Anpanman - Launch and SpaceX IPO Roadshow Secrets

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[00:00:59] Speaker A: Hey everyone, good morning. Thanks for joining. I wanted to cover some AST SpaceMobile news. We've got a launch date scheduled for next week, and I wanted to cover the Starlink video or SpaceX video from the IPO roadshow yesterday. But, uh, first, big news. Let's talk about it. So the Bluebirds 8, 9, and 10 are scheduled to launch aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 Wednesday, June 17th. So that's next week. The company is not sponsoring an event there. As I've discussed before, the cadence, as you get more of these launches, I think the company is going to try to sequence these where they don't take up too much company time and of course resources as well. These events, for many of you that have been, are pretty pretty big, pretty big, you know, events to go to. And there's quite a bit of planning and obviously, you know, nice breakfast, all these different things, and probably not a good use of time for executives unless of course, you know, customers are there. But I think in this press release, they talked about the idea of doing an event for Bluebirds 11, 12, and 13, which is fine by me. And so I think that launch is probably going to happen sometime in July or early August, depending on when the next batch is done and when the calendar syncs up. But yeah, so this coming launch, there will not be a— it will not be a sponsored event. However, people are more than welcome to go down to Cape Canaveral in Florida and meet up. This launch is early in the morning, so we're looking at a Wednesday, 2:30 AM Opening time, and I think that extends all the way to 4:15 AM. And so as of now, I'm planning to go. I talked with the wife, she signed off and she's supportive. So I booked a hotel room at the Courtyard Titusville. So if anyone's interested, that's where I'm staying. I think there's a few others who are staying there as well. That's, by the way, the hotel doesn't know this, but our friends Steve Larsen is actually buried there right on the coast. There's several like seating sections behind the hotel and that overlook Kennedy Space Center. And so Steve is actually buried there. I've, for those that don't know, I've shared Google Maps coordinates if you want to go visit him. So I'm planning to go visit him when I go down. But yeah, I'm planning to fly down Wednesday evening after The kids are out of school and all my duties are done. And so I told my wife, I'm going to fly down Wednesday night, maybe sleep a few winks, and then go to launch wherever we decide to meet up. And then once launch is done, I'm going to head back to the hotel, or sorry, head back to the airport and fly back to New York. So I'm planning to be there. If anyone else is going to go, I think Tanner might be there as well. It'll be obviously a smaller group of people, but, um, but it'll be fun nonetheless. So yeah, this is exciting. Uh, this is obviously the first batch launch that we have, um, and this is with the 3 satellites that are stacked. We saw a picture of 8, 9, to 10 stacked on a Falcon 9 fairing, which by the way, um, I did poke some fun here, but it's— this is on that Tim Farrar. I think it went back as far as Around Mobile World Congress, this guy, this hack, was spreading rumors. He was the original source of this. He was spreading rumors that the Bluebird satellites would not fit in a Falcon 9 fairing. And so he spread that all at Mobile World Congress. The hedge funds picked it up as well. They were trafficking that as a bearish piece of news, if you can call it that, which is funny because You know, the company has a ton of capable engineers, and you would think anyone with half a brain and a ruler or whatever measuring implement you want to use, when you're designing a new satellite, you would think that you're engineering it to fit within a standard fairing, which includes Falcon 9. It includes it includes Ariane. You know, 6, it includes any number of, you know, Blue Origin, New Glenn, it should fit in all of them, right? Which the company from the beginning has talked about architecting their satellites to fit in any standard fairing. And so for this guy to peddle that FUD and then it actually picking up traction is just absolutely hilarious. I mean, the receipts are all online. The guy tweeted it multiple times, said that all the Falcon 9 launches this year, because the company didn't measure properly, are off the table. And so I just don't know how you look yourself in the mirror and are okay with your existence when you're continually proven wrong. The funny thing this past weekend, Coop did a space and he talked about this incident where someone DM'd him on Twitter and was like, hey, are you a shareholder of AST? And then to mess around with him, he was like, no, I'm just trolling the company. I spend all my time just Doing it for fun. I don't, I don't own any shares, and I don't. I'm not short, which that made me laugh quite a bit because there's actually he was saying this in jest in response to this person's inquiry. But at in reality, there actually are a number of these individuals, whether it's