This is SpaceMob

[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:11] 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.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Hey everyone, thanks for joining this space. I just wanted to pull one together and I guess talk about this Bloomberg article that just came out, which, you know, several of us— Kook, Katzi, myself, Tanner, Kevin, and actually a few others who I'll give a mention to— Brian O'Connor and And also Pranya, they contributed to this article as well. But I guess because it got too long, perhaps they were they got the they got yanked. But but yeah, it's it's interesting to read something in print. You know, the journalist Sana Pashankar had interviewed a number of us over several months. I think it went back to. Uh, maybe it was like fall of last year or late fall. Um, and I believe the article— they were hoping to release this article sometime with, um, you know, with launch. But then of course I think, um, the news around Iran and some other things— of course launch didn't go according to plan— perhaps they delayed it. But, um, but yeah, it's— it is funny to, to read about the various cast of characters, um, in Space Mob and, and of course to see the company that we, we hold dear, uh, AST SpaceMobile, to be subject of, of this type of article. And so I think, um, yeah, maybe I'll just kind of go through the article, uh, or talk at a high level about it and then also respond to some people's reactions, which I think, um, you know, for me personally, obviously the, the headline SpaceX rival soars 6,000%. Okay, that's good. And that proves meme— Meme stock mania lives on. I don't like that association with memes, but I think you have to put yourself in the shoes of the journalist and the editor. I have no idea who ended up with that title, but for Bloomberg, this is a piece that's of something that they want readers to engage with and catch their eye to actually go and be, I guess, entertained. And so I can see why they went with certain angles. And of course, like any independent written, independently written article is never going to be what you expect it to be or what you'd like it to be. It's going to be another person's perspective. Right. And so I think we have to take this all with a grain of salt that at the end of the day, like the fact that Bloomberg wrote this type of article is good in terms of spreading awareness because part of the article rings true that AST SpaceMobile is not a household name, especially amongst institutions. And so just getting more awareness out there where someone might be prompted to then go read Cook's research or pull up some of the research from Wall Street, which quite candidly is, eh, but at least it sparks some type of interest where then someone is going to spend some cycles, whether it's a retail investor or it's an institution and they learned like, oh, hey, AST SpaceMobile, this is an interesting company. They're doing the only broadband directed device cellular service from satellite and they're working with AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, Telefonica, Orange, Google, a whole host of companies globally. They've got 50 MNOs. They've got 3,800 patents and patent pending claims. They've got strategic investors amongst all those folks who I just named. And yeah, and so if that sparks the interest, and then of course these people read about the fact that the company is doing work with the Department of War, they've got Golden Dome Awards, then all, as they say, all publicity is good publicity, right? I think, um, but obviously, like, I think, you know, there's probably some level of— for Space Mob, uh, the community, I think there's probably some level of, um, disappointment. It's like, hey, how could they boil us down to this soundbite of meme? But if you read the article, um, you know, they try to be balanced and, um, cover some of the— not only cover some of the parts of the Space Mob story and, you know, the fact that This investor community has done a tremendous amount of research, and it's not— while some of the— it may feel a bit like some of these meme stock situations, it's not because there's real research behind it and real belief, and people are long-term shareholders. They're not, I guess, investing on the short or trading on the short term. Um, but yeah, I, I think, I think the article overall, um, you know, obviously there are parts again that I think I would have changed, but, um, but I didn't write it. And so by, uh, interviewing a number of folks, and then of course, you know, um, Sana did interview some skeptics who I guess they're, you know, professional money managers who, who are skeptical. Um, you know, they try to provide a balanced view, but But yeah, overall I thought it was an interesting article. I mean, that's the most that you can ask for. They, you know, she talked about the Kook bottom. I guess Kook is our, our, um, the space mob, uh, our, our leader, which, uh, I actually agree with. For someone who, um, spends week in and week out doing a space every Sunday night and talking about the week's developments, um, he's committed a significant, uh, portion of his time and energy. And so I I agree. I think he's like the appointed leader. And so hopefully, you know, he— we have key man risk here. Like, um, hopefully he stays healthy and has a long life and he'll continue to be the leader. But, um, but yeah, the article, uh, I guess I'll just kind of breeze through this a little bit. Um, yeah, I think it's, it's a fun article. Like, I think she did a good job of balancing how this community, like the camaraderie around it, and, um, obviously the ups and downs of being an investor in this company, making a comparison to the fact that the company's market cap is of a certain size and only had $71 million of annual revenue this past year, that's fair. But I think Bloomberg obviously could have put what the company's expected to do in terms of their project, the Street consensus for projections, right? In terms of revenue and EBITDA. But that's kind of the next layer, right? Where people, if they read this article and are interested, Then if they have Bloomberg or if they have other tools, they'll go research and understand that, oh, this company, AST SpaceMobile, while it is early, it's not pre-revenue, which is good, but they are expected to do $71 million in 2025. However, projecting that out, $177 million in 2026, and that grows to $710 million in '27, $1.65 billion in 2028, $2.5 billion in 2029. In 2029, EBITDA by the Street's estimates is going to get to $2.3 billion. So, oh, this company is growing very rapidly. So why is it projected to have such high EBITDA