Anpanman - Short Chat

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: It will just basically come to your phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Hey guys, how's it going? I'm, uh, in my car waiting for my son's soccer practice, and I figured I'd just start a chat. Um, he actually is going to end, I think, in 30 minutes, although sometimes it goes late, so I'll probably have to cut it off after that time. But, um, give me a thumbs up if you can hear me. I know I was having issues earlier today. Hopefully It's not gonna be a problem tomorrow. Maybe Twitter has figured it out. But anyway, but yeah, I figured I'd just throw up a space and we could just talk after a huge update for AST, which is also trading nicely above 63 overnight. You know, I think, I think I caught up with Kook after the market closed and we were just talking about how the environment for risk right now is really good. I mean, obviously we went through this massive period or drawback, drawdown when various Fed officials were saying they weren't sure that, you know, rate cuts were in the cards for December. And then, you know, you had the government shutdown and so there was uncertainty around, or a lack of economic numbers. And so you had all the, you basically had the the market looking for a reason to pull back, and people were concerned about AI valuations and whatever else you can throw in there. But then, and of course Japan as well, Japan rates going up there. But then of course now fast forward just a few weeks later, it seems like in terms of AI, the demand is there, valuations having corrected, especially for high beta names. 30 to 50%, which I think we probably needed a bit of a pullback and a reset in order to continue the rally. But yeah, it was interesting. There was a note from a sell-side firm yesterday which talked about how the recent pullback in tech basically wiped out any gains from valuation multiples expanding for the year. And so tech All the appreciation has been primarily, and I think this is for tech leaders, but most of the appreciation for the year has come from earnings revisions higher, right? And so any notion of people saying at least things are in a bubble and not justified, at least as of this most recent pullback, You had valuation multiples that were basically flat for the year. So anyway, yeah, as Kuka and I were talking about, you know, we've got what seems to be Bessent who's going to be lined up to be the next Fed chair, who's— his comments today, he was saying that he sees growth next year and that inflation's going to come down. I mean, he's basically giving himself the room to cut rates and to take rates even lower. is what it seems like. And so, you know, and then today I think there was some weak jobs data. I think private employers laid off more people, which, you know, runs counter to the labor market being hot. And then ISM prices came in weak. I think there was some reference, I think it was like those prices were at the lowest level since 2023 or 2022, something like that. So It seems like we're all set for a year-end rally. And, you know, of course that can change, but I think now you're seeing a return to risk in these high-beta names. And so AST and of course the rest of the space sector have rebounded quite nicely over the last 2 days, and it seems like that's going to continue. And I think for the setup, which is what people like to say, You know, for hedge funds, people always talk about the setup, meaning like, you know, a coming quarter or some type of catalyst. Well, the setup for AST is that you've got what seems to be a pretty accommodative market backdrop, and then you've got ISRO launch on December 15th, which is going to be, you know, a positive catalyst. Obviously, if the launch doesn't go well, that's not going to be good, but Unlike previous years where you kind of had a one-shot type of thing where, you know, whether that was like Blue Walker 3 or the Block 1, you know, the 5 Bluebirds going up on one Falcon 9. In prior years, you had, you know, what seemed to be a binary event, which, and for all intents and purposes, they were binary events. Whereas here, you've got FM-1, Or what we, what we'll call BB-6 going up on December 15th. And, um, it sounds like more and more, the more that we talk about it, uh, and do research, it seems like that, that particular satellite along with BB-7, both of those seem to be government-oriented satellites, um, and probably have something to do with HALO. Um, and so the reason why I think partially those 2 satellites have taken so long, DB6, and then of course we're waiting for PB7. The reason why they've taken so long is that the government, I think, is the ultimate customer of those 2 satellites. And I believe the customer requirements around those 2 satellites have continued to evolve, right? And so even, you know, we've speculated that maybe Cape Canaveral's not ready to process that satellite, and so maybe that's why you don't send it. Or, you know, there's been some speculation around, oh, what if there's something that's found in testing, they have to go test it again? Well, I'm not sure that's the case. I think this DB-7, maybe some of the requirements, you know, if your customer is the government and they say, hey, I want you to jump, As a supplier, you're going to say how high, right? And I think if, and this is all my speculation, but if there's any changes in requirements for that satellite, that's a pretty positive thing because that shows that it's an important aspect or program for the government. And so, yeah, we'll find out. I mean, I think there is some speculation, you know, I mean, it's not out of the ordinary that that Scott participates in investment conferences. He does from time to time, but it is pretty rare. I think UBS, they did webcast it last year, but the company doesn't. So there's a little bit of push and pull. I think some of these banks don't like having these investor conferences webcast unless the company puts pressure on them. But then also the companies may volunteer, may not want, you know, these, these events to be webcast. But I think here Scott's presenting next Monday. And so there's some speculation, which I think is