Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Kook's Weekly - April 5 - The Noise Floor Revolution: SpaceMob, FirstNet, and the End of Constellation Constipation

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Kook's Weekly - April 5 - The Noise Floor Revolution: SpaceMob, FirstNet, and the End of Constellation Constipation · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

• 0:06
  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast, just basically.
• 0:11
  From your phone, be seamless, regardless of where you are.
• 0:15
  We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
• 0:17
  satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
• 0:22
  have is very, very, very large. Large.
• 0:27
  OK. Thanks for the loyal, loyal
• 0:29
  people showing up. I'm in Asia right now, so it's a
• 0:32
  little bit of a difficult time zone for me.
• 0:35
  And we got back to the hotel. My wife thinking it's early to
• 0:38
  bed and I go, well, I got to do my podcast and she looks at me
• 0:40
  like you got to do what? I have to remind her what pays
• 0:45
  the bills are on here. It's ASTS fundamental research.
• 0:49
  So let's get started. A lot happened today.
• 0:54
  Was pretty crazy watching the rescue of the pilot.
• 0:58
  And so I know I just saw Catsy do another couple tweets because
• 1:02
  what we'd studied as part of the forbidden videos are some of
• 1:07
  these capabilities that AST has, one of which is MOUS, which I,
• 1:12
  I'm just on my laptop right now, so I can't pull up my own due
• 1:15
  diligence. But a lot of these technologies
• 1:19
  relate to being able to transmit below the noise floor because as
• 1:22
  you might imagine, if you're shot down in Iran, which is a
• 1:25
  simply unbelievable to imagine getting shot down in some high
• 1:29
  altitude desert and then have to go run up a mountain as people
• 1:33
  hunt for you, astonishing what people are capable of doing.
• 1:40
  But then, you know, the first thing that I was thinking about
• 1:43
  is, well, how the hell do you transmit your location?
• 1:46
  Because a beacon can only be visible to the good guys.
• 1:50
  Otherwise it's a beacon for the bad guys, presumably.
• 1:53
  And so we, we had learned from Michael Pollock at ASTS is the,
• 1:59
  and I'm going to butcher this, but being able to broadcast or
• 2:05
  operate below the new noise floor means your satellite has
• 2:08
  so much, I'm going to get this wrong, so much power to listen
• 2:13
  that you can transmit at a very low level and still pick it up
• 2:16
  so that to anyone that's trying to hear you, it just looks like
• 2:21
  background noise. And so this is one of many
• 2:24
  capabilities that the company has demonstrated, as well as
• 2:28
  encrypted up down transmissions so that you can go directly for,
• 2:34
  for example, from worship to worship.
• 2:36
  And with a mobile land radio, I believe you can do the same
• 2:41
  thing. And so it'll be able to transmit
• 2:43
  an encrypted waveform directly to, you know, presumably A
• 2:47
  battleship that's going to come save you.
• 2:49
  But Needless to say, the military has something that
• 2:52
  worked sufficiently well enough today to result in a good
• 2:56
  outcome for the good guys. But the question, what we can
• 3:01
  hear will be unanswered to normal peons like myself, is
• 3:08
  just how difficult was it for them to do what they did today?
• 3:11
  And so did the pilot have to put out just a very short little
• 3:15
  chirp? And then the CIA worked its
• 3:17
  magic. But is that something in the
• 3:19
  future with using new, new technology, hopefully brought by
• 3:23
  ASTS and that's something where the pilot will be able to be in
• 3:27
  more regular communication, shorten the loop to safety,
• 3:31
  things like that. And I have no idea, but it's
• 3:33
  interesting to think about because obviously the system
• 3:35
  that we have today was good enough, but who knows how much
• 3:40
  that can be improved and, and whether that will help increase
• 3:43
  the safety of of all the people involved in such an astonishing
• 3:49
  mission. And and one that really does
• 3:51
  seem like there's going to be a movie about this and I'll watch
• 3:55
  it. But to the diligence, someone
• 4:00
  made another meme this week where right when I send out the
• 4:02
  weekly, Cassie just starts banging out stuff like all these
• 4:05
  threads and and someone gave me that angry Indian man at the
• 4:10
  cricket match game, which is kind of true.
• 4:12
  I blast the weekly out and then I see Cassie put out a ton of
• 4:14
  content. Like, God, dude, come on.
• 4:18
  It's like you can't create news right after the newspaper goes
• 4:20
  to the goes to print. You know, let's let's respect
• 4:24
  the the journalist here. So anyway, it looks like I have
• 4:27
  some stuff to catch up on for next week's weekly.
• 4:31
  But what we learned this week is very important fundamental news,
• 4:35
  which is Bluebird 6 is performing well.
• 4:38
  So it's all for not if the satellites don't work at a
• 4:43
  systemic level, you know, we'll of course at some point probably
• 4:46
  have a failed satellite, maybe not given how careful these guys
• 4:50
  are. But you know, 1 failed bird is
• 4:52
  no problem. A systemic issue is a problem.
• 4:56
  And so since we're early into the satellite count and
• 4:59
  certainly FM 1 is the first new Gen. satellite, having it work
• 5:04
  is very important. And so as Scott said, the
• 5:08
  satellite is is performing very well.
• 5:10
  It's done everything it's supposed to do.
• 5:12
  The hardest part is unfolding. Well, there he goes again saying
• 5:15
  unfolding God, Scott, you know, it unfurled well is what he
• 5:19
  meant to say. And that went successfully,
• 5:21
  which is great. And next we're getting ready to
• 5:24
  release it for customer use. So that's pretty interesting to
• 5:26
  me, releasing it to customer use.
• 5:29
  So as we all know, this is a for profit business.
• 5:32
  So one would think it's going to have a customer, but the
• 5:37
  naysayers would say this is all still kind of R&D yet.
• 5:40
  So releasing it to customer use is pretty interesting because
• 5:42
  then one might question whether that customers use government, I
• 5:46
  think it is. And then releasing it for use
• 5:48
  would presumably be a milestone that's achieved which could
• 5:52
  release things like money and could also release things like
• 5:55
  more contracts. But speculation on my part, but
• 5:59
  wouldn't make sense. But very important that it is
• 6:02
  being released to the customer. And so, as always, our European
• 6:07
  correspondent, Peter Landmark painstakingly translated the
• 6:12
  whole interview with Scott, which is great.
• 6:14
  So I have that link for everyone to what I read because I was
• 6:16
  trying to do this, but I did do this when I was on my flight to
• 6:20
  Asia, and it's hard to listen on an airplane.
• 6:24
  So thanks for Peter doing that. And all those links are there
• 6:28
  for your review, so it's nice to see that this is happening.
• 6:32
  We also got some confirmation of Firstnet, as if anyone at this
• 6:39
  point listen to this series of spaces should should have any
• 6:44
  doubt about Firstnet. Again, the FCC docket is
• 6:47
  absolutely replete with evidence that we have a contract with
• 6:51
  Firstnet coming. But if that's not enough,
• 6:53
  Firstnet does the red AI don't even know that's called blood
• 6:59
  type a sign quick space update for the space mob crew.
• 7:03
  So that would be a message directed to us.
• 7:06
  So here we have the United States of America's first
• 7:09
  responders network built by AT&T using the blood type A symbol
• 7:15
  and hashtag space mob to give us an update.