margins and rapid revenue growth? And so I think, again, I think that's the key that an article like this would draw people in to actually research and do more work around this obscure company, as they call it. Um, but yeah, it's, it's just kind of going through this article. Um, I guess in the beginning— yeah, maybe I'll just go through the beginning. There, there's a reference about to where, you know, Space Mob and that Cook— it talks about the Cook bottom, uh, and that he's an anonymous oddball character, which I think Cook would agree with, um, and that he's Rara bolmos days firing off posts, but then when things go south, you know, we he you know for someone who has a massive position, he he wears his emotions on his on his sleeve, right? And so hence where the Cook bottom came from. Like when Cook feels pretty awful, you're going to have these situations where and for him, he he will make it known that it's it's it's a tough time. What's interesting is they did interview us and they asked us for our position sizes, which I think they probably felt comfortable in disclosing Tanner's, but they didn't disclose ours, which I think for most of us, I would've been okay with them disclosing it. But then I think for Cook, for example, he felt quite uncomfortable, which he's got a massive position. Um, but I think, you know, that, that sticking to journalistic integrity, they probably just wanted to disclose Tanner's because he's, he's, you know, doxxed versus us who are, who are anonymous. But, um, but yeah, let me, let me just kind of go through this. But, but, you know, there's, there's a picture of the Cardiff of Cook, which is where Cook gets his name, uh, which I thought was a pretty cool little reference there. Um, let me see here. And I, you know, it's, it's interesting because I think, I think, um, I didn't expect this, but I think Tanner, which, which is great, I think he was highlighted, um, pretty well throughout this article, um, which I think is important because, um, for readers, uh, it's an— it's easier to kind of connect with someone who isn't anonymous. And because the details of Connor's back or Tanner's background are disclosed that he's an oil engineer and and you know he's got a family and he sunk most of his life savings into the company. I think by kind of using him as the the the character that you can or the person that you can relate to, I think is is helpful. But yeah, it's pretty funny. Like they they do this market cap comparison where they put United Airlines, Kraft Heinz, AST Space, but well Tyson Foods charter. Ralph Lauren. That was a pretty funny comparison. But let me just look through here. But yeah, I think the part where I think people have issues with is this comparison to GameStop and AMC, just given how much we have rallied, which I think for the company, for those that have invested for a long time, I think that the fact that the article didn't touch on the fact that there was a period where the stock was in the doldrums, near $2, and it wasn't always this positive, good vibes rally of 6,000%, but there were many years of difficult times in terms of holding this stock and continuing to have conviction and underwriting the investment by having copious amounts of due diligence and kind of sticking with that. And so perhaps, like, I think the article could have touched upon that, which we actually talked about quite— or I talked about quite a bit in my interviews, that when we went through those really difficult times, that was a period when this idea of Space Mob was galvanized, where people were tested in terms of their resolve. And by conducting due diligence and having that conviction, it enabled people to not only ride the stock from, call it, I think it peaked in 2021 at $15 or so, but all the way down to $2, and not only ride it all the way down to $2, but add on the way down. But then the resolve to, once AT&T's commercial agreement was executed, and then you had Verizon come in as a strategic partner with their strategic investment of $100 million, when that happened in June 2024, it was also the opposite, having the resolve to hold on. Because in those early days, right after that announcement came, I do recall very vividly that there were a number of investors who— because we were conditioned on this, right? Every time there was a rally or positive news, it would get sold. And so when the stock rallied on the Verizon news and traded up into the $8, $9, $10 levels, there were quite a few people who actually sold. And they were like, you know what? This rally's going to get faded. I'm going to buy back lower. Because they were conditioned that AST over the previous years would rally on some positive news and go immediately straight down. But then of course, it didn't. It didn't go back. It maybe had some small drawdowns, but it continued to rally over that summer and then hit $39. And so I think, as many of you know, having the resolve to write it down all the way to $2 and add, and then actually having the resolve to hold it all the way up to $39, and even that drawdown from $39 to I think as low as $17, but then continuing to hold it all the way up until, for example, the latest high, which was what, $122 or so? I think intraday it was almost $128, but the close was $122. That just shows the level of conviction that people have in terms of understanding, knowing what you own, understanding the investment and the opportunity, and having the conviction to hold through the ups and the downs. So I think perhaps the article could have focused on that aspect quite a bit, but it didn't, which is fine. But yeah, just moving on in this article, Let's see. I do think at least there is an acknowledgement that while it seems that there are some parallels to meme stock, what I think Sana did a good job is saying that, but this is very different. Whereas AMC and GameStop are 2 highly shorted companies, and I tried to convey this to her as much as I could, those are 2 highly shorted companies that had no financial or operational prospects, right? Whereas this company was highly shorted, but then has technology that is game-changing, right? That it's going to disrupt the wireless industry. It's going to bring connectivity to those who don't have any alternatives, the underserved populations of developing nations, but then also of course eliminating dead zones. And then in more developed countries like the US, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, But then on top of that, delivering a broadband service that is going to augment the terrestrial wireless network. And so I think she at least did a good job there saying that— I mean, specifically here she says, AST isn't one of