Why T-Mobile Is Scrubbing Starlink Before an ASTS Deal

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[00:01:00] Speaker C: Good evening, everyone. I got a new computer and I don't have speakers yet, so can, can some people just do thumbs up if you can hear me? Just want to make sure. I just saw the end pin, man. Okay, I see a thumbs up. Good. Okay, so I gotta get some speakers for this thing so I can do my own sound checks. So This weekend, I'm sitting here really thinking about the thesis. I was just reviewing a bunch of ViaSat things and reviewing the week. I can't help— I know the stock price sucks, but I can't help but just think how bullish I am about what's about to happen. For me, on which night was it? Thursday night, when I saw that tweet from Abel about Bluebird 11 being nominal, I just sat there. My wife was there. My daughter was at the counter. And I checked my phone. I just looked at it and I just started fist pumping. I just went, fuck yeah. My wife looks at me and goes, Cook, something with your satellite stock? And I just go, fuck yeah. And she looks at me a little bit in horror. My daughter's heard these words before, a lot of it. And I said, look, it's important for the kids to know what winning looks like. The example I'm setting for them is one of visceral feralness. So for me, stock price notwithstanding, the bears can do whatever the hell they want, but over time, fundamentals win. BB11 being nominal is just proof of the type of team we have. So the streak of deployment is now Just astonishing when you think about it. They have a perfect record where the orbital launcher has gotten the payload to where it's supposed to be. And so this one was certainly a nail-biter because it took long and we were tracking it very carefully. There were a lot of different views of what was happening. I had come to the conclusion that it had probably been stuck. And so when I say I came to the conclusion, it was just, you know, running all the TLE data and the comparable data through AIs ad nauseam to really test and compare things like BlueWalker 3, which had been stuck, versus the other deployments. But I had seen this other theory out there around the spacing of the satellites. And so it was actually the analysis I saw right before deployment around just simple Newtonian physics of when BB-12 and 13 were pushing off, there was just more mass for them to push off against versus BB-11 just had the second stage. And just basic physics— I hadn't really thought about it this way— meant that it just had less energy to get where it needed to go. Versus the other satellites. And so you had to do some adjustments, wait for some of the satellites in a high drag configuration to sort of air brake themselves while BB-11 was speeding along so that you were in the right distance for these things to have handoff. And so that made a lot of sense to me. And I was kind of changing my mind every day of what I thought was happening. At every point, I thought that the company— and I was right— that they had control over the satellites. and there were very deliberate things happening. Uh, trying to unstick a satellite can also be a deliberate thing, but I was wrong. And so Abel said that everything had gone as planned. So at some level, that's a, a relief. Um, I don't know though if he had alternatively press released that, yeah, BB-11 had been stuck and we got it unstuck. I would have also been really excited about that because it just shows the redundancies. And so pick your poison, but they're still just showing incredible execution. Then I thought about it. I've been reading this book, The Kill Chain, which is so good. It's very depressing actually, but so good. I was actually applying to the US Marine Corps today. The book, if you read it, just opens up your eyes. Turns out there's actually not a lot of jobs I'm qualified for at the US Marine Corps. There are a couple, but they look kind of boring. So I got to figure that out. But, um, but you read this book, it makes you just, you know, want to be a part of it, uh, because the, the threat is so high and you want to support the companies that are gonna allow our kill chain to be a good deterrent, uh, so that we all don't live in a dictatorship run by China. So, which I need to kind of study China again. I've been there a lot. I've read Kissinger's book on China. It's just always so weird to think that there's a billion people that are living without civil liberties. And then you ask yourself, well, What do they think? Like, what is life like without civil liberties? You know, there's, you know, presumably some good and some bad. And so, you know, you have a lot of individual freedoms in America. You also have, you know, crime and things like that. So it's hard for me to think about the idea that I'd want to live in a police state. And so all else equal, I'd rather have the U.S. have deterrent value so that we don't get turned into a police state run by China. And so Off that non sequitur, I was actually going somewhere. It doesn't really surprise me that ASTS has a perfect record. Why? Because it's a goddamn military company. The margin for error on military assets is really high. These are not assets that are pushing the envelope and having no reserve margin. If you have a national security asset, there's lots of margin baked in. To it, because generally, less so than certainly a human-manned mission, but you're generally not going to allow a mission to fail for any reason ever. I think that's probably the applicable standard for a military asset. And what are ASTS satellites? Military assets. That's why this shit is perfect. That's why they test the ever-living crap out of it. You want more transparency? Tough shit. It's a military asset. You don't get transparency. And so, you know, I hope people kind of wake up and realize like, why is it that we're seeing just absolute perfection? Military assets aren't famous for necessarily always being on time. They're famous for being really, really good and really, really reliable. And so BW— BB-11 proves once again the incredible testing capabilities of this company, execution capabilities that even the early generation satellites, as they're still building the machine, moving floor equipment around, hiring and training people, the satellites themselves are still coming out and performing. It's really astounding when you take a step back and think about it. It's easy just to complain about a stock, but when you think about the actual execution and the idea that Abel had sold his company Got bored. I didn't get bored. I think he was. I mean, if you go over the old transcripts from ENT, which is his old company, he was actually already working on ASTS as he was leaving. So he never got bored. He actually had this idea and was going to pursue it. But the idea that he started with a PowerPoint presentation and recruited some of his compadres to go do do something new, taking that idea and now transforming that into you know whatever they have a million square feet of manufacturing capacity in Midland with. Sprawling global operation, hiring the world's best talent with 13 operating satellites that are now many times larger in terms of array space than Iridium.
