And then their next generation will have this like extending
37:33
foldable array that gets I think they're hoping to get up to 5 by
37:36
5 meters, but AST is putting out this this phased array that is
37:42
is huge. It's like 2400 square feet.
37:45
And that was the biggest problem to solve.
37:47
And it's like this, this thing that on one side you have power
37:51
or solar, on the other side you have antennas.
37:53
But this thing unfolds, it fits into a standard, you know,
37:57
rocket fairing and then it unfolds this massive array,
38:00
which is the size of a basketball court.
38:02
I mean, that's, that's really hard.
38:04
And the company has been at it. You know, they've, they've
38:06
demonstrated 6 of 6 times successfully and they're going,
38:10
obviously they're now ramping up for Block 2, which is, you know,
38:13
the first launch will be on December 20th or as early as
38:16
December 20th. But this stuff is hard.
38:18
I mean, just putting it into perspective, like when Scott
38:21
talks about putting up the most powerful, you know, satellites
38:27
in terms of power generating capacity known in civilization,
38:31
people forget like, you know, the, the the FM 1 and FM 2, like
38:36
those each are 7 ton satellites. Like sometimes people are like,
38:41
well, you know, it's production, it's got delayed.
38:44
And by the way, like that production delays.
38:47
I think as we've and I I feel very confident about this that
38:52
the US government is the customer for those two
38:54
satellites. And I think they're part of the
38:56
Halo program. Like, yeah, customer
38:57
requirements do change and you do have to make adjustments,
39:01
which is I think part of it. And of course there there has
39:03
been some production delays because this is the first of its
39:06
kind. It's the largest.
39:09
Previously the Block 1 satellites were the largest
39:11
phased array in low Earth orbit. And then these are going to
39:16
dwarf those like this is going to be the these new satellites
39:20
are going to be 3 times bigger. And so you know, it's 7 tons for
39:26
FM 1 and FM 2. And then on average, the, the
39:29
rest of the Block 2 satellites will, which will be made of
39:31
composites are going to be 5 1/2 tons.
39:35
Like these are not, these are not little cube sats.
39:38
You know, it's like planet labs, you know, they send up these
39:40
like tiny Earth observation. They've got like a camera and,
39:43
and they've got some power connected to them.
39:45
And, and I know Google's like, Hey, you know, we're going to,
39:48
we're going to put up two test satellites with you guys, put
39:51
put a processor in there in a cube sat and go see if you know
39:54
what, what the environment does to it and how it impacts
39:56
compute. If you want to do something at
40:00
scale, that's a big and and you know that's going to be
40:05
something that. Google, who's a current
40:07
strategic partner and investor that's like the US government,
40:11
which is the military, Microsoft, I mean, any number of
40:16
folks who don't want to be captive to the what is forming
40:20
to be a SpaceX, you know, vertically integrated stack.
40:23
And, and, and that goes as well for, for betas, right?
40:26
Like there he's going to try to build capabilities himself and
40:30
there's going to be some potential overlap or
40:32
competition, who knows, right? But we do know that that Bezos
40:37
and and Belle are Fred's and we're in a very, very important
40:42
customer for them. I mean, we're putting up each
40:44
satellite, we're putting up 5 1/2 tons each of payload.
40:48
And, and for a rocket company to succeed and to iterate, it needs
40:52
to go send things up in space. And it, it can't send tiny
40:56
things like the Blue Origin, New Glenn and 97 by 2 or 9 by 4.
41:00
The Heavy, it's going to need real payload.
41:03
And there's only one game in town.
41:05
Like there's out of all the customers out there, there's
41:09
only one. Well, there's, there's
41:12
eventually there will be 3 customers that are bigger than
41:14
us in terms of who's sending payloads to space. 1 is U.S.
41:17
government. The second one is, is SpaceX,
41:19
Starlink, then eventually data centers.
41:22
And the third is, is Kuiper. But then outside of that, like
41:25
there's no one else. And so if you think about like
41:29
expertise and flight heritage and people who know what they're
41:32
doing, I, I know there was like some questions out there, people
41:35
are saying, well, you know, how are they going to test their
41:37
first satellite when the Block 2 satellite goes up?