like Philip Lyle, Free Speech. Who are some of these guys? Sprites Manager. I don't know. Shorts Manager. There are these people who actually for the last 3, 4, or 5 years have spent most of their time fighting the company, um, and have devoted a significant personal time, amount of personal time to trying to, um, spread FUD, troll, you know, investors, do whatever, right? And so, um, just imagine spending, you know, that much of your personal time over 4 or 5 years and having nothing to show for it, right? Like claiming that the company was never going to make it and it's going to go to zero. Um, I guess like From a personal satisfaction perspective, like if you were right, maybe that's okay. Like you claim victory if maybe the company did go bankrupt, but instead the company is doing well and signed multiple partnerships, has contracts with the US government, stock's trading at $100, and you spent all that time for what? I mean, on the flip side, you could have bought some shares at $2 and some money. But yeah, there's a whole host of these characters, which by the way, like some of them are actually, they're SpaceX employees, but they moonlight as these, you know, internet anons, which candidly, I guess I'm one too. But yeah, you've got to question like some of these people's motives and what they've been doing this entire time. And I guess like you, You get to this point where you dig a hole, you've wasted so much time, you keep digging this hole that you get angrier and angrier. And so you devote more of your time to hopefully trying to take the company down. But it's hard, right? Because it's what the company's doing is inevitable. I mean, you've got validation from Starlink and this is a huge growth market for them. Previously it was like, oh, this is a niche market. No one's ever going to pay attention to it. It's not going to be something that MNOs care about or users care about. But no, you've got the, a $2 trillion IPO that's coming public and a big pillar of growth is direct-to-cell. And, you know, I'll talk a bit more about it later, but yeah, it's funny that on days like this, you'll, you know, Tim Ferriss will probably go crawl into a hole and not say anything. He may not, he won't acknowledge anything. And then maybe a week or two later, if there's like some, news that he can twist into something negative for AST, then he'll tweet that and ignore all of his previous funding. But yeah, I guess for AST SpaceMobile shareholders, at this point, Tim Ferrara is a clown and he provides entertainment. I mean, in periods, whether they're positive or in periods of uncertainty like we recently had, just seeing him tweet, And trying to stay relevant is just entertainment. So anyway, but yeah, so looking forward to the launch next week and hopefully I'll see some of you guys there and we'll figure out a time and place to meet up maybe Wednesday evening. And I'm not sure why I booked a hotel room. Probably best to just stay awake through it all. But given that I'm on the older side, I'm not a 20-year-old, I need more. I need some level of sleep. So I am planning to get some winks. And I guess to make it easy, we probably will meet up at the Courtyard Titusville. There's a really nice bar on the rooftop and also the lobby is really nice. And so for anyone who is going down there, there's a Hyatt right next to the Courtyard as well. So you don't have to stay at the Courtyard, but there's rooms available. By the way, this is the hotel that the company stays at, when there is a formal launch event. And typically when there's other companies that are launching on a given day, then they typically will book that hotel. And so it's rare that that hotel is available. And because this is not a sponsored event, there's plenty of room. So if you want to meet up, let me, reach out, let me know. We're probably, there's a group of us already going down. So that'll be fun. Anyway, so moving on. Oh, oh, one more, one more shout out here. Let me see here. One more shout out to this guy Tinderbox. So I just took a quick look at his profile, and and I guess his recent claim to fame is he's planning to short all space companies. He he tweeted a poll: Where's where's AST Space Mobile going to trade post Bluebird eight, nine, and ten launch? And I think his His price choices were, let me just look here, was below 50, below 40, below 30. So, so yeah, this guy's entertaining. I mean, his claim to fame is yesterday he tweeted, and I'll give you the exact time, at 2:51 PM. So let's see where the stock was trading then. Let's see, AST at 2:51 yesterday. Dude. Oh my gosh. This guy really picked it. So, so this guy bought weekly put options, so they expire in 3 days and he spent, he bought 200 in-the-money $100 puts. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. He bought 200 $100 puts in-the-money for $10.20. And so he spent $204,000. And he needed, you know, for a breakeven for the stock to go to $89.75. Obviously he believes that he believed that stock would go lower, but he did this at 2:51 PM. So the stock was trading at around $92. And so this morning, you know, I think I tweeted earlier, I think we're going to close, you know, we could close above $105, probably more likely above $100, but I do think we're going to ramp up Obviously, the macro could have a hand in things. You know, if there's more issues with Iran, then perhaps $120, $130 is not in the realm of possibility. But if Trump does decide to taco or we get some peace deal, then $120 and $130 is certainly in the cards. But I point this guy out because, you know, you have from time to time when things are pretty negative, there's always like these guys who pop out of the woodwork. And this guy laid out $200,000 on put options that expire this week, 100 puts. And so these things at the open today, they're probably going to be worth like $2, $3 maybe, or less. And so he's going to be down well over 80, probably 70, 80%. But this is just a, as Cook mentioned over the weekend, options are financial drugs. And so if you don't know what you're doing, they can be very dangerous. Like this guy, you know, he probably didn't know that the Bluebird 8, 9, and 10 launch date was going to be scheduled as a Monday, which we talked about last week, that it was likely going to be announced Monday or Tuesday. And today's Tuesday. So yeah, his, he just probably lost $150,000, $160,000. Which you know is is a pretty decent amount of money. But anyway, moving on. So yesterday I I am an E-Trade slash Morgan Stanley client, and I was able to watch the SpaceX IPO roadshow. And so I did I did cut up I did record the whole thing, but I'm not gonna post it online because I think that Axwell and Morgan Stanley they've done this in the past where I've put up like Morgan Stanley research and then it gets taken down for DCMA. But I did just post this small excerpt of Brett Johnson, who is the CFO of SpaceX, where he talks about their plans for Starlink Mobile. And here in this forum, you know, there's a longer interview he did with Gavin Baker that Elon Musk posted, and it's a bit more sanitized. Like, there's not as incendiary language in there. But this particular excerpt, you know, sometimes like when these executives talk, they kind of forget the narrative or things that they can say or can't say. I'm not sure if it's any of those things. Maybe SpaceX and Starlink are more open about this stuff. But in this excerpt, it's pretty clear that what Starlink's plans are, and they're not hiding anything in terms of competing with And so going back to, gosh, I think it was like maybe a week, no, 2 weeks ago. And so for those that don't recall or maybe need a refresher, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile announced this joint venture where they were planning to work together and coordinate in order to deliver better satellite service and to reduce costs of deploying network and pooling spectrum and And, you know, a whole host of things, right? And so that joint venture was announced at, I think it was like 6 AM and then AST SpaceMobile put out a press release like maybe it was like a minute later. And so, and I've confirmed this with the company that they are working with the joint venture. The market doesn't know this. And, you know, the 3 large MNOs, in order for this, that joint venture to get through antitrust approvals, obviously they've got to be It has to be a position such that they're working, they're doing this to work with all the operators, which in reality could be true, right? Like they might try to work with Viasat and some of these other players as well. But it's very clear that there's one party that they're focused on, which is AST SpaceMobile since AT&T and Verizon have exclusivity with AST for the next 2 to 3 years. And so that's who they're working with. T-Mobile joined this joint venture. They have a deal with Starlink, which actually expires in terms of exclusivity this month or next month. And I don't expect that service to go away. I think they'll probably keep that on board. And while going through the regulatory process, they'll continue to work with Starlink, right? It doesn't make sense to drop them anytime soon. But it seems that T-Mobile is joining AT&T and Verizon, and they're going to work with AST SpaceMobile. They see the threat of SpaceX and Starlink. And yeah, they want to join forces, right? And they're going to, of course, evaluate some other operators as well. But this is pretty much— that joint venture is pretty much going to be working with AST to deliver true broadband service to their users. And as part of that announcement, you saw, I guess it was like 12, 13 hours later, Where Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX said, well, I guess we're going to be competing with, you know, we're David and they're Goliath and we're going to be competing with all the MNOs, which that was always the case. And, you know, I guess they were forced to finally say it. I mean, for those that haven't seen Elon Musk's interviews, he talks about wanting to have a global service that competes with the MNOs and then maybe he'll buy an MNO here or there. But now, you know, the mask is off. Like they're talking about it on the roadshow where They're planning to roll out a global service over the next 2 years. They want to sell it directly to users. And they talk about how their service is going to be table