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[00:09:37] Speaker C: It's astounding what they've done. And we're going to get to then thinking about ViaSat and Satellite 42 and their paper constellation and what they have not done. Importantly, They don't have any people. And it just goes back to, to make things happen, you have to have great people. It's certainly the thing I've learned the most in my latest chapter of my career is the power of having incredible teams and the difficulty of having incredible teams. Humans are very, very difficult organisms to manage. It's hard to get good people. It's hard to bring out the best in good people. It's very difficult. And ASTS has managed to do that. And these great generational companies at their core have incredible leadership with leaders surrounded by incredible partners and all of those people able to attract and retain people who can get the job done. If you are starting from scratch, I'd say that's the challenge. And this week we had yet further Proof of execution in motion. And so Batch 3, Bluebird 14, 15, and 16, have flown the coop, and they are on their way to orbit in Cape Canaveral on another SpaceX flight that some way, somehow, the rocket company that apparently has no rocket capacity keeps on having rocket capacity for AST SpaceMobile. And so another launch is coming up. I can't wait. It's hard for me to imagine a conflict that would make it so that I can't go. So I look forward to a launch date, should be, I would imagine, in 2 to 3 weeks. And from the video they released, we got a lot more details. And so Tanner, who's just an astounding analyst, can take a video that I just am like, oh wow, cool, look, they're building lots of stuff. And, you know, really not know what to think more of it. Goes frame by frame, I'm watching this video now as I talk, frame by frame and just sees how the supply chain has moved, how changes in the factory have changed to ease throughput, where various satellites are in testing, new satellite flipping machines and all sorts of crazy stuff. And you can see Bluebird 25 right there. In the ring. And so when you think about it, we are so close to having enough finished satellites to get to beta service. It's just really a click away. I mean, think about how fast time passes, you know, before you know it, we're all going to be doing our Thanksgiving Spaces. And by then, we could easily have 18 satellites in the air with then a real quick look on 21. It's all starting to happen very quickly, and I'm very excited about it. Delays notwithstanding, great things take time. And I think that's the thing that the retail investor usually, in my view, misunderstands the most. They understand that things are delayed, Um, but they interpreted prior guidance as this false promise of, of truth. It was truth at the time, but truth unfortunately gets changed by reality as you encounter it. And so we've had this discussion a bazillion times, but doing something like this is really hard. And as someone who's spent a lot of time with private companies, just seeing, uh, delay after delay after— I mean, just, I don't know that I've seen one company do something on time ever. And so that might make me more jaded, but I'm so humble to the challenges these companies face. And I've never dealt with a company tackling a challenge that's even on the order of magnitude of what AST SpaceMobile is doing. And so I'm sure the bears would run with this comment, but the fact that this company is within 2 to 3 years of its original timing, Even if they were within 5 years of their original timing, it's astounding to me that they've been able to get this far. So delays, delays, delays on one hand, but you might actually think about just the, as Elon says, transforming the impossible into merely late. The value creation from doing that, you can just look at Elon Musk's personal account, is quite high. Then I just laugh when people think that there's going to be all this competition coming. They haven't even hired the people. They don't have the prime contractors. They don't have the designs. They don't have the money. They don't have the regulatory approval. And I'll say it again, they don't have the people. You're not going to go find a Stuart Taylor who claims to have the design of the next greatest LEO satellite and have this guy one-shot it. I can promise you that, having gone through every single expert Testimonial of this company or expert interview. Reading about the guys when ASTS was in its earlier days, and they were like, "Damn, this thermal stability thing is super hard. We got to go find some guys with thermal management backgrounds," and they go get this guy. They work him literally to death. I mean, sounds like this guy was about to go into the TVAC himself to end it, and. Yeah. Where are you going to go find that guy? You can design the concepts of a satellite, but then each of the subsystems requires very special talent. Do you know a bunch of people with satellite thermal management backgrounds that are unemployed? I don't. Do you know the guys that are going to go tune the ASICs? I don't. Do you have a friendly bus manufacturer in your backyard? I don't. How about ceramic structures that can support the weight of a 737? That shit is hard. I have friends that were responsible for that at other companies, and they said that is so hard that most other companies give up. And those other companies are the biggest and the best of the companies, and they gave up. ASTS got it done, and they didn't one-shot it. They had broken carbon fiber rings, having to airlift them as they fix them. The sausage-making factory is gross. There's a lot of things that are required to work out and get it done. And the key is that