Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Kook's Weekly - May 18 - SpaceMobile's Global Checkmate
Transcript
- 0:07is the AST Space Mobile podcast. And we just basically come your
- 0:12phone be seamless regardless of where you are.
- 0:16We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
- 0:18satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
- 0:23have is very, very, very large. OK.
- 0:30Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining and what a
- 0:34week. I'm just looking at the
- 0:35beginning of my notes and thinking the company reported
- 0:39earnings last week. And so I'm I'm just always
- 0:41amazed at how much progress and how many events there are.
- 0:45I'm just going to getting reoriented.
- 0:47I just got home from a camping trip where, you know, a
- 0:51successful trip is one of the the new guy we were trying to
- 0:54recruit stabbed himself with his diving kill knife, which I
- 1:01didn't know what it was and like to the bone like cut his leg
- 1:05open. But luckily we have a surgeon
- 1:07with the US Navy in our group. And so he was able to clean them
- 1:11up. But then the surgeon went down
- 1:13with food poisoning. So last night when when my
- 1:16friend's wound was kind of reopening and unfortunately our
- 1:1924 hour urgent care was not 24 hour when the surgeon goes down.
- 1:22But you know, it's like, it's like how you know, you have a
- 1:25good weekend when that guy comes home to his wife and he's like,
- 1:28yeah, I got stabbed, repaired by AUS Navy surgeon and lived to
- 1:33tell about it. Fun was had by all.
- 1:36So catching back up sort of with the contact, switching from that
- 1:40is a lot. But as luck would have it, a
- 1:44black Porsche 918 just blew past me when I was walking back from
- 1:47dinner, which is almost certainly good luck.
- 1:51Omen of what's to come. So we always want to look at
- 1:55what the recent past has had when thinking about what type of
- 1:58luck will come. And so let's start before even
- 2:04earnings. Let's just start about thinking.
- 2:07And so one guy that I always dismissed, despite working in
- 2:12767 5th Ave. where Ron Baron works, I'd never really thought
- 2:17much about Ron Baron. It was only sort of later in my
- 2:19career that I began to appreciate his way of thinking.
- 2:25And so as a hedge fund guy, I would always think like, you
- 2:28know, these long only guys, like they're so slow.
- 2:30And some some of his high level ideas and pitches always seem so
- 2:34simple. When when I was doing really
- 2:37complex event driven things like backflips to try to make a buck,
- 2:42Guys like that with the benefit of hindsight were doing a really
- 2:46an amazing job of zooming out and synthesizing secular trends
- 2:50and most importantly identifying generational founders.
- 2:56And so the first time I really kind of dug into Ron Barron's
- 2:59way of thinking was with Tesla back in 2016.
- 3:01And I remember kind of just reading an article about his
- 3:06thesis and it was, you know, really simple.
- 3:07He's like, well, you know, if they get, you know, 5% of the
- 3:10market for their car with this gross margin, that's the amount
- 3:14of EBIT they're going to have. And you put a multiple on that
- 3:16and bang, you know, huge company.
- 3:20And it's just funny. I was like, yeah, you know,
- 3:21that's actually really defines the questions well, because then
- 3:25you've really just reduced it to do I think that they can get,
- 3:27you know, this percent of the market.
- 3:29And then you'd ask yourself, well, why would they?
- 3:31Is an electric EV design from first principles at an
- 3:35affordable price point that looks like a Mazda?
- 3:39Is that what the market will want?
- 3:42Mazda looks notwithstanding, previously people had these
- 3:45weird crazy vehicles that no one really wanted and certainly no
- 3:50one was designing a Mazda to compete with the Mercedes S
- 3:54class. And when he did that, that was a
- 3:57new a new product. People glommed onto it.
- 4:01And that answered your market share question.
- 4:03And the math followed and then the market cap followed.
- 4:06And so Ron Baron is one of these great thinkers who who had
- 4:11identified many of the world's great growth companies over
- 4:17time. And he strikes again with SpaceX
- 4:20and he sees just monstrous opportunity with launch and
- 4:24Starlink and, you know, all these other businesses that are
- 4:27going to emerge from the space economy.
- 4:29And So what I've really done is try to learn how to think like
- 4:35that and really embrace this. I mean, it's not even learn how
- 4:38to think like that. It's embrace the simplicity of
- 4:40that thinking so that you don't over complicate it with
- 4:44yourself. And so I was hanging out with
- 4:47Tanner, really trying to teach Tanner an important lesson
- 4:50because I know who he is, but he doesn't know who I am.
- 4:52And so when I met up with him, I really thought about actually
- 4:54renting a white van. It just really scaring the shit
- 4:57out of him and just pretending I was going to just grab him.
- 5:01But then I thought, hey, that wouldn't be very nice, but it is
- 5:03important. Don't trust people you meet on
- 5:05the Internet and you never know who people really are.
- 5:06And I did feel like it was a missed opportunity for me to
- 5:09teach him this lesson since he's at a young age and has many
- 5:11years to look forward to. But aside from the opportunity
- 5:15that I seized to take in grabbing him in a white van, we
- 5:19were just talking about the fact you just don't have to do that
- 5:22much. And I was talking to another
- 5:25investor this week and, you know, he was asking me, you
- 5:27know, what new ideas do you have?
- 5:28What? You know, I said, I don't have
- 5:30any new ideas I don't want. I want new ideas.
- 5:32I'm always looking for new things.
- 5:33But I don't need to be cycling through all these new ideas.
- 5:37I just need to make sure that the thing I have works and if I
- 5:41think the thing I have is going to work, the hardest challenge
- 5:44is doing nothing and just realizing that the secular trend
- 5:49and the generational founder and the unique lead the company has,
- 5:54which you know, for me, it's AST of space mobile is all I need to
- 5:58do. And even looking at year over
- 5:59year and Tanner and I were reminiscing on this point.
- 6:03It was over a year ago or less than a year ago when the stock
- 6:06hit 60 bucks at the end of July. And then the Lewski struck with
- 6:10a convertible bond and knocked us out of bed on that.
- 6:12But even taking that $60.00 print year over year, the stock,
- 6:20you know, up nearly 30% from the high print, if all you did in
- 6:24life is compounded 30%, you are going to outperform literally
- 6:28everyone except just a handful of statistical outliers.
- 6:34And so the real art is finding those securities.
- 6:36It can compound at 20 to 30% a year and then just do nothing.
- 6:42And it's so tempting, especially on Fintwit to be cycling through
- 6:47new ideas, to be hunting through, you know, chart
- 6:49opportunities and things like that.
- 6:51And I've just always found that action is really the enemy of
- 6:55good investment returns for myself.
- 6:56Could be different for other people, but certainly true for
- 6:59myself. So when I, you know, sit down to
- 7:03do work, it's really just trying to make sure I know what I own.
- 7:06And so I was just reading the Hennessy letter, which was
- 7:10pretty interesting. And they they write as if they
- 7:15know something is really kind of how I read that letter.
- 7:19They're writing like they've stumbled upon some uncommon
- 7:22wisdoms or especially around the military use cases.
