Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Kook's Weely - March 9 - Constellation Constipation Relief: AST SpaceMobile’s Billion Dollar Guidance

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Kook's Weely - March 9 - Constellation Constipation Relief: AST SpaceMobile’s Billion Dollar Guidance · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:10
Where we just basically turn the phone and be seamless,
0:14
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
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know that it's connected by satellite.
0:21
Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:27
Good evening, everyone. I guess everyone's learning a
0:30
little bit about how stupid it was to not buy calls on oil
0:36
right now. I mean, my God, like talk about
0:39
the definition of asymmetry with the benefit of hindsight.
0:43
I guess what's interesting as, as someone who knows the oil
0:47
market very well, as well as shipping markets historically,
0:51
and actually now that I even say this, it's even more obvious
0:54
Historically what you want, what you want to do is basically
0:57
short oil and and short the tankers whenever the US military
1:01
gets involved. But usually it's because there's
1:03
a, a fight between people that are not the US.
1:06
So I guess like the real, the real issue here is in the past,
1:12
it was Iraq sort of screwing with Kuwait and then the US
1:15
shows up, boom, short oil. And you know, usually because
1:17
that means the conflict will be quick.
1:20
And so that's the sort of analog I was going off of, not kind of
1:24
realizing the the difference in that analog is the US started
1:28
this and I guess the market was pretty calm for a while thinking
1:31
it wouldn't really spiral out of control.
1:34
But now people are having to shut in oil and things like
1:36
that. I still personally believe that
1:39
anyone buying oil here that isn't doing so from a strategic
1:44
point of view of like my country needs oil or or I have a problem
1:50
is going to deeply, deeply regret it.
1:54
Feels a lot to me like people chasing silver and you know, the
2:00
oil market. It ends up a little bit being
2:02
self correcting just because with with its price going up, it
2:07
acts a lot like its own constraint on demand.
2:13
But I'm just looking at this chart and it's like, oh God, so
2:15
stupid. Like this was like easy.
2:17
You could have made a bazillion dollars anyway.
2:19
So for this reason, ASTS is going down right now, although
2:24
shockingly, it's only down 3% overnight.
2:28
But the the markets are just getting vaporized.
2:31
And I wouldn't be surprised if I wake up and tomorrow morning
2:34
they're up just because this might just be Asians freaking
2:38
out. But in any respect, the timing
2:41
of all this is right in line with the Ides of March, which is
2:45
something that as someone who is super superstitious, so again,
2:48
more superstitious than the average person and also a big
2:52
believer in the echoes of the Roman Empire, which is, you
2:55
know, something I think a lot of dudes in their Middle Ages start
2:59
to believe the Ides of March tends to be a little kind of a
3:03
recurring spooky thing. And so right now this is the the
3:06
week before the Ides of March. And then sure enough, markets
3:09
are super spooky, but you otherwise have some amazing
3:12
seasonals for the market. And So what I have been doing
3:15
just for those playing at home is I have been building up my my
3:19
ASTS trading position. I call it torques.
3:23
And so I've been building up my torques.
3:26
And it felt pretty good on Thursday, for example, when this
3:32
thing was really ripping because I had anticipated quite a lot of
3:37
good news. And so I felt like we were at a
3:41
damn breaking moment for the fundamentals of this company.
3:45
And then I believe that we are going to get a launch rally that
3:48
might be surprising to the upside, and we'll get into that
3:51
in a second. But this week, what I marked
3:54
what I believe to be the absolute best earnings call the
3:57
company has ever had, followed shortly thereafter by really its
4:01
debutant ball at Mobile World Congress where it was just
4:05
painting the tape with announcements.
4:08
And I think that this is just the beginning of of what will
4:12
happen. And so very excited about about
4:18
what we saw. I feel really good.
4:19
My position, so really I always just take this back to a first
4:22
principles position is imagining myself was not actually an
4:26
imagination. I am an owner of the company and
4:30
so evaluating my business based on the report that the
4:35
management team gave me and then assessing how I feel about the
4:39
business given that I do have the ability to exit if I so
4:43
choose. But zooming out before we get to
4:46
the company's assessment, it's always really great to to just
4:51
get a big picture. And I've, you know, sort of
4:55
become more humble to the simple big pictures as I've gotten more
4:59
experience. I used to be sort of like in the
5:01
minutiae and couldn't necessarily separate the forest
5:05
for the trees. But the big money in my view is
5:09
made by zooming out and catching the Super stocks and catching
5:12
the big movements. And so we have CEO of AT&T, John
5:17
Stanky at Mobile World Congress. You call DDD satellite quote one
5:22
of the great moments of innovation saying the race is
5:27
now on to run seamless hybrid networks customers don't have to
5:31
think about. I again think that we are on to
5:37
such a big idea that the true magnitude of what it means
5:41
economically escapes even the most bullish of us.
5:46
We have so long ago departed from talking about dead spots to
5:52
thinking about the future of the broader telecom network itself.
5:58
And we see this message heated over and over and over.
6:01
AT&T for one, Nokia for another. We're seeing something evolve,
6:07
which I'm sure people like Katzie and Tanner and Kevin
6:10
maybe have a better grasp of than I do.