41:40
Like what happens? You know, this, it's risky.
41:43
What it, what do they do? And it's like, well, that's,
41:45
that's space. Like you, you have to send stuff
41:47
to space and see if it works right.
41:49
And so we've done that successfully with Blue Walker
41:51
three. We did that successfully with
41:53
Block one. The five Bluebirds went through
41:56
5. Those all unfolded successfully.
41:58
They've all been testing well. And you know, sure enough,
42:02
Verizon and Saudi Telecom, they've seen the test results.
42:07
They looked at reports, they've spoken to the company, they've
42:09
diligenced it and they like what they see and what Saudi Telecom
42:14
recently did the deal back in October.
42:17
And so there's not many companies that pulled off what
42:20
what AST has done, right? Like they're, they're throwing
42:23
up five, you know, six to seven ton satellites in space with the
42:27
largest phased array generating the most power that can
42:30
communicate with Earth. And, you know, they also have
42:34
optical inner satellite links as well enabled, which originally
42:37
wasn't part of the plan, but but the government required that.
42:42
And so so that's now part of the solar as well.
42:44
And so I think I, I remember clearly like speaking to the
42:48
company, it was a conversation like back in 2020, three, 2022.
42:55
And it's not as if, you know, these folks are, are sitting on
42:59
their hands, like, OK, we're going to be done with Block 3.
43:02
Like once a big band and Bluebirds are like, we're going
43:03
to be done. Yeah, we've we've stood up this
43:05
12 satellite per month capacity and yeah, we're just going to
43:08
call it a day and just just start counting to dollars as
43:11
they come in. No, they're going to keep going.
43:12
Like they're going to, you know, I tweeted this earlier today.
43:15
It's this, you've got like think beyond just what that
43:21
constellation up in space means and the capability to put that
43:24
shell and additional shells. It's like you're putting up a
43:28
platform in space that's going to generate a tremendous amount
43:32
of power and that is networked. And So what can you do with
43:34
that? Like you're going to enable 5G
43:36
communications and eventually 6G to devices.
43:41
You're going to have position, navigation, timing, you're going
43:43
to have radar, you're going to have sensing, electronic warfare
43:47
and AI compute like AI compute. When I think about all the
43:51
problems that you have to solve like that seems to me like
43:55
probably one of the easier problems to solve.
43:57
Easier meaning all the infrastructure is there.
44:00
You, you, you'd have to, you know, probably improve the, the
44:03
connectivity, you know, within the array you're going to.
44:06
I don't, I mean, now I'm dating myself, but like, you know, you
44:11
might have to lay down like InfiniBand interconnects between
44:14
the processors and and you're probably going to have to cut
44:16
down as many the number of processors they can carry the
44:19
array. But The funny thing is like that
44:21
array actually is a passive radiator.
44:24
That's the way they designed it. And so you saw instead of like
44:27
jamming all these processors into a very tight box, you
44:31
actually distribute them and you use the array as a rate, a
44:34
passive radiator. And so if you can imagine like
44:39
this thing that's out in space and you can do all sorts of cool
44:42
stuff with it, like there's a lot of different applications.
44:45
I remember one of the things that Scott mentioned to me, this
44:49
is when back in 2021, like we were talking about this before
44:53
you joined the company, he's like, you know, there's a lot of
44:56
cool things you can do with the ray.
44:57
It's like the Ray doesn't, by the way, you're like, you're
44:59
not, you don't necessarily have to be listening to Earth.
45:01
It also works the other way. And so these things can actually
45:05
listen for things out in space. And so I, I know like there's
45:10
researchers who are upset that perhaps like, you know, for
45:14
example, Starling, if you get all thousands and thousands and
45:17
thousands of satellites, like it's going to impact the ability
45:20
for astronomers to do optical or radio listening in space.