those. It's got promising technology that beams signals from satellites straight to mobile phones, plans to significantly expand its network, and deals with major telecom companies like AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, counts Alphabet, Google's parent, among its shareholders and space mobbers, unlike some in the meme stock crowd insist they are in it for the long haul. So I think she did a pretty decent job of balancing out the fact that this is not one of those situations where for GameStop and AMC and Koss and some of those others who folks remember, those were situations that were highly shorted, questionable fundamentals, and those were like retail traders going to get the man. The man meaning like hedge funds, like, um, you know, the various funds that got blown up during that period of time who were heavily short. Um, that was really a technical squeeze to go after and take money back from Wall Street to Main Street, whereas this of course is, is very different, um, which I, I think she did a decent job of acknowledging that, um, I think it is important for outsiders looking in, they are going to come at it from the perspective of what she's written, that that is a meme stock. And then what I think she's attempted to do is peel back the layers and show that there's actually a tremendous— the business has tremendous potential. It's got key strategic partners who have not only partnered with the company, they've contributed spectrum, they've also made investment as well. And so I think by differentiating, at least she shows that from the outsiders, this is what it looks like, but it's actually different, which I think was good. There was some— we were always wondering, because we did talk about Tim Farrar at length, how he has served to be a perfect foil as the boogeyman. like the boogeyman who, um, has no idea what he's talking about, but yet he's got Wall Street eating out of his hand and, um, and has caused people to lose, uh, on the institutional side, you know, short sellers and I guess people who haven't invested and could have, and they've missed out on potential for returns. But, um, you know, we had talked about him as being a useful foil, like this villain, right, to pit— who is the, the face of short sellers, right? And he's obviously has fed a lot of these guys and they've lost their shirts over the years. But interestingly, he didn't make it into the article. I don't know if they interviewed him, but what I think is funny is that she did interview some of these old-school financial advisors, like this guy, Peter Atwater, president of Financial Insights, Insights spelled with a Y. So I guess that's pretty hip sounding. But you have a lot of these guys, they interviewed him, They interviewed Matt Maley of Miller Tabak, which is like this small, tiny sell-side firm. When I was working on Wall Street, I never dealt with Miller Tabak. It's some small firm. If you want to talk about obscure, that's an obscure firm. But she tries to balance it by interviewing some of these guys who, of course, poo-poo. This guy says, Uh, the stock is a disaster waiting to happen. Predicted that sooner or later it'll crater some 50%, maybe it'll go another 20%. Um, yeah, this guy has no idea about AST SpaceMobile. He's just kind of throwing stuff out there. You know, he probably looked at a chart for a second and was like, yeah, it's gonna crater 50%. Um, which I think of course it did, uh, at the time that probably when they interviewed him. Uh, it has corrected, and that's just as we've talked about in the past, like that's part of holding a high upside, high beta name, you're going to have wild swings in the stock and you've got to be prepared. And that's why we've talked about this whole notion of not being on a margin. You've got to have staying power. You don't want to be tapped out at the wrong time. But I think it is interesting. And she calls them too. She calls them out. She says, to many old school market veterans, folks like Matt Maley at Miller Tabak, it all remains a bit absurd. Asked back in January for his assessment of the rally. And so yeah, it was January. Malley, who's a strategist, started out on Wall Street in the 1980s. So he even predates me. I didn't start out on Wall Street until the late '90s. This guy started out in the '80s. So he's like a bigger dinosaur, I guess. But he was calling the stock a disaster waiting to happen, predicting sooner or later it would crater some 50%. And then of course it did. She talks about how in February it sank by 29%, then by early May it had dropped 48% from its January peak. And then I guess they went back to him for a quote and he said, the rout is heating up. It could crater another, it could go down another 20%. So if that's like the skeptics that they're going to interview, those are pretty weak. But in some respects, like I was hoping that Tim Farrar would get interviewed and he'd make it into the article, and then people would kind of research this guy, um, and see some of the stuff that we've posted about him and, and, you know, laugh. But, but alas, he didn't make it. Um, let's see here. So just going through the article, uh, there was a— I think someone, um, and I was just going on Reddit because I posted on Reddit, someone was, was complaining that they the— that she wasn't specific enough about saying that the Blue Origin launch was their failure versus our failure. But I mean, it says here those plans were dealt a major blow in April when its first launch of the year upon a Blue Origin rocket failed. Um, I mean, I guess she could have said— well, I— it kind of implied that, right? Upon a Blue Origin rocket failed. Um, but yeah, I, I think again it's, it's important to note that When you have these types of articles, like, not everyone— there's never such thing as a perfect article. It's like, because if I wrote the article or if Cook wrote the article, then it would be absolutely 100% bullish. It would be probably really entertaining and interesting for anyone invested in the AST space. But perhaps it— well, it probably would be entertaining and interesting for people who aren't invested. But for Bloomberg, you know, they're going to try to put forward something that is balanced and And again, they're going to try to incorporate the outsider's perspective, which is the whole wrapper of meme stock. But I do think by doing so, it's going to draw in more interest. So moving on in the article, she talks a bit about Abel, and I think it's good that they didn't really focus on the company as much or the personalities there. I mean, I do like that she talks about here how Abel keeps a relatively low profile, which is true as CEO. Like he's a