- 7:27And so we learned a lot about that on the earnings call, but
- 7:32it kind of starting backwards before we even get to the
- 7:34earnings call. The shocking news this week was
- 7:38the empire striking back. And so really out of nowhere,
- 7:42the MN OS created this JV, which is shocking to say the least.
- 7:50But when I got woken up by Anpan Man, I think he called me at
- 7:53around 5:00 AM my time. I just went to Bloomberg,
- 7:57checked the the news and just saw M and OS create JV.
- 8:02It didn't mention ASTS, didn't mention SpaceX.
- 8:06From that headline, anyone that's been following this
- 8:08company should have known immediately what this was about.
- 8:12And it was interesting because MPM man definitely did.
- 8:15And he was, you know, saying, kook, wake up, bye, bye, bye.
- 8:18This is the Verizon moment. And you know, I was thinking,
- 8:20yeah, the the difference was when Verizon hit back in 2024, I
- 8:25owned 20% of, of what I own now. And so I had a lot to buy to, to
- 8:32catch up. And so then I kind of just went
- 8:34back to bed because I feel like I own plenty.
- 8:37But it's really great news. And so a proposed direct to
- 8:41device joint venture by US mobile operators could have
- 8:44left, I guess a couple people confused about what that meant.
- 8:47But you have to be pretty dense to then not realize that when a
- 8:51Bell Lavalon immediately tweets out an ASD Space Mobile press
- 8:57release commending the JV, which had been prepared very clearly
- 9:00for this moment, and then ATS, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile with
- 9:06a smiley cowboy face. I don't think this JV is bad for
- 9:13ASD Space Mobile. And if that weren't enough, you
- 9:17have him, the Starlink executives going wild on the
- 9:21Internet. But this structure is
- 9:24interesting because we don't really know how it's structured
- 9:28yet. And they have to be exceedingly
- 9:30careful about Department of Justice actions against it
- 9:34because what it cannot be is a buyer's cartel.
- 9:40You cannot do that. That would be bad for markets,
- 9:45bad for choice and anti competitive.
- 9:48And so if you know it's not going to be that you need to
- 9:51start thinking about what it could be.
- 9:54And more likely than not the JV is going to be very narrowly
- 9:59scoped and really be a thin layer that does spectrum
- 10:03coordination, technical specs and potentially some gateways.
- 10:08But it almost certainly is not a single buyer that would be
- 10:13facing ASD space mobile and or Starlink.
- 10:16But what it probably is doing is pulling the spectrum in a way to
- 10:21make sure that SpaceX is effectively boxed out.
- 10:26Really, there's only one way to interpret this press release is
- 10:30T-Mobile woke up and went, what have we done?
- 10:35What have we done? Giving Starlink an initial foray
- 10:39into our core market, right as those guys, those guys being
- 10:44Starlink, get spectrum, which can be terrestrial as well.
- 10:50Why in the world would you leave the drawbridge on Noah's Ark
- 10:55open for that animal to come on your boat and devour your flock?
- 11:03You wouldn't do it, T-Mobile did it.
- 11:07But you know, there's nothing like the present to make up for
- 11:09idiotic prior decisions. And so now they have.
- 11:13And it was interesting. We had a guy who works for a
- 11:15major corporations legal team at James Zington and he just also
- 11:20stated the obvious Is this press release from his perspective as
- 11:24someone that does this all day is not about dead zone coverage,
- 11:29it is about keeping SpaceX out. Any point points out that AT&T
- 11:35and Verizon already have commercial agreements with ASTS.
- 11:38Those run through 2030. They can't change that with AJV.
- 11:43So those pre exist commercial contracts which were separately
- 11:48negotiated last unless ASTS proactively decided to amend
- 11:54them. And maybe they have, maybe they
- 11:55haven't, we don't know yet. And so they also definitely
- 12:02didn't decide to just let Starlink into this deal.
- 12:09I think they all just sort of realize that as much as they
- 12:12despise T-Mobile and AT&T and Verizon do despise T-Mobile,
- 12:17T-Mobile making irrational, stupid decisions and being left
- 12:20out of the AST space Mobile Club was going to be bad for all of
- 12:25the carriers because this was no longer the issue.
- 12:29Or T-Mobile maybe ran the wrong type of pricing promotion on a
- 12:32Super Bowl ad and sort of messed up AT&T and Verizon for a little
- 12:36bit. This is a permanent competitive
- 12:39change that could be happening. If T-Mobile does stupid stuff
- 12:44and let Starlink become a bona fide MNO, all of them suffer
- 12:49forever. If they're all of a sudden are
- 12:51four big MN OS versus 3, they really can't have that happen
- 12:57and they have to really do everything they can.
- 13:00So a lot of us over the past year or two had speculated and
- 13:04were mocked thoroughly for what it's worth, but we had predicted
- 13:08that T-Mobile would one day flip to AST Space Mobile.
- 13:12What we had found out subsequently confirmed is that
- 13:15T-Mobile only had a one year deal with AST Space Mobile.
- 13:19They had an LTV of about $100 million.
- 13:21We have that information confirmed from Starlink
- 13:24interviews as well. Then we started to see Grain
- 13:27Management, which has this 800 megahertz spectrum with T-Mobile
- 13:34and their docket has been pretty active by having followed it
- 13:38with a fine tooth comb. But I've read it and this deal
- 13:42closes with with grain and it gives them this juicy spectrum
- 13:50and they want to operationalize it as fast as possible.
- 13:54And there's been an active docket with the FCC and they
- 13:57talk about putting that into use right away.
- 14:03I'm looking for the exact quote, but that's the essence of it.
- 14:06Well, there's only one company on ADTC basis that can use low
- 14:09band spectrum and that's AST Space Mobile or at least use it
- 14:13effectively. I guess link in a way might be
- 14:15able to use it, but not effectively.
- 14:17And the reason why Starlink can't use it is again, the basic
- 14:21physics of how DTC works and we've talked about this quite a
- 14:25lot, but the punch line is that low band spectrum has a wave
- 14:31that is bigger. Low band waves are just
- 14:33physically bigger and so then the elements, or so the parts of
- 14:37the satellite that create the electromagnetic energy to create
- 14:41the wave must be spaced further apart, otherwise the waves smack
- 14:45into each other and interfere. As opposed to high band
- 14:49spectrum, those waves are skinny and so those elements can be
- 14:52closer. You need a certain amount of
- 14:54elements to have a phased array big enough to have enough of
- 14:58these beams, waves to create beams.
- 15:01And if you're using low band spectrum, those elements, you
- 15:04need a certain amount of them spaced at a great distance.
- 15:08You need a phase array that is big.
- 15:12And the only company that has a phase array big enough is AST
- 15:14space mobile. Therefore grain, you know, just
- 15:17using induction grain must be about to do a deal with AST
- 15:21Space mobile is the thought. And this really goes to the
- 15:24spectrum will go to the most efficient use case.
