Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Kook's Weekly - February 1 - Why AST SpaceMobile is Built for Superiority

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Kook's Weekly - February 1 - Why AST SpaceMobile is Built for Superiority · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast, just basically.
0:11
From the 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. Good night, everyone.
0:28
Or not. Good night.
0:29
Good evening. I guess.
0:31
Good night. It's really the exit greeting,
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but I hope no one looked at the stock market.
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So this is a good time to get together to talk about
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fundamentals and the path of a company because this sort of
0:48
macro headwind is something I'd frankly been sort of expecting.
0:53
Took a lot of crap from an Pam Mann and Todd who was saying
0:57
that's the guy that is cold every crash.
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Well, not, not really, but like, February is kind of a crappy
1:01
month in general because of the January effect hangover.
1:05
And then the government shutdown wasn't something I had expected
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to carry on over the weekend. And I think everyone's waiting
1:12
to see if Iran gets bombed and these sorts of things.
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So this is the natural sort of macro overhang that when you're
1:21
living through, it can certainly seem scary.
1:24
And Oh my God, let me look at the charts and let me get too
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cute all my stocks and maybe I'll sell and buy it back.
1:30
These are the sorts of things that people do.
1:32
And what I always find funny is take.
1:38
So I'm old at this point, which is sad and not much I can do
1:41
about it other than eat a lot of vegetables.
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But I lived through the great financial crisis where I was at
1:48
a hedge fund. And I would always tell people
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in hindsight, you know, go pull up a chart of Netflix.
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And when you look at a chart, you quite literally cannot see
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where the great financial crisis was.
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It just doesn't even register on a stock chart.
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And then you imagine all of the people who absolutely panicked.
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And, you know, if that was the end of the world.
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And, you know, admittedly, at the time, I'm just looking at
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what type of drawdown that was from peak to through that was a
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33% drawdown in the GFC. And certainly Netflix has had
2:28
some other drawdowns, but it just kind of melts away.
2:32
You know, for anyone that's watched Blade Runner, you know,
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it's like a tear. There's a raindrop in in the
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ocean or a tear in the rain. It just goes away.
2:43
And that's something I've really reflected on in my career is
2:46
really trying to zoom out because even over the course of
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a couple weeks, if not months, lots of events that are really
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sort of markets in crisis type of things you'll see on the same
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CNBC. They basically just fade away
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and don't really even look like much.
3:04
I just pulled up a chart of Microsoft just thinking, well,
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what did April 2025 look like? And yeah, sure, you know it, it
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got pummeled. But now in hindsight, it just
3:12
looks kind of like a little bit of draw down.
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People would easily say, all right about the dip.
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And so I don't, I don't think we're going to have anything
3:20
like that coming up in February. But a little bit of a blow off
3:23
is certainly on my base case. And maybe we had it.
3:25
The stock ASTS is already down 25 bucks from its peak on Friday
3:30
morning, which is astounding how volatile this thing is.
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But that just also kind of brings us to this cover shot of
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the weekly, which I stole from King Tut, which I find
3:41
absolutely hysterical in every possible way.
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And so some guy was doing some, I think he literally called it a
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noodle chart and he was serious about it.
3:48
And then Tut retweeted it, you know, really in the form of a
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Jackson Pollock. And that's kind of a lot of
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times with some of these charts kind of mean to me, with the
3:57
exception of reformed trader whose charts I always take
4:00
seriously whenever mock or make fun of publicly for fear of
4:05
getting defriended by him. But when we look at the
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fundamentals, so we're going to have a little volatility if the
4:11
pre market is any indicator. So nothing you can do about
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that. But what you can do is look at
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what the company is doing to build its team and its
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capabilities. So stocks generally track cash
4:23
flow, you know, ha ha at valuations and say who cook,
4:27
there's no cash flow. Well, yeah, Jackass, I know.
4:30
But the whole point of the stock is we're predicting it.
4:33
And so we're very focused on the technology, which Kevin Chen,
4:37
you got in a debate with this guy about of like actually it's
4:39
pretty important to understand the tech in this and the analog
4:44
that the short seller was saying is, well, you wouldn't want to
4:48
ask a dentist about investing. And it's just like what tired
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platitude do you care to share next?
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So understand the technology here is in fact vital to
5:00
understanding the investment opportunity because then one
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knows that you have a platform in cutting edge technology for
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which there are multiplying use cases beyond the simple
5:12
communication use cases that we initially or at least I
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initially invested behind. And so understanding that is the
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key to understand where commercialization and revenue
5:23
opportunities will come in the future.
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One thing follows the other. And so luckily, and I'm
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astounded by the talent on the space mob each day.
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I just even last week, I was just chatting with some of my
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DMS and asking, what do you do? He had worked in ballistic
5:39
missile testing thinking, OK, seems seems like someone who's
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qualified to study some of the tech.
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And and that's just one guy. And we know that there's so many
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other people like that that contribute to the space mob to
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help us understand and validate the technology.
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But the people that really help validate the technology are
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those who come and join the company.
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And so we had some big hires recently.
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So I first tweet in my weekly is joining Mike, the joining of
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Mike Williams, who's going to be a director at AST for system
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integration tests and operations for federal programs.
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Big deal. He had been with Raytheon for 28
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years as the missile defense chief.
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Seems like a big deal. So how are you able to hire a
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guy like this? Well, it takes 2 to tango.
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This is a guy I know just because my family is also very
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senior at some of these prime defense contractors.
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They have pretty good lives, big pensions, which are frankly
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guaranteed by the US government. You know, lots of prestige,
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things like that. You only leave for something
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astounding. And so a family member of mine
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left for something astounding and was able to end up go to be
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ACEO of a defense company, got LBOD and now is rich, which is
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cool. And so that was his reason to
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leave the prime. And So what is this guy's reason
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to leave the prime, you know, especially after 28 years?
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Well, probably a pretty compelling opportunity, probably
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an opportunity where he's going to make a difference and see his
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ability to rapidly inflect and notably what we know he's not
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doing. He's not doing an ASTS for the
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cash compensation. That's almost assuredly why he's
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not joining. And so then if you reflect on
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what ASTS is as a career path, it's an investment vehicle.