guy who executes. He's not someone who is PR hungry. And this is something that the company, from my early interactions with them, has always been the case. I remember talking to a board member at the first BlueWalker 3 launch about how, you know, one of the biggest criticisms I think of any retail investors have had for the company is the fact that they aren't splashy. They don't do a ton of PR. They're not media savvy. And I remember speaking with this board member and I was like, well, I think the company could be more communicative and have more PR, which this person agreed. But then they also acknowledged Abel, he's an engineer and he's all about execution and developing the technology. It's not about flashy PR. which I think over the years, the company has gotten better, but for some of the criticisms where people have said they need to communicate daily or put more PR out, I don't think that's the company's DNA. And quite candidly, if you had the choice between a company that was very flashy and did a lot of hype versus a company who's focused on the technology, building the business and the moat around partnerships and pursuing defense contracts. I'd rather they focus on the actual fundamentals of the business versus the PR angle. But here in the article, it talks about how he's relatively low-key versus guys. I mean, this is, I guess she picked an extreme example, but like Palantir's Alex Karp or Musk, She also makes a reference to Adam Aron of AMC who embraced the celebrity, which I would argue Adam Aron's a pretty questionable guy in what he did to AMC shareholders. But as a fiduciary of that company, they took advantage of what was going on and helped deleverage that company. carve out a more sustainable future for it, even though I guess like at the expense of shareholders. But anyway, let's see. So going back, there is a blurb in the article talking about how AST has acknowledged its debt to the space mob. And this reference goes back to the difficult times when, after the company had de-SPAC'd and gone public, if for those people it was a very painful time, but over the course of 2022 and 2023, out of coming out of the pandemic when inflation was, we had runaway inflation in the US. And so the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates. That was a period of time when any company, especially pre-revenue companies, which is what AST was at the time, suffered heavily. Because when rates rocketed up, valuations got squeezed. And then for companies that needed capital like AST, they were starved of capital. And so over that period of time, it was that was when the company had to dial back research and development, CapEx. Some people would argue that, hey, these guys didn't execute according to their plan in the SPAC, which in the plan, I think once the company went public, there were ideas that they were going to be able to raise capital at attractive valuations. But of course, the environment of 2021 became a very negative environment in 2022 and 2023. And so over that period of time, after companies had gone public via SPAC, a lot of them had no institutional support. I mean, there was a handful of institutions that believed in the story, but beyond that, I mean, AST was pretty much a retail name. And so acknowledging, in the article, she talks about how the company acknowledged its debt to Space Mob and how executives take questions from individual investors first on their earnings call, which I think is pretty pretty damn cool. I mean, now the company is a $25 billion company working with the top MNOs globally, obviously got FCC approval for its constellation, is viewed as one of the leading companies in this category that it created. The fact that it takes investor questions from retail first before Research analyst, I think is is I mean there I don't think there's any other company out there. Maybe maybe Palantir does. Maybe they do it like after. I actually haven't listened to a Palantir call, but but I'm pretty certain we you know we as in the company started this started it first, and I think that is a testament right to the acknowledgement acknowledging that how much retail support during the the valley of death right when the stock down to $2, how critical that was for the company's survival. Because I think it's— and we can all say this now in retrospect, but back then, there wasn't a certainty that the company would survive financially. Because fortunately, I mean, there was ongoing discussions with Space Mob between me, Cook, Katzi, Steve, and a whole host of other people. It's like, is this company going to make it? Because Fortunately, they never had to disclose in a 10-Q or 10-K the bankruptcy risk, right? Like that they were at a point where they were potentially going to be under 12 months of liquidity. And when a company has to disclose that in a filing, that's no bueno, right? And so the company did its best to fund the business, to have runway to be well beyond 12 months. But then beyond that, continue to innovate. So we talk about the old days, like for example, when Blue Walker 3 was launched and successfully deployed and they started testing. It's unfortunate that Blue Origin, the second stage failed. And by the way, Blue Origin knows the issues and they're very minor, which I've talked about this before, but I think the FAA is going to get Blue Origin New Glenn up and running very soon versus like skeptics out there are saying. But, um, back then, if, if Blue Origin 3 did not get to orbit or didn't open up, that would have been potentially existential, um, you know, extinction-level event, right? Because at that point, the company didn't have a ton of cash, right? And it needed that satellite to go up and prove itself and do what it needed to do in order to then continue funding. Because at the end of the day, for any growth company, there's no such thing as, I'm fully funded from here to eternity. Just like in any startup, you're going to fund yourself to the next important milestones and have enough cushion. You get to those milestones, you demonstrate yourself, and we see this in biotech, then you raise money at a higher valuation. Back then, people forget that because the market was so brutal in terms of where rates were. Obviously, the rates were really high and it was hard for startup companies, especially any companies that went public via SPAC, which by the way includes Rocket Lab and later Intuitive Machines and some of these others that actually ended up surviving. But if you were a SPAC, there was this terrible stigma. So it was hard to raise money. So the fact that AST was able to during that period of time survive. And as I mentioned before, any positive event