6:13
And guys like No Privacy who have been totally on top of
6:16
things like Cohere and some of these next generation
6:19
wavelengths. I've been sort of playing from
6:23
the peanut gallery, trying to keep up, and I generally
6:25
understand Dan, what's going on, but I don't know that I've ever
6:29
needed to believe some of these things.
6:32
But there's just a mounting evidence that there's something
6:36
bigger afoot. And I'm very excited about it.
6:43
And we're getting it confirmed not by the outside only, but
6:47
also from the inside. And so ASTS earnings report to
6:51
me really marked A Babe Ruth moment of a company calling it
6:57
shot. And So what did they do?
7:00
They generate a revenue for one. And people will say, well, yeah,
7:04
it's a lot of base stations and things like that, you know,
7:06
sure, fine. But revenues, revenue, they hit
7:10
their guides, you know, toward the top end of the range.
7:14
I would imagine that they would have actually beat that had FM
7:17
One FM 2 been more timely. They have that same billion
7:22
dollars of minimum commuted revenue which appears to just be
7:24
the start. And what's exciting to me is
7:29
this building production capacity.
7:31
And so you can just see that the number of satellites in assembly
7:37
keeps going up at a pace suggestive that we at or near
7:41
this six birds per month production rate.
7:45
And we learned something very interesting as well.
7:47
The week in the Barclays fireside, which I had actually
7:49
meant to incorporate into the weekly but forgot is we like all
7:55
things there's there's always a reason why there's a delay for
8:00
better words and you can accept a reason or not, you know, the
8:04
the better man and me would say who cares about the reason.
8:07
A delay is a delay means slippage.
8:09
Usually with a company like ASTS where there's a delay, just get
8:13
the hell out, blah, blah blah. So that was true with BW3 way
8:17
back when, because usually when there's a delay so early in the
8:21
formation of a company, it it you'd mean something else is
8:24
afoot. Either the tech didn't work or
8:27
they'll run out of money. You have companies like EOS,
8:30
which I don't know too much about, but like that the other
8:32
day, sort of like a big delay type of earnings release thing,
8:37
which maybe it means the company has a problem, maybe it doesn't.
8:43
Don't know. I haven't worked into it.
8:44
But but with ASTS, sometimes a delay is just simply a new
8:49
challenge they're solving that they're about to pull through.
8:51
And then there will be a final challenge, a final boss, if you
8:55
will, of of the delay monster. And what we learned is actually
8:59
quite sensible in hindsight. It's that the certification of
9:06
the stacking mechanism was in fact the thing that held up on.
9:09
And so if you're the first company ever to launch a
9:14
satellite like this, the biggest satellites ever, and now you're
9:18
not only just launching the biggest commercial array ever
9:21
launched, but six of them, maybe 8 at a time.
9:25
The engineering that goes into just the stacking of the
9:29
satellites in the ferry in itself is something which I had
9:33
never thought about, but evidently it a very difficult
9:37
thing to do given the weights and stresses involved and the
9:39
fact that the fairing had to go from horizontal to vertical.
9:42
One can only imagine that there's quite a few things all
9:44
of this certifying this. And that appears to have been
9:47
the thing that was taking a little bit longer, which is
9:50
actually an interesting kind of great news story because this it
9:53
really means there's just one final little straw left in the
9:56
great X LAX moment of constellation Constipation
10:03
relief. And so now that they said and
10:07
they have gotten this certified, we might finally be at a point
10:11
where the dam is going to break and we can really start shipping
10:14
at pace. So what else did we learn?
10:18
So they are scaling for the commercial satellite operations.
10:22
They're very exciting. They're the only company capable
10:25
of four to six G where you're going to hear 6G mentioned a lot
10:28
at Mobile World Congress. They announced a whole slew of
10:31
MNO deals. We'll get to that later.
10:34
The Big Bang moment for me, never mind Golden Dome, things
10:39
like that, you know, I'm boring, just saving the free world as we
10:43
see the missile, the, you know, missile systems of Iran, You
10:48
know, if that doesn't get you excited, the slam down of
10:51
saying, well, 2027, we're going to give you guidance of $1
10:56
billion of revenue that got the market's attention.
11:01
That's finally keep drawing a line in the sand and I think the
11:07
market correctly understood that this is a company that does not
11:10
give guidance lightly. I think that is clear.
11:15
People at this point know this management team that you know,
11:19
the the bears will say this. What I'm about to say is
11:21
ridiculous comment, but the companies are quite conservative
11:24
in their guiding. And so sure, they've literally
11:26
missed every single deadline that they've ever given like
11:30
almost to a sport, but they've guided on things that they know
11:36
they can ultimately hit with the necessary slippage that comes
11:40
with the business. And so for them to put out,
11:43
they're going to hit their first revenue guidance for 2025, then
11:47
they put out revenue guidance of $200 million and for 2026,
11:52
pretty easy bridge for that. And then a billion dollar
11:55
guidance for 2027. I think the market correctly
11:58
interpreted that as the low number that they intend on
12:01
really smoking. And that starts to get people's
12:04
attention because all of a sudden if you have a company
12:06
that's scaling in two years to a billion dollars of revenue,
12:10
there's not very many things like that.