• 7:18
  Now is that freaking awesome or is that freaking awesome?
• 7:22
  Could anyone have imagined five years ago?
• 7:25
  Could you just imagine if I'd gone and seen a psychic or, or
• 7:29
  hallucinated or did drugs and posted on Twitter CC and Tim
• 7:35
  Farrar that Firstnet would tweet at us an update on the
• 7:39
  deployments of the network? Could you?
• 7:41
  Could you imagine Tim's response?
• 7:44
  Clueless Kook continues to lie through his teeth.
• 7:47
  This unethical monster of a human lying and spewing false
• 7:52
  dreams to read like blah blah blah, like he would have said
• 7:55
  something like that. And sometimes I just pinch
• 7:57
  myself like we're in a, a simulation, you know?
• 8:00
  Here it is, April 1st, 2026 at 11:26 AM.
• 8:03
  I'm not quite sure what time zone it's referencing.
• 8:06
  And that no matter. But they go.
• 8:09
  Our space legacy continues. Later this year, First Net will
• 8:12
  offer beta services using an everyday smartphone to select
• 8:16
  first responders with AST Space Mobile satellites.
• 8:19
  Plans are underway for a larger release in the future.
• 8:22
  Now that is just absolutely super exciting.
• 8:25
  First of all that there is going to be this technology put in the
• 8:30
  hands of our first responders. So I'll probably a lot less
• 8:33
  traumatic than what the combat search and rescue guys just did
• 8:37
  in Iran. No less important the duties and
• 8:42
  the kind of sacred commitments frankly of all of our first
• 8:45
  responders that are going to have this technology.
• 8:48
  And this goes to why I think this is such such a incredible
• 8:52
  investment for me personally, because I think it's going to go
• 8:56
  up a lot from here for one. So I think financially it's
• 8:59
  going to be very lucrative. But I, I just know that the
• 9:02
  space mob, because we really saved this company where we
• 9:04
  changed its cost of capital, we allowed it to raise money.
• 9:08
  That's going to save so many lives.
• 9:10
  It's going to save. It's going to be, you know, a
• 9:12
  very good battlefield application for the allies.
• 9:15
  But then everyday people are going to have incrementally a
• 9:19
  little bit more safety when first responders themselves can
• 9:22
  communicate more reliably and get data to where it needs to
• 9:28
  be. And that's great.
• 9:30
  And 1st, that's keeping us keeping us posted that this is
• 9:34
  happening. Sure, a little bit late as as
• 9:36
  Tim Ferraro point out, but hard stuff is hard to do.
• 9:39
  And so late is better than never.
• 9:41
  But importantly, I always just go back to the passage of time.
• 9:44
  And it's almost like a Yogi Berra comment.
• 9:47
  It's like, well, the passage of time is interesting in that time
• 9:51
  passes and yeah, damn straight, you know what?
• 9:54
  So if you're sitting there in 2020, and if if someone had
• 9:58
  said, well, actually the service won't really be deployed for
• 10:01
  beta testing to anyone until late 2026, people would have
• 10:05
  been first of all, the stock would have gone to 0 because it
• 10:07
  wouldn't have been all raised money without some dreams that
• 10:11
  people could believe in that are near terms.
• 10:13
  Just you know this, this ain't your grandfather's quantum stock
• 10:17
  where people can invest based on like 2040.
• 10:20
  No way. And but as as time pass, sure, a
• 10:24
  lot of us, you know, me being the greatest Sinner injects
• 10:28
  opium into their veins everyday. But that's kind of what
• 10:31
  separates the kooks from the clowns are people that have the
• 10:34
  positive willpower to be optimistic.
• 10:38
  That's the growth mindset that VCs have.
• 10:41
  I used to laugh at these people, but I came to really appreciate
• 10:44
  the incredible power of positivity as as someone who
• 10:47
  actually kind of self identified as negative most of my life, the
• 10:51
  positive power of positivity is to suspend one's disbelief with
• 10:57
  incremental negatives as long as the real research supports an
• 11:01
  ultimate positive. And so then as you endure this
• 11:05
  torturous torture Chamber of a waiting game, as it turns out,
• 11:11
  late 2026 is actually six months away.
• 11:15
  It's right around the corner. And so while the do nothings of
• 11:18
  the world will point out that this is, you know, multiple
• 11:20
  years delayed, guess what, bro? That is in the rear view mirror.
• 11:26
  And one must always look out the front view mirror when investing
• 11:31
  as I'm in Japan right now. And, you know, it's a little
• 11:34
  touchy subject sometimes to this whole, like, US burned the
• 11:37
  entire country to the ground, which is just shocking to me
• 11:41
  that 80 years ago I was in the equivalent of Tehran today.
• 11:46
  And now it's truly one of the world's kind of most functional
• 11:51
  cities from what I can tell. But my tour guide, when we were
• 11:53
  going through the Meiji, I think it's the Meiji temple, and
• 11:58
  pointed out that it burned down. the US had firebombed it, which
• 12:01
  is like, come on, guys. Do we have to like, firebomb the
• 12:03
  temple? Seems a little bit insensitive.
• 12:06
  But then he goes, oh, you know, in Japan we say, you know,
• 12:08
  bygones or bygones. Like, all right, dude, like,
• 12:10
  come on. Like we, you know, Pearl
• 12:14
  Harbor's pretty goddamn awful. Like I went there last year.
• 12:17
  That memorial that brings tears to your to your eyes, really a
• 12:19
  horror of horrors. But then I kind of get it that
• 12:22
  dropping nuclear weapons on the people are also pretty horrible.
• 12:27
  But you got to let bygones get bygones.
• 12:29
  And not to relate delays in ASTS to World War Two.
• 12:34
  Kind of want a tangent just based on where I'm sitting right
• 12:36
  now. But you know, the whole like you
• 12:38
  got to let the bygones be bygones is a is a first of all,
• 12:40
  an example of positive thinking. You know, you got to look
• 12:42
  forward of where you are today and that's where you got to
• 12:45
  contextualize when you read experts talking about all these
• 12:49
  massive delays and things like that.
• 12:51
  That's an interesting story. I like history.
• 12:54
  So as a consumer of nonfiction, that's interesting.
• 12:57
  It will be good in the book that we can write, But if you're in
• 13:01
  the game of making money, which a lot of people forget that that
• 13:05
  is what this is about and actually talked to my CFO about
• 13:08
  this a lot. We, you know, I'm the last
• 13:11
  person in the world that needs to be reminded that this is
• 13:14
  about making money because that that's what runs through my
• 13:16
  veins. But a lot of people don't have a
• 13:19
  for profit mentality. They're really not killers.
• 13:22
  They're people that shouldn't be in the business.
• 13:25
  They will get slaughtered in the jungle of life and they forget
• 13:29
  this is about making money. And so while the the documentary
• 13:34
  guys like the Tim Ferraris will point out the delays, you got to
• 13:37
  say, well, where are we in terms of inflecting toward the
• 13:41
  ultimate prize here? And we're close.
• 13:45
  And so what's interesting is to then also kind of hear first net
• 13:49
  talk about what they're going to be doing with satellites.