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People join ASTS presumably for the challenge to work on the
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cutting edge, but also for the equity grants because the bulk
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of their wealth historically asked Scott, comes from the
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equity grants. And so people, if you're joining
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ASTS, fundamentally you are taking a big bet on the stock
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because that's how you're getting paid.
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But to then attract these types of people, they have to believe
8:02
in the upside opportunity and their ability to drive that
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upside through their own contributions.
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But then the company needs to have something for them to do
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that is real enough for them to come over.
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This is just one more confirmation that we have a
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burgeoning defense business. Well, we already know as it from
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what was it 2 weeks ago. Now it's all a blur that we are
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in Golden Dome and we're attracting, building out the
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team that's giving us the credibility to deliver upon
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that, which is really exciting. And so one of the things that
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maybe one of my infamous tweets from many years ago was this
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series called Hashtag meet the team.
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And I had just gone through painstakingly and just profiled
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like really everyone on LinkedIn that worked at the company and
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just really showed like, here are the people behind this.
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When you own D SPAC at that point that's pre revenue, it's
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easy to lose your confidence in that and just go, my gosh, it
8:59
might be a fake company, you know, blah, blah, blah.
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It's really easy to lose your nerve.
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And then you just have to ask yourself, you know, reflect on
9:06
your own careers, like why did you join the firm's you
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currently work at? You know, assuming a lot of
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people here have jobs, what did you see?
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What was it an intelligent choice?
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So if you're reflecting on your career and going, what a dumbass
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I am for working at my firm, well, that's something you
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should reflect on. And presumably the next time you
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won't do that. And so then you look at people
9:30
who have joined ASTS and wonder, have they reflected on their own
9:34
prior careers and and realize they weren't on the winning
9:36
path? Were they on the winning path
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and found Yeti better rocket ship, no pun intended, to join.
9:43
But going to a company is not always just driven by I need a
9:46
job and benefits, but it can really be someone taking the
9:49
offensive tack on their career. And so you want to see if a
9:52
pattern emerges around talent flow.
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This is something I certainly learned at this most recent
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juncture of my career where I've had to actually interact much
10:00
more with all, all parts of an organization.
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Not, not just in the public investing seat where you just
10:07
call the IR guy, but really understanding how an org works.
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And it's very humbling experience for me, which I
10:13
hadn't really appreciated just how tough this part is for VCs
10:17
and private equity people of trying to make sure that you
10:20
have the right talent coming into your company.
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Because a lot of times with public companies, you take it
10:25
for granted. Or if you have a company that's
10:27
doing really well, well, you actually just take that for
10:30
granted. And if it's going really poorly,
10:31
you might not have really understood the pathology of, of
10:35
your decline in terms of either a lack of talent OR departure of
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talent. And so it's very important with
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a company like ASDS to validate your own assessment of the tech
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and the and the prospects and see that the people who have the
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relevant skill sets are actually transacting not in the stock
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directly by buying it, but but with their career.
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And so Yolo in themselves. And that's a big signal for me,
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especially with ASTS and something I've been very focused
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on. So then we, we want to read the
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tea leaves to all this. And so we have tough for our
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really went out as usual with some great content.
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I've linked it all out here, and here's just what the punchline
11:19
is is hiring radar experts like Walcott and Williams from
11:22
Raytheon Signals. ASDS Space Mobile is bolstering
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its defense capabilities. Their expertise and phase arrays
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could adopt ASDS Leo satellites for radar apps like missile
11:31
tracking and secure coms. ASDS secured a spot on the MDA
11:36
Shield program, part of the Golden Dome for layered defense.
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This positions them for potential contracts and
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hypersonic missile threats, enhanced government revenue
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streams and overall exciting potential.
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So what we're going toward is really understanding where does
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ASTS sit in the value chain for all of this?
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And the short answer is we don't really know, but we start to
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surmise things that it could do. So there's the tracking layer,
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which is sensing and and understanding where missiles are
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going. There's the transport layer,
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which is moving that incredible amount of data across space to
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where it needs to be. And then there's the custody
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layer, which is, as the name suggests, basically taking
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custody of those assets you want to track.
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And so as a missile launcher, for example is detected
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following it and keeping track of it.
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And So what we had thought is that ASTS is actually pretty
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well situated for all of these layers.
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Now will they get all three of these layers right away?
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Don't know, but can the technology be applied to that?
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And So what we think is on the tracking layer that has
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historically been thought to go to regular radar guys, but
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innovations in 5G technology are showing that the disturbance of
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a 5G field almost think of like the matrix where all of a sudden
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you sort of see like the ones and zeros bend.
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If you're shooting down the that metaphorical ones and zeros into
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the atmosphere with an RF signal as something is penetrating that
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airspace that disrupts the RF signal.
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So that's that's a radar. That's how 5G technology can can
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be adapted for this use. We've always thought that ASTS
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would be used as a radar system. But even if it's not and someone
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else is providing the radar system all of that data, the
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transport layer needs to happen. And so ASTS can enable near
13:30
instantaneous global dissemination of this data and
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bypass the terrestrial delays. And this is going to enhance a
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real time missile system and surveillance, which is very
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important to the overall strategy of the US government.
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So this I believe is going to all evolve in terms of what the
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ultimate involvement of Asts is. And if they win one thing at the
13:55
exclusion of another, I don't think I would call it game over
13:59
because I think this will all evolve over over time.
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And that's just going to be the product Rd. mount and the
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commercial pipeline that we have at this company.
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And I believe that as we began to really put a couple balls in
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the end zone, people will start to extrapolate more growth,
14:13
which is just really the total addressable market expansion,
14:16
which is really important. So you can put the most
14:21
incredible radar system up in the sky that you want, but you
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are not going to stop Catsy. And so Catsy is really basically
14:32
like a radar jamming turbo missile.
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And this guy seems to spot everything.
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And So what he saw, which is just absolutely a remarkable
14:40
example of due diligence. I wish I were capable of doing,
14:44
but I I am just merely the the surgeon at arms here and just
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report on other people's great work.
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But Katzie saw something that was quite crazy.