12:12
And it starts to smell a lot like Starlink and Starlink is
12:17
we're a lot. So I think that if the take away
12:21
from anyone on that earnings call is that they threw out the
12:25
B word because with that comes a whole host of other underlying
12:29
assumptions, particularly around the production of satellites.
12:33
We also had some other good news, legato things like the
12:40
regulatory approval and lots of great things.
12:44
And so Tanner went through the 10K and I did too just to see
12:49
what was up. And so this tweet that I have,
12:52
it's called 10K summary. Is Tanner doing the the
12:56
keynotes? Things that stood out to me is
12:58
just the speed at which this company is growing its
13:01
footprint. And so I'm updating my DD all
13:03
the time. You know, all of a sudden I'm,
13:05
I'm changing the square footage we have in Midland by 100%.
13:10
They doubled their capacity when this company had a 200 square
13:14
foot facility in Midland that represented one of the largest
13:18
satellite manufacturing facilities in the world, they
13:21
doubled it. This is going to be one of the
13:28
preeminent global satellite tonnage capacity engines period.
13:37
And as we look about the strategic nature of satellites,
13:41
which we're seeing right now, I mean, people on Twitter are
13:43
going crazy because Iran was able to damage a FAD system and
13:46
another radar system. And these things cost.
13:49
I was surprised. It's like 1, one of these radar
13:52
systems was like $500 million. Never mind how catastrophic it
13:56
is. If you blind the US military,
13:59
the idea and Katzie's out on this, the idea that you're going
14:04
to be able to have really high-powered radar from space
14:08
via ASTS space Mobile, that's a big deal.
14:11
In fact, that would strike me as near the top of US defense
14:16
priorities. And I would imagine the headset
14:17
would agree. And so our ability to create
14:21
this much capacity to generate, build these additional shells
14:26
for government use is, to me something that's going to get
14:30
attention in the Oval Office, just like when Lockheed agrees
14:32
to increase capacity to build more interceptor missiles.
14:35
This is really at the backbone of U.S. military defense
14:39
doctrine. And I think it's all going to be
14:41
related. But the company is scaling like
14:44
crazy. And This is why Kevin Mack sold
14:49
his position because he wants to see a more metal in orbit.
14:53
Well, the metal is on Earth and that metal on Earth will be in
14:57
orbit and there will be a lot of metal in orbit.
15:00
And so then let's check on the little slide I I gave in that
15:03
same tweet thread. This is me just going past the
15:07
old earnings calls. It's just a sort of an inventory
15:10
backlog number. And so it allows you just to see
15:13
cumulative number of satellite ships, which of course isn't
15:16
just two right now that's going to ship, that's going to move up
15:18
very quickly. And then the number of
15:20
satellites in assembly, we don't get a monthly update.
15:23
So I'll just carry over numbers until the last update.
15:26
And I'm assuming the February, you know, is basically the same
15:29
as March. And so you can see now that we
15:31
have 22 satellites in assembly, that's a lot of inventory.
15:36
And so as they keep adding more, pretty soon we're going to start
15:41
to have those pop out the other end of the Model T factory, if
15:43
you will, And those are going to be putting getting up on
15:46
rockets. So it's going to be really
15:48
exciting to see them start to work against that 45 to 60
15:53
satellites by year end. And whether they hit that on the
15:57
button or not doesn't really matter because what's starting
16:00
to become very clear is that ±3 months around that this company
16:05
is going to be in a really great spot.
16:07
Which brings us to the infamous Kevin Mack Launchpad of Worry.
16:11
So everyone knows that stocks have to crawl a wall of worry.
16:15
We have a Launchpad of Worry. And so Kevin, he's, you know, I
16:20
respect him, but but he really is like, sometimes like talking
16:23
to my wife. It's like, yeah, I know it's
16:26
risky, but that's why I like it 'cause I'm a guy and I like
16:31
danger. And so ASTS is, is danger.
16:34
I mean, it's what keeps my blood pumping.
16:37
And so, yeah, the company needs more metal in orbit.
16:40
And literally every single goddamn person on Earth is aware
16:45
of that. And so like to say the obvious
16:49
thing is a little bit nutty because that's literally the
16:54
resolution to the upside that sets up for excess returns.
16:59
And so my belief, and I'll die on this hill, or at least I'll
17:04
impoverish myself on this hill, is that as the company relieves
17:08
itself with its constellation Constipation, which appears to
17:12
have had a final gating factor around certification of the
17:15
stacking scheme. I believe you're going to have a
17:20
blow off to the upside, which is going to coincide perfectly with
17:24
the SpaceX IPO, which is coinciding right now with the
17:26
entire world gate of fireworks display over the Middle East,
17:30
which is almost entirely dependent on incredible radar
17:35
and missile defense systems. And these targeting systems
17:38
where F-30 fives don't even see the target.
17:41
They just get it painted from a satellite, press the button and
17:44
release. It is just so obvious that these
17:47
Leo satellite systems are really the systems of the future.
17:52
And I would imagine that the government demand is going to be
17:55
infinite. That's what we owe.
17:59
And so I kind of find it humorous, like, of course ASTS
18:01
is going to be down right now because the the Russell's
18:04
getting obliterated. So I get it.