probably justified, like maybe we'll have some news prior to that Monday. Of course, that's very, you know, space mob type of behavior, setting yourself up for disappointment. But But yeah, I mean, there actually could be some news prior to that, but I guess we'll find out and that's okay. But going back to what I was saying before, you know, ISRO launching on December 15th, that's going to be positive. You know, if something goes wrong with that launch, of course that would not be good. But at the same time, you know, that's why the company has raised this massive amount of capital and has What now is, I think, up to BB-19 in production. And so if something happens there, you've got BB-7 that's going to launch shortly after, and then you've got BB-9 through 11— sorry, BB-8 through 10, and then 11 through 13 that will be ready soon. And so whether that happens by the end of December, which gets them to a 6-month production cadence, or if that happens in January, we'll see. But I think those 2 batches may happen, maybe, you know, may get launched sometime in February. But anyway, yeah, it's good to see. I was looking at Twitter and it's good to see that Blue Origin is making significant progress. Their It seems like the production cadence there is full steam ahead. And so I think the market's going to be surprised. I think I remember everyone was skeptical that Blue Origin, I remember this past year when they were having production issues and I think David Limp in 2024 was saying for 2025, they expected like 6 to 8 launches. But of course, you know, when the first When the first launch happened in January and they didn't land the booster, then basically those plans went out the window. But now that they landed this second New Glenn, then maybe that 6 to 8 or whatever, I forget what the exact number was, but I know it was like closer to 10 than 5. Maybe that happens in 2026. And so if that's the case, then that's a huge positive for AST. Obviously some amount of those launches will be for Kuiper and the US government. But I guess now there's some speculation bubbling as to whether or not the moon lander is going to be ready for this next Blue Origin New Glenn mission in January. And so, you know, it's kind of funny, these programs, sorry, the launch vehicles, you kind of have this like funny dance where the vehicle has to be ready, but then your customers have to be ready. And oftentimes, The vehicle can be ready and then the customer's not ready. And then the launch provider has to then go try to find customers to go fill capacity. And so that's how sometimes it's kind of funny, like customers will be on standby and when somebody doesn't show up, then you end up being able to fill. And I'm assuming it's at a somewhat discounted rate, but you're able to fill fill in as a customer on a given launch. And so I think for next year, because Blue Origin is, for all intents and purposes, has become a viable rocket and yeah, maybe to get to a normal cadence, they obviously want to be able to refurbish boosters, but then they're building so many boosters then that it may not be an issue anyway. But I think It'll be interesting to see what happens with BV7, if that's actually rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon 9, or if it's going to end up on a New Glenn and maybe with like a few other Block 2 Bluebirds as well. And then, yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think it's interesting. The reason why I mentioned this is like, I think last year ULA had a rocket that was ready and they had to launch it as part of an RFP for the government or a requirement, a milestone. And the customer wasn't ready, but they ended up having to launch it anyway. And I think they were able to fill that, or not completely fill the fairing, but they were able to find somebody. Or no, actually it was, they put up their own test satellite. And so they basically sent up an empty rocket. I remember talking to AST management about it because that was kind of an example that they pointed to where there is capacity out there. And some of it is, you know, even though things might be booked, things, capacity does free up from time to time if customers aren't ready. And so yeah, we could see, of course it's going to depend on production getting to the right cadence, but we could see some additional launches In the coming year if, for example, Blue Origin is able to get all those rockets ready. But anyway, yeah, it's what an interesting day. It's funny like how I looked at his tweet and then of course I tweeted it too where we talk about, or he talks about how stock price can change investor sentiment and I guess he periodically quote tweets that and if you, it's like a nested tweet. If you go back to the original one, I think it was like June 2024 or something like that. Or maybe, yeah, I think it was June 2024. But it is funny because like today, and I'm not going to name names, but there's people out there who, as of Monday, Tuesday, there are quite a few people who were pretty And look, I get people who are upset and are not feeling great, and that's fine. Like, that's totally natural. But then there's people who are almost like militant, like really upset with management. They're like, hey, you didn't tell us, give us an update on BB-7. And you know, that they were basically calling for blood. And of course, like stock, the stock price when it's down or it has several down days, like That can do pretty weird things to people. I think some people, and me included, you know, I think I've been on this 5-year journey for so long and I've just kind of seen everything where nothing really fazes me anymore. Like I've, you know, it's, I have a big position still and I've also taken some profits over the, over, you know, starting with the warrant redemption because I had to. But because I was able to lock in some wins here and there, I kind of desensitized to these like big moves down and big moves. And obviously like the moves up are great and big moves down, like it sucks, but it's not the end of the world. 