stakes. And anyone who wants to compete has to have a comparable solution in order to counter them, right? Which is what AST SpaceMobile is. It's not just a comparable solution. It's actually a superior solution. Obviously, we don't have enough satellites up yet, but that's currently in process. But what this means is there is a bit of marketing spin here. So let's talk about like myth versus reality, right? Because obviously, like, if you— and I felt the same way when I was watching this IPO roadshow. It made me feel really bullish about SpaceX. It's like, wow, they're doing all these amazing things. Like they're doing data centers in space and they're going to colonize Mars and the moon and they've got direct-to-cell. They're going to roll out this like global service and compete with MNOs. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to buy the IPO, right? Because it's like, man, this is all so positive and this company's going to dominate, which they are. They are going to do really well too. And I don't doubt the SpaceX team. They're brilliant engineers and they've got great business people. And so it's going to be a successful company, right? And I think, but talking about myth versus reality, you want to put the best way forward for an IPO roadshow. You're trying to sell the deal to investors. And so can Starlink Mobile compete with MNOs globally? They can compete to a degree, right? So in areas where there's a dearth of coverage or not in highly dense urban areas, Starlink is going to offer a decent mobile service. They're going to have a, you know, call it 50 to 60 megahertz of mid-band spectrum. And so they're going to be able to offer a pretty good data service. It's not going to work indoors and it's not going to work if there's too many obstructions, but it's going to be a pretty good service. And of course, if they put up a ton of satellites, then the amount of capacity that they can beam down is going to be pretty decent, right? However, in order to compete head-on with MNO, you actually, and this is a structural advantage of AST SpaceMobile, This is something that Starlink for the foreseeable future will not have, even if they put up a ton of satellites and improve data throughput. They do not have satellites that are architected to use low-band spectrum. And low-band spectrum is 600 MHz to 900 MHz. It's what is the lifeblood of any terrestrial carrier, meaning this is a spectrum that has good propagation and coverage. So it can go through trees, it can go through multiple walls in a house. When you go to the subway, like the service still works. And so to provide a carrier-grade service, you need low-band spectrum. You need a cake of low-band spectrum for coverage and propagation. You need the middle layer of the cake, which is mid-band spectrum for capacity. And then if you're lucky, if you have high-band spectrum, which is what AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile are deploying, C-band spectrum, that's like really high throughput, right? But then there's not great coverage or propagation. You need more line of sight. But for SpaceX, for the foreseeable future, they're just stuck with mid-band spectrum, and that's what their satellites are architected to use. And so the ability to actually compete with MNOs properly does not exist, and the service is always going to have that flaw, right? It's not going to be like AST SpaceMobile where you have low-band spectrum, which you need to work in partnership with MNOs to lease that spectrum, which is what AST is doing. And then AST also has mid-band spectrum, which is comparable to what Starlink is going to deploy. We have L-band spectrum and we're pursuing S-band globally, but that's like more of the capacity layer, right? And so we're going to have 2 shells to start off with, the low-band spectrum shells, which is what's being launched now. And then you're going to have the mid-band shell, which will start getting produced and launched sometime in, let's say, let's push that out now, probably Q2 of next year. And so the service, even with low-band spectrum, we've demonstrated 100 megabits per second. The second-generation satellite will, or sorry, the block, that's Block 1 satellite. The Block 2 satellite will actually do 200 megabits per second, and that's what's being launched right now. And so Starlink is hoping to get to, I think, 150 with their second-generation satellite. And that satellite is not going to be deployed until, call it, 2 years from now at the earliest. maybe 3 years. And that spectrum needs to be incorporated into handsets. By the way, like Starlink will not work with existing handsets or older handsets. You will need a new handset to leverage the EchoStar spectrum that they're buying. And so it's going to be a very slow uptake process, right? And they're going to need MNOs. So the guys who actually drive chipset changes are the MNOs. And they're the ones who tell Apple and Samsung, hey, I want you to support This spectrum, because I'm going to hang towers and deploy it. So Starlink is going to have to get somebody to convince the handsets to carry the EchoStar spectrum. And so there's a lot of process steps that have to take