14:53
And so there is some new filings dumped.
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But when you go and tie out the docket, there's ghost filings.
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And so the FCC system is old. It seems like it was built on
15:06
Netscape. And so it will show sort of how
15:08
many records are tied to a docket.
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But if the record has been redacted and blank, you won't
15:15
see it, but it will still account for it in terms of how
15:18
many rows it's showing. And So what you could see or
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what Rakatsi notice is that there were 6 ghost filings that
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came up. So things that show as row
15:30
numbers with no links. So Catsy comes to the
15:33
conclusion, which I think is possible, is that there are some
15:40
redacted filings and it shows something happened because these
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records were created one way or another, we just can't see them.
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And so then you can have your imagination race, but there's
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things happening behind the scenes that are evidently
15:57
certain privileges are required to see.
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Very neat stuff. And just another indicator of
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what's to come. The other indicators of what's
16:09
to come are just the changing mentality of experts.
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So only 6 inches posted a Tiga's call.
16:18
I believe I somehow missed this one myself.
16:20
But a Echostar expert and says that ASDS is #1 noted that
16:27
Starlink is going to try, but at some point they're going to take
16:30
the MN OS on directly as a provider.
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And so that's that's naturally channel conflict and something I
16:39
think is going to be a big problem for them.
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But the technology is already challenged on many fronts.
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And this expert was very impressed by the size of ASTSS
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satellites. Nothing we don't already know,
16:50
but you know, a big departure from the the the funniest
16:53
maximus people like Tim Farrar, who continued to try to throw
17:00
brown ink in the pool and calling it a turd.
17:05
But that game is running out and you're seeing first of all, the
17:09
stock market. You know it's not retail.
17:12
I don't think buying this thing. I haven't bought a share in a
17:14
long time. I can't when you have a position
17:16
like mine. I'm not Ampam, man.
17:18
I'm this guy that just seems to have a counterfeit money machine
17:21
that he somehow gets loaded onto E*Trade.
17:24
Real people like myself don't have any money left, and so it's
17:29
not me doing it. I have a lot of shares.
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I'm holding them, which I view as every day I hold.
17:34
It's the equivalent of buying it.
17:36
But I just have a hard time believing that Space Mob is
17:39
sitting there vacuuming up 20 million shares per day.
17:43
So someone is doing that. And I believe first of all,
17:46
that's price discovery. Other people are marking it
17:49
there. It's not me.
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And you're having industry experts really change the tune
17:56
and getting smart on this. And so the invisible hand is
17:59
racing ahead. And this goes to some of the,
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frankly, I don't want to be too rude to the guy, but asinine
18:05
comments from some of these short sellers where I was asking
18:08
one guy, you know what, what would it take to actually change
18:10
your mind? And he responded very
18:12
flippantly, EBIT just being a complete smart ass.
18:17
And it's like, OK, sure. So when the company has positive
18:20
EBIT, what's the stock price going to be?
18:24
But right now, the company loses a lot of money, has negative
18:26
EBIT, earnings before interest and taxes.
18:28
But the market is very clearly discounting, rightly or wrongly,
18:31
that this company is going to inflect and have an enormous
18:34
amount of cash flow. So once it has cash flow, then
18:39
you cover. I mean, there's always the
18:41
chance that the stock derates for one reason or another,
18:44
frankly. I remember I didn't trade on us,
18:47
but I remember when Tesla was starting to ramp their Model 3,
18:51
I thought that cash flow would be the curse, almost sort of
18:53
like revenues as discussed in the HBO show Silicon Valley,
18:58
where he goes like revenue, Oh my God, don't get revenue.
19:02
Then they're going to want more of it.
19:04
Then they're going to want profits.
19:05
Just don't get revenue. Sell the dream.
19:07
And I thought for a while Tesla would be like that because once
19:10
they had revenue, I thought, well, God, people are going to
19:12
realize it's a car company. Well, again, basic first
19:16
principles. There's a really big world out
19:19
there. I don't need to short Elon Musk.
19:21
I mean, why would I play Russian roulette with five in the
19:25
chamber? Like not a good trade.
19:27
So this was more of a hypothetical thought experiment
19:30
of what would happen when reality came.
19:32
And OK, so Tesla turned out to be a really good investment from
19:37
the point when Model 3 was coming out.
19:40
So good luck to these people that want to cover their short
19:44
when this has EBIT and they really should be listening to
19:50
the people that know. And so AT&T was out with a year
19:54
in review and they just talk about ASTS based mobile being
19:59
really cool. But you know, like a case say
20:02
those are just paid pumpers. AT&T, why would we ever trust,
20:05
you know, these guys that only invented the modern telephone
20:09
system that we all rely upon? I don't know what they know.
20:12
So what's better then, is to actually have these paid pumpers
20:17
put in front of Congress? And give sworn testimony.
20:20
That's what I want. And so we have them finally on
20:24
the stand where we're going to reveal that AT&T thinks that
20:27
ASTS is vaporware. I hope you guys all watch this
20:30
interview because that's not what they said.
20:34
The senator asked if AT&T sought proposals before selecting ASTS.
20:39
Their response? We evaluated that solution and
20:42
we selected the best solution for public safety.
20:44
They could basically provide the highest level of connectivity,
20:47
capacity, resiliency and performance.
20:51
Damn. What's great in this video is
20:53
there is this dude sitting in the back with just like a badass
20:56
Yellowstone cowboy hat. And so I don't know if they
20:59
brought the muscle with them to the Senate just to fend off any
21:02
T-Mobile people and, you know, skin that smoke wagon if they
21:08
ran into any trouble. But that's the sworn testimony.
21:14
They looked at the market, ASTS was the best.
21:18
All you have to do is listen. Now arriving at the solution of
21:23
at the conclusion of ASTS being the best hardly is the end of an
21:26
investment thesis. A lot of other things have to be
21:29
right for you to make money on this investment than just simply
21:31
being the best solution. There has to be a total
21:33
addressable market. There has to be really good
21:35
commercial strategy. There has to be execution in
21:40
terms of developing or in terms of production.