would get sold off. After BlueWalker 3 was launched, that was when famous Kerrisdale came out with a short report right before— after they had launched, but before they had opened up the satellite. And of course they cratered the stock. But that was a point in time when the company, it was desperate times and they had to raise money. And a lot of that keyed off of retail support because Back in the day when they did equity offerings, they would have to price it down like 20% or 30% because there was no institutional demand. The only institutional demand were either guys who were covering their short and they participated in the offering that way, or capital markets desks who were like, hey, I want you guys to price the offering down 20%, down 30%, because I want to be able to flip it for a profit. And who are they flipping to? It's going to be retail. And that's just kind of how it works if you don't have true institutional demand. But yeah, back then it wasn't all rainbows, right? Like the company was, if you guys recall at the end of 2023 when the company was looking for financing package and here the bears came out, the skeptics were like, they're not gonna be able to raise money. Like even Tim Ferriss called it. He's like, oh, the strategic fundraising failed. It must have failed. Like he made this assumption based off of some of the disclosures from the company. which is something he always does. He likes to extrapolate whatever is disclosed into his own narrative. But yeah, back then it was a tough time. And even with the Block 1 launches, which had you had a failure then, it would've been really rough. But of course, they successfully launched those 5 satellites. They unfolded all of them. They were able to demonstrate service, then we also had Bluebird 6, of course, go up on ISRO LVM-3. And by the way, like, people forget— I know it's brutal and it's painful that BB-7 failed, but BB-6 was a success. And it's given us the ability to say that these early steps towards improving spectrum efficiency are panning out, right? Like, we have got over 150 megabits per second performance from that satellite. for each beam cell. So that's tremendous. But yeah, I think the company has acknowledged and will continue to pay homage to retail investors who have basically stuck with the company through thick and thin. Where in the article, it talks specifically about the company inviting folks down to launch, obviously this past April 19th, but then also for previous launches as well. But anyway, I will say it is funny because they put together, I guess it's AI, a picture of us as characters. And in order to perhaps like, you know, not get copyright infringement, they have a picture of me as Ink Pen Man but modified with like a single tooth and like a patch of hair on top, which I joke that I guess maybe that's what I do look like now. look a bit ragged. But, um, anyway, but yeah, in this article they did ask for— to take pictures of us, and, uh, I did want to stay anonymous, which is why I guess they chose this picture of me, uh, with my back turned, which was good. But yeah, I guess maybe people in real life, uh, who know me, they might be able to recognize my— the backside of my profile. So, um, but anyway, um, let's see here. What I did like is they, you know, she, she did talk about Steve Larison who is a software engineer from Arizona. Um, and then about how Katzi and Pan— me and Pan and Cook, um, we all kind of got together and started a little chat back in the day, which I went back and looked. Um, she didn't put this in the article, but as she was doing fact-checking, she had sent me an email with follow-up about, um, additional facts for the article. And she had asked, you know, when did you guys put together that chat? And so we actually had a chat that predated this NATO Alliance one, and it did include Steve Larison, but it wasn't until later that we changed the name. And we used NATO Alliance because Cassie is out in Sweden, and at that time we felt— and throughout this entire journey, we felt that like it was us against the world, right? And so we wanted— I don't know, we felt this camaraderie and decided maybe it was Cassie who came up with NATO No, actually it was, I think it was Steve, um, Larison who came up with like NATO Alliance. But, um, but yeah, that's, that was the cool, that was like how that name came up. But when I went back and looked to see when we started Discord, so, um, I think I posted my first, um, Twitter thread on AST Space Mole back in December of 2020. So it was literally maybe a week after the company announced their SPAC transaction with NPA. And so I remember talking with a few people on the old ISS Discord about the name, and I kind of tested the thesis that I had that I was writing and previewed it with them. And then I published that note. And then it wasn't until, I think it was December, January, that on StockTwits, I came across The Kook and we started chatting briefly. And then we found out that we had similar backgrounds financially, but he had a high level of conviction in AST. So then Kook and I became friends, and then it was like maybe over the course of— it was definitely after NPA went public, and then that's, I believe, Katzi, that he had told me that he had read one of my threads and then he became involved. Then on Discord, we met Katzi and then Steve Larison as well, Um, and so that's when we formed this chat group. And so that Discord was actually— I went back and looked, um, it was started in October 6th, on October 16th, 2021. So it's kind of hard to believe that that was almost 5 years ago. Um, but from there, you know, we, we actually created this little group because we were like, hey, um, we all have a common interest of doing research. And, um, you know, based off of everyone's expertise and interest, we were like, okay, this was kind of the brain trust of all of our work. And so I went back and it was actually, I mean, it's kind of crazy. There's just so much in that chat of regulatory filings, technical analyses in terms of the underlying technology from Katzi, Steve Larriesson talking about production and engineering. But yeah, I went back. I mean, there's a ton of content there. And I mean, it kind of like brought— didn't bring me to tears, but I was emotional because there I could read all of Steve Larriesson's writings, which kind of felt like he's still there with us. But yeah, it's— I do— in the article, she talks about developing that, that chat, um, which I thought was kind of cool. And yeah, I mean, I guess at the end of this, at the end of this certain passage, she, she talks about how they started posting their findings online to prove to the world, they