- 15:29And Catsy has really been predicting this for quite a
- 15:35while and he put out some interesting tweets which I have
- 15:38linked out. We have Kevin Chen out there
- 15:41with some interesting tweets. And he also made the point that
- 15:47the data we got this week on the testing speeds from AST Space
- 15:50Mobile show that AST has also been able to figure out carrier
- 15:55aggregation, which is to use multiple chunks of spectrum at
- 15:59the same time transmitting to a single device to achieve really
- 16:04high speeds. And so for example, to hit the
- 16:07effect of 100 megabits per second, we know that there's a
- 16:11limit to the spectral efficiency.
- 16:15And so if you have 100 megabits per second and say that that's
- 16:19divided by 4 bits per Hertz, something like that.
- 16:25Well, it's not possible that ASTS was doing this just on a 5
- 16:28megahertz lever of spectrum. They must have been using 4
- 16:33slivers of 10 or something like that to have achieved these
- 16:37speeds, which means that they've achieved quite an incredible
- 16:42feat in terms of of doing carrier aggregation of the
- 16:46spectrum, which means that more spectrum can really find a way
- 16:52to this platform. And then we have confirmation
- 16:55that the next generation satellites which are bigger,
- 17:00bigger means more beams and more powerful beams are going to
- 17:06nearly double those speeds. And so do 200 megabits per
- 17:10second. And so ASTS has been blowing
- 17:13away the prior technical specs that they had guided us to,
- 17:17which is really great. By contrast, SpaceX has hit a
- 17:21whopping 3 megabits per second. And so on one hand you have FM
- 17:27one which is going to be doing 200 megabits per second versus
- 17:34the tested speed. So we have guys out in the the
- 17:37North Sea able to test Starlink. You know, in a world bonafide
- 17:42that has a user would see it. You're clearly not sharing that
- 17:44beam with anyone when you're middle of a harsh environment
- 17:48and Starlink is just doing 3 megabits per second.
- 17:51And so they are not the same Starlink good for some text
- 17:57message servicing, but it's not true broadband.
- 18:02ASTS is hitting that. The MN OS want that.
- 18:06It's a great use of their spectrum.
- 18:07It's a great product that people are going to be excited by.
- 18:11And you have to really understand that the sell side
- 18:14was quick to come to the same conclusions that we came to.
- 18:18So you have Roth Capital say that the triumphant JV caters to
- 18:24AST Space Mobile. So they are again drawing the
- 18:28right conclusion, which you really saw in the stock price
- 18:30reaction. The stock was kind of like UNCH
- 18:32up, up a little bit before really taking off.
- 18:35And so the market in really general has had to take some
- 18:38time to digest and really understand what did this JV
- 18:42mean. And to be clear, I don't think
- 18:44we fully know what it means because we haven't seen the
- 18:46details of the JV. But the quick conclusion is that
- 18:51it is the MN OS teaming up against SpaceX and the weapon of
- 18:58choice for them to do so is ASD Space Mobile.
- 19:02That's really the simple conclusion.
- 19:05And then let me just see who else we had really on the sell
- 19:08side we had. Yeah, Will Townsend knew about
- 19:14it in advance and was briefed. I didn't see any further
- 19:17analysis from him, but he does say that this isn't really about
- 19:22eliminating dead zones. He goes quote.
- 19:24I also view this alliance as a defensive move to mitigate the
- 19:27impact of any non terrestrial network service provider that
- 19:31might wish to more directly compete with the mobile network
- 19:34operators. That's exactly what I think.
- 19:36And so the take away by the market should be that the M and
- 19:40OS have finally woken up to these Leo providers.
- 19:44It's the explicit acknowledgement that these Leo
- 19:49operators, our competitors and so that means Starlink, that
- 19:54means Amazon, AT&T and Verizon see where this could go and they
- 19:59don't like it. They cannot cede customers to
- 20:04any new entrant. The good news is they have this
- 20:07unbelievable Moat which is the low band spectrum and they will
- 20:10never give it up. And so it seems very difficult.
- 20:15To see how any new entrant could be a bonafide true competitor in
- 20:20the US mobile network. But at the same time, I could
- 20:23see how this market could evolve.
- 20:25And so the ways in which people use their mobile device, for
- 20:28example, could really end up being an AI device.
- 20:31You just really don't know. We don't know what the new
- 20:33hardware might come out in. In some ways, as easily as the
- 20:37iPhone came into the market and changed over all of our lives,
- 20:42we have no idea what might come next.
- 20:44And so there's reason for them to be worried and reason for
- 20:47them to invest massively to stay ahead of it.
- 20:51And they do not have the technology AST Space Mobile has
- 20:55and they most likely will not have it.
- 20:56It's a very unnatural thing for them to control at a company
- 21:01level. And John Stanky has said the
- 21:02same thing previously when people have said, well, why
- 21:04don't you just do it yourself? He would go, we can't.
- 21:07It makes no sense. This is a global asset.
- 21:10We're a regional player. This is a multi client economies
- 21:14of scale business. It makes sense for us to partner
- 21:16with someone but does not make sense for us to own it
- 21:21ourselves. It is something they would not
- 21:23be able to monetize appropriately.
- 21:25So that's good. That's our thesis that's taking
- 21:28form is that we are a global infrastructure layer that has a
- 21:33lot of commercial barriers to entry to make it very difficult.
- 21:36And now we've had the current buyer set that we're most
- 21:40interested in wake up. And I say current buyer set is
- 21:45that presupposes that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile will
- 21:48continue to be dominant in their markets, which I think is a very
- 21:52likely scenario for years and years to come.
- 21:56And now they've woken up and they're doing everything to hug
- 21:59us and embrace us to fend off SpaceX seems like a really good
- 22:05place for us to be. So longer term, we saw some of
- 22:10the, you know, Fudsters aside, saw some real people ask some
- 22:15questions, you know, going to this idea, is this now a single
- 22:18buyer market? Is there going to be pricing
- 22:20pressure and things like that? Those are fair questions and
- 22:22things we need to really think about goes back to is there
- 22:27actually going to be an OPEC of MN OS teaming up against
- 22:32satellite players? I think the answer is no.
- 22:36It gets very difficult when you actually start to think about
- 22:38it. Let's just say they wanted to
- 22:39try, which again that would be presumably very difficult with
- 22:42the DOJ. But the US is 1 market, not all
- 22:47of the markets. It is an important market, but
- 22:49is not the only market. So they can do whatever they
- 22:52want. But ASTS could say, no, we don't
- 22:54want to and you know in the extreme not serve the US market.
- 22:58Again, US market's very important.
- 23:01And so they have Europe and all these other countries in Africa
- 23:04and things like that. Again, not nearly as attractive
- 23:06and higher up in markets, but just thinking about the extreme,
- 23:09if you try to have someone gang up on you and create an OPEC
- 23:14against you, will it work? And then you cut into the
- 23:18government market. So then all of a sudden you go,
- 23:20well, look, we're not going to get bullied.
- 23:22We're just going to serve government and 1st responders.