21:43
Lots of things have to go right, and these are of course the the
21:46
holistic points that we've incorporated in the diligence.
21:49
But the starting point really needs to be this identification
21:53
of the technology. From that, everything else
21:56
grows. So on those other attributes of
22:01
the thesis, a big piece of the push back in the market has
22:05
continued to be the Tam. Even when the shorts concede
22:08
that the technology works this, that and the other, they go,
22:12
well, yeah, good luck to your Yosemite Taurus who uses the
22:17
service for five seconds to tweet a picture of a geyser.
22:20
That's kind of the bear case at this point, which we had always
22:25
imagined the the moved gold goal post and frankly we should
22:29
embrace it. It's really nice to have a good
22:32
two sided market, to have a really vocal bearer side in in
22:37
short community that has a view but then is ultimately wrong.
22:43
That provides, you know, really good tension and I think it's
22:46
healthy. The important thing for anyone
22:49
long the stock is to to be right and we've done our own work.
22:53
I've certainly done my own work, but then sort of my spirit
22:57
animal in other life. Sequoia Capital partner Sean
23:01
McGuire, probably a surfer just looking at the guy, but he talks
23:10
about SpaceX. So he's Elon sort of dude at
23:13
Sequoia, good place to be. And he says that Starling's D to
23:19
C opportunities, quote one of the biggest market opportunities
23:23
ever. So I don't know if you guys know
23:25
a lot about Sequoia. I happen to know a lot about
23:28
Sequoia. No comment.
23:30
So Sequoia has seen a lot of big market opportunities, to put it
23:36
lightly. They have seen the biggest
23:38
market opportunities. And so for a guy who is a
23:43
partner at Sequoia who draws on that institutional knowledge,
23:48
saying that DC is one of the biggest market opportunities
23:51
ever, Sure, someone could just dismiss that and say, well,
23:54
these are the same people that brought you paying for a banana
23:58
on FTX, fine. But they've also brought you
24:01
things like the entire modern world that we live in.
24:05
So net, net, I was going to say Sequoia is pretty good.
24:11
And when I say something like that, they're probably who cares
24:16
if they're right or wrong, but it's informed and they wouldn't
24:19
say it if they didn't have a viewpoint of it.
24:22
And so then we look at the numbers.
24:23
So there were some numbers that came out, I think it was on
24:25
Friday. I was just sitting there.
24:27
I got some numbers from a a broker this year.
24:29
I just kind of blast feed, but the revenues for SpaceX, $16
24:35
billion of which $10 billion are for Starlink revenues and it's
24:39
growing like a weed pretty good place for investors to find
24:45
burgeoning opportunity. That's a lot of revenue.
24:47
Now, how do you tie to SpaceX being a $1.5 trillion company?
24:51
Well, Elon helped answer that question over the weekend with
24:56
his plan for a million satellites to go provide AI data
24:59
centers in space. So he's just going to pump,
25:01
pump, pump that. That is for sure what he's going
25:05
to do. He's going to pump stories like
25:07
crazy to back into to evaluations like that.
25:11
And it kind of not my problem, but that's what's going on.
25:14
The key thing is just to see that there's valid market demand
25:17
for these products. And so Starling doing 10 billion
25:20
of revenue is really remarkable. And that's for a system which is
25:25
admittedly pretty low friction. That's for fixed broadband.
25:28
And so when we just say, well, shouldn't mobile be bigger?
25:32
I've always had in my head that current Starlink is the
25:36
equivalent of Facebook on desktop and ASDS is the
25:40
equivalent of Facebook mobile. Well, anyone that knows the
25:43
history of Facebook knows that mobile was important and is
25:48
really what drove the boat over there.
25:50
And that's what I think we have is that component.
25:55
And so I think that the market opportunity accordingly is going
25:58
to be much, much bigger for ASD space Mobile.
26:01
And then you just have to look at the trend.
26:03
I was just looking at Zero Hedge and they just said all the
26:08
themes in 2025 that are working are actually working again.
26:11
And I hadn't known this. I don't have these numbers
26:13
broken out this way. It's very cool what they did,
26:16
but the space sector was the dominant return driver in 2025,
26:20
and so far, exact same thing is happening in 2026.
26:23
I never sort of deliberately invested in a space theme per
26:27
SE, and never sat back and was like, well, I'm going to
26:28
allocate to space. I thought it was going to be a
26:31
really good secular trend. I remember when Kathy at ARC was
26:36
setting up her space fund in 2021, I thought, Oh yeah, this
26:39
makes sense. Like this is the the next
26:42
frontier. There's a lot of disruption
26:44
because of Falcon 9, things like that.
26:46
And that was, you know, four years too early in terms of
26:48
people waking up. What really blew the door off of
26:50
this theme is Trump and the redirection of the Department of
26:56
War. So the Department of War was out
26:58
again last week, blasting out a tweet saying space superiority.
27:02
This is where they are focused. We're in the right spot.
27:06
And the banks are waking up too. And so it's pretty cool that
27:10
Goldman came out with their GS Moon Index.
27:14
So, you know, some people might say, well, there's the top
27:17
because I think when they came out with the brick index, I'd
27:19
have to go back and figure out when they actually blew up the
27:23
world with their little indices. But I generally think there's a
27:26
lot of juice from initial identification of a trend like
27:30
this to the ultimate kind of termination of it, especially
27:35
when it's long lead time. And you know, the brick trend
27:39
had its own problems because governments kind of went crazy.
27:41
But it is exciting that there's more and more attention.
27:44
They're obviously gearing up for the SpaceX IPO.
27:48
It's in everyone's interest to have a very vibrant, active,
27:52
liquid big space sector as people start to Trade and
27:56
Industry pods, if you will, start to cover the space and and
28:01
have dedicated guys with it. And the attention to this issue
28:06
just is not going away. Each country is increasingly
28:10
focused on this and so Elena Niera, who's MIT lady very
28:15
smart, shared something in Japan that came out where Japan calls
28:19
for a national Leo infrastructure development
28:21
project to break away from dependence on overseas
28:24
constellations and secure essential communication
28:27
services. Sounds a lot like what Europe is
28:30
trying to do with Iris Squared. The question is can they do it
28:33
by themselves or are they going to end up using a different
28:36
structure like SAPCO for Japan? The jury is out on what Europe
28:41
will ultimately do, but the fact of the matter is Europe is
28:45
likely going to be staring at Sacco up and operating well
28:49
before IRS is operational, if it ever is.