place. Whereas AST, because it uses existing low-band spectrum, and it also, there's patents around it where it tricks the phone into thinking it's talking to a terrestrial tower, current devices, Older devices, they already all work with AST. And part of the value proposition and the attractiveness of this investment is the fact that you are able to leverage an existing install base. There are billions of phones around the world. You just have to work in partnership with MNOs to turn on the service, and then those people become immediate customers. It's like the Netflix analogy where everyone has a PC, everybody has a mobile device. You just need to go to Netflix and Press subscribe, you pay $10, $12 a month, and you're using the service. And that's what AST is. Whereas Starlink, there's this high level of friction where you're going to have to buy a new handset. If they're competing with MNOs, you're going to have to actually go to Starlink, not the MNOs, you're going to have to get an eSIM, and then you're going to have to enable it on your phone and use it as a service. And that's going to be in conflict with the MNO service, right? So the Once the MNO service is out of range, then it'll switch to Starlink and then you'll have service wherever it is. You know, how you, how you prioritize that, I guess, is up to you. You could prioritize the Starlink service first and then have your MNO second. Then the phone will, I guess, switch between those 2. But, but there's a lot of friction there, right? Like, again, you're gonna have to buy a new phone. You're gonna have to pay a separate bill for this Starlink service. This is assuming that T-Mobile eventually drops them, which I think they will. And so there's a lot of friction there. And that business is quite different than what AST is doing, where it's going to be fully integrated into Verizon, AT&T, like premium plans for T-Mobile as well. It could be an add-on for lower tier plans. And yeah, it's just one bill and it's going to work seamlessly. So the way that AST is architected, it is integrated into the network core of the MNO. And so there's seamless handoff between the 2 networks. There's not as if, and some people, who use Starlink T satellite with T-Mobile today talk about how the 2 fight with each other and the handoff is not smooth. And so it's like dropping one and picking up the other. And yeah, there's a whole host of issues when you're basically having redundant networks on top of one another and they're fighting to talk to the phone versus if it's coordinated in a seamless way on the carrier network. So anyway, but yeah, for Starlink Mobile to actually compete, they're going to need low-band spectrum. Part of the way to get that, or One way to get that is to enter into a virtual mobile network operator agreement with one of these carriers. For example, for people that use like Mint Mobile or Boost, those folks are just marketing arms. They don't actually, they're not facilities-based competitors. And so they actually have to go to a Verizon or AT&T and say, hey, we want a wholesale agreement. We'll pay you a certain amount of money for our customers to be able to use your network. And so, um, that would be a way for Starlink to develop a Starlink mobile service. They could go to AT&T or Verizon or T-Mobile and say, hey, um, we'll pay you, we'll pay you a lot of money to let our customers roam on your, uh, to basically use your network when they're not using our network. Um, and the, the issue here though is that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, um, know that once you open up Pandora's box and you enable Starlink Mobile, You can't put the genie back in the bottle, right? And so from a competitive standpoint, that's going to be a net, even though you're gaining some level of wholesale usage on your network, that's going to erode ASPs. It's going to, from a competitive standpoint, you know, it's given the brand value of Starlink and Elon Musk, you know, it's not, he's not obviously appealing to everybody, but he's definitely appealing to a number of people. that's going to be a net negative for the entire industry. And so you've seen the CEOs of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, who's Starlink's current partner, say that there's no sense or strategic rationale for them to enable or provide Starlink Mobile with an MVNO agreement. So that's off the table. And my assumption is that AT&T and Verizon kind of went through this game theory, And we're like, if we don't allow T-Mobile to join us in this joint venture and to use AST SpaceMobile, there is this risk that maybe they'll blow their brains out and work with Starlink and create an MVNO for them, which is a net negative for the entire industry. So I think that's probably part of the calculus as to why they allowed T-Mobile to join. And then they also saw, if we can pull resources, ground stations, pull our spectrum together, which is low-band spectrum, we can create a very robust service where we can dictate the terms a bit more versus some of these satellite guys. And so for those people who are like, well, that means that pricing's going to go down for AST. No, I mean, Starlink was charging, I