you have a team that can get it done, the team that can get it done. And I just still don't think that the market appreciates how difficult it is to assemble that team. At the end of the day, when this is all up, Satellites are working. Cash flow is flowing. It just shows up on a Bloomberg screen. But what doesn't show up on a Bloomberg screen is the blood, sweat, and tears of all the people that had to figure out and overcome all these challenges to get it done. That's where the alpha is—is understanding when you have the right caballero as your leader. And Abel is a guy I've literally bet my life on. We will see how that goes. So speaking of JVs, the MNO JV is complete. Quote, existing carrier satellite agreements will remain in place and the JV partners can continue connectivity efforts independently. In so many words, dear FTC, I swear to God we are not forming an anti-competitive trust to fight Starlink. Uh, yeah, that's what the JV is. The JV is an attempt to create a shield against Starlink. On the other side of that shield, the sword that the 3 MNOs are each carrying is AST SpaceMobile. You might go, well, Kook, only 2 of those guys have announced an agreement. Well, I will tell you Actually, the third is going to be happening imminently. And so the contractual route for T-Mobile to do a deal with ASTS is now open. Keeping existing agreements in place protects AT&T and Verizon revenue share agreements with ASTS, as well as T-Mobile's Starlink partnership. However, the joint venture gives T-Mobile a route to ASTS capacity without unwinding that relationship, and we see a possible path towards That scenario, that's from a sell-side report. And so I will bet again, I will bet poor Anpanman's life, and I will promise to dox Tanner Kirk Otaway and reveal his actual identity if T-Mobile does not sign a deal. That's how confident I am in T-Mobile signing a deal. And I had a kind of an epiphany this weekend. I truly feel in my bones it might happen tomorrow. Could be wrong. If it happens next week, I will quit my job. That will be the sacrifice I'll make. I did the hunger strike, trying to think what else could I do. And so actually just running my own family office will be the thing I'll do if we announce it this week. So I'll give you guys 5 days for my premonition to play out. And why do I think now? So I thought that it would make sense that the JV had to be donezo before T-Mobile would make its next move. Now it's donezo. We're seeing AT&T, you know, they're going on the next tweet. MNOs start swinging. AT&T's going on the attack, basically just dishragging Starlink about how their ambitions for an MNO don't make any sense. And then the weirdest thing of all is T-Mobile scrubbing their website, so taking all the Starlink stuff off. Now, why would they be doing that? Well, I could imagine a scenario where they're doing that because they're about to add AST SpaceMobile. And they're starting to deemphasize the Starlink component. And so sure, they might have 2 services, certainly in the beginning because ASTS is not up and running, but they're starting to make sure that the messaging is changing. Right as we see Justin Barrett scoop up some interesting observations that ASTS updated its website. And so instead of saying from nearly 60 MNOs to over 60 MNOs, One might question what pushed them over. Was it the addition of T-Mobile? I'm just kind of kidding there. I bet it's a lot of other random MNOs, but you know, could be. What we do know is that MNOs are not fleeing ASTS as the bears had predicted. But apparently, as Free Speech, who is the leader of of the douchebags, had said a couple. a couple moons ago that he was hearing that all these MNOs were defecting ASTS. And someone today said, well, would it change your view at all if T-Mobile defected from Starlink and went to ASTS? And he's like, no, no, wouldn't change my view. As you know, the US market is very small, and I'm hearing that Starlink is going to pick up a contract in Mongolia. And I'm just going, damn it, this is terrible news for me. My career as a satellite stand-up comedy guy is is really being challenged. Like I can't top that. That is like Netflix special type stuff. You know, it's like who who's the parody account? I'm starting to feel like I might I might be legit compared to this guy. And so now the bears are saying they don't care about the U.S. market, and oh my God, ASTS might lose Mongolia. I don't even know if Mongolia has a functional liberal democratic government. Government. I have no idea about Mongolia. Is that part of the People's Republic of China? I God knows. I have read the history of Genghis Khan, and that's crazy. But what I sure know is that my thesis didn't rely on ASTS winning over the Mongolian market. I don't even know if there's that many people there. Let's find that out. Population of I know Mongolians are badass. Tell you that people know how to ride a horse. Okay, so Mongolia has. 3.5 million people. You have 2 people per square kilometer, making it one of the most sparsely populated sovereign states on Earth. All right, seems like a good market for D2C. Um, and type of government, like, is this even a government that you can do business with? It has a unitary semi-presidential republic. Okay, so maybe You could do business there, but I don't know. I need to learn a lot more about Mongolia. I actually had met some people that lived there that were sent to Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution and lived in a hut with one piece of coal given to them per night. And that's when I learned, as they said, that Ma was 70% good but 30% bad. That 30% bad seems pretty bad when you were basically killing 50 million people, but. So that was kind of the extent of my knowledge