'Cause like I have this such a deep understanding and I accept like this company is inevitable. Like, yeah, things might get delayed by a week or a month, whatever it is. But it's, you know, the company's marching in one direction, you know, it's I mean, like, just think about the bet that Abel and Scott made on Blue Origin, and they were right. Like, that program is unbelievable. And like the narrative around launch, you know, Blue Origin was like the laughingstock and SpaceX was the gold standard, and they still are, don't get me wrong. But now it's like, oh, Blue Origin, New Glenn, like, And then, you know, after they announced they had this successful launch, then they announced like, oh, we're going to do all these upgrades and we're going to roll out this heavy vehicle. And then they rolled out all the different programs they're doing, whether that's lunar lander and, you know, some of these other things as well. But yeah, I just kind of view like we're going to have this volatility with the market and obviously like our ride is up to 100 was was fueled by this push of high-beta names, right? And so yeah, the company, obviously there was, they were making progress, but then part of it is just the market pulling forward expectations of high-growth names, right? Like you saw these modular nuclear companies trading much higher just based off of the fact that people are kind of betting on the fact that AI is going to drive this insatiable demand for power. And so anything that generates power, it's going to, you know, that can do that cleanly and in an economical way, you know, people are looking for ways to invest. And so that's what happened to ASC in October through the middle of October. And then of course you had this like de-risking, which is natural, right? And it sucks. Like I remember I personally had like some speculative calls and like those got evaporated, but that's part of the game. Like If you take short-term bets and you're right on the company's prospects, but then the macro overwhelms it, like that's the game. Like you accept those losses and it's like, okay, you know, I made a bet and I was right on one thing, but it doesn't matter because macro matters more in those instances where it's a de-risky environment. And so that's on me. Like I'm not going to go after management and say, why aren't you communicating more? You should be executing more or whatever it is. It's like, put yourself in the Nobel shoes. Like all he cares about is executing. Like the guy's never sold a single share in the company. As a matter of fact, like he rolled his, when the stock pulled back, he is like, oh great, you know what? I'm going to roll my collar higher so I don't have to sell shares. Because he had entered into this small transaction for like 3% of his shares. In order to lock in something. And then, but then he, you know, with the pullback, he was like, you know what, I'm going to strike this collar higher, which is great. But I think, you know, when people are, you can tell when people are perhaps like they're overinvested or they're just not emotionally, maybe they're too emotionally invested as well. Like, and this is one of the things where I always try to tell people, it's like, you need to zoom out. Like, People harped on AST. I know they're— and of course bears too, they're, oh, you know, the stock was at $100 and now it's at $50. It's a 50% drawdown and the stock is shit, right? And, but it's like, oh, wait a second. If I look at the space sector, everybody had a 40 to 50% drawdown or AI names or quantum names or whatever you pick, like everything was down. But yet it's somehow like the company's fault. Yeah. And so I get it. Like the company as of 2, no, 3 weeks ago now was expecting like BB-7 to be ready for shipment, you know, by the end of the month. And that didn't come to fruition, but we don't know why. Like we can speculate and it'll be up to the company to update folks and I'm sure they will in due course, which that tweet I thought was like pretty damn bullish where they showed the 3 launch vehicles and said, You know, we're going to update you guys soon. And so to me, that seems like we're going to get something this or next week about when BB7 is going to, you know, when that's going to get shipped and it's going to launch. And by the way, like, that's something that we should all be looking forward to because, I mean, I'm hoping, I mean, on the one hand, I want, I hope BB7 launches in December, but I don't think that's, I don't think that's likely. And I think for my family's sake, It'd probably be hard, a hard sell to try to go down to Cape Canaveral on Christmas or so, which is, you know, if they were able to somehow pull that off, which, you know, we're at the beginning of December, I think it's going to take too long to, they're not going to have enough time to integrate that into a Falcon 9 fairing. But, but yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to a January launch and seeing a bunch of you guys down there for BB-7, which will be amazing. I mean, imagine like we're there in January, great launch, and then, um, and then they're gonna say, hey, you guys can come back in February for these 2 other launches that are gonna happen where there's gonna be 2 batches of 3, which is great. Or maybe there'll be 6 on one Blue Origin New Glenn, which candidly, like, that would be amazing. I, to see, to be able to go see New Glenn launch and then land their booster, um, Although I guess from where we are in the Cape, we probably won't be able to see the booster landing. Like you see Falcon 9 boosters land near the viewing area. But anyway, but yeah, it's, I guess going back to my original point, like it is interesting. Yeah. Stock price changes sentiment. You know, people were crying bloody murder and, you know, railing on management on Monday. And Tuesday or, and part of Tuesday. And then, and then of course, like things turn around and, and there's no, no one's upset and everyone's taking it easy. And then they've kind of, they're able to zoom out 'cause the stock is doing well and they realize like, oh yeah, the space is hard and some of this stuff takes time. I mean, and that's part of the, that's part of, you know, you're not, you're not invested in a company that's making widgets and selling it to Walmart. Like, that's the critical path items that if you're making a widget