- 23:25And so you start to go geography by geography where you have lots
- 23:31of power as ASD, space, mobile, but then you start to go market
- 23:34by market. Now what we haven't seen which I
- 23:37fully expect is that we're going to start to add some non
- 23:39traditional buyers to our cadre like Meta and Google and things
- 23:45like that. I think the thing that has not
- 23:51flipped yet is when the M and OS start to actually get this
- 23:56intermediated by different types of devices.
- 24:01You think Anthropic is not thinking about ways to have
- 24:03connectivity to enable its service to people.
- 24:06We already know Open AI is thinking about an open a iPhone.
- 24:09And so the ability for these three MN OS, as important as
- 24:13they are, if they were to try to go hostile, the multiple layers
- 24:19of ASTSS Moat are, are simply too strong and so you can just
- 24:25start from the first places. I don't think that they have an
- 24:28alternative even if they wanted to.
- 24:30There is no alternative to AST Space Mobile.
- 24:33To use the tagline of another company for you know that I
- 24:36like, there is no substitute. They didn't just build a
- 24:41satellite, they built an entirely different type of
- 24:45satellite. It is bigger and more powerful
- 24:49than anything that has ever been built, and it's showing its
- 24:52performance as being 60 times that of what Starlink presently
- 24:58has. And again, the company isn't
- 25:00standing still. So they have done something that
- 25:03people cannot do. And so there is not a fungible
- 25:07commoditized satellite market. There is a company that can do
- 25:10things and there are other companies that cannot.
- 25:14There right now is one choice. Maybe that will change over
- 25:17time, but right now there is no choice.
- 25:20And then you get to think about what can other people copy you?
- 25:23There's an IT IP mode. There are years of innovation
- 25:28and engineering and patents and pending patents and the
- 25:33production platform to build all this stuff that make this very
- 25:37difficult to do. For example, can MDA actually
- 25:41build something that's comparable to this?
- 25:44I think no way. And so it is really an ASTS
- 25:51versus everyone situation versus a consumer, for example, can
- 25:55have real choice in buying an iPhone versus an Android phone.
- 26:01You know, there's, there's real options.
- 26:02There's a lot of, you know, Balkanization, like I'm an
- 26:05iPhone guy and you know, whatever, but there's choice and
- 26:08both devices are pretty great. That choice does not exist in
- 26:11the satellite market. It's AST space mobile or, or the
- 26:14highway ASTS is already integrated.
- 26:17And so the thing I think people forget is it wasn't like they
- 26:21just walked up and inserted a plug into AT&T and worked.
- 26:26AT&T has talked about teams. I think it was like 200 people
- 26:29working on this because they want Asts to work as if it's
- 26:33native on their network and it is native on their market on
- 26:37their network. It's not a parallel network.
- 26:40It is treated as native AT&T traffic integrated with AT and
- 26:44TS, billing, IMS, voicemail, lawful intercept, everything.
- 26:49That integration took years of engineering and regulatory work,
- 26:54lot of IP behind that. You're not creating that
- 26:57overnight. And the other thing is just the
- 26:59regulatory mode. You have to go get your Spectrum
- 27:04and constellation approved. You'd have to go get your own
- 27:08SES authorization for the same bands, which are AT&T's bands
- 27:12and Verizon's bands and first night bands.
- 27:14That's not fungible and that's a two to three regular, two to
- 27:17three-year regulatory pathway and a minimum.
- 27:20And so even if the MN OS wanted to commoditize this, there's no
- 27:25equivalent. The tech is hard, the IP modes
- 27:29are hard, the integrations are hard, the regulatory hurdle is
- 27:34hard. It seems really difficult to try
- 27:39to do something adversarial to AST space mobile, which then
- 27:42just leaves the corollary of this JV was probably good for
- 27:45them. And that is probably the answer.
- 27:49And you can see the frustration. I know a lot of us took quite a
- 27:52lot of enjoying this, but you can see the frustration in the
- 27:57SpaceX executives and then you kind of ask yourself, well, why
- 28:00don't they just give up? Like why not just do space AI?
- 28:02And then just look at this interview with Sean McGuire,
- 28:07who's the partner in Sequoia talking about this.
- 28:09He thinks that direct to sell is probably going to be a bigger
- 28:12market than the original consumer Internet business.
- 28:15I think so too. I, you know, said many times
- 28:18that when you look at Facebook's original business with desktop,
- 28:24mobile was bigger. I don't know why that wouldn't
- 28:27be the same for connectivity. And I've, I've certainly placed
- 28:32my bet on that. And it seems like it's a
- 28:35difficult thing for SpaceX to give up on.
- 28:38But what we might have is the same type of permutations of
- 28:41what XAI has gone through. And so Elon also understood that
- 28:46AI is not going away. That cat is out of the hat.
- 28:52But XAI kind of sucks. Grok is, you know, fun for
- 28:56making pictures and stuff, but it it kind of sucks.
- 28:59And so he's invested huge amounts of money.
- 29:02Really doesn't look to have a pathway to be a leader in it
- 29:05Looks like Anthropic has run away.
- 29:08But you know, then open AI is, you know, still around and you
- 29:12have some more consumer grade products with Gemini.
- 29:15It's just not really obvious to me where Grok fits in.
- 29:19I'm a subscriber for the premium product too, just to make sure
- 29:22I'm on top of it. And then you saw that, you know,
- 29:24Elon's starting to do some stuff to basically amortize his
- 29:28exposure there. Buying cursor makes sense
- 29:31because you can leverage a lot of that compute vertically
- 29:34integrate cursor. Then he's just wholesaling his
- 29:36capacity to the anthropic. And so you really have to ask
- 29:40yourself, what is Space XS long term plan with the spectrum?
- 29:43They invested in $20 billion and I don't think we really know,
- 29:48but their path in the DDC market just got really hard.
- 29:54If they lose T-Mobile, which again, all the signs point to
- 29:58that happening, what's their pathway?
- 30:04And I don't know because you're not going to just go build a
- 30:09speculative constellation. Starlink has opportunity cost.
- 30:15They're great capital allocators.
- 30:17For them to throw up a bunch of DC payloads is presumably at the
- 30:22expense of the fixed broadband payloads and at the expense of a
- 30:27third party cargo and potentially moving forward in AI
- 30:31data center cargo. And so if they throw up a lot of
- 30:34satellites and there's really no usage over the US market and
- 30:38then a bunch of teeny little, you know, customers here and
- 30:41there in Europe. I know they have a lot of MN OS,
- 30:42but some of these are not the big ones.
- 30:45I don't know if the numbers really work.
- 30:48So what are they going to do? And you know, maybe there's
- 30:51something else other people see, but I'm just looking at are they
- 30:55able to deliver their constellation into a big
- 30:58opportunity given that ASTS is getting effectively turned into
- 31:04the standard by the MN OS? I don't, I'm sure that I'm wrong
- 31:09on this statement, but it looks like there is not a very clear
- 31:13path for them and that they might sort of pivot away or, or
- 31:18do something else that's non traditional with those assets.