18:07
That's why it's also really nice to have a fully cash paid up
18:10
position in the stock so I can just, you know, I'm going to
18:13
sleep in tomorrow, have a coffee, call him pin man, tell
18:19
him he sucks. You know, basically an average
18:21
Monday and you don't want to have stress in your life because
18:24
I still believe that even next week it can just be paid the
18:28
tape cream, whether it's the whole market, Ides of March is
18:31
over. Don't get stuck in the launchpad
18:34
of worry because recognize that that's actually what is the
18:38
consensus. And so the launch cadence is
18:41
about to get real. Everyone is going to want us as
18:44
a customer and local content is the weapon.
18:48
So we've talked about this with the ISRO.
18:51
ISRO launched, as much as people were kind of whining and
18:54
complaining, myself included, about the Indian launch and how
18:58
it was delayed and blah, blah, blah.
19:00
End of the day that was a dope launch with like the ultimate
19:04
phallic symbol rocket. And I got a model of it and it's
19:08
amazing. And so now we learned that as TS
19:11
is has added another heavy launch vehicle.
19:16
So is that the Mitsubishi launch?
19:18
Is that the ula vehicle? Is that the Ariana vehicle?
19:21
We don't know. But what it really does mean is
19:23
that there's yet another rocket I have to buy, which is a very
19:26
exciting news for some people in Kazakhstan who build these
19:29
rockets for me. That's another $800 that they
19:32
will get. But what it is also telling you,
19:36
this is what I find to be so interesting.
19:38
It's, it's just telling you that we have deeper commercial
19:46
relationships in another market. I highly doubt that there is
19:53
going to be a foreign heavy launch vehicle that is not tied
19:58
indirectly or directly to a deepening MNO or sovereign
20:03
relationship with host nation of said rocket.
20:07
And so the very obvious thing to point out is it with Satellite
20:13
Connect Europe, the company formerly known as Sacco as we
20:18
are in the caper seat. With that company and as Europe
20:23
wants us to feel European, using the Ariana launch vehicle is
20:29
going to make us feel very European for Japan, which is of
20:36
course a very proud country, as it should be.
20:39
And I really can't wait to see them play some more in the World
20:43
Baseball Classic. Shohei is pretty, pretty good
20:46
player. Proud nation.
20:49
Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for Japan to have a
20:51
sovereign Leo network. Makes a lot of sense for Japan
20:55
to have very strong defense industry.
20:57
They have some pretty cranky neighbors to their southwest.
21:05
Wouldn't surprise me either. But I think my money's on the
21:10
Ariana rocket. But we shall find out.
21:12
But it's just more rockets and I believe that anyone would
21:17
ambitions to be a relevant launch provider is going to be
21:22
trying to get Asts as a cargo because we're the most exciting
21:25
cargo. And then we also have New Glenn
21:28
3 coming up until the the Internet is arriving at a
21:32
conclusion that this launch is going to happen around the 29th
21:35
or the 30th of this month. So really just in two or three
21:38
weeks. Very exciting for that.
21:41
With all this excitement, we had a flurry of sell side upgrades,
21:45
so I've linked out most of the ones I could find or that I saw
21:49
on the Internet. Everyone is just kind of
21:52
corralling around the same thing, basically saying we see
21:55
the end of the launchpad of Worry and when it resolves
21:59
itself, The thing is going higher and boy, the future is
22:02
bright and we have a lot of business.
22:04
The same overview that was repeated by Scott.
22:07
So again, it's good to listen to the CEO of AT&T, John Stanky.
22:12
It's also pretty good to listen to Scott the seat, the president
22:15
of AST Space Mobile. He literally tells you what will
22:19
happen. All of his compensation is
22:24
effectively earned by stock price appreciation.
22:28
He is there to create value. He's here for the stock to go to
22:32
$1000. While the timing can be off, he
22:36
has been dead on with the ultimate result.
22:42
Listen to him. That's what I do.
22:45
I don't talk to him, but I listen to him.
22:47
And then you have SpaceX, which is the follower.
22:51
So they're out again. They were trying to create noise
22:54
last week when they put all these releases, a lot of us
22:58
concluded that ASS was about to release a lot of news.
23:01
Sure enough, ASTS painted the tape with a bazillion MNO deals.
23:07
And now SpaceX, the same have upgraded satellites by 2027.
23:10
We'll see. Whatever, right?
23:12
And so it just goes to show you that SpaceX is playing from
23:15
behind. This isn't out tech.
23:19
It is helpful to have the best tech.
23:21
And I don't know if SpaceX can recreate it.
23:27
Yes, but even if SpaceX does, that's not enough.
23:31
It do not have the market access with the M and OS.
23:35
And then they could try to disintermediate the M and OS.
23:40
That's a different debate entirely.
23:42
And 1:00 we'll get back to in a second.
23:45
But first, let's just talk about the MOU comparisons.
23:48
And so the SpaceX Bros are in shambles and Cool Killer did a
23:53
nice comparison of just where we stood.
23:55
This was from March 2nd. And so ASTS just has a lot more
24:02
deals. And so sure, the SpaceX deals
24:05
are definitive already great. And ours are MI us, but we are
24:08
showing that we can mine and harvest those MO us.
24:11
We signed up. And I again will maintain that
24:15
our company should never actually have rushed to sign
24:18
these DAS beyond what was absolutely needed.