and your constraints, you're selling something that you can fix and you make it on Earth and you sell it to retail, like, that's a very different problem than, for example, doing really complex, hard stuff that's going to go up in space. And once it's in space, like, you can't change it. And if you have a customer like the US government, the Department of War, SDA and they're coming out with last-minute changes to the satellite, what are you going to do? Are you going to say, no, you can't do that. We're not going to change the satellite for you because we told retail investors and institutional investors that we need to get this out the door by the end of November. So go screw yourself. No, of course not. You're going to tell the government like, oh, you want me to change some of these things in the satellite? You want me to add more capabilities and it's going to take another week or two or whatever it is? Sure. Sure, I'll do it because I want to, you know, if this is important, I want to be in good graces and have, you know, the ability to be one of those batch 2 companies for Golden Dome, right? Which I think like on Golden Dome, there's, I think there's like 2 programs which AST SpaceMobile believes that they are well positioned to get and, you know, well, obviously find out. I don't think in the next few weeks, but I think that those Golden Dome Awards will probably be, you know, we'll probably start, maybe we'll hear some rumors in the next coming weeks, but it seems like that's going to happen sometime in January or February. And so, yeah, I mean, people sit tight. I think it is funny, you know, stock price does change sentiment and Stock price is down a few percent, and then the folks who whine will be back out of the woodwork. But it is funny, like there are some people who on Monday, like, re-management, and then today are like, this is the best thing since sliced bread, which on the one hand, like, it's kind of funny. And sometimes it's like, you know, take for your own sanity when people are posting this negative stuff, it can be grating and it can impact you too, because it's like you're dealing with your own ability to compartmentalize. Like, oh, the stock is down whatever it is over a few weeks, like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50%. And then people are just, you know, just like this guy, Dr. Schloss, I forget his name, but this random short that came outta nowhere and he's just like putting out just random senseless BS like every day. And he's getting more desperate because the stock keeps going up in his face. But yeah, when I see this stuff, I just block it or just mute it because it's just kind of nonsense, right? I mean, unless you are one— I mean, one good thing is that some of these people who, and I talk about Reddit as well, like when there is bloody murder on the SpaceMobile Reddit, or certain people are really upset, usually that is a bottoming signal. It's just like this Pivotal Capital guy who's a short, whenever he gloats and, you know, tries to rub it in people's faces that the stock is down, he has been the best contra indicator out there. I don't think there's anyone better. And so I'd hope he doesn't ever go away. But yes, I mean, sometimes it's like, it is good to Good to have these people who get upset and, you know, they hand-wring and they shake their fists at Main Independent for all their ills. And, you know, probably they're long, like short-dated options, maybe long calls, and they're upset because the trade has gone against them, right? And that happens. And either you can accept responsibility for putting on that trade and the macro overwhelmed it. And so you're stuck. Or you, yeah, you get upset. You get upset and you want the company to do PRs and do whatever it takes to somehow get the stock back up, which doesn't make any sense. Like it's, the company's going to execute like this company in particular. If you're, if you want a, if you're looking for a company that's overpromotional, that's going to put fluff out there, like this is not for you. You know, the company is engineering-focused, focused on business execution. You know, there's going to be delays, as I said before, and things are going to happen in their own time and they're going to do it right. It's like, it's a very different approach. They're not going to throw spaghetti up against the wall, you know, throw up satellites and see if they work. And if they get bricked, like, no problem, we'll just throw up more. These are like, until they get to You know, a full-blown production cadence and automation, which eventually they'll get to, or more of the processes automated. Like they've got to take their time and they've got to be careful, right? But yeah, there's a lot of interest. I mean, I've learned a lot from various Space Mob people about production and, you know, what it takes. And I think, you know, one of the things that we were debating the other day is like, For these satellites, you have to, you typically put them into an environmental chamber and you like bake them and then freeze them and keep doing that over many cycles to see if the components all hold up. And, you know, from that process, for example, I think BlueWalker 3, through that process, they found out that one of the metals they were using, the microns, just wasn't cutting it. And so if you guys will recall, like that, BlueWalker 3 was supposed to launch in November of 2021, and they basically had to go back to the drawing board and use a different metal. I think it was some type of aluminum. And that put the program back quite a bit. I mean, they didn't launch BlueWalker 3 until September 2022. But that was a make-or-break thing. Like, they couldn't send up a satellite and have it not work. You know, if you have like a If you have an infinite amount of capital and you have the means to do all that stuff, then sure, you can like kind of be like SpaceX and iterate quickly and have a lot of failures. But AST SpaceMobile probably fits more, or not probably, it definitely fits more along the lines of the same culture as Blue Origin where you want to do it right the first time and do it right always. So yeah, with that type of culture, like it's going to