think they get 80 cents for every dollar that's generated and they give 20 cents to T-Mobile, whereas AST is doing a true 50-50 deal where they keep 50 cents and then they give 50 cents to the carrier. Those economics are far more superior. And over the long run, the company and the carriers talk about this being a growth business for them. And so quibbling over pricing probably doesn't make sense if it's a growth business, especially if you're competing against Starlink and you need to make sure that your partner is well capitalized and obviously has enough horsepower to get the constellation up. then you're not going to starve that business of capital or economics. And I think over the long run, I mean, let's assume that pricing does come down. Let's say that AST instead of getting 50 cents gets 40 cents or 35 cents, whatever it is, right? But if you're getting 100% of the most profitable market in the world, that really doesn't matter. And that's a bit of hyperbole, like 100% is probably too high, but if it's 100% of all the MNOs, and let's say Starlink is able to get I don't know. Let's say the MNOs from a, in terms of satellite service, keep, get 80% of the market or 85% of the market and Starlink gets 15%. Then, you know, taking a 35% or 40% cut of that is not a bad thing because originally, for those that don't recall, AST was going to work with AT&T on a mutually exclusive basis for 5 years. And then they brought Verizon into the fold so that that went from a third of the market to two-thirds, and then with T-Mobile, that's 100% of the market. So that's a good spot to be in. So in terms of the— I posted earlier that AST is going to be the partner of choice. And so it's not just for AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. You can also include Google into that bucket because obviously Google's a strategic investor in AST and working with the company on making sure their handsets work well. Apple, you can throw in there. Apple obviously is partnered with Amazon, and Amazon promised as part of the deal to provide some minimum level of service for Globalstar. And Globalstar, for those that know, they're currently rolling out additional satellites to replenish the old ones that they have, currently in orbit, and then they're going through with the second-generation MDA Space Aurora satellites. And so I think for all intents and purposes, just given the dearth of spectrum that they have, that service is probably still going to be narrowband until they can develop their own satellites sometime in the future. And folks have to remember, they're still working on getting their fixed wireless constellation up, and they're well behind on that. So this adds another layer of complexity. They're going to try to get a direct-to-device constellation that's more robust than Globalstar. And so my guess is you're probably looking at like 2030, 2031. And who actually uses that constellation is unclear. I mean, it will be Amazon and obviously Apple, the narrowband service that they provide with devices. I think that network would be, there is going to be value. For example, imagine Internet of Things, AirTags, all those things, those will all need to be serviced and you can provide some type of differentiated service outside of the MNOs to do that. But then I think over the long run, just given the dearth of spectrum there and the satellite know-how, my guess is that, and we've talked about it a few times, but my guess is that ultimately Amazon and AST will partner together because they will then They have to see ultimately where this all goes. And if you have a dearth of spectrum and you don't have the MNO relationships, it's going to make sense to just combine, right? And leverage the same satellites to deliver a much more robust service. That's like a win-win for Amazon and Apple. It also aligns them more closely with the MNOs. And I've talked about this in the past, but going, reviewing the SpaceX IPO, It's clear that Elon wants to compete on all fronts, right? And so there's this vertical stack that he's creating where it's like, we're going to deliver fixed wireless, mobile wireless, AI, AI data centers in space, robotics. We're going to produce solar cells. We're going to produce solar modules. You know, there's a whole host of things that the company is going to do. And it's interesting because I think For SpaceX, I don't think anyone saw the, and maybe this is out of, well, it definitely was out of necessity. I mean, given that XAI has had somewhat limited traction, and this is like Grok, they've built all this computing capacity. And so they entered into, and this is probably to help the IPO, they entered into short-term contracts. So almost like monthly rent or every 2 to 3, I think you can terminate within 1 or 2, maybe 3 months, they entered into agreements with Anthropic and Google where they're leasing out their computing resources, right? And they're generating a pretty significant amount of revenue, right? So I think with Google, it was like $900 million a month, which is huge. But originally that was going to be utilized for xAI, but I don't know. I mean, this is just me speculating, but a lot of folks at xAI, the