24:21
The price and the value of our service is going up as we get
24:25
nearer to turning it on. Wait until they can see.
24:30
Wait until we can see the whites of their eyes and then you
24:34
shoot. And that's really what's
24:35
happening. So we got the first of what I
24:40
believe will be many announcements this year.
24:44
And so we got Telus, which was ADA and it said Telus will be an
24:51
A shareholder. I'm not quite sure what that
24:53
means. I don't know if there was a
24:54
direct issuance. I don't know if they're just
24:57
going to buy stock in the market.
24:58
TBD. It was in some filing but I
25:00
didn't see it. But it also just confirms that
25:03
now there's a Canadian monopoly. So just like in the USASTS has
25:08
an over a 60% market share position by way of the M and OS.
25:13
This is the rolling conquest of the world that is AT Space
25:18
Mobile. This is why when I initially
25:20
wrote my DDI titled it the Monopoly because it is a company
25:26
that has 60% plus market share, has monopoly power.
25:31
They won't say it, nor should they, but that's what it is.
25:34
And then we got deals with Ukraine, Taiwan, Axion, Orange,
25:40
orange, it keeps coming. And then there was a whole host
25:44
of vote on deals with and then some others with satellite
25:49
connect Europe with these betas and demonstrations and things
25:52
like that. Just shows really what's
25:54
happening. And oh, by the way, the experts
25:57
were wrong again. And so asymmetric bets points
26:00
out that our friend free speech who I just wish this person
26:07
would experiment with magic mushrooms or something, maybe
26:10
find some happiness their life. Just they should go talk to
26:13
Brian Johnson and share some notes.
26:15
But this person who's truly miserable just is intent on
26:19
being wrong on everything, trying to scare people out of
26:22
their stock position. And this person said that no
26:26
Telus for AST. Well, boom, AST gets a Telus
26:31
deal. So just a reminder that whenever
26:34
you see the experts say something, that generally means
26:37
that the exact opposite will happen.
26:39
And that's what has happened, which is again, to what we
26:43
talked about last week is the growing immunity from FUD to
26:49
this community, which is great. And so people are less less like
26:52
less and less likely to get bullied out of their position
26:55
now, because I think there is growing awareness that a lot of
26:58
these experts are idiots. And so people are less likely to
27:00
sort of panic, but still worth mentioning.
27:07
So we have Katzie out with this orange analysis and I'm trying
27:13
to remember what the real take away here.
27:16
I think it was just simply a issue of, oh, right, Satco,
27:25
which is really defining how you can have this MNL aggregation in
27:28
Europe. He's seen that there's the
27:31
potential for that to be happening in Africa too.
27:33
And so just like in the in the US where you have AT&T and
27:36
Verizon, so there's no kind of JV per SE name for that.
27:41
But that's really kind of like Team USA where two of the three
27:47
main guys teamed up to have this super duper picture position.
27:52
And then satellite connect Europe is was initially just
27:56
going to be Vodafone, but it looks like now it's going to
27:59
stop up all these ever, all these M and OS get a get us a
28:02
sea space mobile to some crazy market share position.
28:05
And now the next question is, are we going to be able to do
28:07
the same in Europe? Pretty exciting.
28:13
And then there was another tweet that I had from SPAC Bobby and
28:18
he's points out that Orange has 150 million customers in Europe
28:25
and 160 million customers in so total customers, $310 million.
28:33
That's unbelievable reach. If you remember the whole genius
28:38
of this economic model is the Super wholesale model.
28:42
So where did satellite companies go bankrupt?
28:45
Obviously they would spend a lot of money on their constellation,
28:49
which is expensive and then you built it but no one could access
28:55
to access it. People had to buy a handset.
28:58
You had to go market and acquire that customer related churn.
29:02
Then you had to store customer very expensive.
29:04
You had just costs on all sides of you.
29:08
The genius of ASTS is not opening up new individual
29:14
accounts, but having channel partners with the M and OS.
29:18
They've already acquired all of us who have cell phones and they
29:21
said their ability to offer one touch to sell ASTS through that
29:27
Channel means it's frictionless. They're the ones that eat the
29:33
customer acquisition cost, the CAC.
29:35
That's why our business should scale so efficiently, which is
29:39
the critical observation. Least I had when thinking as to
29:44
why this investment was was attractive.
29:48
So we had some guys out saying that the ASTS pros were
29:52
panicking. I say I thought it was a joke.
29:54
And I was like, just what? And this guy said the ASTS Bros
29:59
are in full panic mode. Just look at the replies.
30:04
Because specs announced that they had some.
30:08
So they have a total of 580 million Subs.
30:13
Great. SpaceX as the absolute dominant
30:17
space cup space company in the world having 20% of the Subs
30:24
tied up or with a look at versus ASTS space mobile should shock
30:32
standard buys to be the core. It's telling you that ASTS is
30:37
outmaneuvering SpaceX and it's random.
30:42
So AMPAN man, found this amazing interview from the Deutsche
30:46
Telecom CEO and Deutsche says we will absolutely work with or
30:52
direct to sell service providers in Europe if they can compete
30:54
with Starlink. I wonder who that could be?