45:26
Well, guess what? Like we've got this huge
45:28
platform that's orbiting space. Like you can use that for
45:33
scientific purposes. Like we're going to listen for
45:35
signals and all kinds of crazy things.
45:38
It doesn't necessarily have to be just applicable to earth.
45:41
And so I think you know what I was the tweet that I posted
45:46
before that it's pinned. This is, this is like the, the
45:50
challenge of being an investor, right?
45:52
Like you've got to find the themes before they become
45:56
something that people latch onto.
45:58
And whether it's hype and, and you know, it blows up, but then
46:02
it fails miserably or you have this hype cycle, but then it
46:05
actually catches on and it becomes reality.
46:08
The key thing is to be early and to understand what you own and
46:12
if it's applicable, right? Like when Quantum, like INQ and
46:19
some of these other companies went public, like I looked at
46:21
them personally and I was like, OK, this is, this is a pipe
46:23
dream. Like, I don't think, and
46:25
everyone latches onto the whole notion.
46:27
And by the way, I'm not invested in them, but I'm just just using
46:29
an example. Like everyone latches on to the
46:31
notion that, you know, quantic computers are so many years
46:33
away, there's no practical applications for them.
46:36
So why should I invest? Because I want to see like
46:40
something now. It's all about like now.
46:42
But that's not, you know, and maybe if you're a value investor
46:45
or someone conservative, then then sure, then that's that's
46:48
your lane. But if you're a growth investor
46:51
and you're looking for kind of the next themes, and this is
46:53
what, you know, ARC infamously tries to do with their big ideas
46:57
every year, you have to think steps ahead.
47:02
And I think this this data center kind of theme right now.
47:07
And of course, SpaceX going public in 2026 like this is
47:11
going to be huge. And it's, and it's the reason
47:13
why it's huge is that people see the billions of dollars that are
47:17
being allocated to the data centers on Earth.
47:19
And then they can extrapolate that pretty easily to space
47:22
because and it's not going to happen overnight.
47:24
And you're going to need the cost per kilogram to go down
47:28
even more, which once do Glenn, you know, in its current current
47:35
configuration, but then in the future heavy configuration and
47:38
Starship, when that eventually gets going, it's going to become
47:41
really cheap to send the stuff up.
47:43
And so when you look at the total cost of ownership and, and
47:46
operations, which, you know, the, the some of the biggest
47:49
inputs are electricity and, and of course, like land space
47:53
solves a lot of that. And so that's why I'm super
47:57
excited about this coming year because every company is going
48:02
to be touched by it and people are going to be looking for
48:04
ways. I mean, just like individual
48:06
investors and institutional investors are going to be
48:10
looking for ways to to invest in this theme.
48:14
And then but but put those people aside, like the actual
48:18
strategics in that where you know, this is going to touch
48:23
they're going to be looking for partners, right.
48:25
So these data center companies are going to say, OK, yeah, it's
48:30
going to the going is going to be good for, you know, the next
48:33
one or two decades maybe. But then in the future, I've got
48:37
to diversify. I've got to figure out like, how
48:38
do I parlay this into space? And then do I go, OK, do I go
48:43
work with SpaceX? Like do I trust those guys?
48:47
What value do I add? Right?
48:50
Because SpaceX has a ton of money and I I bring some
48:52
expertise around how to architect data center.
48:54
But yeah, maybe maybe I can contribute that and we can
48:57
figure something out. But but then there's only so
49:01
many players who will play with SpaceX and then it's like, OK,
49:03
well, who else is out there? Well, I could maybe go work with
49:05
Bezos or I could go work with HD Space Mobile, or I could work
49:09
with Rocket Lab. And so that's the opportunity.
49:11
Like there, there was someone skeptical overnight who was
49:14
like, well, who's going to come up with 20 or $30 billion needed
49:17
to build some of this stuff? It's like customers, customers
49:20
are going to come up with it. I mean, that's what they're
49:22
doing. The customers are giving data
49:24
centers money, long term contracts here.
49:26
We're going to give you money, go build it, go do it.