said, that it was sleeping on what could be the next Google or Nvidia. And I think actually in Steve Larison's word, it would be the next Amazon, right? Because he famously, um, during periods of time when their the company would have drawdowns and people, they would get— they'd be down emotionally. He would always talk about his experience of having day traded Amazon back when the equivalent of the Amazon price back then split adjusted was in the single digits. And he would tell people, I've found the next Amazon and I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'm buying to hold this. And he actually to his grave, unfortunately, when he passed away, but he still held his shares. And so that reference, I guess they could have used Amazon, but I think maybe that came from Cook talking about the next Google or Nvidia. Let me see here. But yeah, it talks a little bit about the due diligence. And so the fact that the group monitors the number of cars in the parking lot of ASD, That was like an early thing where I think one of the signs of life or proof of life for companies is the fact that, and we track employees and all that stuff, and there's some pretty funny stories that go around counting cars in the parking lot, which is an old-school tactic that hedge funds do, especially if you're covering retail names. So let's say you want to figure out if Best Buy is going to beat or meet or disappoint on earnings. One of the things you can do, and expert networks or data aggregators can do this is like they can count cars in the parking lot. And so if there's a lot of customers at a Best Buy over a sustained period of time, then maybe there's a good chance they'll beat earnings results. Or if there's a dearth of cars, there aren't that many, they might miss. But here we were trying to track like, is a company at a point where they are adding headcount and things are positive? Because for anybody who If you're looking for edge, like in the hedge fund world, we call things— when you're looking for edge, it's like non-traditional data points. And so if you're looking to short a company, you might see if they're under financial duress, they might start cutting employees. And that signal is going to happen before they actually announce earnings or announce cuts. So if the car count goes down, if they're not hiring, if hiring kind of plateaus, I remember Kuka talked about this for some of the SPACs in 2022. It's like if they continue hiring, that means prospects are good. They have line of sight to additional financing. They feel good about the financial plan. Perhaps they're going to get more strategic partnerships that are going to continue to extend the runway. Then that's a positive thing. And so as part of our due diligence, counting cars in the parking lot at Midland, was part of it. And we have a pretty funny story where there was this one short seller, Mr. Pink, I think he was on Twitter. And he's like one of these junior hedge fund guys. It was funny because he, and this is endearing, he chronicled his journey to Midland. So he took a picture of his seat on a jet plane, an airline, and said, I'm going to Midland. And then of course, this guy drove out to, uh, the headquarters in Midland, and he talked about how, um, you know, the company was in financial trouble because there was no— he said he couldn't see any satellites and there were, there were no employees, you know, that there— it didn't look like there was activity that indicated that the satellite was going to be shipped. And, um, that was one of the funniest things because everyone dressed him down on, on X because we're like, well, which location did you go to? And and he had gone to the Midland headquarters, which is not where they build the satellites. This guy, which similar to a lot of hedge funds of his ilk, didn't understand that the company's largest production facility is actually in Odessa, which is quite a bit— it's away from the Midland headquarters. And so of course everyone corrected him, and then this guy ended up making his account private or deleting it because he had claimed success when in fact, by posting about, um, his findings, he actually showed his— the, the whole idea of, you know, 5 minutes of due diligence, uh, his ignorance. Um, and so that was pretty funny. But I do like how, um, in this article, you know, she talks about how Space Mob has found ways to tap military radar and astronomer data to follow satellites, uh, you know, track corporate jet flights, uh, build software to find, uh, AST regulatory filings, which, um, you know, there's— yeah, there's a lot of tools, um, that Space Mob has built to stay on top of information flow And then one of the cool things about retail investing is that for hedge funds, and this is a very important point, for hedge funds, if you're in a team with a portfolio manager and you've got like 3 analysts, 4 analysts, maybe you're covering the TMT sector, maybe you're event guys, you're covering all sectors, but while you do have financial resources at your fingertips, your ability to conduct a deep level of due diligence is very limited. Because you have a limited amount of time in your day. You might have like 10, 20, each analyst might be covering 10 to 20 names at any given time. The portfolio might have, if it's very concentrated, it might be 15 to 20. If it's more diversified, it might be 30 to 40 names at various sizing. You might be ramping up a position, ramping one down. But their level of due diligence is talking to management, talking to sell-side analysts, and then talking to industry experts. And that can come either by calling someone as daft as Tim Ferriss, but then also going to TIGS or some of these expert networks, which we've seen, by the way, a flurry of TIGS interviews over the last few weeks. Ryan O'Connor, which I fully agree with, he has said, I view TIGS interviews as the perfect inverse indicator. Because you have to remember, the people that get pulled into these expert networks, they are typically people who have If it's a direct— someone who worked at ASD, they left the company maybe 1, 2, 3 years ago, uh, or its competitors, um, who, who may or may not have any insight. And so, um, they're all a lot of, you know, and you've got to think about like, what are the motives of some of these people? So they may have left the company because they got fired, uh, and so they might have an axe to grind, or they've, they've moved on but the information they have is stale, or they have very unique perspective because they're in a certain department, but it's not a— this is for former AST employees. It's not someone who has a holistic view of everything that's going on. Or if it's