30:57
And then the guy says I'm not naive, I know that this meaning
31:01
partnering with SpaceX is dancing with the tiger and so
31:06
they know it's a dangerous game. He also goes on to say that they
31:09
will not enable SpaceX as a mobile MNO and MVMNO because
31:14
they're not idiots, but they already were dumb enough to
31:18
partner with them in any respect and I think they probably deeply
31:20
regret that. And that's why at the soonest
31:22
opportunity I believe that they're going to partner with
31:24
ASTS Space FOBO and mega constellations on the same
31:31
notes. A really good telecom analyst.
31:33
Everyone should follow this person.
31:37
They say that the physical constraints of DDD do not
31:39
eliminate strategic risk. There's a credible long term
31:41
scenario in which Starlink uses DDD as a bridge head into mass
31:45
market consumer service and position themselves as an MVNO.
31:49
In such a scenario, the primary risk to M and OS is not
31:52
technological displacement, but commercial disintermination,
31:55
disintermination and loss of customer ownership.
31:58
That is spot on. That is why all of the M and OS
32:02
of the world would be absolutely of their mind to use Starlink.
32:07
You don't want Starlink knowing who your customers are.
32:11
Elon will go market to them. You know that he will try to
32:15
vertically integrate and cut you out.
32:17
That's why never mind the tech. That is why the M and OS are all
32:21
racing to 80 space mobile. But if that's not enough, you
32:26
can then see this, the deal SpaceX is getting, they're
32:29
getting 80% Rep share versus our 5050.
32:32
So they're basically just arrogantly saying, well, if you
32:36
want to work with us, we're basically getting all the
32:38
economics anyway. And then we've ordered from
32:43
believe it was the CFO of Telstra in Australia.
32:46
They came out and explained just how brutal the OpEx was too and
32:51
the other costs associated with working with SpaceX because it's
32:54
a totally redundant separate system, not seamless.
32:57
And so it was probably an incredible amount of OpEx as
33:00
well. So round all these
33:03
considerations, it looks like for an MNL dealing with
33:07
basically just a bomb economic proposition, and stupid at that,
33:11
because you're potentially empowering someone who's going
33:14
to go steal your customer. STS is not going to steal your
33:18
customer. And then the Europeans were out
33:21
at Mobile World Congress, saying Space faces a wary European
33:26
audience at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,
33:29
reflecting uncertainty, uncertainty about Musk in the
33:32
US. People do not trust him.
33:37
And that's where ASTS has been apolitical, setting up sovereign
33:42
enemies and showing himself to be a trusted partner.
33:47
As a partner, we're seeing our partners hire rapidly to support
33:53
our growth. And so the Spectator found a
33:59
cool thing just showing that Nokia it was on another hiring
34:03
blitz for positions specifically to work with AST space mobile
34:06
and they're adding seven positions, you know, related to
34:10
going out network infrastructure needed for the commercial
34:12
launch. It's just another tell tale that
34:15
this is all happening and it's happening this year.
34:18
It's the type of due diligence team you would, you would hope
34:22
to see where the the contrary state of the world would be,
34:27
where AST arm waving, but you had no other confirming signals
34:32
of growth. You know, you had nothing
34:33
happening with the partners, you had the M and OS crickets.
34:36
Then you'd go, well, hold on, doesn't head up here.
34:38
You have a company that's ASTS itself is firing all cylinders,
34:42
hiring a ton of people, showing you their backlog of satellite
34:45
inventory, telling you exactly what the gating factor has been
34:48
towards shipment. Meanwhile, it's signing up M and
34:51
OS like crazy. It's M and OS have all confirmed
34:53
that they have hundreds of engineers working on this
34:54
project. Then the other technical
34:57
partners like Nokia are hiring like crazy to support the
35:00
company. You have confirmation on every
35:03
single side of what's happening here and that's what you want.
35:09
Another critical path item we have is the regulatory part.
35:15
So there was a, a filing done last month that ASTS frankly
35:20
just got wrong. They used the wrong spectrum
35:23
band for the TTTTNC TCNC, sorry. And so they used the 40 to 42
35:37
gigahertz limit, whatever. And they should have been using
35:39
the 37.5 to 40 gigahertz limit. There's just a drafting error.
35:42
They fixed it SpaceX and caught it.
35:44
Glad they're proofreading something.
35:47
And now that's been corrected in the docket, it shows that they
35:52
did the right math and it shows that ASTS was already performing
35:57
well enough to meet the stricter criteria, which is great.
36:00
So no, no red flags here. And it was really just a
36:04
drafting error, careless error, if you will, and that's been
36:08
fixed. So that could be one of the last
36:10
things we're waiting for to get the SES approval, which I do
36:14
think would be a meaningful event.
36:16
That's really sort of like the checkered flag for the ASTA
36:21
ST5000. We'll call that our our race.
36:24
That's also the name of the ASIC.
36:26
And then we also have more talk about the future of networks
36:31
themselves. So kind of how we started this
36:33
chat around the big idea, just like we have AT&T talking about
36:39
it. Nokia says that C will bring
36:42
satellite connectivity to every single device.
36:44
It will use three GPP based positioning from satellites to
36:47
remove reliance on GPS and provide a more powerful signal.
36:52
There will be seamless mobility allowed by fluent terrestrial
36:55
network to non terrestrial network transitioning.