49:28
And so who's going to fund it? Customers like they're going to
49:32
go these data center companies or the US government is going to
49:35
go to ASD space mobile and say, hey, it looks like you have all
49:40
the right ingredients and you have the, you have the ability
49:42
and the production capacity to, to go build this stuff.
49:46
You have the, you have the building blocks, you have the
49:47
patents, you have everything. Let's, let's do an agreement
49:51
like I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you like $20
49:54
billion to build some prototypes.
49:57
And then, and then I want to contract with you to actually
49:59
put up a shell of these things. Like that's, that's the
50:02
opportunity. And, and, and you know, for some
50:05
people who are like, well, it's, it's, it's detracting from the
50:08
business model. Like, I don't know if we want to
50:10
go focus in that area. You don't have to like you, you
50:15
can just build, build it for someone else and let them run
50:17
it. I mean, you can, if you can
50:19
imagine staying in a factory and just making a few different
50:22
changes and I'm simplifying things.
50:24
But if you make some changes to a Bluebird satellite, you can
50:28
build it for somebody and you're like the prime and then they can
50:31
go run it. Or in a very simple way, you can
50:37
license your patents and collect really high margin royalties.
50:41
And this is something that, you know, we've talked about for a
50:45
number of years where eventually these patents are going to come
50:49
around and be, be worth something, right?
50:52
And historically they, they probably weren't because no one
50:55
wants to do stuff in space besides communications and, and
50:59
again, like observation and maybe some of these radar
51:02
applications. But then now you've got a killer
51:04
application and it's going to need a lot of the, the patents
51:08
that you have. And so that's going to be a
51:13
money making machine. Like not only are people going
51:15
to come to you to licenses patents and, you know, for
51:18
example, the patent that we talked about, but the, the
51:21
Micron, which is able to dissipate heat, you know, it's a
51:24
big radiator in space, that patent from 2021, there's a
51:29
whole trove of this stuff and it's all relevant.
51:32
And so companies are going to come to you to license the, I
51:38
mean, a lot of these patents are fundamental in terms of, you
51:41
know, satellite technology and, and operations in space.
51:45
But then, so if you were going to come to you to license them,
51:47
then of course there's going to be some people who are like,
51:49
screw, screw those guys. I'm just going to use it.
51:51
And then that's going to, you know, if you, you recall all the
51:56
IP wars like around semiconductors and, and over the
52:00
last several years, like that's going to become a big thing.
52:02
And AST has, has, has folks who are focused on enforcing this
52:10
patents. They haven't, they haven't done
52:12
that yet, but eventually that will become a big stand alone
52:15
business in of itself. And for those that are
52:19
unfamiliar, I mean, if you look at NAND semiconductors like
52:24
sand, the old SanDisk, I actually don't know about
52:26
SanDisk in his current form, but but it, back in the day, a
52:30
significant part of the revenues and, and profitability came from
52:34
their patents around NAND flash, which then Samsung, Toshiba, any
52:39
number of players had to pay them royalties for every single
52:42
then flash chip they sold. They had to send patents, patent
52:46
royalty to the company. And so, yeah, I mean, it's an
52:49
exciting time. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm super
52:53
bullish. I think the previous high of
52:56
$100. And I don't typically like talk
52:58
about stock price targets or anything like that, but I, I
53:01
feel like the, the, the, the, the high that we reached in
53:05
October, which candidly part of that was like market mark just
53:09
in general, high beta names just outperforming.
53:12
I think that's going to be like a new all time low.
53:14
Like we're this 2026 is, is gearing up for some really
53:17
special things because you're going to have a whole host of
53:21
like new investors looking to invest in space.
53:23
We fit so many different categories and we and we also
53:29
are a platform for what I believe is going to be the next
53:33
big thing, which is data centers in space.
53:36
And so yeah, I would just say like, and, and as people kind of
53:42
start understanding this opportunity and you'll see a lot
53:44
of skeptics and people Pooh poohing it.