- 31:21But it's a curious question that, you know, we have to ask
- 31:25and, and think about and Sterling's going to have to talk
- 31:29about this in their IPO. And so that's where I think
- 31:31their answer is going to be. We're going to roll out a SpaceX
- 31:34phone that seems like the best answer for their audience, which
- 31:38is going to assume that no matter what they do, they're
- 31:40going to win. That's sort of the SpaceX way
- 31:42and that's ambitious. It's on brand for them going
- 31:45direct. They've proven they can go
- 31:47direct. They've done a great job with
- 31:50hardware with with Starlink. I mean, they have all the
- 31:53necessary sort of sets of experiences.
- 31:57And if you can build a car, we should be able to build a phone.
- 32:01And so that might also be with the M and OS coming imminently
- 32:07is that SpaceX had sort of a crappy commercial plan for D to
- 32:12C as it currently is with the M and OS and they have to figure
- 32:15out something going direct. And you think about Elon's going
- 32:19to have payments, it's going to be wrapped into the Tesla
- 32:22vehicles. He's got social with X and AI.
- 32:27Maybe his integrated device is good.
- 32:29We'll see. Seems very hard to do a device.
- 32:31What softwares are going to run on?
- 32:32How are you going to get the app ecosystems?
- 32:35These are the things that would make me very skeptical of that.
- 32:37But sometimes, you know, you don't want to let details get
- 32:41get in the way. So then amazingly, this week we
- 32:45also had earnings. I thought the earnings call was
- 32:48great. And the idea that people were
- 32:52upset about this because they missed on revenue.
- 32:54It's sort of like, can we just go back to being a pre revenue
- 32:57company, kind of like in in billions when the the guy I'm
- 33:02forgetting his name was, was coaching the the Pied piper
- 33:07team. Like don't have revenue, then
- 33:09they're going to want more of it.
- 33:10You're going to have to, you know, have targets and things
- 33:13like that. Whatever you do, you don't have
- 33:14revenue, you know, So like I kind of want to go back to that.
- 33:17All of a sudden you were starting to have revenue and now
- 33:19people like want more of it and to be on target.
- 33:23And so I think it seems like the algos kind of read the headline,
- 33:27but I don't want to blame the algos.
- 33:29I think part of it is there were a lot of expectations by
- 33:34enthusiasts for the company, you know, for like me, for example,
- 33:37I thought that we might get some government deals and, and some
- 33:43other spicy things. I'm always pretty excited about
- 33:46earnings because I feel like I have a pretty good understanding
- 33:48of what's going to happen in this company.
- 33:50So it's easy for someone like me to be really expectant, like a,
- 33:54like an expectant mother waiting to give birth to a beautiful set
- 33:59of commercial opportunities and people I think wanted some M&O
- 34:02contracts and things like that. And then you'd also seen Rocket
- 34:05Lab literally launch itself with with a great report showing a
- 34:10lot of commercial momentum. And I'm sure that there were
- 34:13some people thinking, you know, I'm going to get an ASTS seems
- 34:16like it's set up chart is good. I'm going to try to catch like a
- 34:1830% rally in this thing. And then when there really
- 34:21weren't any barn burners in the press release, I think you could
- 34:24probably have a lot of a lot of hot money coming out, a lot of
- 34:27people who had bought options coming out as you're selling
- 34:30those deltas and into sort of created created a little bit
- 34:36maybe of a perception that there was a disappointment.
- 34:39But I didn't read it that way because again, I'm thinking like
- 34:42Ron Baron and so, and I, you know, as I've, this isn't like a
- 34:45recent change for me. I'm thinking like an owner then.
- 34:47So I view this as the report the management is giving me
- 34:50personally. As you know, Kook, here's the
- 34:52update on, on your business. And I saw scaled manufacturing
- 34:58happening. I saw tech that was doing great
- 35:03update on things I already knew like regulatory posture,
- 35:06incredible balance sheet. What else did I learn?
- 35:11You know, government opportunities.
- 35:13They were talking about some other things we'll get to in a
- 35:16SEC. But the, the big thing for me is
- 35:19it wasn't a disappointment. I could just see how
- 35:22disappointment is really just expectations that are not met.
- 35:27But in isolation, the company is, is really doing great.
- 35:31We were able to see that the next Bluebirds were, you know,
- 35:36after batch one. We're in final integration and
- 35:38testing. Bluebird 8 looked already
- 35:41packaged. No one knows when they're going
- 35:43to ship. Literally no one knows where
- 35:45they're going to ship. It might never ship.
- 35:46We just really don't know. It's a mystery, but it maybe it
- 35:50will ship soon. You just really don't know.
- 35:53And, you know, other than the fact that they said the
- 35:55satellites are ready to ship in the document, you really have no
- 35:58idea on how to know whether the satellites are going to ship or
- 36:00not, other than the fact they said they will soon.
- 36:03So that's exciting. But you can see visually that
- 36:06things are looking good and they look like they're going to have
- 36:12two batches of satellites ready to ship in July 2, I repeat two
- 36:17in July. Pretty exciting.
- 36:20We have new government deals. And what was neat is that Africa
- 36:25was locked in. We have conquered Africa and
- 36:29that's exciting. And so those M and OS with
- 36:31Axion, Vodacom, Safaricom, MTN, Nigeria and Orang, we already
- 36:38have the JV effectively in Africa.
- 36:40We have the JV in Europe, we have the JV in the US We're
- 36:45blocking SpaceX out. And it's one of those things
- 36:50where you wonder has the market seen how we have totally
- 36:56dominated the world contractually before we have
- 37:02even started shocking, which just again leads me to believe
- 37:09that if or not if when we start shipping a lot of satellites,
- 37:16when that becomes something where people get a lot of
- 37:19comfort in our production cadence, which I think is is
- 37:22coming soon. I could see how generalists sort
- 37:24of don't have the same level of detailed or focus on this issue.
- 37:28Not to take away anything from them, but I think the space mob
- 37:32is very focused on this. And so then the level of
- 37:36understanding of this is maybe more uniquely held by space mob
- 37:40than your average investor. And what would not surprise me,
- 37:44this is what I was telling Tanner too.
- 37:46What would not surprise me is like some of these AI optic
- 37:49plays and things like that where you look at the chart and
- 37:51they're just like a vertical line up.
- 37:54And some of these names I owned for a hot moment, then sort of
- 37:57like giving up because I didn't know what I owned, you know,
- 37:59simple as that. I wasn't the right owner for
- 38:01these things and someone else made the money that they deserve
- 38:05to make. But this one, I deserve to make
- 38:07the money. And when you sit on it long
- 38:10enough, sometimes you can lose perspective of when we start
- 38:14shipping those satellites all of a sudden, I think it's going to
- 38:17rewrite the narrative that's already there of absolute global
- 38:20domination. And so still in Tanner was like,
- 38:23I don't know if I'd be totally surprised this if we start
- 38:25popping out, you know, 3610 satellites in a month.
- 38:30And if you wake up one day and the stock is like $500 and
- 38:33people are falling over themselves because they're like,
- 38:35this is Facebook mobile. They've dominated the world.
- 38:38There's non communication use cases.