• 13:53
  And so Doctor Mike Who, who's very attentive guy, as one might
• 13:58
  think APHD doctor would be, went through this podcast that was
• 14:04
  recorded at this earlier Firstnet event in June called 5
• 14:08
  by 5. And it talks about filling the
• 14:10
  white space. So that's really the areas where
• 14:14
  you don't have service, mountainous areas, and just
• 14:18
  talked about how this happened quite a lot for Firstnet,
• 14:22
  talking about their own experiences, but then also sort
• 14:25
  of maritime environments and areas that are really off the
• 14:28
  beaten track. So this is where Firstnet's
• 14:30
  going to be using it. And it's always a good reminder
• 14:33
  to understand where the first responders are seeing it and
• 14:35
  need. And like most things, the need
• 14:40
  states originate with military or first responders, but then
• 14:43
  have brought up applicability to consumers.
• 14:46
  And that's that's how this will go as well.
• 14:50
  Getting all this technology into our hands is a regulatory
• 14:55
  framework that must also occur. And so Cassie, who is more
• 15:00
  diligent on this and really, well, I don't want to take any
• 15:05
  credit away from Justin Barrett and and Kevin Tanner.
• 15:08
  But wait, let's just say we have a deep bench of talented people
• 15:12
  tracking all of this. And so Kathy put out a nice
• 15:15
  tweet about the St. as that were put out.
• 15:21
  And you know, nothing really here for me that that stands out
• 15:29
  other than forward progress. And maybe there's more to it,
• 15:31
  but I just read forward progress and that's that's what we want.
• 15:36
  And then the other thing that kind of relates to Firstnet.
• 15:39
  But really, you know, anyone that has children will, if you
• 15:43
  don't sympathize with this, then you probably don't actually have
• 15:47
  children. Is listening to Rep Fluger who
• 15:54
  is talking about the Mystic River tragedy that happened last
• 15:57
  year and there already seems honestly like a lifetime ago.
• 16:00
  But this was that incredible flash flood that happened in
• 16:04
  Texas that literally just washed away this girls camp, which is
• 16:09
  almost just makes you not believe that that anything
• 16:14
  matters when things like this could happen.
• 16:17
  Just really, and I have AI have a daughter that was actually a
• 16:20
  camp at the same time. And just you just can't even
• 16:23
  can't even imagine of this. It just should not happen.
• 16:26
  That's kind of if one were to dedicate was life to one thing,
• 16:29
  they would be the prevention of this from ever happening again
• 16:32
  to anyone. And so the act that they're
• 16:37
  pushing would close some of the gaps in communication by
• 16:42
  incorporating space based mobile broadband into the wireless
• 16:45
  emergent emergency alert system. And so this is all about natural
• 16:50
  disaster alerts that can be delivered.
• 16:53
  Let's see what it says more closely to allow natural
• 16:58
  disaster alerts to be delivered by satellite.
• 17:01
  And so getting that information and especially when the the
• 17:04
  seriousness of the situation is evolving, getting that, for
• 17:09
  example, to camp directors. And so back a long, long time
• 17:13
  ago to make an extra like, I think it was like $8 a day, I
• 17:18
  would sleep in an attic to work a, a switchboard, which was
• 17:23
  probably from World War 2 because that was kind of the
• 17:26
  level of technology at the camp I worked out.
• 17:29
  But there was a switchboard. And so if there was an emergency
• 17:31
  or someone ought to make a phone call, that would go to me up in
• 17:34
  this attic where I had access to a typewriter, which is what I
• 17:38
  would then use to do my college applications at the time.
• 17:41
  And then I would just literally connect a switch to put a call
• 17:44
  through. Well, if your life depends on me
• 17:47
  being awake at a switchboard and an attic, that's kind of a scary
• 17:51
  proposition. And so now you'd want to make
• 17:53
  sure that these weather alerts are going to be accessible to
• 17:56
  all the people that really matter.
• 17:57
  And any, any camp, for example, or any institution is going to
• 18:01
  have the right sort of processes and protocols so that this would
• 18:04
  occur. And this is, again, why things
• 18:07
  like ASTS matters because it is whether redundant or a primary
• 18:12
  system can allow this information to be where it's
• 18:17
  needed. And maybe that per SE is a small
• 18:20
  Tam, but it's an important Tam and the type of miracles that
• 18:24
  technology like this are going to be able to solve.
• 18:28
  And So what we're really seeing now is an astoundingly exciting
• 18:32
  time for space. I don't know how much of this
• 18:35
  was really what was driving the stock market on.
• 18:38
  I don't even know what day it was at this point.
• 18:40
  Thursday last week, Wednesday, I was in the air when Artemis took
• 18:44
  off. But the The world is seeing
• 18:47
  this. I don't know what the world is
• 18:49
  seeing, but what I'm seeing is this incredible exceptionalism
• 18:53
  in technology happening. I don't even want to say kind of
• 18:57
  American exceptionalism, but one can't help but notice that these
• 19:02
  three massive rockets, Starship, Artemis and New Glenn are all
• 19:08
  stamp with USA and people are seeing this happen.
• 19:12
  As that kid that was interviewed by CNN, he said, well, why are
• 19:16
  you excited? He's like, we're going to the
• 19:17
  fucking moon. It's like, hell yeah, that's
• 19:19
  exciting. I guess, you know, why not?
• 19:22
  Let's go. And people are excited.
• 19:26
  They're seeing this happening. And I think all of a sudden,
• 19:28
  again, what my thesis was is the new space economy was delivered
• 19:35
  to us in disguise because it was disguised as these billionaires,
• 19:41
  their name deca billionaires, sense of billionaires having
• 19:45
  this fun hobby. And so people dismissed it as
• 19:47
  Elon just lighting stuff up. But that's because he's a rich
• 19:51
  guy and had nothing to do. And then they see Bezos and
• 19:53
  they're like, oh, he's just trying to get into a measuring
• 19:56
  contest with Elon. And this kind of happened, you
• 20:00
  know, for years. And I think people really
• 20:02
  dismissed it. And now they're waking up and.
• 20:06
  You know, whether intentionally or not, all of a sudden, these
• 20:09
  two individuals who sit on top of two of the world's most
• 20:13
  powerful general ecosystems have unique capabilities that no one
• 20:18
  else has. And so I still, maybe I'm wrong
• 20:21
  on this, but I'm still thinking that if I'm Google, Microsoft or
• 20:25
  Meta, I wake up and go, Oh my God, how did I miss this?
• 20:30
  I I don't have this usually they've been sort of parody in
• 20:35
  the arms race with respect to clouds, SAS, things like this.
• 20:38
  These companies were all sort of able to match and even AI, you
• 20:43
  know, one could argue, but all of them at this point have their
• 20:46
  models and things like this space is the thing that there
• 20:50
  appears to have been this sort of covert operation disguised as
• 20:53
  a hobby where then Bezos and Musk broke away from the pack.
• 20:58
  And I really actually do think it's because they're general
• 21:00
  interest. And this is where you have the
• 21:02
  power of owner operators. They just did whatever the hell
• 21:05
  they wanted to do. Satya, not an owner operator.
• 21:10
  The Google guy, I'm ready for his name.
• 21:11
  But Pichet, not an owner operator.
• 21:14
  And Mark bet wrong. Mark bet on the metaverse.
• 21:21
  And so he is an owner operator, but he just bet on the wrong
• 21:24
  thing. And then and that's where I
• 21:26
  think there's really, you know, side conversation you can have
• 21:29
  about the power of an owner operator.
• 21:30
  Because at the end of the day, they do whatever the hell they
• 21:33
  want to do. Their boards reports of them.