36:58
So in other words 6G is going to have the non terrestrial
37:02
networks which is AST is integrated.
37:07
We are the solution to a reliance on GPS.
37:10
How this translates commercially, I do not know, but
37:14
it is very exciting to know that we are literally the backbone of
37:17
the feature of the mobile network.
37:20
It's not about dead spots. Let's talk a little bit about
37:25
some of the Tam. I call it the Tam Monster.
37:27
And so we have some stuff about Sirius, Sirius Satellite Radio.
37:33
I've traded the stock way in the past.
37:36
It's been kind of a dud lately. I don't know, I don't really
37:38
focus on it, but it popped up on my screen again.
37:42
And so the FCC is doing some things that might allow Sirius
37:45
to monetize some of its spectrum.
37:47
That maybe is a thesis around applicable to Siri itself.
37:52
Maybe Siri is the next Echostar. Haven't fully explored it, but
37:58
certainly caught my imagination when reading it.
38:02
But it made me think about something else.
38:04
I've seen Sirius in the docket for long enough to know that
38:08
Sirius and Asts are talking to each other.
38:12
It makes all the sense in the world to me that Sirius should
38:16
get out of the satellite game and should focus on what their
38:19
core competency is, which is acquiring customer and acquiring
38:22
content. What happens on the back end
38:24
strikes me is absolutely uninteresting for them and
38:28
something that they should be able to move over to someone
38:31
like Asts and then they could also focus on monetizing or
38:35
leasing or utilizing their spectrum.
38:37
I suspect that there's something there and we'll see.
38:41
There's also the SDA opportunities piling up.
38:46
And so Satellite Development Authority just keeps it coming.
38:49
And we've got a tough four with some of these long, very emoji
38:55
heavy tweets. And I think these brands, at the
38:59
end of the day, there's going to be so many of them, they're
39:02
going to come blur together. And we as investors are probably
39:05
going to lose track. Maybe there's some of these big
39:07
marquee ones that will get, you know, like Golden Dome, for
39:10
example. But my suspicion is there's
39:12
going to be a lot of these. It's sort of are too nuanced for
39:15
us to really appreciate the difference.
39:18
But then the aggregate dollar amount will keep going up.
39:22
And then the the other thing that I'm just a very strong
39:25
believer in that Cassie was out talking about this week again
39:29
was the case for Space, Space Radar.
39:32
And this he goes into this mouth that I mentioned earlier of when
39:37
just looking at how expensive these THAD radar systems are for
39:41
$400 million. Wow, how economic the Leo
39:47
solutions are, especially considering how resilient a Leo
39:51
solution is versus a big ground radar that you can pop with a
39:55
missile. And so I think that this is
39:59
going to be an enormous revenue opportunity with operationalized
40:03
and we know that the company is doing that.
40:07
So this no longer three years ago people would have laughed at
40:09
us about this, but now we we have the company talking about
40:13
it and we're seeing in the battlefield just how relevant
40:18
this is. And so it is.
40:22
You're no surprise that FM 1 and FM 2 are particularly
40:26
interesting satellites because they're.
40:28
From what we can tell, demonstrating all of us, and now
40:31
it seems like a lifetime ago where we were excited about
40:34
orbital data centers and Nvidia's hiring an orbital data
40:40
center systems architect. So apparently we're not alone.
40:46
And that just goes to show you again why scale platform of
40:54
orbital power could be a big idea.
40:59
Very few companies have the ability to produce the tonnage
41:04
ASTS can produce. And what comes out the factory
41:07
gate at ASTS puts more power in orbit than anything.
41:12
In a world that all of a sudden looking for the future of
41:18
networks for 6G, for militaries that are look future of radar
41:22
systems and tactical communications, all of a sudden
41:28
the look back could go, holy crap, no one else had seen this
41:31
opportunity. And there was really one or two
41:34
companies that built for scale to capture most of it.
41:37
I think that's what we're we're going to be looking at.
41:41
And you don't have to look to the heavens to see opportunity
41:43
back on earth. The copper Tam is still Tam for
41:46
us. And so this relates to as yet
41:52
service levels from satellites that are sufficiently high.
41:55
The FCC will let the MN OS decommission the coppersoms
42:00
which cost them a fortune related to mandatory service
42:04
requirements. And so the AT and TS of the
42:07
world are desperate to deprecate these old systems, pull out the
42:13
copper, save all the OpEx and you can replace that with some
42:19
kit that allows those people to be serviced with AST space
42:22
Mobile. And that's a very exciting
42:25
opportunity. And it's the same thing.
42:27
We used to call this the Scotiabank thesis, but
42:30
Scotiabank is now Haram because that guy is a traitor.
42:33
But the thesis formerly known as the Scotiabank thesis was that
42:39
the CapEx savings for MN OS decommission marginal
42:43
terrestrial systems would create an enormous opportunity for ASD
42:47
space mobile. The copper replacement thesis is
42:52
really the same idea. You're not displacing the
42:56
terrestrial towers, you're actually which is a mobile
43:00
service. You're actually just seeing the
43:03
fixed systems and replacing it with wireless, but served
43:09
through space. And this is again an expansion
43:12
of the Tam. We also like the universe ending
43:18
with a whimper that finally right to convey affirmative
43:25
support for quote the above reference to application.