28:53
And Japan certainly has some of the capabilities to do this by
28:58
themselves. But Japan is a very small
29:00
country and so they might also question the economics of an
29:04
entire constellation which serves just such a small sliver.
29:08
Would it not make more sense to have the governance and legal
29:12
structure that Sacco set up in Europe also done in Japan where
29:17
they have that dedicated capacity?
29:19
We will find out. But it is something where you
29:23
could see a very big opportunity for ASTS space Mobile and we
29:31
have a German ITU filing. Katzi was quick on the follow
29:34
here. German ITU filing of our Arctic
29:38
shell for SATCO. Again, Arctic shells are very
29:42
important for military use. And so that's kind of a giveaway
29:46
of who the intended user is going to be for any system.
29:52
So as a well situated competitor to provide all of this for these
29:57
governments, ASDS is also on the Spectrum hunt.
30:01
We continue to hunt and frankly hunt down companies like
30:05
Immersat. Like last week Immersat got
30:09
basically a red card from a judge.
30:14
Different story. But in Europe there is another
30:16
race for this sort of beautiful 2 gigahertz MSS Spectrum and
30:22
Fudsters had said we wouldn't have access to it, nor would we
30:25
even apply to it. I think the exact quote and I'll
30:28
read it into the record for posterity.
30:32
Tim Ferrar says L0L 0L which means laughing out loud.
30:36
Out loud. The clueless cult don't
30:42
understand. Orange explicitly avoided the
30:44
word broadband because they don't believe ASTSS claims.
30:47
But more importantly, ASTS and Vodafone didn't even bother
30:50
submit comments. Why should they take?
30:53
Why should the EU take SAFCO seriously?
30:56
L0L. 0L. What a douchebag.
30:59
And so, yeah, Tim, take a report, dude.
31:02
They did comment and it's out there and Doctor Mike has been
31:05
all over this. He was actually just sharing
31:07
some more things with me just now that I retweeted.
31:10
And so they are commenting and they're putting out some frankly
31:13
astounding figures that with multi in, multi out Nemo, that's
31:18
to be confused with a meme. Nemo is when you have multiple
31:22
satellites kind of hitting a coverage here at the same time,
31:25
they might be able to achieve 6 bits per Hertz, which is the way
31:31
you measure spectral efficiency, which is covered in the DD doc.
31:34
And I have some sensitivities for various levels.
31:37
I forget exactly what I use, probably 3, maybe with an upside
31:40
case of four. I might have used my base case
31:42
at 2 1/2, can't remember. But 6 is just burning.
31:46
And So what that means is just more data.
31:50
And so the satellites I've always thought of as a system
31:53
with a critical path item, which is the processing of spectrum.
31:58
So 10 gigahertz is the limit for A next generation bird.
32:04
So if you get more bits per Hertz, that's just more data for
32:11
the constrained processing capacity of the satellite.
32:14
Processing capacity is strained, constrained by the chip, but
32:19
really by the power. And so if you're able to
32:23
transmit more data for a given fixed power supply, that just
32:29
means your economics are better, more data, more money.
32:33
And so some of this stuff is coming out in these filings,
32:35
which is just very exciting. But in any respect, ASTS and
32:41
Vodafone submitted A confidential response to the EU.
32:46
So they're definitely going for this spectrum.
32:48
I know that for sure certain. Why?
32:52
Because I studied at length the adversary proceeding of ASD
32:55
space mobile against Inmersat. Where they talk about it.
33:01
I've listened to all the hearings where they talk.
33:04
About it so. I know for sure this is what
33:07
they're doing, and it's exciting because the company can then
33:10
assemble a global spectrum portfolio, which in the words of
33:14
a bell, is worth more than anyone can pay.
33:19
And that's what they're trying to do.
33:20
They're trying to become a vehicle for global spectrum
33:23
spectrum aggregation by way of operationalizing it in a novel
33:28
way that no one else could. Pretty ingenious.
33:32
We'll see how it develops. To operate in these countries
33:36
involves. Not only access to spectrum, but
33:38
you also have to play nice and deal with governments that can
33:43
be very protectionist. Not all countries are as open as
33:47
the US, if the US is even considered open at this point.
33:49
Which isn't really meant to be a political comment.
33:51
It just seems like it's hard to operate in the US even though
33:53
it's probably one of the better markets to operate in.
33:58
India is not generally known to be an easy market to operate in.
34:02
I think I would probably rather do eye surgery on myself with a
34:06
screwdriver than try to navigate the bureaucracy of India.
34:10
So my entire life has been having deep, deep humility for
34:15
anyone that can do business in India.
34:17
I've had investments in companies that do oil stuff
34:21
there. I've had the privilege of having
34:24
100% loss losses in the one private deal I did in India.
34:30
Never had to do that again. But Starlink is having the same
34:33
problem. They just got rejected from
34:35
their constellation in India and it's because India hasn't yet
34:42
completed its regulations for the D to C frequencies.
34:45
And so at rocket tank 123, who's who's very good, very technical.
34:49
While he allows that, the same might apply for ASTS until the
34:53
regulatory pathways are done. One would just have to take a
34:57
step back and where Modi who has something to say about what goes
35:03
on in India and ISRO. Are our partners.
35:09
Where we have Vodafone as well, one would think that
35:13
notwithstanding the difficulty sometimes of getting permissions
35:17
in I1, would think when the Prime Minister is tweeting about
35:22
your company, when you have done extremely high profile business
35:27
to elevate this, the global stature and the global
35:30
reputation of ISRO, which is deserved.
35:33
That is a badass rocket these guys have and they launched it
35:38
perfectly. When you lift up others as they
35:42
literally lift up you, that's. The basis of a good partnership.
35:49
Starlink, by contrast, don't do. Shit in India.
35:54
They're not launching their, they're not spreading, you know,
35:58
any butter around for local content.