• 21:36
  And once you start to have professional CE OS, not to say
• 21:39
  that they're not good, but they they don't have that freedom.
• 21:43
  They can't be legitimately crazy because they get replaced or
• 21:48
  stopped. Bezos and and Musk can be
• 21:50
  legitimately as out of their mind as they want to be and no
• 21:53
  one can stop them. And that is both dangerous at
• 21:58
  times. I've seen that in terms of
• 22:01
  portfolio companies where, you know, we have owner operators,
• 22:04
  some of them that go crazy, legit go crazy and that's bad.
• 22:07
  But these individuals, Bezos and Musk, they've well, whether Musk
• 22:13
  can figure out the Starship thing is TBD, but they bet big
• 22:18
  with their own money. And the world is now seeing it.
• 22:22
  And that's happening at this point where now you're having
• 22:25
  this fantastic financial event, which will be the SpaceX IPO.
• 22:29
  And that's all dovetailing with the initial deployment of the
• 22:33
  ASTS constellation. So the whole world's going to be
• 22:35
  waking up and going, this is the next thing.
• 22:39
  And it's also appeals to the the heart of, I believe of what it
• 22:42
  is to be human, certainly what it is to be American, which is
• 22:45
  like go to space. I guess one could argue the same
• 22:48
  for Russians. But you know, this is running
• 22:51
  through our vein. So I think it also one of my
• 22:53
  original thoughts when I made this investment is this
• 22:56
  fundamentally appeals to the dream, a dream aspect of people.
• 23:02
  And then when there's intersection of that to money,
• 23:05
  things can get really crazy really fast.
• 23:09
  And that could also be code for it could turn into a bubble,
• 23:14
  which is good, I guess, if you, you know, get out at the right
• 23:18
  time. I'm not a good bubble seller, so
• 23:21
  I hope it doesn't go into a full bubble mode.
• 23:22
  I hope it just ends up being really good and compounds for a
• 23:25
  long time. But the setup is there.
• 23:27
  The setup is, is there for a, a crazy outcome.
• 23:32
  And you know, behind that you have ASTS continued to execute.
• 23:36
  So they hired a head of launch, which is great.
• 23:38
  They had a, a former head of launch who's retiring.
• 23:41
  So they were able to fill for that and it's a believe there's
• 23:46
  a blue origin person. Let me just check that real
• 23:48
  quick. Yep, Blue Origin person who's
• 23:52
  the deputy director of program management.
• 23:54
  And before that you had a, you know, senior leader at Lockheed
• 23:58
  Martin. So again, people that didn't
• 24:00
  just fall off an apple cart are joining our company, which is
• 24:03
  great. And then as always, thinks
• 24:04
  inches keeps tracking our hiring pace continues to just
• 24:10
  skyrocket. And so this is a company that is
• 24:13
  scaling like wild. And I still think, you know, I
• 24:18
  will die on on this hill of poop.
• 24:20
  But the constellation Constipation people will look
• 24:24
  back and realize that our this metaphor might strike people as
• 24:29
  one that might make you uncomfortable.
• 24:31
  But our intestines are full of satellites and we are taking our
• 24:37
  fiber, but the world has not yet seen that fiber kick in.
• 24:42
  But we are locked and loaded and it's going to be exciting and so
• 24:49
  stay tuned. But I think people often
• 24:52
  confused, I know the frustration of like, why haven't we shipped
• 24:54
  yet, blah, blah, blah. The eraser being made.
• 24:58
  They're making the buses. They had to deal with some
• 25:00
  composite stuff and some stacking engineering.
• 25:04
  But the machine is spinning up and it's going to start spitting
• 25:07
  out satellites, I believe, in the near future.
• 25:10
  And that's going to be one of the massive unlocks.
• 25:12
  It's not going to be the last unlock we got.
• 25:14
  There's still more stuff we have to see proven, but operational
• 25:18
  execution is a big one. And then we'll shift the goal
• 25:21
  posts. As usual.
• 25:22
  The bears will come out and go to the ARPU question.
• 25:26
  You know, really like, how much can you charge?
• 25:28
  How deep is the market? We might have some competition
• 25:30
  questions coming up. There's always going to be this,
• 25:33
  But you got to ask yourself again, forward mirror versus the
• 25:37
  rearview mirror. Let bygones be bygones at what
• 25:41
  stock price are we asking those questions?
• 25:43
  Is this a fierce debate when the stock is 152535450 I don't know
• 25:50
  if I knew that if I knew it was a debate when the stock was
• 25:53
  going to be at 50 or something well then you know like I don't
• 25:56
  know if I'd sell but you know you a reasonable person would
• 25:58
  say well yeah get out you know how that debate at a lower
• 26:00
  price. But we're we're this stock has
• 26:03
  been so difficult for shorts is the fierce debates have been
• 26:07
  happening at at stock prices that they didn't really conceive
• 26:11
  of because they thought the stock was going to get knocked
• 26:13
  out on other events, which they were wrong about.
• 26:15
  And then when they didn't, when the stock didn't get blown to
• 26:18
  pieces, then all of a sudden they had to invent new things to
• 26:22
  worry about, but at stock prices that they they could not have
• 26:25
  conceived. And so as Katzie sort of pointed
• 26:28
  out, it's now a time honored tradition for us to beat the
• 26:31
  living brains out of shorts at increasingly higher prices on
• 26:35
  decreasingly important questions.
• 26:38
  And so all of a sudden if we're arguing whether the ARPU is $10
• 26:42
  versus $15, bro, we won because the original debate was it was
• 26:47
  going to blow up in these in the sky, the FCC wouldn't approve
• 26:51
  it, things like that. The I don't know if this is the
• 26:53
  right use of the term overturn window, but you'll kind of track
• 26:57
  what I'm saying. It's shifted and it is not
• 27:00
  shifted in favor of the shorts. And now these knuckleheads have
• 27:05
  to fight the wave. And so SpaceX has now filed for
• 27:10
  the IPO. And so we can have a lot of
• 27:14
  academic debate about what this means.
• 27:15
  On one hand, you could say, well, oh, that's going to be
• 27:17
  sucking $30 billion of capital out of the market.
• 27:20
  Yeah. But from what?
• 27:24
  Not from ASTS, you know, that $30 billion is going to be
• 27:28
  coming from big accounts. Highly unlikely.
• 27:32
  It's coming from accounts that, you know, are the top, top page
• 27:37
  in terms of, you know, the Fidelity small cap fund.
• 27:39
  You know, are they really selling their Asts to buy Space
• 27:42
  XI? Don't know.
• 27:42
  And so, you know, some people on this call, if they get an
• 27:44
  allocation in Space XI, get it. Some retail people on the
• 27:47
  margin, you know, might have to sell some Asts to take down
• 27:50
  their SpaceX allocation. I will not be one of those
• 27:52
  people for for one. But you know, that's I think a
• 27:56
  losing argument because I think the dominant argument is this is
• 28:00
  just going to draw incredible attention going back to this
• 28:04
  hobby. You know, my view, this sneak
• 28:06
  attack of owner operator billionaires doing over the hell
• 28:10
  they wanted to do, which is build space companies and in the
• 28:13
  world waking up down the line and realizing these might be the
• 28:17
  most defensive strategic assets presently on Earth.