- 38:40They got golden Dome and did you know they do radars and this guy
- 38:44named Katzy, he was right out everything like no shit what
- 38:48Katzie was right about everything.
- 38:49I actually knew that I have a hat that says Katzie was right
- 38:52about everything. How could I possibly be
- 38:54surprised at Katzie being right about everything when I have a
- 38:59hat that says this? And that's the thing was when
- 39:03you sit on something for so long, sometimes you can be
- 39:05surprised by the things you already know that other people
- 39:09recently learned. And that's where you want to be
- 39:12really careful, for example, on things like covered calls,
- 39:15because sometimes you might think you know what you own, but
- 39:19you haven't quite understood what the clearing price of that
- 39:22thing is when everyone else learns.
- 39:25And we also have what's going to be potentially A biblical
- 39:29shrinkage of the float because of the short interest that's out
- 39:33there. And so we have, I don't have the
- 39:36exact numbers right in front of me, but 60 million shares.
- 39:41And so it's, I think that's 6, what is that of the free float?
- 39:46It's a lot, you know, over 30% of the free float, if those guys
- 39:51all come into cover because they realize that their thesis is
- 39:53wrong, that's those shares are effectively outstanding right
- 39:57now. Someone borrowed them and sold
- 39:58them. That's effective increase of the
- 40:00float. It's a massive amount of
- 40:02synthetic dilution. When that reverses, that's the
- 40:05same thing as a violent stock repurchase.
- 40:08And so that's where to me, all bets are off on what the market
- 40:12clearing prices wants. The operational momentum, which
- 40:16is then going to be coupled by the commercial momentum really
- 40:19hit its stride. So I get pretty excited.
- 40:22Other things we learned, let me just make sure I do this
- 40:27somewhat in order before I think about other things we learned.
- 40:31Tanner had a really good breakdown of the images, just
- 40:34showing all the different Bluebirds that are there.
- 40:38And so he's an engineer, as most of you know, and is able to sort
- 40:42of spot a lot of process issues and could see, again, you know,
- 40:46kind of where the guidance is coming from.
- 40:49So, you know, I spy with my little eye.
- 40:52He's seen launch #5 in final testing.
- 40:56So that means a July launch. Again, pretty exciting.
- 41:00And then we go back to the Africa stuff.
- 41:03I was just talking about Alex from Babylon says the market
- 41:07completely missed this. But AST just locked down Africa
- 41:10in the same way it locked down the US and the EU.
- 41:14A lot of people, it's very exciting.
- 41:18The commercial traction continues.
- 41:21And that's again, the issue of if you wake up one day and all
- 41:24of a sudden people are falling over themselves saying cats, he
- 41:28was right about everything. And you go, but I knew that.
- 41:30I knew that cat. I literally know that cat.
- 41:33I feed that cat is my cat. And you might not appreciate
- 41:37your cat until other people try to take your cat and going to
- 41:42know these things. Market's not really moving on
- 41:45this stuff, but it's coiling. These fundamentals are being pre
- 41:49wired for people to appreciate them later.
- 41:52Like a fine wine. Right now we have lots of grape
- 41:55juice sitting in some vats. But this shit is first growth.
- 42:02People just don't realize it. This company is packing barrels
- 42:06of Lafitte and when it goes to market is going to be priced
- 42:11very well. And right now people see some
- 42:13grapes, but I think in three to six months they're going to be
- 42:18seeing some Chateau Margot and that will be pretty fun for
- 42:25those of us that have a lot of stock.
- 42:28Europe continues to be really exciting.
- 42:31This account I've never heard of named Ampan man flagged Daniel
- 42:37Thomas who's in the sales and commercial part of Satco.
- 42:41And he just goes exciting times as we work with our partners
- 42:45across Europe to take out this world tech and enable it for the
- 42:47benefit of our customer bases. And he points out all their
- 42:51customers they have. And So what this account that
- 42:55I've never heard of and Pam Mann says is that he predicts
- 42:59Deutsche Telekom will join. I think that's happening too.
- 43:02We have actually seen quite a lot of comments from Deutsche
- 43:04Telekom that seem very suggestive that they are making
- 43:09peace and breaking the baguette. Well, they would probably be
- 43:15more of like sharing the Venus Witzel with AST Space Mobile.
- 43:21That will be pretty fun. And the M and OS, when you kind
- 43:24of step back, the M and OS keep aligning themselves toward AST
- 43:29Space Mobile's success. Well, not absolute.
- 43:33It is useful to remember that Verizon owns a lot of AST Space
- 43:38Mobile stock. A&T, AT&T owns a lot of stock.
- 43:41Vodafone owns a lot of stock. And now Telus Canada owns a lot
- 43:45of stock. Google owns a lot of stock.
- 43:47Rakuten owned a lot of stock, owns a little bit of less stock.
- 43:50But after printing whatever it was like $4 million of gains the
- 43:53other day, sort of, you know, they were able to uncork one of
- 43:58those bottles of Chateau Margot and go the grapes turned out
- 44:02well and they took a taste might not be an expensive taste for
- 44:06them if the stock goes to where it's going to go, but they're
- 44:09enjoying the fruits of their labor.
- 44:13But when you take a step back too, a Bell has been very smart.
- 44:16He's made all of his customers who have the power to both make
- 44:22this company but also complicate this company.
- 44:25For example, through J VS, he's made them aligned with their
- 44:29success. They in the most simplest terms
- 44:33want AST Space Mobile to go up. They have huge investments in
- 44:38this company now because of stock price appreciation.
- 44:42Telus recently made an equity investment, again a customer
- 44:45that is aligned with our success, not aligned to beat us
- 44:48up on price and things like that because that hurts their equity
- 44:51investment obviously has to be juxtapose versus the underlying
- 44:55Telus business, AT&T business, Verizon business, etcetera.
- 44:59But all else equal, they're going to want ASTS to win versus
- 45:03Starlink on a pure financial sense, but then doubly so
- 45:08because Starlink is probably going to go compete with them,
- 45:10AST Space Mobile will not. So it's good to have an aligned
- 45:14cap table. We have another tweet just
- 45:18talking more about the testing results that we already really
- 45:21talked about. And again, it's demonstrating
- 45:23the carrier aggregation where it looks like we are really killing
- 45:30it. And we also have some more
- 45:34testing examples where it looks like we're able to deliver
- 45:38spectral efficiency of up to six bits per second per Hertz, which
- 45:45which is astonishing and just shows to continue to show that
- 45:49these big antennas, our technology is delivering wild
- 45:55performance versus what was previously thought to be
- 45:57possible. And the company's now showing
- 46:00it. You know, they're starting to
- 46:01really pound their pound their chest about it, which is also
- 46:05interesting. It's a different level of really
- 46:09aggression by the company, which tells you that they're feeling
- 46:12very confident of where they are in their ability to really make
- 46:15a breakout move. Speaking of breaking out, the
- 46:19company took radar out of stealth.