original crew, and then some recent hires as well have been blown out of xAI. And so I'm not sure. How that company is doing. But it's interesting in that you're seeing SpaceX pivot into the AI data center space. And so they're now kind of competing with some of these neo-cloud providers like NBIS and IREN and others, Amazon. I mean, you name it, like because they have, they've built out the infrastructure and perhaps they're not able to use it or the demand's not there, then they're renting out for other people. But It is good for SpaceX in that they are gaining some experience in data centers because ultimately if they want to go to space and do data centers, then there's going to be a lot of lessons learned here, right? And one of the interesting things that was mentioned in the IPO roadshow was, I forgot which lady, the lady's name, but she was talking about how the next generation SpaceX satellites for Starlink, The V2, or sometimes we call it V3 depending on which satellite it is, but that satellite for communication, she was saying, well, it's very simple. Like once you've developed the communications problem, you just have to move things around and delete some things in order for it to be an AI data center application, which I thought was quite funny because that's what we've been talking about, right? In regards to our satellites where, and specifically she said, all you have to do is remove the phased array and you add a few more elements that can radiate the heat.
[00:35:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: these radiators, and then voilà, you have an AI data center satellite. And so, because she's like, all the compute's there and all the different plumbing and everything you need, the interconnects are there. And so you turn it from a communication satellite into an AI compute satellite, which for me hit home because that's what we've been talking about for the last several months, which is if you look at like a Block 2 satellite, you On the phased array side of the microns, you change those into like more heat sinks, right? And then you've already got the interconnects between all the ASICs that you change ASICs out for TPUs or GPUs, whatever you want. It's the same thing. It's pretty much like, obviously there's probably, it's probably simplifying it too much, but all the ingredients are there. And so during the presentation, when this was said, it was like, oh yeah, Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And so, but going back to my original point, SpaceX is competing on all fronts. I mean, this is a do-all and do-everything company. And so as things evolve strategically, and by the way, SpaceX is competing with Anthropic and Google, but yet they entered into deals where Anthropic and Google are renting out compute farms from them. This is the nature of the beast, right? And so this goes back to like people who FUD about AST. It's like, well, they don't, they're not a launch company. And so how are they going to compete? It's like, well, today we just got a launch date. SpaceX is taking 3 of our satellites up on a Falcon 9. Like this is the nature of the tech industry, right? Like there's co-opposition where you compete with each other. You also cooperate with each other. And when it comes to launch, like SpaceX, For better or for worse, and it's actually for the better, especially for our country, the Falcon 9 is a tremendous platform, launch platform, and it's reliable, it's a workhorse, and everybody and their brother has to use it. And ultimately over the long run, hopefully there'll be more options that are available and that will bring the cost of launch down. But we're lucky to have it. And that's part of Anyone who says AST is competing with SpaceX, so they're not going to launch their satellites. No, they launch all their competitor satellites. And by the way, SpaceX got into the communications business because they were launching OneWeb satellites. And they're like, oh, hey, you know what? This is a pretty good business. Maybe I can go in and disrupt it, which is what they did. But I think it's important that for people who try to FUD and say that SpaceX is not going to launch our satellites or they're competing. I mean, just look at all these businesses, right? Like XAI is competing against Anthropic and Google Gemini, but yet they're leasing out their infrastructure. And so that's just the nature of the beast. And that's good for the industry. It's good for innovation. And so Yeah, I think people should, I guess for folks who are new to space, it's an easy bear argument to make like, oh yeah, they're going to crimp competition and they forget about these things called like the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act here in the US. I mean, I guess you could do that in Mother Russia, but in the US where we have antitrust laws, that's just not possible. You can't do that. But anyway, The last thing I'll close with, and then I'll check comments if folks have anything else to say, but I do want to call out people who are FUDing SpaceX valuation or AST or Rocket Lab. I mean, for example, there's this one guy, Stan, who he's a Rocket Lab shareholder and he always FUDs AST