a competitor, obviously they're going to have a very specific point of view. And if they're a competitor, it's going to be negative. And by the way, this is what Kerrisdale did in their short report. They leveraged negative views from other people in order to put forward their view of that. They were short the company, but So when you're an institutional money manager, the amount of resources you have is great to a degree, but it's also very myopic and it's based off of stale information. And unless you have a good relationship with management, but of course management's not going to give you MNPI. They're going to give you some indications of how things are going. But then the great thing about retail investing is that you've got this whole army of people And you've got like, you know, in Space Mob, for the article, I pointed Sana out to the fact that Reddit has 50,000 members, but it's actually, you know, Space Mob, if you think about it globally, you know, not everyone's on Reddit, not everyone's on X. There's like Facebook, there's a whole host of people. There's people that are not on social media. So that retail network is like pretty massive, right? And so this is the whole idea of like crowdsourcing due diligence where people know people in the industry, they know other people. And so there's this mosaic of information that you can put together that is going to have a tremendous leg up versus institutional investors. And so this idea where people are like, well, New Glenn is not going to launch for another 3 to 4 months. It's like, well, Space Mom happens to know people in various parts of the industry, and it looks like Um, that launch is going to happen much sooner than people think. The FAA investigation is going to end sooner. Uh, there's— the onus is on, um, uh, NASA and the U.S. regulators actually, because they, they want to get to the moon quickly. And so if the problem is definable and it was minor and it could have been avoided, which is I think what we understand, um, that vehicle is needed to get to the moon. And so, um, that FAA investigation, as long as the company knows what it what happened and it was minor, it's not a design issue and they can rectify it very quickly, then the vehicle's gonna get on the pad way sooner, right? And so I think that's like one of the big advantages of Space Mob too, where we have this like massive network of people and by kind of piecing together information here and there, you're able to come up with a very good idea of what is actually going on versus it's like playing, It's like these institutions, the short sellers are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. They've got some information, but they don't have decent information. They also don't have the continuity of being invested in the company for a long period of time and understanding the regulatory dynamics, competitive dynamics, all these different aspects that go into the investment. You'll have a lot of tourists who come in and like, oh, I just read this article about AST and and it's a meme stock, so I'm going to short it. And then they get their faces ripped off, right? Because they actually don't understand the underlying fundamentals of what's going on with the company. They might see like, oh, Amazon bought Globalstar, so they're going to get crushed. And it's like, well, no, Globalstar is low-band, narrowband data service. They're going to utilize MDA space satellites for the next 4 to 5 years, and then they're hopefully going to develop something that is competitive to Starlink and AST, but beyond that, they've got to get through all these patents. They're way behind. But then also Globalstar, it's great that it's global spectrum, but it's not much. And so there's only— if you assume like 3 bits per hertz type of efficiency, it's never going to be a broadband service. And so they've put like that initial Lego in place, but in order to build the entire set, like, you've got to put all these other Legos together, and that takes time. Um, but anyway, but yeah, I, I mean, this— at least in this part of the article, um, she does point out that, um, you know, our level of due diligence, like, it's next level. I mean, I think most people would have said, you know, it would have been great if she focused more on the level of due diligence that, uh, Space Mob has versus, like, emphasizing the meme stock part of it. But again, I think it's important to understand they're trying to get readers, right? And readers are interested in learning about meme stocks and some of these eccentric stories, right? And so if it was like, oh, there's all these retail investors and they're doing great research and they made a ton of money, that doesn't inject some level of controversy, which I think for someone outside looking in, when they read this article, big part of people who are like, oh, these guys are a bunch of yahoos, like they don't deserve to make all that money. Um, which is fine, right? It's, it's, it's, um, that, that's— you need that dynamic to, to get people engaged, right? And, and for there to be some level of discussion about it. Um, but anyway, let's see. Excuse me. But I do like how, um, as I mentioned before, there's a big segment on Tanner Um, where— and this is pretty cool— where it talks— and this is true— like, where it talks about how, um, he had come across the name back in 2031 and became intrigued. And during the period of time when his daughter was an infant, um, he would read Reddit, um, after putting— you know, while putting his daughter to sleep, which I think is a pretty cool touch, which is true too. Um, but, uh, let me see here. But yeah, I think, I think, um, like this part of the story is cool because it kind of gives something for people to relate to, right? And especially having, you know, being a parent myself, um, going through those periods of time. And, and of course later, um, you know, we, we remember those, those times of, of having small children and it being a very trying time. But for the fact that Tanner was able to come across and be focused, like, you know, he's trying to survive with his wife with this his infant, but, uh, be focused enough to actually, you know, do due diligence on this name in particular and then have the conviction to go all in, um, during that period of time is, is kind of crazy. Um, and yeah, there's, there's also— and here they, they disclose, uh, Tanner's stake, which is worth some $8 million, um, which is great. I'm super happy for him. Um, let me see here. Then they talk about Kevin Chen, which obviously most of you guys know Kevin and his great contributions. Um, I think it was cool that, that he was incorporating the article. And