• 28:22
  And then people are going to see SpaceX and we'll, you know,
• 28:26
  obviously be excited to see these numbers and see what's
• 28:28
  what. That could very easily they make
• 28:30
  people realize holy crap, there and I go I again the other
• 28:36
  mountain will die on is I think people are going to wake up and
• 28:39
  go SpaceX is Facebook desktop, but can they transition to
• 28:46
  mobile and the answer for Facebook back then was yes.
• 28:50
  The answer now is people I believe are going to look around
• 28:52
  and go, God, ASTS is that Facebook mobile is ASTS, SpaceX
• 29:01
  is desktop 6 broadband market. And then we'll go to the next
• 29:04
  tweet is really is SpaceX running up against the limit of
• 29:09
  their Tam? And so who put this out?
• 29:11
  This was at Alec from Babylon. It's probably not actually from
• 29:16
  Babylon, but you know, you can choose whatever handle you want.
• 29:19
  But he quotes this PC Mag article and in PC mag could be a
• 29:24
  bunch of dotes on this issue. But yeah, we've seen the curve
• 29:28
  for SpaceX is starting to flatten a little bit.
• 29:29
  It's less convex and they point out the broadband focused
• 29:36
  Starlink might be nearing its ceiling.
• 29:38
  According to wait for it, Gwen Shotwell.
• 29:42
  Well, damn, that's not good. That's the CEO of SpaceX.
• 29:45
  She's saying they're hitting their ceiling.
• 29:48
  That's not like Tim Ferrar saying ASTS sucks.
• 29:51
  This is the CEO of the company. So that's not good.
• 29:55
  And so there are going to be a lot of eyes on this.
• 30:00
  And I, I personally make SpaceX is going to pivot to this AI
• 30:03
  data center pitch because it sounds a lot more exciting than
• 30:07
  DDC, because you can start talking about a million
• 30:09
  satellites. You can start talking about
• 30:11
  Kardogov, whatever level 2 civilizations with replicants
• 30:17
  and spice on faraway planets. You know, this is more exciting
• 30:22
  stuff for Elon to talk about. But I think other financial
• 30:25
  illness are going to realize Asts also sneakily dominated
• 30:30
  what is probably the more exciting part of Leo
• 30:34
  telecommunications. That's my bet.
• 30:36
  My money is where my mouth is on this, so I hope I'm right.
• 30:41
  And last week we had a lot of volatility and so I'm assuming
• 30:45
  actually having the futures aren't open yet.
• 30:47
  Sorry, I'm on the wrong time zone, but who knows how the
• 30:49
  market's going to view it. I don't know what people expect
• 30:54
  with Iran, but my personal expectation is ground war.
• 30:57
  And so I don't know if the US or the market is fully adapted to
• 31:01
  that. Trump might job on it up a
• 31:03
  little bit, who knows. But the stock this week, I, I
• 31:07
  really thought I was going to wake up on Thursday and see the
• 31:12
  stock drilled. It was overnight.
• 31:14
  It was already down to like 79. I was moaning and groaning on
• 31:18
  some private chats. Then everyone was probably
• 31:20
  seeing that and buying the stock because we're like a crushed out
• 31:23
  again. So when I woke up, so I mean,
• 31:26
  Asia, to see the stock close at 92, I just couldn't believe it.
• 31:29
  But just because to show you that this stock can kind of do
• 31:33
  whatever it wants. And so to trade Asts based on
• 31:37
  whether the timeline in Iran is one week, one month, six months,
• 31:41
  is, is pretty silly. Because again, I think it's the
• 31:43
  same thing as giving a paper bag to someone hyperventilating.
• 31:46
  Ultimately, there's going to pass out because people can only
• 31:49
  freak out about stuff like Iran for so long and then they're
• 31:51
  going to move on. And you got to look at the
• 31:54
  fundamentals and so ASTS keeps on just putting building blocks
• 32:00
  in front on the fundamental development.
• 32:03
  And so Katzie once again tracking everything all the time
• 32:07
  finds the Legato filings and I'm trying to remember what the big
• 32:12
  takeaways here, but more legato stuff.
• 32:16
  And you know all again to kind of be on my pay grade, I'd have
• 32:21
  to remember what my key takeaways from this are.
• 32:23
  But my take away was really just that the company keeps on
• 32:26
  pulling putting the important building blocks in place for non
• 32:33
  linear upside from here, because adding spectrum starts to
• 32:37
  totally change our capabilities and our monetization potential
• 32:42
  and set the company up increasingly an increasingly
• 32:46
  strong position for what I'm going to term the global
• 32:49
  spectrum wars. And so what's also pretty
• 32:52
  interesting from our other sort of elite FCC analyst, Justin
• 32:56
  Barrett, he was pointing out that in ASTS, his response to
• 33:02
  SpaceX and ViaSat over the two gigahertz spectrum.
• 33:07
  ASTS points out some interesting legal positions that SpaceX with
• 33:12
  its Echostar deal does not guarantee SpaceX access to that
• 33:20
  spectrum globally. Quote.
• 33:21
  In fact, under ITU rules, SpaceX is required to coordinate with
• 33:25
  ITU registered satellite networks with lower priority to
• 33:29
  enable spectrum sharing. So shots fired, it's exciting
• 33:34
  and we can start to see how this is going to unfold.
• 33:36
  So as someone who is absolutely not an expert in this.
• 33:39
  So I'm learning with it with each filing.
• 33:41
  I'm having to go learn it for the first time too.
• 33:44
  Just in case anyone is wondering, I am not an authority
• 33:47
  on this topic. I'm a learner on this topic.
• 33:50
  What I see is some interesting education in this violence.
• 33:53
  And so battle lines are being drawn out.
• 33:56
  ASTS is very clearly positioning for a global onslaught to secure
• 34:02
  more S band spectrum. That was already clear to me by
• 34:05
  following the Legato adversary proceeding with Inmarsat.
• 34:10
  And these guys are like real punks.
• 34:12
  I don't know what to say other than that ViaSat bunch of punks.
• 34:16
  And this battle was already previewed with the adversary
• 34:20
  proceeding with with Legato. And now we're just getting more
• 34:25
  insight into just how serious ASTS is at securing global
• 34:31
  spectrum rights. And that gets super interesting.
• 34:35
  And so when you want to talk about how to accrete value, the
• 34:40
  duality of ASTS is its ability to be increasingly supported by
• 34:49
  NAV while also about to be supported by inflecting
• 34:54
  operating results. This duality, I don't sound like
• 34:57
  the duality of man is to be full of NAV yet the speed of a
• 35:05
  cheetah, something like this. And so what's cool about this
• 35:09
  duality of asts is that the conservative distress guys are
• 35:14
  going to be looking at the spectrum based NAV numbers.
• 35:17
  So as we secure spectrum, they're going to be putting this
• 35:19
  megahertz per pop comp number on it.
• 35:24
  And that's the, you know, to be sure, that's what I did
• 35:26
  initially too when looking at legato.
• 35:28
  And I went, you know, Hey, I'm Pat man.
• 35:30
  I think the downside on this thing is now 50 bucks who should
• 35:34
  Yolo into it. And you know, hey, that was
• 35:37
  right. But that's kind of, that was
• 35:39
  initially how guys like Anpan man.
• 35:40
  And I looked at it because we're those guys, you know, we, we
• 35:43
  were trained in the ways of being dopes.