- 46:22So the irony is, you know, the radar showed up on the radar in
- 46:27the most recent earnings call. So we had known that this
- 46:30company was involved with radar services, but they hadn't really
- 46:35talked about it. It always bends under the guise
- 46:38of non communication use cases. That was really what they said
- 46:42on this call. Scott said radar capabilities
- 46:46out loud and then a bell said it's been in use today and said
- 46:51it does not require mid band. It's been used on low band
- 46:54spectrum deployed today. A lot of us had also been mocked
- 46:59on noting that AST space satellites had always somehow,
- 47:07someway had flyovers exactly when the US was launching very
- 47:13sophisticated electronic warfare campaigns in various theaters
- 47:17across the world. People would laugh us, laugh at
- 47:20us. Well, now we know that these
- 47:23capabilities are being used today and as we have more
- 47:27satellites will just be increasingly used because our
- 47:30coverage will increase. Pretty exciting.
- 47:32Abell said the core capabilities of what the government is using
- 47:35was incorporated many years back.
- 47:39Katzie was right about everything.
- 47:41He detected it, he found it, he analyzed it, he understood it,
- 47:45and he communicated it to those who would listen.
- 47:48And now here we are. We also got some more updates on
- 47:52Golden Dome, Scott said. What did he say?
- 47:57They received another award related to Golden Dome.
- 47:59And I think we can all expect more of these things to
- 48:01continue. Again, when I read these
- 48:04Hennessy letters, I feel like I'm reading something from
- 48:09people who know more than we know.
- 48:12I'm reading someone's understanding that we are
- 48:17getting very big deals related to Golden Dome.
- 48:21They're too specific with some of their numbers for investment
- 48:25firm. They should otherwise just be
- 48:26like we, we bought this specky satellite thing and went up a
- 48:29lot. Awesome talk to you later.
- 48:34They're being very specific about the government revenue
- 48:37expectations they have. So I kind of read that and and
- 48:41just kind of wonder when the rest of the world will catch up
- 48:43on that. And this is great because again
- 48:47it allows us to use our services in the US market where even in a
- 48:51scenario that I do not believe is true where JV tries to mess
- 48:54around with our economics. We have plenty of stuff to do in
- 48:58the US to drive a hard bargain. Company is doing a really great
- 49:02job having commercial diversity across geographies and customers
- 49:08in those geographies to have a very robust business that will
- 49:12be respected and paid according to the value it creates.
- 49:17Do not mess with Abell and Scott.
- 49:20They seem to be very commercially savvy at not
- 49:22getting pushed around. We also learned that the ASIC is
- 49:26complete. It's been incorporated into the
- 49:28production line. It's very exciting as well
- 49:30because it allows us to process more bandwidth.
- 49:33So the beams are the beams, beams relate to speed, how many
- 49:37beams you can have relates to the processing capacity of the
- 49:41satellite and the use of power, which relates to the ASIC.
- 49:46So we're excited to see that company very clearly signaled
- 49:49this to us through some of the non blurred photos.
- 49:52And then the 10K was also pretty clear about it being done and
- 49:56incorporated. So I'm pretty excited about
- 49:58that. They talked about how we're
- 50:00going to be using ula for launch.
- 50:03Some more exciting news. We believe we can fit 5
- 50:06satellites on a ULA rocket. The Centaur is, I believe, 5 for
- 50:10five. It's a big boy rocket commonly
- 50:14associated with the US military. And, you know, we'll be very
- 50:19excited to go to these launches until we have Blue Origin.
- 50:22We have SpaceX, obviously, we have ISRO, and now we have ULAI
- 50:29suspect that we're going to have some launch partners in Asia and
- 50:31some launch partners in Europe. And then hopefully we really
- 50:35launched with everyone, but we need some of these big boy
- 50:37rockets because that's where we get a lot of scale.
- 50:41And Speaking of big boy rockets, the most beautiful of them all
- 50:46is New Glenn. Really like an A plus for, for
- 50:51style or an industrial asset. I don't know why you'd even try
- 50:55to make it this beautiful unless you were just going for style
- 50:57points for pure love of the game.
- 51:00And Jeff Bezos has made a beautiful rocket.
- 51:03And the good news is that beautiful rocket is going to be
- 51:05back on the launchpad really fast.
- 51:07And so New Glenn 3 notwithstanding, these guys seem
- 51:10like they're standing up an aggressive schedule.
- 51:13And they tweeted out a picture with two boosters in the hangar.
- 51:17And so getting these boosters built, getting them fired up and
- 51:20in the cadence means that these guys are going to start to have
- 51:22a very aggressive launch schedule.
- 51:24And because these rockets have so much more capacity than a
- 51:26Falcon 9, the effective addition of supply in this market starts
- 51:30to add up and be pretty big. So we're pretty excited about
- 51:33that. What else do we have?
- 51:37So only 6 inches. Shared some research.
- 51:40I believe that this was something from Link.
- 51:46Ironically, Charles Miller actually saying that we're
- 51:50really good. Times change and then also just
- 51:54the Tam, which is pretty cool, the Tam expander.
- 51:58And so M and OS are going to start replacing their
- 52:03uneconomical towers with D to C and the FCC in its most recent
- 52:10decisions is encouraging this fungibility between satellite
- 52:13and terrestrial really what is the most efficient use of
- 52:16spectrum? And then it's cool to find out
- 52:18that the space mob actually has a lot of tower guys in it.
- 52:21And to quote this guy, not Ken 2024.
- 52:26Yep. I used to build and own rural
- 52:28towers, a mini American tower. As I learned about ASTS years
- 52:32ago, my partners I decided to sell all of our towers.
- 52:35I rolled a good chunk into ASTSMNOS.
- 52:38Spend a lot on rural towers that do not pencil out.
- 52:42ASTS will save them billions per year.
- 52:46Good move, Ken. If you see your business about
- 52:49to be totally disrupted, you should sell it before other
- 52:53people come to that realization. And if you're super smart, like
- 52:57not can, buying the thing that is disrupting you is a way to
- 53:02turn a good exit from yourself into an astounding result.
- 53:07So good for you, but it's also great for us.
- 53:11When I think about Space Mob, the diversity of experiences
- 53:14that come together for us to understand the whole of what is
- 53:17going on is I think really unmatched.
- 53:20This is a great example confirming our thesis that this
- 53:22is not just about dead zones, it's about also rationalizing
- 53:27the CAP X footprint of the MN OS and the FCC is putting fuel on
- 53:33this fire. The basic message from the FCC
- 53:35is get it done. They're open, open to the
- 53:40functional equivalence model for spectrum build out requirements,
- 53:43coverage and service delivery matter more to them than where
- 53:48it comes from. So terrestrial tower versus
- 53:52directly from space don't care. They just want the spectrum used
- 53:57on the functional equivalents. And so if you can light up high
- 54:01data rates from space and that can get it done, FCC is saying
- 54:05good. And you can see this in some of
- 54:08the new requirements. AT&T in its recently acquired
- 54:12Echo Star Spectrum can use D to D to meet some of these build
- 54:19out requirements. You know, again, pretty, pretty
- 54:22exciting. And then let's just see what
- 54:25else we have some more from only 6 inches from my perspective.