again, I feel bad that Brian O'Connor and, and Pranya got cut out of the article. I guess they try to keep it shorter. Um, but let me see here. I do like the end where they And this was true where, uh, I think it was Tanner's wife's birthday. They were going on a trip and similar to Tanner, um, you know, I, I had plans and I was like, well, you know, it's okay. Um, maybe I'll just miss this, this, this last launch and, uh, I'll just make the next one. But of course, like once they sent out the emails, uh, and, you know, highlighted that the launch date was set for April 19th and they sent out invites. Of course, while I convinced myself not to go, I dropped everything, asked my wife, she was totally cool with it. We got help and then I booked my stuff last minute and I went down. And of course it was great to see everybody down there. Unfortunately, not the outcome that we would've liked, but regardless, I think that's a testament to how far the company has come, where one launch failure is not going to be company ending. It's just a blip in the arc of the path to success. This is one setback, right? And it was a setback that we could afford, meaning Bluebird 7 was a backup to Bluebird 6, which was successful. And so Bluebird 7 would've been gravy in terms of being a demonstrating satellite launch and operations for space SDA contract. And so yeah, at the end of the day, like, it was great to go down there, see Abel, see Scott, and of course meeting new people as well, which I met quite a few new folks on that trip. But, but yeah, there's— so there's this article which I posted. There's also a video that Bloomberg— a short video where Sana kind of talks about the story, and there's a few details in the video that are are not in the written story. So definitely recommend checking that out. I posted the link. And also, if you're not following Sana, I truly believe, like, I think she, based off of our interviews, she probably was gonna write a somewhat different article, you know, maybe not with all the meme stuff and what have you sprinkled in, but I think probably her editor forced her into, and I'm, you know, I'm giving her benefit of the doubt, I think her editor forced her into more of this flavor type of article, which again I think is fine because at the end of the day, like, it's all about getting, you know, having, um, hooking new readers to take a look at this and, um, and then from that initial interest digging more into the story. But, um, but yeah, I think, I think overall Sana did a really good job and, and, um, and, you know, kudos to her and, and of course for everyone who contributed to the article. But I, I, um, but she is on, on on Twitter and/or X, and so you can follow her. She, um, she's a, she's a, you know, young lady who's, um, who started her journalistic career, I think, at Bloomberg. And, and so cool thing about her is that she's writing now, um, solely focused on space. And so I think it's important, um, as a resource, uh, that she, you know, I, I've continued to, you know, have conversations with her from time to time, and I think obviously as AST SpaceMobile continues to mature, but also other companies like Rocket Lab, by the way, who had great earnings yesterday and great business partnerships they announced and an acquisition, which is doing well. But for Rocket Lab, AST, obviously SpaceX as it comes public, I think Sana's going to be an important person following the sector. And so I think for people who are interested in space, definitely give her a follow. But Anyway, I'm probably going to pause there and end the space here. Although let me just take a look and see if people have any questions. Someone's saying, article's paywalled. Can someone else share? I did share it. Just look at my timeline. I shared a— maybe to the chagrin of Bloomberg, they probably didn't like that, but whatever. But I did share the article for anyone who's interested in reading it. Um, so Arter Kusiak, they should have interviewed you, Cook, or Katzy. Um, they did interview us. They interviewed all 3 of us, including Tanner and Kevin, and actually a few others who didn't make the article. But, um, as I mentioned before, like, this is an independent journalist. It's Bloomberg. They're gonna write the article the way that they want. And so is it perfect? No. Would I have changed, um, certain aspects of it? Absolutely. But it is what it is, and I think overall it was an okay job. Um, let's see. I agree, this is an engagement article, more eyes on AST. Yes, wholeheartedly agree with that. Um, this person didn't like inexperienced investing community comment. Um, yeah, I mean, that's— that was— that was like— that's probably a— that, that is a cheap shot. But, um, I will say that a lot of there is a lot of inexperienced investors in the community. And so I think having over the years, that's been part of the journey, getting people weaponized, armed with the ability to be a better investor. And so I think that's been part of this journey where inexperienced, meaning that a lot of these investors in the retail community, have day jobs and they, they're, they're engineers, they're, you know, they work in production floors, they're lawyers or accountants, they're, uh, in other walks of life. And so indeed, um, you know, they're not professional investors, but, but, um, I think for anyone who's been invested in AST over the years, um, they've moved from the inexperienced realm to experienced having survived this far. Um, but you know what, I think that's pretty much it. I've got to hop actually, so Um, but yeah, I just wanted to fire up the space and talk about this article, which I think, um, overall is a good thing. Um, it's not the perfect article, but it's also not a terrible article, and it's going to bring more interest and attention, and I think that's only a good thing. So anyway, um, thanks everyone for joining, and we'll talk again soon. We've got, um, the quarterly update coming on Monday, and of course the first batch shipment if they're going to make the June Falcon 9 mid-June launch. That batch shipment could go out any day now, any day, or— and up until the next 2 weeks. So thanks everyone for joining, and we'll talk again soon. Take care.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mover 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. To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.
[00:58:35] Speaker B: 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 have proven technology to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn on their phone 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 MNOs.
[00:59:16] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: Mmm, waffles.