36:00
They're not lifting up people and participants in India.
36:05
I don't know that they have any M&O deal.
36:09
Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But a country like India is
36:12
going to look at that and go like, I don't know, why would I
36:15
bend over backwards for these guys when one can only imagine
36:18
that really big local companies like Reliance and things like
36:23
that who have existing telecom investments are going to whisper
36:26
in some ears and say, hey, sterling bad.
36:30
Why? Because they're just going to
36:31
disremediate local companies and hurt people's business.
36:33
And so it's going to be really hard to get open season in these
36:37
countries when you're hurting the local oligarchs, Those guys,
36:42
you know, I'm not not trying to say anything other than common
36:48
sense. Like those guys have sway, just
36:50
like we have lobbyists. You know, I don't know the
36:52
internal workings of India, but I could just only believe that
36:54
they have lobbyists too. And they're just going to make
36:57
life a little bit more difficult for Starlink.
36:59
And it'll be very interesting to see how that changes for ASTS.
37:03
But I have very high expectations that ASTS is going
37:06
to have a different experience for getting the permissions in
37:09
India because they've taken the time to actually treat their
37:13
partners in that country respectfully and create business
37:17
opportunities for new partners in that country.
37:19
That again, lifts up the entire industry as they literally lift
37:24
us into orbit. I think it's going to end up
37:26
being viewed as a very smart thing that ASTS did to
37:31
incorporate ISRO as a launch partner.
37:34
So that's that's my take on it and just going back to ASTS
37:40
doing smart things. They they spread the wealth.
37:44
They're. Creating opportunity around
37:47
themselves. And so the Midland mayor is just
37:49
waxing poetic about the full ball of wax.
37:53
Frankly, she goes, we're, quote, really excited to have Asts in
37:56
the community. She says they're the cowbell of
37:59
Midland. That must be a Texas thing and,
38:02
notes the local spaceport is now a strategic site for national
38:04
security and defence Smart. Creating a lot of opportunity.
38:10
I kind of like now much in this video, this mayor has an
38:12
infrared sauna in her room. So you know, smart and healthy.
38:16
What's not to like? And she's pumping ASTS space
38:19
mobile. It's like the the perfect lady.
38:23
And so we are spreading goodwill everywhere and as a result,
38:30
we're getting what we want. And so there are a bunch of FCC
38:34
filings and it just shows that all the right people are in the
38:37
room. You have Asts as partners, not
38:40
the CEO level. You don't want that.
38:42
You don't want John Stanky having to show up to an FCC
38:44
meeting right now. You want some AT&T lawyers that
38:46
are finalizing some documents. And so these are happening.
38:52
We could really expect AUS market grant I think any day in
38:57
the context of the Glacier that can be FCC approvals any day
39:00
could mean February or March. But that will be a Seminole
39:06
achievement of the company that you know AMPAM man's talked
39:08
about a lot and I think I've talked a lot about, but it will
39:12
happen. And then the other thing that's
39:14
very important is Legato or as we now call it El Legato, the
39:19
land of gold. And so the Legato FCC filing has
39:23
been accepted for public notice. And so this is moving ahead.
39:28
We have Inmarsat from time to time being quite annoying, but
39:32
the legal system is showing its integrity and keeping this case
39:38
on track and making all the parties perform.
39:42
This is a important future source of value for the company.
39:47
So we really want to make sure this goes smoothly around the
39:52
world. We're also seeing the evolution
39:54
of regulations and so Ofcom, which is in the UK, has
39:59
officially cleared the regulatory path for direct to
40:02
device satellites. This is, you know, another
40:06
domino falling our way and that's what's going to happen
40:10
around the world. Everyone's going to follow the
40:12
FCC and their lead. But then what's really neat too
40:17
as ASTS gets more and more? Really.
40:23
Like it's sea lags in a way, you know, as they are obviously
40:27
having a lot of success with their production.
40:30
One might say, well, why haven't they shipped batch 1 and batch
40:33
2? And we think that's just some
40:35
congestion at the launch sites because of Artemis and then the
40:38
crew Dragon, which which makes sense to me, but they're
40:41
starting to really now make some smart moves.
40:44
And so Jennifer Manor, who's really our queen of spectrum at
40:48
ASTS has, has really been a godsend from what I can tell for
40:52
the strategic posturing around spectrum.
40:55
So while a lot of us might simply think the value of this
40:58
company is in the satellites, I again think that the satellites
41:02
are really just the mode of spectrum aggregation for the
41:07
company. The actual scarce asset we have
41:10
is spectrum leases and spectrum we share with our partners again
41:16
through leases. That's the ultimate value, and
41:21
then it's a question of how you monetize it.
41:23
That's the actual satellite. One without the other creates a
41:28
different viewpoint. Spectrum without a way to
41:31
monetize it leaves you with Dish.
41:33
It was valuable, but it was only valuable because Starlink could
41:38
monetize it. Charlie could not.
41:40
It's actual value when monetizes probably many, many multiples of
41:44
what Starlink paid for if they can monetize it effectively.
41:47
If you have satellites, but no one will share their spectrum
41:50
with you, then you have orbital debris, nothing more.
41:56
And so ASCs is now seemingly really going on the offensive.
42:00
They know they've got the biggest, baddest offensive
42:03
lineman in the sky with our satellites.
42:06
So now it's how can, how can they we get as much spectrum as
42:11
humanly possible. So this filing hit by ASASTS to
42:17
get a 5 megahertz sliver in the two gigahertz spectrum in the
42:20
US. So this is the spectrum they're
42:22
also going after in Europe. But what Katzie picked up on is
42:26
just something that is funny. At every level.
42:30
It's really a sliver of spectrum sitting right in between
42:35
Echostars spectrum, which really is cutting through Spacex's
42:42
spectrum. And so while they're going to
42:44
want to have one big continuous Hwy. if they have someone in the
42:50
middle, it sort of degrades what they can do with their overall
42:55
spectrum. Now, I don't know why Echostar
42:59
isn't applying for this. This is something maybe I should
43:01
look into a little bit more, but ACS is applying for it.