be, it's, you're going to have delays and things are going to take time. And even in SpaceX culture, like I always joke about how, not joke, but you know, Starship, when they first announced Starship in the presentations, Elon Musk talked about how Starship would be landing people on Mars in 2022. And of course, like here we are basically at 2026. And you know, that, that That spacecraft is still going through iterations and has, is probably some distance away from actual consistent, you know, commercial viability and a cadence. So all this stuff takes time. And so I think like people, yeah, just take, just keep that in mind. Like this, this, again, this company is not making widgets for Walmart. It's making like groundbreaking, never been done before Satellites that are going to go around the Earth that are going to connect to your mobile phone and deliver broadband service. Like it's unheard of stuff. Like even it's something that Starlink can't do, right? And Starlink has arguably the most seasoned and some of the best engineers out there. And yet, you know, they're struggling and will continue to struggle just given kind of the design paths that they've gone down. But yeah, I think And I see Kook out listening. Yeah, we talked about it. I think the environment, you know, couldn't be better. I mean, obviously there could be like some surprises that come outta left field and you never know, like maybe a hot inflation number comes out, but it seems like all the ingredients are there. You've got, it seems, you know, December most likely is going to be a rate cut. And just given some of the economic numbers that have come out, the Fed is probably going to be a bit more balanced versus trying to be hawkish and, you know, we're going to wait and see what the data says. I mean, they're obviously going to say they're going to wait and see what the data says, but, you know, that could be kind of a moot point with Powell becoming a lame duck. And, you know, you're going to have a new Fed that's going to be a bit more dovish or accommodating. And so that's going to be, I think, a positive for all risk assets. And so When you combine that with an accommodative environment with all these positive catalysts that are coming up for ASML space mobile, yeah, the next 2 to 3 months are going to be pretty solid, I think. And I've been tweeting some memes about unblurring the photo for a bell on the factory floor, and then the microns actually shows cash. Or like I tweeted the meme tonight of just like, oh yeah, ASTS is a $1,000 stock, which obviously like it's not near term, but in the next few years I certainly think that's potentially in the cards, right? And so yeah, I mean, 2026, we always talk about like the guy who, those NFL players who run 99 yards and then they drop the football right at the 1-yard line for lack of focus or concentration, or they get scared, you know, whatever it is, right? They just do stupid shit. And we're at that, we're at the 1-yard line, you know, full speed with the football. And that's what 2026 represents. I mean, what is it? We're December 3rd. Like, we're just like a few weeks, 28 days away from a new year when the thing that, you know, the preparation for this company and all the suffering.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:36] Speaker C: that people have gone through for the last 5 years. Like, we're at this point where you've got this multi-launch campaign. It's going to be with 30 different— sorry, 3 different launch providers. And excitingly, one of those is going to be Blue Origin New Glenn that could take anywhere between 6 to 8 of these, the new Block 2 satellites up. And the company's going to target, they're saying 45 to 60 by the end of the year. Let's just say 45 to be conservative. But yeah, service is going to be up and running and you've got Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon, Saudi Telecom now, Rakuten. You've got all these guys that are chomping at the bit and talking about rolling out commercial service in 2026. And then you got these, what's cool is you got these new STAs, which came out, what, 2 weeks ago? Was it 2 weeks ago?
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: For testing in Ireland. through Vodafone. And then of course Mexico, which is Altan, which is the government-owned MNO that's trying to utilize unused 700 megahertz spectrum to provide 100% connectivity across Mexico. And that's going to be massive, right? Like there's so many people who are unconnected in Mexico and terrestrial coverage is somewhat spotty, but having that, I think as a public utility basically, Is going to be massive, right? And so, and this is something that, by the way, I remember talking to Scott, maybe it was like in 2023, he had mentioned this idea about Mexico and the government, you know, Altan in its previous iteration, I think was a privately owned company that went bankrupt because they were trying to build out terrestrial towers and then they basically ran outta money, just like Charlie Ergen over at EchoStar. slash Dish Networks. Um, 'cause it's, it's an expensive endeavor, right? Like trying to stand up a facilities-based new MNO, that, that's a really expensive proposition. And so that, that company went bankrupt and I believe the Mexican government, that's how they were able to, or I mean, not by choice, but they, they took it over and they had, of course, you know, these valuable 700 megahertz licenses, which 700 megahertz is like, the gold standard, like cream of the crop for cellular spectrum. And they have it that covers the entirety of Mexico. And so that's going to be a huge opportunity for AST. And so I think in the coming months, you know, we'll get more of these definitive agreements. Bell Canada, you know, they've pretty much like, if you listen to their earnings call, like that agreement seems like it's already signed. It's just maybe it won't be, it's not going to be active until some conditions are met. And then, you know, we've been speculating maybe Etisalat out of Abu Dhabi, perhaps that could be another one. And there's a whole host of others, of course. But yeah, 2026, it's going to be exciting. And one thing I think, you know, someone One of the, an investor, an institutional investor recently had spoken to the company and it sounds like, you know, that there's going to be a lot of news in the coming months, which makes sense, right? Like you've got a company now that in previous years there wasn't much to discuss because it was for all intents and purposes like as an engineering project. But now we're at a point where you've got You know, your commercial partners that are coming out with marketing that are basically prepping the beachhead for a rollout of commercial services. You've got 9, you know, government contract awards, which are going to continue to expand. And then perhaps you can add 2 more, which are going to be Golden Dome, like 2 areas that AST is trying to address. And then you've got— so then you've got launches, very visible launches that are going to be happening. 