SpaceMobile valuation, or actually all space company valuations. And then he also FUDs SpaceX as well, where he's like, SpaceX shouldn't trade here. Like they, And then he points out like all these reasons and it's almost, I want to call these people out because they don't understand capital markets and finance. Because when you are fighting comparable companies in the space sector, you're basically doing a disservice to yourself, right? So the fact that Rocket Lab trades where it does is a high degree and part of the interest and the The overall demand for Rocket Lab is because of SpaceX. And so for you to FUD SpaceX and the valuation, you're basically working against yourself. It's like the biggest own goal, right? And so when you have like these Rocket Lab guys who will say, oh, you know, AST's trading too rich, it's barely generated any revenue and it should come down and Rocket Lab should trade up. That's not how things work. Like, first of all, the companies are not competitors. And then second of all, if you're going to FUD the space sector, the two trade in tandem with one another. And so you're doing yourself a disservice, right? And so, and the same thing goes for AST SpaceMobile shareholders. It's like, if you go FUD Rocket Lab or SpaceX, like you're not, you're working against yourself, right? And I've made these comparisons where it's like, oh, you know, Starlink trades at high valuation and that's great. And AST trades at a Relatively speaking, if you believe projections, a much lower valuation. So eventually, hopefully it'll catch up, but you won't catch me out there saying like, oh, SpaceX is overvalued or Starlink is overvalued. No, it deserves a premium. It should trade at, I mean, because as we've seen with like Lourdes and New Glenn, you know, the difficulty of getting a steady launch vehicle up and running, that's tough. And so SpaceX should absolutely trade at a premium. And I guess my point is that SpaceX is a large behemoth and it's got all these different businesses. I mean, who knew that data center, the leasing business was going to be so big for SpaceX, right? But here we are a few months into the IPO and you've got Anthropic and Google paying probably something on the order of $1.5 billion a month. And so people would question like, where is SpaceX going to get all this revenue in the projections? Oh, Well, they just signed these agreements and there it is. Now, should that be valued at the same level as Starlink or the launch business? Who knows, right? But it's there and they're showing a tremendous amount of growth. And so yeah, that's just part of SpaceX building out these different franchises and hopefully for them to the market demonstrating a tremendous amount of growth and ultimate profitability. But yeah, I do think for some of the people out there who I guess are less sophisticated or like, well, the biggest comparable to my company should trade at a much lower valuation and my company should trade at a much higher valuation. You're doing, yeah, you're working against yourself there. Like ideally you just want that company that you're trying to fund to trade where it does and it'd be justified and that hopefully your company that you own executes and can meet that level of valuation, right? And so yeah, just keep that in mind. Like, I think there's some people out there who perhaps don't know this dynamic well enough and it's like, yeah, you're just working against yourself. But anyway, I'm going to probably call it, pause there. Let me just see if there's any questions or comments. Let's see. You've said a few times that you booked a room for Wednesday night. Make sure you got it for Tuesday night. Ooh, actually, you know what? That was good, actually. Yeah, maybe I'm— I think I— no, I did book for the 16th through 17th. Sorry, I misspoke. So yeah, for those that don't know, I booked my room for Tuesday night, the 16th, and checking out Wednesday, the 17th. Let's see. Um, yeah, so eventually I'm, I'll tweet out like a tweet and then people can respond to it, uh, and we can coordinate where to meet. Um, but I will do that shortly. Let's see, when do you expect PR for the next batch of Bluebirds? Uh, I'm not sure. I would expect that the next PR for the next batch of Bluebirds will probably be sometime middle to back half this month, but we'll see. Let's see. Oh, someone says, pretty sure Stan sold all his Rocket Lab to go into cash and then bought back into Reddit, and then he's been muted. I guess he maybe followed Cyber Prince into the Reddit trade, but I think that for Cyber Prince, that lasted for like a week and then he was out. Anyway, that's all I had. I will probably do another space, um, the next, next, uh, day or two. But just wanted to, um, touch base on this. Uh, we've got this tremendous launch to look forward to, the first batch of Block 2 Bluebirds, um, on a Falcon 9. So that's 3 satellites. So exciting times. And, um, yeah, that's, uh, that's all I had for this morning. And so we'll catch up again soon. Take care, everyone.
[00:44:38] Speaker D: 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. To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:45:10] Speaker D: Mmm, waffles.