• 35:45
  We're in Patagonia vests and we know we've ripped off that vest.
• 35:49
  We have now secured our freedom to be Wildman.
• 35:56
  And that is a good freedom to have.
• 35:58
  But we still appreciate that. That's how a lot of Wall
• 36:00
  Street's going to have to think. And so as we secure more and
• 36:03
  more of the Spectrum, the NAV Bros are going to see this
• 36:06
  downside support. That's going to be a bulletproof
• 36:10
  downside case. Because this was just totally
• 36:12
  reinforced on Wall Street by the Echostar drama.
• 36:17
  And so I, I have a lot of friends that are Echostar guys
• 36:20
  and they fought this one to the teeth based on the NAV of
• 36:24
  Spectrum and, and they were right.
• 36:26
  And so Wall Street just learned a very valuable lesson on like
• 36:29
  these NA VS are real and they are worthwhile.
• 36:32
  And as ASTS gets more of it, that's going to give us just
• 36:36
  more downside protection. And what's so nice about that
• 36:40
  and important to remember or, you know, people just use
• 36:43
  myself, for example, you know, when the stocks are ripping, you
• 36:46
  know, most notably when it kind of broke from 10 up to 20, I was
• 36:50
  just on a on a hair trigger. You know, every time it goes up,
• 36:53
  I'm like, you know, calling all my friends on Wall Street, like,
• 36:55
  what do you think? What do you think?
• 36:56
  Oh my God, what are you seeing for flows calling every broker
• 36:58
  like, well, what are you seeing? No, no, no, no, I'm just so
• 37:00
  worried about it, about it going back down.
• 37:03
  Now, what I've sort of come to realize over the years is when
• 37:06
  stocks make big moves, there's there's so much more memory and
• 37:09
  stickiness to them than you might think.
• 37:12
  And so it's for her to do. But when you have a stock make a
• 37:15
  big revaluation move as long as it's not some bullshit stock,
• 37:18
  you know for forget these like fake things.
• 37:20
  But, and I get that bears would potentially make the argument
• 37:24
  that ASTS was a fake thing, I just thought they were wrong.
• 37:27
  But you don't actually have to sell so fast.
• 37:32
  The downside after a revaluation event is usually much a less
• 37:39
  likely and less severe than you might fear.
• 37:42
  And the time where you just chill out gives you so much more
• 37:46
  time to reflect and absorb new information that you might
• 37:49
  realize what previously looked like a crazy stock price quote
• 37:52
  UN quote very quickly with the benefit of new information and
• 37:55
  reflection can can start to look stupid cheap.
• 37:58
  And so just even think about lately, you know, last year, I
• 38:02
  don't know far for me to keep track of this point.
• 38:05
  The first time we sort of hit 60 last June, I remember, you know,
• 38:08
  certainly I was thinking, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.
• 38:10
  And, you know, then we, you know, hit 100 in, in October and
• 38:14
  that felt, you know, like this release.
• 38:16
  And then of course, it crashed. And then, you know, 100 felt so
• 38:19
  far away. But at the same time, 50 felt
• 38:21
  really cheap. A lot of us loaded up and then
• 38:24
  we got a 130. You know, all of a sudden, look
• 38:27
  at how well we held the 70s. And, you know, a lot of us as we
• 38:31
  reflected on the information, we went, well, 70 is, is cheap.
• 38:35
  Well, 70 used to look crazy, and you should think about that when
• 38:39
  you just think about your own psychology, how, you know, you
• 38:41
  have, you know, some of the craziest of us losing our minds
• 38:47
  at 75 nowadays. We're previously 75.
• 38:49
  You know, I was posting, you know, daily pictures of
• 38:52
  Porsches, which I should probably go back to doing, you
• 38:56
  know, So what had been, you know, euphoric success so
• 39:00
  quickly turns into the deepest despairs at the exact same
• 39:04
  dollar price. Crazy to think about.
• 39:08
  So long way of getting off topic when I say that the accretion of
• 39:14
  NAV can make prices that previously looked euphoric very
• 39:19
  quickly look cheap. And that's why if you if you
• 39:24
  catch a winner, what I've sort of come to realize is being
• 39:28
  patient and doing nothing can be quite the virtue.
• 39:32
  So going back to Legato because again, that is a big source of
• 39:36
  NAV for us. We have had some wild things
• 39:41
  happening in court. And so a lot of us are are in
• 39:46
  the bankruptcy proceedings so that we can keep a solid eye on
• 39:49
  this. And so people know some of the
• 39:53
  people in space mob are actually lawyers.
• 39:55
  So I am not one of those people, but I I know my way around.
• 39:59
  But at Steve 24661 is such qualified professional.
• 40:04
  And so I like to chat with at Steve, it's actually at Steve
• 40:09
  D24661 and so good sounding board and and with Tanner and of
• 40:14
  course, the usual, usual gang of suspects been really focused on
• 40:18
  this legato proceeding. So ViaSat.
• 40:22
  Just got smacked in court the the judge was not entertained
• 40:28
  and verbally admonished counsel envious that for really
• 40:37
  unbelievable actions in court and and certainly taking very
• 40:43
  pedantic positions in front of the judge that the judge just
• 40:48
  smack down. I think one quote was like, you
• 40:50
  have, quote, a lot of chutzpah for standing up here and
• 40:54
  lecturing me on contract law. So let me just break it down.
• 40:58
  When you're in federal court and a judge says that you have quite
• 41:02
  a lot of chutzpah for saying something, yeah, in that moment,
• 41:05
  you're fucked. That's not good.
• 41:07
  That is not good. You can generally tell which way
• 41:11
  a judge is going to rule when they say stuff like that.
• 41:13
  That is not good. And when you're a lawyer at
• 41:16
  Quinn Emanuel and you're trying to build a practice, Quinn
• 41:19
  Emanuel is a very good firm. It is is astonishing to me that
• 41:24
  Quinn was put in opinion in a position where a, a federal
• 41:27
  judge was saying that to them. Just astonishing for for me to
• 41:32
  hear this again, not my first time at the rodeo.
• 41:35
  And I think frankly astonishing for all participants.
• 41:38
  And so Needless to say, this is not good for via set.
• 41:42
  It is neutral for ASD Space Mobile because again, AST just
• 41:47
  wants the deal that they have. They're not negotiating for
• 41:50
  anything extra, they're just negotiating for the deal that
• 41:52
  they have. So when we have court hearings
• 41:54
  like this, it's not good for ASTS because you want a
• 41:59
  straightforward court proceeding.
• 42:01
  You want to have counterparties that are holding their bargain.
• 42:05
  But this is absolutely devastating for VSAT.
• 42:08
  All of a sudden, it is very clear, the judge said as much,
• 42:12
  that now there's the opening of potential damage claims.
• 42:15
  And so ASTS is going to pay the money they did.
• 42:19
  But it's now held in escrow, effectively in escrow against
• 42:23
  potential damages. And so one could argue whether
• 42:28
  the damages are owed to Legato or ASTS.
• 42:30
  Tim Ferrara, of course, said immediately that I'm an idiot
• 42:33
  for suggesting it's ASTS. Well, you know, screw you, Tim.
• 42:36
  When you think about it, who the damage parties are, it is Legato
• 42:39
  because their bankruptcy is, you know, being affected by this.