53:46
But overall, like it's important to zoom out and just focus and
53:50
see the bigger picture. Like when people start
53:53
extrapolating what the opportunity is and what it
53:56
means, they're going to start pulling for the opportunity in
53:58
terms of discounting that, right?
54:00
And so that's where you get these type of situations like in
54:03
quantum or you get, you know, in and nuclear, modular nuclear
54:07
reactors where these things are not going to be relevant for
54:11
everyday use, you know, 5-10 years, maybe 5-10 years from
54:14
now, But, but people are willing to discount that forward and,
54:18
and give those companies credit. And, and that's similar analogy
54:22
around AI where I, I poo pooed it 3-4 years ago and ignored it,
54:27
but now it's it, I, I use AI and everything that I do today.
54:32
And so that's, that's a mindset you got to have.
54:35
You've got to be able to kind of look forward what's going to be
54:38
hot in 2026 and relevant. And it seems like AI data
54:42
centers are that. And so there's one company that
54:46
has the building blocks and the capability and, and will have
54:49
the production to make it reality, right?
54:52
And I think that's something that, that I'm, I'm thinking
54:54
about quite thinking about quite a bit more.
54:57
It's like who who can put together, you know, six to seven
55:02
tons satellite with that much power generation.
55:04
There aren't many and SpaceX can't do that either.
55:08
Like the startling satellites, you know those they, they're
55:12
smaller in size and you know, they generate a decent amount of
55:14
power, but they're going to have to re architect those things.
55:17
And we already know about the issues they have as it exists to
55:20
deliver their current service. But but you know, eventually
55:23
they'll get there and they'll be smart and but the beauty of this
55:26
all is that it's and you'll, you'll hear this from some of
55:30
space mob who are zealots, but you'll hear this from the the
55:35
big guys. I'm sorry, the big like SpaceX
55:39
fanboys are like, oh, well, SpaceX is going to win the whole
55:41
thing and just take everything. And it's like, no, that's not
55:42
how the market works, guys. Like there's going to be room
55:45
for multiple players. Like the opportunity is so big.
55:48
You're going to, it's going to be tremendous and there's going
55:53
to be room for everybody or not. Well, not room for everybody,
55:55
but for a few leaders, right? And so that's, that's the
55:59
opportunity today. That's what I wanted to talk
56:01
about is that you're being able to shift your mindset.
56:06
Think about what's going to be big in the coming year and
56:09
what's what, what is a zeitgeist like what's going to be
56:11
occupying people's minds. And SpaceX is going to be top of
56:14
mind. It's going to be the top of
56:15
mind, $1.5 trillion IPO, $30 billion primary raise.
56:21
You know, and when they go on a roadshow and talk to Fidelity,
56:25
Wellington Capital Group, a whole host of investors all
56:29
around the world, they're going to talk about like direct to
56:32
sell. It's going to be a huge growth
56:35
vector for them. They're going to talk about AI
56:37
data centers. And so when those investors who
56:40
for the first time are hearing about this area, you're going to
56:44
be like, oh, that's pretty cool. And it's pretty big because this
56:47
company's going out of 1.5 trillion valuation and the
56:49
projections look pretty hot. What else is out there?
56:52
Like, OK, I'm going to try to get an allocation IPO and then I
56:56
assume I'll get some. But then maybe I need to form a
56:59
specialist group to focus on space and, and figure out like
57:02
what these other companies are doing because oh, there's like,
57:05
there's a few of these companies that are 20 billion in market
57:08
cap that seem to be doing quite well.
57:09
Like, what are they doing? Maybe we should go meet with
57:12
management and go invest. And so that's, that's like the,
57:15
that's where you have this aha moment like this, this immediate
57:19
rewriting of awareness where, where it's like, shit, I need to
57:22
put money to work in this area. And that's, that's where you
57:25
have like these, these overnight, almost what it seems
57:28
like overnight, but but you know, what tends to be like
57:32
multiple weeks, multiple months, like a sector completely
57:34
rewriting because people are now discovering the opportunity and
57:39
capital dollars wants to go into those names.
57:43
And so that's, that's what we face right now.