43:05
And if anything else, they're going to provide a fight on
43:08
something that maybe SpaceX ultimately gets.
43:10
But it is a bargaining chip, and so if they get it, then maybe
43:15
they trade it away for areas where SpaceX has the upper hand
43:20
on its international spectrum. TBD.
43:23
But you can see this battle is heating up.
43:25
ASTS is not laying over in any respect.
43:28
They are striking for the jugular like a winner.
43:32
And that's how you want to see this company punch as a winner.
43:35
Because if I'm right and this becomes quite literally
43:38
something that's right up there with the Mag 7, which I think is
43:41
possible, you want a company that's acting like Mark
43:44
Zuckerberg, like a total killer. And that's what I think we're
43:47
seeing. You are seeing.
43:53
Aside from spectrum warfare. Actual warfare.
43:56
And so the government is really focused.
43:59
The article we have is a space news article and it's golden
44:02
Dome is forcing the Pentagon to to confront missile defense
44:04
economics. It's tough, it's expensive to
44:06
do. This goes to the whole thing of
44:08
can Japan put up its own sovereign constellation?
44:11
Can Europe? I don't know.
44:13
I don't think that makes a whole lot of sense.
44:15
These are natural economies of scale assets, they're natural
44:19
monopolies. So you got to then figure out
44:22
how to get people the capacity they need with the assurances
44:26
around the sovereignty of that capacity.
44:29
But in the same way the government has and is quickly
44:33
learning how to leverage these commercial systems, just like we
44:36
talked about last week where the mill net system magically
44:39
disappeared. That was supposed to be a
44:41
dedicated system and just poof gone.
44:43
And it seems like it ties perfectly to that business being
44:47
shared with commercial systems like AST space Mobile.
44:50
That's what we're going to be seeing across the board is these
44:52
multi use systems. And it really is about I think
44:57
the government leveraging the companies that can put the most
45:00
weight into orbit. And that's where our vertically
45:04
integrated production capacity becomes so important.
45:07
Our ability to put 6 satellites out the door, maybe 12,
45:11
according to Scott, per month is, I wouldn't say unprecedented
45:16
because SpaceX has also created sort of a scaled satellite
45:21
production factory. But ASTS is going to be a very
45:24
strategic asset in terms of its ability to mass produce
45:27
incredible amount of power generation and RF signal
45:31
generation in orbit. And that's what's going to drive
45:34
down the cost for use cases for the government, which is going
45:37
to be all important. And this message is definitely
45:40
being heard by those generals. ASTS is sponsoring a black tie
45:44
dinner for senior Army leadership, including, very
45:47
importantly, the Golden Dome director Mike Gutling.
45:51
So. They're in the room.
45:53
It's exactly where you want them to be and.
45:57
All their partners are. Also right where they want to
46:00
be. So AT&T got domed as well.
46:03
AT&T is quote, pleased to announce it was awarded a
46:06
contract for Missile defense agency shield program.
46:10
Well, now who are they doing that with?
46:12
I would take note that the LinkedIn profile, which was
46:15
sloppily done on AI shows a generic satellite.
46:17
They should have fine-tuned it to have an ASTS bird, which
46:20
would have then made us all go crazy and like their post a lot
46:22
more. But you have this guy, Kyle
46:24
Mullen, who's AT&T business development lead for the US
46:27
Space Force, announcing that they they were also awarded
46:32
something for the Shield program.
46:34
It'll be interesting to see how these different prime versus
46:38
subcontractor roles pan out in terms of who does what, what the
46:42
economics are. It's all sort of like a big bowl
46:45
of spaghetti to me at this point.
46:48
And we'll see how it progresses presumably over the next year.
46:54
And the focus, though, on these big opportunities is becoming
46:58
more clear. So Blue Origin nukes its new
47:03
Shepherd program to accelerate and really focus on New Glen,
47:08
which it which it should, and we're a key part in that.
47:11
But it's great to see Blue Origin really scaling up for the
47:14
big boy stuff as opposed to shooting Katy Perry into space,
47:20
which one could argue is not important in the strategic
47:24
national interest of this country.
47:25
And so all things come to an end, but New Glen is coming to a
47:30
opposite event. It's coming to a big bright
47:32
beginning. And why it's the Tam.
47:37
We talk about Tam all the time, but the Tam is big.
47:41
And we have Deutsche Bank out this week, highlighted by SPAC
47:45
Bobby. Deutsche Bank and other analysts
47:47
are now starting to realize the Tam for AST, AST Space Mobile is
47:50
much larger than they ever imagined.
47:53
And the Deutsche Bank even says, quote, it might actually make
47:56
sense for Asts to pivot away from the primary broadband
47:59
opportunity or price it higher if there's very strong demand,
48:06
just because they might have too.
48:09
Many other things. To do so, markets are waking up.
48:14
The shorts are not. The shorts still think that this
48:15
is the Yosemite hiking application, but that they're
48:19
going to get run over on that very quickly.
48:22
And last week we think frankly thought that we were going to
48:25
have a big announcement because more news around Starlink and
48:29
Apple was rehashed out of nowhere from Mario Nawal.
48:33
And so, you know, it started to really feel like something was
48:36
happening. And, and certainly on Friday
48:38
when I saw the stock kind of RIP in the 1st 30 minutes, it, it,
48:42
it honestly started to look like Volkswagen to me.
48:44
The way it was trading. It was just bid without offer.
48:47
They just felt like someone knew something and then I guess
48:51
everyone forgot it all at the exact same time.
48:53
The stock price crashed. But whatever.
48:56
They probably just slipped over and read the William Blair
48:59
report that low balled everything.
49:03
And so they are forecasting $685 million of revenue in 20-30.
49:08
So whatever, room to upgrade. But maybe that's the thing that
49:14
made people spill their coffee when they look at that.
49:18
They should have flipped the page back to Deutsche Bank.
49:21
And so Deutsche Bank is expecting a quote realistic Tam
49:27
of 1.75 billion users globally for ASD space mobile.
49:31
That's why again, I think this could be a MAG 7 type company.
49:35
It's just enormous reach and scalability.