1 to 2 every month over the course of the next 12 months. Yeah, there's a lot going on. And then, you know, we're not even talking about like the regulatory picture, which is, I think I mentioned this in the talk last night, but the FCC comment period for AT&T's SES application for US market access, that comment period I think closes on December 5th. And so you've seen some activity in the docket where Obviously, SpaceX and T-Mobile have complained or tried to slow down the process, which I think they're basically pounding sand at this point. But that process is going to close, and then that starts the clock for approval. And approval, I think on average, if there's no issues, and maybe you've got to bake in some time for the holidays, but we know Chairman Carr, he really wants to get these things going pretty quickly. you could see approval for AC's application sometime at the end of January or perhaps, you know, in February. And so that, I mean, that's a huge catalyst, right? Because then, then you don't have to keep going back for STAs to do testing or launch. I mean, now you've got like full authority to put up an entire constellation of, you know, whether they grant the full 248 satellites. I mean, we'll see, but then you, it's up to you. Like you just, basically go launch these things and start service. And so that's going to be pretty massive. I think if you were to ask any of us back in 2021, 2022, that was like the all clear. Like if we get FCC approval for US market access, that means like everything has gone swimmingly well. And now it's just a matter of, you know, getting to a point where we're not talking about launching satellites, we're talking about generating revenue. Like instead of focusing on getting constellation up and, you know, rockets going up and all those things, like we're actually talking about like, oh, how do we, how much money are we gonna make? And what do revenue projections look like? And what does adoption look like? And, you know, how many day, what percentage are day passes? What percentage are monthly add-on fees or what percentage are embedded as part of a premium plan? And so that's on the commercial side. And then You know, how many FirstNet users are there on the government side? Because then, you know, obviously this type of service I think is going to be, is going to be just part of the plan for whatever FirstNet is selling to first responders. And, you know, you should also include Verizon in that because I think the most recent FCC filings have indicated that Verizon's probably going to adopt this for their frontline service.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:17] Speaker C: And then when you shift over to the defense side, I guess it's unclear how much specificity or details we get on whatever the government programs are. But if you guys will recall, I think in the B of A chat with Scott, he views government revenues next year being in the hundreds of millions or maybe $100 million or some, some, you know, number north of that or multiple of that. We'll see. But yeah, I mean, I think as we've, what we've all discussed, I think that government opportunity is going to be the biggest initially and for the short term. And then of course, commercial is going to overwhelm that, you know, perhaps 2 to 3 years from now, which, I mean, that's the beauty of having technology that's dual use where it's commercial and you're building it for commercial purposes, but it's also relevant for the government. And so, And that's the type of stuff that the government likes where they don't have to actually fund these expensive programs. These programs can actually stand on their own and have commercial viability. And then they're able to use services on top of that. But yeah, so pretty exciting time. I mean, I think as we head into the end of this year, Yeah, I think there's, I mean, me personally and I think for most people, yeah, it's an exciting time. I think what's interesting is we're starting to get a bit more press and, you know, I was telling Cook earlier today, the narrative has completely changed where before people would say like this market Like, well, the technology, it doesn't make sense. Like, how can you connect to a regular mobile phone or an existing mobile phone? Like, that, that was kind of over people's heads. And even if that's the case, like, I don't even know if the market's big enough, but now we've moved on. Like, now people just assume that Starlink is going to connect to mobile phones pretty easily, which they are going to be able to connect to phones, newer ones. And the connection is going to be pretty decent. And, you know, when, when there is a good connection, with those satellites that are flying in very low Earth orbit. But then, you know, they're not going to be able to penetrate walls. They're not, you know, it'd be questionable if you could use it in certain instances, perhaps like in your car or wherever. But people just assume like that's, it's a given, like it's going to happen, right? And so it's pretty crazy like how far we've come. And I think What I was thinking about the press is that, you know, there's a few people like, I know Chris, who's down there in the audience, like he's working on potentially doing something around telling the Space Mob story, which I think would be pretty tremendous. And some of us have actually gotten