• 42:44
  But the judge has also been clear that the reason why ASTS
• 42:47
  has standing in this case and they do and he has said as such
• 42:51
  is because the unique nature of this course with the entire plan
• 42:53
  effectively is ASTS is an alter ego of Legato then via set has
• 42:59
  said as much in filings as well as part of their other little
• 43:03
  battles. And so when that's the case,
• 43:06
  reason stands that ASTS could receive damages as well,
• 43:10
  especially since there are damages.
• 43:14
  And so whether these amount to a lot of money or not is really
• 43:17
  not the point. Because even if all of a sudden
• 43:18
  ASTS got a couple $100 million of damages, you know, literally
• 43:22
  that's just like a good day for Scott on the ATM when he's
• 43:25
  banging out, you know, dilution just to mess with people.
• 43:28
  You know, what's 100 million bucks to Scott at this point?
• 43:31
  But it could happen and it certainly starts to put VSA a
• 43:35
  little bit more on the straight and narrow, I'll tell you that.
• 43:38
  And so, and if these guys aren't changing their behavior after
• 43:40
  that smack down, then you know, I can't.
• 43:43
  I don't really know what to say. And isolating VSA ultimately is
• 43:47
  not long for this world. They are strategically
• 43:52
  interesting. If I woke up tomorrow and I saw
• 43:54
  ASTS had had acquired VSAT, I would say well played Scotty.
• 44:02
  Not saying that will happen, but if that did happen, I could see
• 44:04
  how that could be a smart thing. Getting all the global S band
• 44:08
  makes sense again, the same reason why I thought Iridium was
• 44:11
  interesting because you on board a bunch of business as well.
• 44:14
  So I just, you know, deorbit the satellites, you know, whatever
• 44:17
  you want, but just transition over all the government
• 44:20
  contracts and use the spectrum, which I when I talked to guys
• 44:25
  like Tanner and Kevin kind of talked me off the spectrum.
• 44:27
  Is that interesting? But I can see how some of these
• 44:29
  legacy satellite companies are actually pretty interesting M
• 44:33
  and A targets for the, the big secular winners.
• 44:36
  And the big secular winners are going to be SpaceX, ASTS and
• 44:41
  Kuiper in in my view. And so we're still trucking down
• 44:45
  Legato Lane and should should close and should get FCC
• 44:50
  approval in my view. We're also starting to have more
• 44:54
  spectrum get repurposed. So it's interesting when we
• 44:57
  learn about SiriusXM repurposing their spectrum, but now we have
• 45:02
  this other company Grain spectrum, which I've never heard
• 45:04
  about, but grain bought spectrum from T-Mobile.
• 45:09
  It's a private equity backed vehicle.
• 45:11
  And now they're looking, they're asking the FCC for flexibility
• 45:15
  to also lease or sell it to satellite DDD operators, which
• 45:19
  presumably it would include ASDS Space Mobile.
• 45:23
  And so this is just more spectrum that is sort of being
• 45:26
  Legato eyes, which is great for the industry.
• 45:29
  It's just it's more capacity that then can be used with our
• 45:32
  ultimate downstream assets, which are the satellites.
• 45:36
  And then we had a pumpathon for Global Star.
• 45:39
  And so Global Star has never forsaken the opportunity to pump
• 45:46
  itself as M&A. So they last year, if people
• 45:49
  remember, they started spreading a lot of rumors that SpaceX was
• 45:51
  going to buy it didn't happen. We have at whatever his name is
• 45:56
  Rohan Goswami says I can confirm this great is FT scoop.
• 46:03
  So who is this guy? So he's a biz.
• 46:05
  OK, so this is actually a real journalist.
• 46:08
  So he's confirming that Amazon is in talks to buy global star.
• 46:14
  Great. But then he adds all the telcos
• 46:16
  took a look at global star and past.
• 46:19
  So hard to tell if this is just yet another rumor to try to pump
• 46:25
  global star because I struggle a little bit to understand why
• 46:28
  Amazon would want it. On one hand you get the
• 46:30
  spectrum, but it's already committed to Apple.
• 46:33
  So then why would Amazon be buying the Apple relationship?
• 46:37
  What would they get from that? There's some other spectrum
• 46:40
  associated with global star things this band and 53 from the
• 46:43
  last time I looked at global star.
• 46:46
  But it's it doesn't just strike me as totally obvious what
• 46:51
  Amazon would be, what would they would be doing with this?
• 46:55
  They would buy a customer an Apple.
• 46:59
  But again, seems a little bit of an unholy marriage.
• 47:03
  So I don't really get it. I'm also not the world's
• 47:07
  smartest guy, so who knows? But doesn't seem like the rest
• 47:11
  of the world gets it either. And so Mega Constellations,
• 47:15
  which is a pretty smart account, does point out that there is
• 47:20
  complexity with Apple's ownership and basically Apple
• 47:22
  gets to call the shots. So this could once again be the
• 47:27
  rumor mill trying to will a deal into existence that otherwise
• 47:31
  doesn't want to happen. And we talked about other deals
• 47:35
  that are being willed to happen. There was an interesting article
• 47:39
  in Bloomberg or Washington Journal about AT&T pledging up
• 47:42
  to $2 billion to upgrade cellular networks with the FCC.
• 47:46
  And they did make a weird comment.
• 47:48
  Is that part of the negotiation with the SEC was in return for
• 47:55
  some faster approvals. One has to ask on some of the
• 47:59
  things we expect to happen with ASTS Space Mobile as it relates
• 48:02
  to a first night. One has to sort of wonder if
• 48:07
  we're also part of some bigger, more complicated issues.
• 48:12
  Not that I think it matters because again, our satellites
• 48:14
  aren't up in the air, but just interesting to see if ASTS is
• 48:18
  part of a bargaining chip with some of these things.
• 48:21
  It was also notable to see that Brendan Carr was in West TX.
• 48:26
  And so Brendan Carr took a picture of tumbleweeds and then
• 48:30
  he goes the SCCS Build America agenda is helping providers
• 48:34
  unleash new Internet infrastructure across the
• 48:37
  country. So was he visiting AST Space
• 48:42
  Mobile? We didn't see any confirmation
• 48:45
  of that, but the timing would be interesting right when we think
• 48:48
  we could be getting an SES approvals.
• 48:50
  We've had some recent FCC activity and some correspondence
• 48:53
  and things like that. It's very possible that Brendan
• 48:58
  was doing a last you know kick the composite type of trip.
• 49:05
  We shall see, you know the weeks keep melting by.
• 49:09
  So again, when thinking about the rear view mirror versus the
• 49:12
  windshield SES approval, each day that goes past one day
• 49:18
  closer to an ultimate approval, one would think.
• 49:21
  And so that could really be coming now any given week.
• 49:25
  And then we also the last thing we have is this space ETF was
• 49:28
  announced. I think this is pretty small
• 49:30
  potatoes in terms of how much AUM is in it.
• 49:32
  But the, you know, NASA ETF, you know, I don't know if that's
• 49:36
  like the best ticker, but it's funny I guess.
• 49:39
  And ASTS is in it, you know, along with things like Rocket
• 49:43
  Lab, Planet Labs, things like that.
• 49:45
  So it's just again, just more capital vehicles that are, you
• 49:51
  know, going to serve this exciting space industry.