49:38
Only really that's been seen by some of the household names we
49:43
all talk about. And some of the household names
49:47
we never talked about are some of these recently declassified
49:51
satellite programs, which I think are are really fascinating
49:54
just from a historical perspective, just to understand,
49:57
but to then just understand the types of technology innovations
50:01
that were occurring 40 years ago and where we are today and just
50:05
how important these things were for the government.
50:07
The last link I had is this article on the NRO jump seat spy
50:16
satellite. And it's, it's cool.
50:19
And you know, these things I don't think ever really got the
50:21
heroes praise that they deserve. Many of these satellites are
50:25
pretty directly responsible for ending in the Cold War.
50:28
If you ever really study and read, read some of the books.
50:31
I've read a book on the satellite program called
50:32
Keyhole, not to be confused with like Treadstone, but they're
50:39
fascinating things that really went a long way toward messing
50:42
with the Russians. They show the type of tech that
50:45
was available and how it was leveraged.
50:46
And then you just ask yourself, what type of tech do the
50:49
governments have now? And I think we've started to see
50:51
some really early pictures of that with some of the
50:54
enhancements in electronic warfare that we've seen in some
50:57
of the most recent skirmishes or whatever you want to call them.
51:02
And it just shows again, why the Department of War is tweeting
51:04
space superiority, these things. You know, it's really kind of
51:09
the other silent service are crucial to the national security
51:13
and it's a rapidly evolving landscape for which we believe
51:17
that ASTS is dead smack in the middle to compete very
51:20
effectively with and against the largest US primes.
51:25
So a lot of things really adding up here when you look at the
51:29
talent flow, the really everything, it's all really
51:34
pointing in One Direction, which is why it's important again, to
51:37
make sure you understand what your own investment thesis is
51:42
and what your own game plan is. And so Ampan man always says,
51:47
you know how a game plan, I don't have one.
51:49
My game plan was just simply buy as much stock as I could and
51:52
then hold on for dear life and manage my own mental decay from
51:59
all this volatility. I don't know what Ampan's man
52:01
plan is, but I feel like I'm just going to kind of wing it,
52:03
but make sure you have your own plan.
52:04
And so if the stock, you know, has a rough week, just looking
52:07
at where the market is, looks like things have kind of rallied
52:10
a little bit since I started, but Nasdaq's down 1.25%.
52:15
So high beta stocks are, you know, going to get smacked
52:19
around. But just remember it, take stock
52:21
of what your thesis is and, and look at some charts of things
52:24
that you, you may have already invested in previously or you
52:28
missed in regret and look at those charts over time.
52:31
I'm going to zoom out. It's some of the volatility that
52:34
people had to endure for greatness.
52:36
And then look at how trivialized a lot of these little mini
52:39
storms were, how easily forgotten they are.
52:42
Even big things like the shutdown of the world during
52:46
COVID, great financial crisis. Like show me a chart where you
52:49
can spot where we used to care about Greek collective action
52:53
bonds. Show me that on a chart.
52:55
True secular winner, you're not going to find it.
52:58
Show me when China devalued the yuan on a chart when everyone
53:04
was panicking back then, but show me how that is relevant now
53:07
to anything that was ultimately A secular winner.
53:10
So that's why it's so important to me to really understand what
53:12
you own, know what you own. Get on my tagline.
53:18
And you know, we put out the weekly, every week, all the
53:21
people that contribute to really share the DD, put it in in a
53:24
common spot and then talk for an hour about it to synthesize it
53:28
so that when there's drawdowns, you're making the a non
53:32
emotional, an unemotional choice versus just getting run over by
53:37
the market. That's kind of the goal to help
53:38
people make the right decisions for themselves.
53:42
Hopefully the right decision is to own the stock, but I
53:45
obviously can't guarantee that it's the decision I've made.
53:49
But I'm braced for volatility. So it's at this point it's
53:52
nothing really new and if you're newer to the stock, make sure
53:56
you all are. Also brace for volatility.
53:58
The implied Vol in the stock was 100 and it the reason why it is
54:01
there is because that's actually where it realizes the Vol, which
54:04
means buckle up butter buttercup.
54:06
So I'm going to end here. Thanks for joining and I'm
54:10
looking forward to another good week of some cool due diligence
54:14
and discoveries. Have a great night.
54:28
Numbers all too good to be true. Will it work?
54:39
We don't have a clue, Lily. Always.
54:45
We will be there soon, swinging for the stars of the Earth.
55:31
And see some girls. We hold the line through the
55:35
fear and bliss come with the marble space.
55:52
We love the race. Tears of joy from our first
55:56
call. Reaching light, connecting all
56:08
hills and seas where no towers stand, Connecting voices in
56:14
forgotten lands each day. Feels like a.
56:18
Bluebird's kiss. A journey to Leo.
56:24
With this. We love the rest.
56:31
We love the rich. Bluebird souls connect the
56:35
world. Moscow's rise and see some
56:39
birds. We all glide through the fear
56:43
and bliss 'cause we're the marble space.
56:52
We we love the rich. Right spectrum chase the beam
57:07
never foolish in Earth. Hold, hold, hold that time we
57:19
have Mariners we we, we have Mariners blue but so connect the
57:31
world. Fox shoes rise and sea jumpers
57:36
we hold the line through the fear and bliss 'cause we the
57:43
marble space, we we love the rich.
58:20
We love the risk, we love the risk 321 we.
58:27
Love the risk. Thanks for listening to the.
58:36
AST Space Mobile Podcast If you enjoyed this episode and you'd
58:40
like to help support the podcast, please share it with
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others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and
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review. To catch all the latest news
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about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe.
58:52
Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
58:58
Or doing something very, very big.
59:00
And I think with this technology we can really affect billion
59:03
lives. AFT Space Global is the only
59:05
company that has proven technology to deliver several of
59:10
mobile connectivity directly from the space.
59:12
To do everyday smartphone, people will just basically turn
59:16
their phone. And be seamless but.
59:18
Regardless of where you are, we don't want the news agent to
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know that it's connected by satellite.
59:23
Our. Role is to.
59:25
Bring this into reality, always in partnership with the MMO.
59:35
Listen, Waffles.