pinged by journalists from major publications to talk about the story. And so I think Yeah, it's kind of like all these things are coming to a head, right? And so we're going to have once in 2026, once the service is rolled out and people are more familiarized with AST SpaceMobile, folks are going to look back on all these crazy people from who are posting about it in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, '25, and be like, well, why didn't I believe in that? Or why didn't you tell me about it? Which, you know, I think we're at this point where it's not too late. Like the stock's at $50 and the market cap is $20 billion. Like we harp about how Legato Spectrum is probably worth, you know, $12 to $15 billion. Like you're getting the company, the commercial and government business for $5 billion, right? And the company also has like $3 billion of cash. Obviously it has convertible debt too, but But if you think about the opportunity and how big, how this company's going to be the largest wireless operator in the world by subscribers, obviously, you know, as a wholesaler, it's not going to have those direct relationships with all the customers, but, you know, it'll be serving billions of customers potentially at some point in the future. And, you know, obviously some, you know, when people try to come back with an argument and say, well, I don't know how much capacity the satellites will have. Well, it's like, yeah, not everybody's going to be using the satellites all the time. It's just like, you know, there was this guy, Dan TMT, who I respect a lot. He's a big EchoStar bull, but he was saying, oh, I don't know, like how much people are actually going to use the service or pay $5 to use the service. It's like, what do you mean? You know, like if you, if you do the parallel to a mobile phone, You use your mobile phone primarily in places where there's Wi-Fi, whether it's at your work or at your house. And that's probably 85 to 90% of the time that you're using your phone. It's within Wi-Fi. But then that 5 to 10% time that you use it or whatever, 5 to 15% of the time that you use it outside, you pay an amount. I pay Verizon over $100 to use my phone for a very short period of time throughout any given day. And so you pay a premium for the times that you want to have connectivity that's outside of your house when it's easy. And so what you're telling me is that in dead zones, you know, in and around New York, or if I'm traveling to, like, if I want to go camping, but I want to be in, you know, I've got to check my stock prices, right? You're telling me I won't pay $5 to $10 a month more for that, or? If my kid has an Apple Watch and they get lost, like I wouldn't pay, you know, my wife would kill me for not paying $5 to $10 for that. So I think people underestimate that, right? And then also it's like, imagine the company selling basically like connectivity services, but also insurance, and they're selling it many times over for every satellite, right? Like not everybody's utilizing the service, and so you can sell it many times over. Like this is the most efficient and high return on investment infrastructure that'll be out there. And of course, like IoT, there'll be IoT uses. I think AT&T's CEO today, Stankey, was saying that, you know, obviously satellite's not going to replace terrestrial, but one area where it probably will is IoT. And, you know, IoT devices, like, yeah, there's, 6 billion subscribers in the world, but in the IoT devices, whether it be in 2 to 3 years, there's probably going to be a multiple of that, many multiples of that, right? In our house, we have, I'm kind of embarrassed to say this, but I've got like 12 AirTags already, which I put on everything. And so imagine like a company that has corporate assets that they want to keep track of, or Or a farmer that's keeping track of various conditions throughout their field and, you know, they're also checking hydration and, you know, different things where you're basically, you want the entire farm so you can effectively manage it. You want it to be connected. And that farm happens to be in an area outside of coverage. Like that's the opportunity. And then you've got drones and you've got, you know, cars, what have you, robots, whatever it is, right?
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:52] Speaker C: So yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. And now I'm rambling. Anyway, yeah, that's the space. My son's probably going to be done soon, although it seems like they're running late. So I'm going to check. This is a very random space, and it wasn't really short, but I'm going to check and see if people have questions like I always do. Let's see. The first Comment. I'm not going to name names, but Cook is a kook. Yes, that's right. That's from the Cook Report. For those that don't know, I joked about it. Cook is a different type of animal. He's hell-bent on owning the most shares that he can and holding with a kung fu grip until the end of time. And so he's a different animal and you have to be a certain kind of crazy to do that. And because he's that certain kind of crazy, the volatility, I think he, it weighs heavily on him. So he's a very particular kind of animal. I don't think, I don't recommend people live that way, by the way, because you have to be a certain kind of crazy. But yeah, he's one of a kind, which we're blessed to have him. Let's see. John Cooper, those negative comments and sentiment are usually bottom or near bottom indicators. It's always been that way. Also, when the RSI is in the dumps on the monthly, you have to get aggressive and buy shares for falls. The company's doing everything that they can to bring it. I 100% agree with you, Jonathan.