43:29
So for those who were not monitoring the docket, Inmersat
43:34
are a bunch of sleazy shitheads and they tried to do some sneaky
43:38
stuff in the bankruptcy docket and literally got lit on fire by
43:42
the judge for some outrageous conduct.
43:47
And their counsel quit. Emanuel put on a complete clown
43:52
show, which is really unbecoming considering that's the best
43:56
location from in the US. But they were making this big
43:58
hoopla about requirements to quote UN quote, coordinate, kind
44:03
of fill in the blank. And it was very clear that the
44:05
coordination obligation is around spectrum, not literally
44:08
ASTS letting in Marsat opine on the physical satellite
44:13
themselves. And it looked like they were
44:15
just trying. I don't know what they're trying
44:17
to do, but it was absolutely obnoxious.
44:18
And the judge felt the same way and let Court felt the same way.
44:23
And Marsac got just like Batman, slapped back into reality and
44:28
forced to uphold the bargain that they made as part of the
44:32
Legato settlement. And so hopefully these guys
44:34
learned a very valuable lesson about gentlemanly conduct.
44:40
But in any respect, the Legato case moves forward, and that's
44:45
exciting because Legato should be very accretive to the value
44:49
of this company. So I sit here as an owner of
44:53
this company on March 8th, 2026 with a ripping war in the Middle
45:00
East, oil prices being unhinged, market sentiment plummeting by
45:05
the day and whatever. But I feel very good about the
45:13
fundamentals of this company and do not believe that the current
45:17
malaise in the overall market is likely to last for very long.
45:23
And then ultimately when the fog of war settles, people will come
45:28
to realize that we are coming up on a really a Seminole 2 month
45:33
period for ASTS based bubble marked first and foremost by the
45:40
New Glen launch which appears to be March 30th.
45:43
But then on any given day, we could expect the first batch
45:48
shipments now that the stacking has been certified.
45:53
And it appears that we could also be having a positive
45:58
release from the FCC on our regulatory update.
46:02
And then keep in mind, the pace at which things like Golden Dome
46:06
are moving forward must be absolutely astonishing right
46:09
now. I cannot imagine the US military
46:13
is slow walking this right now. So I'm very optimistic of what's
46:20
going to be happening over the next couple weeks.
46:22
So I'm frankly optimistic is what's going to happen this
46:24
week. It's our just if you're newer to
46:28
investing, just realize that you always want to be just period
46:34
looking out, but really want to look out six months from where
46:37
you are today. In six months from today, people
46:41
will have forgotten the Iran war that much or will no longer
46:45
really when I've forgotten it, but it will no longer be
46:47
relevant, will be word out something else.
46:49
Just think about how two months ago we were focused on Venezuela
46:54
and now who the hell talks about then as well.
46:57
And so the pace at which things happen is so astonishing that
47:01
you need to just make sure you can textualize that the world
47:07
will probably not end. It probably would have ended if
47:11
it were going to end last week and it did not.
47:13
And so this this too shall pass and underline that you have
47:20
companies of which ASTS is one of them that are doing some
47:22
incredible things. And ultimately, that's what will
47:28
will probably result in people being successful investors or
47:31
not is focusing on the, the companies and just kind of
47:34
letting loose of some of these macro headwinds, which will
47:37
dissipate pretty quickly in my view.
47:40
So that's what I have for everyone.
47:42
I'm looking forward to this week.
47:43
I'm still digesting last week. I need to listen to the earnings
47:46
call again because I, I still just think that these guys came
47:50
out. We swing until last week.
47:54
I remember at the end, I kind of just gave my ad Lib guess of
47:59
what I thought was going to happen on their call and Mobile
48:00
World Congress. And I would think I was 100%
48:03
accurate. I really thought that this was
48:04
the year and then and there's all going to happen and this was
48:07
the earnings call and those two things that were true.
48:12
And so for them to come out swinging like they did.
48:14
And now that we have that additional information that the
48:17
skin certification was the critical path item, I think that
48:21
the the launchpad of worry is about to really inflect.
48:26
And you know, Kevin Mack as my proxy, you had sort of the
48:31
capitulation relays. And I think so I also have a
48:43
fully paid a position to always make sure you're, you know,
48:47
capitalizing yourself responsibly too, because that's
48:49
the thing that generally gets people in the most trouble.
48:53
So I'll talk to everyone else. And I just was reading in, you
48:58
know, I got some messages that my spaces was a little choppy.
49:01
So I don't I don't maybe my internet's weak, but I wasn't
49:04
talking to myself for an hour Now that I'm just checking the
49:07
comments. Have a great night.
49:08
Bye. Thanks for listening to the AST
49:12
Space Mobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and
49:15
you'd 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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49:23
Latest news about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe.
49:27
Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
49:33
We're doing something very, very big and I think with this
49:35
technology we can really affect billion lives.
49:38
AFP Space globally is the only company that has proven
49:42
technology to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly
49:46
through space. To do everyday smartphone.
49:49
People will just basically turn their phone and be syndrome,
49:53
regardless of where you are. We don't want the news to even
49:55
to know that it's connected by satellite.
49:58
Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
50:02
with the MMO. Listen, Waffles.