- 54:31What is he saying? I think it's just talking about
- 54:35the fact that SpaceX and Amazon are seeing this big business.
- 54:39It's a huge business. It's a multi $100 billion
- 54:42business that it's going to grow into.
- 54:44It solves problems for 8 billion customers.
- 54:46It's going to be the first space satellite business in history
- 54:49where you can have billions of paying customers.
- 54:53Good. Glad we own that.
- 54:55I'm glad we dominated. Oh, yeah.
- 54:56And ironically, yeah, this is Charles Miller.
- 54:58So this is the former sort of. I think he's he was
- 55:01defenestrated the founder of Link.
- 55:04And so, you know, he's the one telling people how massive this
- 55:07opportunity is and really kind of talking about how a bell, you
- 55:13know, is really there. And the M and OS are seeing it
- 55:18too. The M and OS are seeing this
- 55:23this wave coming for them. And they're not being
- 55:25complacent. They see that the FC CS new
- 55:27approach has the chance to enable someone like SpaceX to be
- 55:32much more aggressive than they previously were.
- 55:36And that's probably scaring the living hell out of them, as it
- 55:39should. And so again, in this battle,
- 55:43the weapon they're picking up is AST Space Mobile.
- 55:48Before this whole JV came out, I had a thread again from this
- 55:52account and Pan Man where the T-Mobile CFO expressed
- 55:57excitement for AST Space Mobile and Amazon, for example.
- 56:01And so Craig Maffei says, I had a question on the earnings call
- 56:05and Peter, the CFO at T-Mobile says, yes, they're absolutely
- 56:09compliments. And that's why we're excited
- 56:11that Amazon Global Star partnership is getting in there.
- 56:14You have AST getting in there. So I think we'll have great,
- 56:17we'll have a great competitive set there for complementary
- 56:20services. So they're seeing that they're
- 56:23going to be using other people as well.
- 56:25And now we know that the JV came out.
- 56:29So let's see what else we really need to focus on.
- 56:34SpaceX and Google continue to make waves around AI data
- 56:38centers in space, continues to be something that I I think ASTS
- 56:44will be involved in. We had more comments in the
- 56:46earrings call about power on orbit and things like that.
- 56:49That's always consistent with AI data centers.
- 56:51Remember the critical innovation with AST space bubble is their
- 56:55Micron which is this sort of sandwich waffle sandwich which
- 56:59couples solar, the heat transfer electronics and then the earth,
- 57:05the earth facing thing that uses electricity in the first
- 57:08instance. This is of course RF technology,
- 57:11but nothing stops that from being any other innovation in
- 57:15the future that consumes electricity because ultimately
- 57:17AST space mobile creates the most power on orbit.
- 57:21It happens to be the case that real estate square footage in
- 57:25space is not only correlated to power, but due to the physics of
- 57:29RF also conducive to the right type of RF because beams require
- 57:37space. But nothing says that this
- 57:40company can't also be effective at AI data centers if that
- 57:44ultimately supported by the economics.
- 57:47And so we had a lot this week is pretty exciting.
- 57:55I there was definitely no kook bottom this week.
- 57:59I know people were kind of looking for signs after earnings
- 58:02call when the stock traded off, but there there was no
- 58:05despondency from me. I felt like it was a good call.
- 58:09I'm very happy about where the company is.
- 58:11They're really about to, I think they are firing on all
- 58:15cylinders, but the visible signs of that are coming in the next
- 58:20weeks and and certainly months. And so I feel great about
- 58:25things. And then the JV is certainly
- 58:26something I want to very carefully monitor.
- 58:29But my first instinct is that it's a complete validation that
- 58:34ASTS is the carrier neutral choice and that these other guys
- 58:39have now correctly seen the fear of or experience the fear of God
- 58:45in realizing that they need to make sure that Starlink doesn't
- 58:48do anything or these other Mag Seven companies don't enter
- 58:51their business, which I think is showing the power of
- 58:54connectivity. The original thesis we always
- 58:56had was these mag seven guys, they live on the consumer
- 59:02connection. If your phone doesn't work,
- 59:05you're not consuming their services.
- 59:07They've laid underground fiber, they've tried to deliver Wi-Fi
- 59:12from balloons. They've done everything to try
- 59:16to increase their market reach through connectivity.
- 59:21ASTS seems like it's the killer app to do that at scale in a way
- 59:28no one has ever done before, which is why my belief has
- 59:33always been, despite the role analysts mocking by experts,
- 59:39that ASTS has the ingredients to be one of the largest companies
- 59:43in the world. I don't know if it will be, but
- 59:44it has the ingredients of that, which which is pretty cool.
- 59:50And So what I learned on the earnings call was more
- 59:54validation that that belief could be true, but certainly no
- 59:59details that led me to believe it is not true.
- 1:00:02The JV by the M and OS made me believe that we are with the
- 1:00:07right winner, with the right commercial strategy.
- 1:00:09It also tells you that they are scared of SpaceX, which tells
- 1:00:13you that SpaceX is something to be scared of.
- 1:00:15So net, net, you know, not great to have a competitor.
- 1:00:22But then what we found out is that SpaceX isn't really a
- 1:00:24competitor to ASD Space Mobile. In the B to B to C market or
- 1:00:29really in the B to B market, because all of the B to B
- 1:00:33customers are terrified of them and are going to try not to use
- 1:00:36them, which means that they will all use AST space mobile, which
- 1:00:38gives us monopoly. But what you're worried about is
- 1:00:40SpaceX creating it's new phone and vertically integrated and
- 1:00:43taking out Apple, for example, and everyone walks around with a
- 1:00:46SpaceX phone. I don't think that's going to
- 1:00:48happen, but that's certainly what's now more visible to the
- 1:00:52MNS. So this next week, I'm sure that
- 1:00:54literally nothing will happen. Then it will be super boring and
- 1:00:57for the first time ever, we will have no weekly and no spaces.
- 1:01:01That certainly seems like what's set to happen.
- 1:01:03So with that hope everyone has a super boring week.
- 1:01:06You might as well just like take a vacation next week because I'm
- 1:01:09sure nothing will happen at all. So just unplug, relax, and enjoy
- 1:01:15your life. And if something happens, then
- 1:01:17we'll have a weekly and we'll have a space that that's my
- 1:01:20bargain. Talk to everyone soon, bye.
- 1:01:28Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile Podcast.
- 1:01:32If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
- 1:01:34podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
- 1:01:38media, or leave a rating and review.
- 1:01:40To catch all the. Latest news about AST Space
- 1:01:43Mobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
- 1:01:47next time. We're doing something very, very
- 1:01:53big and I think with this technology we can really affect
- 1:01:55billion lives. AST Space Global is the only
- 1:01:58company that has proven technology to deliver cellular
- 1:02:03broadband connectivity directly from space to do everyday
- 1:02:07smartphone. People will just basically turn
- 1:02:09their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
- 1:02:12We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
- 1:02:15satellite. Our role is to bring this into
- 1:02:19reality, always in partnership with the MMO.