57:48
You know, that's been a long four or five years for many of
57:51
us. But space is having it's going,
57:54
it's going to have its moment. It already is.
57:56
It already is. It's like the topic du jour,
57:59
like SpaceX and what they're doing, people are trying to
58:01
figure out, OK, well, where should I invest in?
58:04
What are the companies that are doing this?
58:06
And they're going to find out like, oh, there's actually a few
58:08
of these companies that are ahead of SpaceX or they're going
58:11
to build out a pretty significant market in in the
58:15
duopoly or, or, you know, an oligopoly with SpaceX.
58:18
And so I want to go invest in those companies, too.
58:21
And so anyway, that's all I had for everybody, I think.
58:29
I think, yeah, this is going to be huge.
58:31
And for people, yeah, call me, call me crazy, call me a pumper
58:35
or whatever it is. Like, I really don't care.
58:39
My job is to make money. And I want to know where the
58:42
puck is going. And I'm doing that now.
58:45
And that's what you should do, too.
58:46
You should, you should dig in, really get smart on data centers
58:52
in space, really get smart on direct to sell, really get smart
58:55
on Golden Dome and figure out who are the companies that are
58:59
well positioned to go execute on this and are they reasonably
59:05
valued relative to the opportunity.
59:06
And if they are, they need to figure out a way to get exposure
59:09
that that's that's your job. And yeah, there's going to be
59:13
way like that's a feature. It's not a bug like that.
59:15
That's that's where any growth sector, any growth stocks like
59:18
that stuff happens. But again, this is a reminder to
59:22
go out there and do your work, do your due diligence and be
59:25
ready because the the amount of attention and focus is coming
59:31
and we're going to be surprised by it.
59:33
I think. I think we all are.
59:34
I mean, if you had asked me AC Space Mobile during the, the,
59:39
the dumps when the stock was, the company was at a $700
59:43
million market cap, which by the way like some retail space MOB
59:48
holders owned back then. If we had owned as much as we do
59:53
now in terms of dollar amounts like we, we would own, well,
59:56
well we would own the entire company in terms of market cap.
59:59
But anyway, but but that shows you how quickly things can
1:00:03
change, right is the company gets to the point of execution
1:00:05
and revenues, which is where we are now.
1:00:08
But then once the company is up and running and Commercial
1:00:12
Services going and we're building all these satellites,
1:00:14
that's when the company will have the latitude to start
1:00:16
talking about some of these other opportunities that is
1:00:19
working on. And and I think again, if you
1:00:23
haven't already, go back and listen to Scott speaking at UBS
1:00:27
because he dropped some pretty big hints and, and I think those
1:00:31
were intentional. And so this company, as we've
1:00:35
known, has been quite conservative in terms of, you
1:00:40
know, discussing these things until they come more of reality.
1:00:44
And so that kind of that kind of tells me that for example, you
1:00:48
know, we talked about the beginning.
1:00:50
I think Golden Dome, we should be hearing something, you know,
1:00:53
in the coming weeks, perhaps, you know, at latest is it
1:00:56
sometime in January? But that seems like fait
1:00:58
accompli at this point. So anyway, I'll end it up there
1:01:01
and there if I hope. This was interesting, helpful.
1:01:05
I'm sure. Like I said before, have another
1:01:08
space tonight or tomorrow because like things are
1:01:11
changing. But yeah, we'll talk again soon.
1:01:14
Thanks, everyone. Thanks for listening to the AST.
1:01:18
Space Mover. Podcast If you enjoyed this
1:01:21
episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please
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1:01:34
Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
1:01:40
We're doing something very, very big and I think with this
1:01:42
technology we can really affect billion lives.
1:01:45
AST Space Mobile is the only company that has proven
1:01:49
technology to deliver cellular mobile connectivity directly
1:01:53
from space to the everyday smartphone.
1:01:56
People will just basically turn their phone be seamless,
1:01:59
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
1:02:02
know that it's connected by satellite.
1:02:05
Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
1:02:09
with the animal. Listen.
1:02:23
Waffles.