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:24] Speaker C: The negative sentiment for longs and, you know, the guys who celebrate the short sellers when they get really confident and complacent, I mean, it works both ways, right? When they're rubbing it in our face, like that's usually the problem too. But I agree, for those people that are more trading oriented, yeah, like try to fight the urge. My old portfolio manager, when I first started in the hedge fund industry, told me a very simple rule. When a stock is red, you buy, and when the stock is green, you sell, and don't do the opposite. And if you just adhere to that rule, you'll generate additional returns, which is true. So just keep that in mind. Let's see, how do you see the first launch of the bigger satellite risk-wise, deployment, et cetera? That's a good question. I mean, this is a new spacecraft and we don't have flight heritage like we do with the Block 1 satellites, but I mean, you've got to, the engineering talent and the people at AST SpaceMobile, like, They've gone 6 for 6 essentially in terms of unfolding satellites. And so I expect that streak to continue. They do a tremendous amount of testing on the ground of the unfolding mechanisms. The current satellite design actually has less folds to unfold and less hinges to fail. And so it's actually a simpler design even though it's bigger. And so there will be a bit more stress when the satellite unfolds because things are just much bigger, but there's less steps to do that. And so I think that's going to be, in terms of complexity and risk, like this satellite should be less risky. And so we'll find out. But I think it's important to understand that, you know, the engineers at AST, there's a ton of people there that have an tremendous amount of experience. And of course there's new people as well. There's also people focused on, it's almost like working at Toyota or one of the Japanese car companies. There are people there that are focused on simplifying and taking costs out, right? Simplifying the design so there's less potential for, less complexity for failure and then also lowering costs. And so unlike some of these programs that have launched satellites to GEO, Viasat has been one of the victims of this where they've relied on Boeing as a prime, and then the satellite was so complex that it didn't unfold properly and basically was a dud, right? And so that's something that the company has been focused on and continues to focus on. And the great thing about being vertically integrated is that because you do all that stuff in-house, you can make changes and adapt pretty quickly. You don't have to, you're not doing stuff by purchase order through a prime and having to deal with that bureaucracy. So that, I mean, obviously BB-6 is going to be first of its kind to go up, but I feel very confident. I will say when I, the first launch that I went to for Blue Walker 3, I remember Cook and I were in the elevator with one of the engineers. These were like some of the white-haired engineers, like just guys who've had a ton of experience and probably mentoring a lot of people on the floor. But they were in the elevator with us. They had no idea who we were. It was like just these 2 random dudes and they were looking at us. They didn't know that we were these like crazy social media people. But I remember us asking like, hey, how do you guys feel about it? And they were supremely confident. Like they were like, yeah, there's not gonna be any problems. It's gonna go off. And they were like relaxed about it, which I would've been kind of, I mean, no, probably I would've been semi-okay, but Cook would've been a basket case if that was his satellite, like if he'd engineered it. But they were, they didn't express any hesitancy. They were supremely confident, right? And I remember, of course, that evening, which was very late, being on the bus and I was sitting by Abel, And I turned to him and I was like, hey, so how'd you sleep? You know, how'd you sleep last night? And he turned to me and looked at me and said, I slept like a baby. Like he was like not nervous at all. And people know this, like obviously there were many more people for the Block 1 launch. Like the guy was, he's like a cool operator. He was totally confident in his team and what the work they had done. And so Yeah, I'm confident. I'm confident in what he's doing, what the team is doing. And I think this, the satellite DB6 and every iteration thereafter is going to be a success. Let's see here. Does our model slash stats apply for artificial intelligence, Leo? Do we have the capability since power, water, are the large terrestrial recurring costs? So that's a good question. As we all learned in the last earnings call, and it's funny because like, I think we all, because there's so much stuff going on in the market and people are going through different emotions and we all forget, like during Q3, they talked about how they have AI software that's going to maximize the efficiency of the satellites. But the other thing that came out is, you know, obviously data centers are this new hot thing. AST has all the ingredients for that. We have the largest arrays, solar arrays in low Earth orbit. We've got these phased arrays for communications. We have processors. Yeah, you could see putting in hard drives or whatever storage devices you want in there, and you can run data centers too. But actually, you know what? I'm going to have to cut it because I see my son coming out and we got to get home. But thanks everyone for joining. This was fun.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:53:25] Speaker C: And I'm glad that it actually worked. Please come back and join me for tomorrow. I'll be actually hosting the co-CEOs of StrataCritical, which is a company that I have a position in and, you know, I think is quite interesting. And, you know, I'm not saying people should invest in it, but, you know, come by and learn. It should be, I think, an entertaining space. I'll be looking to learn more about the company too. And so I'm also trying to hope to, or I'm hoping to have more of these with a few other management teams as well.
[00:53:57] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review.
[00:54:12] Speaker B: To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to We're doing something very, very big, and I think with this technology we can really affect a billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular mobile connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn their phone on, and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the NMOs.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:55:04] Speaker C: Mmm, waffles.