• 49:54
  And the most important thing as far as I'm concerned is there
• 49:57
  has to be real businesses. And so the problem is space had
• 50:00
  been that there's just the really warrants scalable,
• 50:02
  interesting businesses. And so a lot of the stuff, if
• 50:05
  you're just serving NASA, you know, it just wasn't that
• 50:08
  interesting to me ever, because what you don't really want to be
• 50:11
  is there these narrow sort of engineering service companies
• 50:14
  this just really don't have an ability to extract a lot of
• 50:18
  rent. And so that's why things like
• 50:20
  Red wire, you know, bless their heart, were really never
• 50:23
  interesting to me and will never be.
• 50:25
  Those are businesses that I just don't think will ever amount to
• 50:28
  much. And the history of satellites
• 50:33
  has been that the only real scalable meat on the bone
• 50:36
  application has been telecom. And maybe that will change in
• 50:38
  the future, AI data centers and things that either don't exist
• 50:42
  or I haven't really thought about.
• 50:43
  But the scalability of Leo I think is the theme that that
• 50:51
  matters. And so that's why space is
• 50:54
  relevant now. Launch is really a means to an
• 50:57
  end for that thing. But The thing is Leo Telecom in
• 51:05
  my view, and I think that the SpaceX IPO in the S 1 is really
• 51:09
  going to show that as well. So I believe we're in the the
• 51:12
  right spot. I truly hate competition, but I
• 51:15
  am humble to the fact that in a world where you can't avoid
• 51:19
  competition, it is good that the market then has an industry
• 51:25
  around which to invest to educate themselves.
• 51:28
  And so one thing that was taught to me by a very smart friend is
• 51:33
  what's called the generalist dilemma.
• 51:36
  And I've never heard about this, but it's interesting concept is
• 51:38
  then you have, let's say you have an end of one type
• 51:40
  security. A generalist really can't
• 51:43
  justify the time to learn that one thing as opposed to learning
• 51:50
  about AI or learning about crypto or things like that.
• 51:53
  You know, there's 203040 securities that then they can
• 51:55
  translate that knowledge to. And so you can underwrite the
• 51:58
  time to have an analyst covering it, things like that into space
• 52:02
  previously really wasn't a sector.
• 52:04
  It was sort of looped into telecom and general EMT type
• 52:08
  stuff. It was sort of an afterthought.
• 52:10
  You weren't going to have a space analyst.
• 52:12
  I mean, could you even imagine, you know, being at Millennium,
• 52:15
  like, yo, I'm the space analyst, like Public Storage or, you
• 52:20
  know, are you with Chris Sambar? You know, people would know like
• 52:24
  what you were and now with with SpaceX AST space mobile, you
• 52:29
  know, rocket lab, I hope hopefully Blue origin goes
• 52:32
  public, things like that. We're going to start to actually
• 52:34
  have a meet on the bone space industry where there's going to
• 52:38
  be real space coverage. And you have guys like Adam
• 52:42
  Jonas that really pave the way to Morgan Stanley, who I think
• 52:45
  he's one of the best animals out there in terms of a big thinker.
• 52:48
  Like this guy is a crazy big thinker and and he'll just sort
• 52:52
  of will industries into existence because he really sees
• 52:54
  where the ball is going to go, you know, two to three years
• 52:58
  ahead of of the other Wall Street analyst.
• 53:01
  And that's what we're, I think poised to have.
• 53:05
  And what that means though, is that we're early in terms of the
• 53:08
  capital flows. And so liquidity drives all
• 53:12
  things, most importantly price. And I believe we're early in the
• 53:15
  liquidity cycle for this industry.
• 53:17
  And then as it becomes more mainstream, as there is what is
• 53:20
  recognized as an industry, as the excitement builds, people
• 53:24
  see Artemis going around the moon, no, a vestibule event
• 53:28
  there, I guess maybe lunar and things like that.
• 53:30
  But it just shows people that we're on this new age and it's
• 53:36
  becomes very thematic. But most importantly, themes
• 53:40
  must have real businesses to just not be simple flash in the
• 53:44
  pan bubbles. People are going to see Starlink
• 53:48
  as a real business and hopefully in the next 6 months, the
• 53:52
  inflecting financial results of ASTS will show the market that
• 53:56
  same thing as it relates to our company and our investment.
• 54:00
  So that's what I have for this week.
• 54:02
  Thanks everyone for joining. I'm not surprised actually how
• 54:04
  many people can join at this hour.
• 54:06
  So I guess it's almost 8:00 New York time.
• 54:11
  Definitely not that time for me right now.
• 54:14
  I'm about to go to bed. So happy Easter for all those
• 54:17
  who celebrate and hope we have another good week.
• 54:20
  I'm, I'm very excited about the next week because we're really
• 54:24
  starting to close the window on New Glen 3, which now I believe
• 54:29
  is slotted somewhere around April 14th or 15th.
• 54:34
  You know, if we could just delay that an extra day, then I might
• 54:37
  be able to go. And then we're getting very,
• 54:40
  very close to batch 1. And so I might tweet a little
• 54:44
  bit just to Heckle Scott because you never know sometimes you
• 54:46
  never know when me posting that meme of Christophe will finally
• 54:49
  get to Scott and he's going to go, God damn it, kook and give
• 54:53
  us an update. So I'll try to drive him crazy,
• 54:57
  as is my sacred duty. But we are we are very close to
• 55:02
  batch 1. And what's, what's exciting
• 55:05
  about the setup this time is we're going to have FMFM 2GO off
• 55:09
  and hopefully successfully, but then the market is going to look
• 55:13
  very quickly to batch 1 developments and the uncorking
• 55:20
  of the constellation Constipation.
• 55:22
  And I should mitigate the sort of debacle we had over Christmas
• 55:25
  after FM one, which was just like stupid.
• 55:27
  A lot of us made a ton of money on that because we were able to
• 55:29
  buy all that stock. And then ASTS just ripped, I
• 55:34
  think it crashed Christmas Eve or whatever and then ripped
• 55:38
  right on New Year's. So that was unfortunate.
• 55:42
  The stock has that volatility, but also, you know, if you had a
• 55:45
  lot of bravery, you can monetize it.
• 55:48
  I hope that doesn't happen again because I do think that we're
• 55:51
  going to go from strength to strength.
• 55:53
  And a lot of the TA guys are seeing us lined up really nicely
• 55:57
  on the charts, which is always sort of, you know, on one hand,
• 56:00
  black magic, but on the other hand, really the distillation of
• 56:07
  all market participants and their emotions.
• 56:10
  And it's certainly looking like the bottom was last week and the
• 56:16
  people are looking in the front view mirror with some exciting
• 56:20
  things happening. We finally, thank God, got done
• 56:23
  with March. So all into here.
• 56:27
  Thank you everyone for joining. Appreciate all the great
• 56:31
  research people did and I will end it right now.
• 56:38
  Listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast?
• 56:41
  If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
• 56:44
  podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
• 56:48
  media, or leave a rating and review.
• 56:50
  To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
• 56:54
  sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
• 56:57
  next time. We're doing something very, very
• 57:02
  big and activities technology we can really affect billion lives.
• 57:06
  AFT Space globally is the only company that has full technology
• 57:11
  to deliver several broadband connectivity directly through
• 57:15
  space to the everyday smartphone.
• 57:17
  People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless,
• 57:21
  regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
• 57:23
  know that it's connected by satellite.
• 57:26
  Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
• 57:30
  with the MMO. Listen, Waffles.