of contemporary Mongolia is it was being used as a gulag for reeducation of Chinese people. But anyway, I digress. The TAM is huge. And so let's revisit the vibrant market of tracking cows. And so this is really probably Katzi's domain. I mean, I could see Katzi actually utilizing all this new satellite technology to like randomly tag animals and then see if he can drop them from like a quarter of a mile away with his precision rifles. But in the meantime, you have Peter Thiel getting more attention on his company that he backed that puts GPSs on cows. Now, we might laugh, but you think about it. You want to know where your cattle are. You can move an entire herd by dragging a line on a screen. It's interesting. It's bad news for the Border Collie industry and all these poor Australian Shepherds that maybe are going to be The first victims of AI, which is tragic, but the data can detect signs of illness, fertile periods, predict births before anyone in the field notices. The AI's name is Calgorithm. Wow. It's been trained on more than 7 billion hours of real cow behavior, but they are charging $5 to $8 per cow per month. So this is how we're going to attempt to lower the price of steak is by using D2C technology to optimize cows. I say that truly straight-faced because that is literally what they're doing. And so then you have a million cows in New Zealand, I believe is where this article is populating. So this is what we call a vertical opportunity. When you're a software investor, you're thinking about horizontal opportunities. I.e., they apply to everything. And these are the really big opportunities, but sometimes you can't monetize that deeply because you're trying to be something to everyone. And then you have your vertical opera— your vertical opportunities. This would be an example of that. Pretty narrow in its reach, cows, but potentially very deep in its penetration because you can go deep into the problem statement of the rancher and solve those problems in a unique way, potentially without a lot of competition. And potentially drive some real value for those people. So vertical opportunities are interesting. So ASTS as a platform, horizontal, that is then leveraged by people who understand the detailed problem statements, there's your vertical penetration of an opportunity, is why the TAM can just be so crazy. Once this technology starts to get in the hands of developers, it will propagate so much more broadly than to the good people of Mongolia. It will propagate to the good cows of New Zealand. Think about the things you've never thought about in your life, and then think some more. The world will never cease to amaze you with stuff you never knew you thought to have to know. And that's the power of a big, fungible, low-cost, technology platform developed by the great people of the US of A. That's where trillion-dollar opportunities are created, and this is my thesis. So we have yet another reminder of cool stuff happening when you make cool things at a low cost that are easily accessible. And so when you do cool things that are low cost, that are accessible, that solve incredible problems that haven't been solved before, what else happens? You attract Really good people, and as someone who at times can find himself thinking that I'm introverted and have social anxiety, it pains me to admit that people matter. You know my dream, which I'm now realizing in this moment, is just sitting alone in my office, which incidentally has no air conditioning because we're having construction done, and I'm super hot. and talking about how important people are, but people are what make things happen. And so this past week, we had the executive vice president and COO of SiriusXM join ASTS. Now, why in the hell would he be doing that? Well, one could say, well, SiriusXM is going down the toilet. Well, that's kind of true. So that is a little bit in secular decline, but still a big company. That notwithstanding, still a pretty important person working for John Malone, who's pretty famous for overpaying people. So he gets to join ASTS. He's getting $12 million of stock, pretty exciting, at the $60 share valuation. So here's a guy who probably, if I could flatter myself, is reading the Cook Report and going, hot dog, this thing might be worth $600. And so he's sitting there going, I might get to be worth $120 million. And I would say to him, welcome aboard.
[00:28:17] Speaker D: And he joined.
[00:28:19] Speaker C: And so great people that are here to drive monetization. So let's go back. When there's all these crazy opportunities, like tracking cows in these high-value vertical markets. I can sit here and talk about this stuff, but someone actually has to go and do it. You have to have people, salespeople, commercial development people, business development people, people people, especially people people. You need people people to go schmooze and make other people wanna do business with you, people people. And so We have recently hired a bunch of people, people who are gonna be able to drive really exciting commercial opportunities, which drives really exciting stuff called revenue. And it's all kind of coming together. But then you can have really good business development people, but you also then need to have spectrum. That's what lights all this great stuff up. So there is yet another FCC STA keeping the testing on grain alive. And so Grain needs to figure out who its partner is. And it occurred to me that these things, and I'll define these things, could all be related. And so what have we had recently? We had the MNO JV finalized last week. We have reason— well, we actually have other FCC filings that show execs, including Abel, were at the FCC. If my theory is right, that T-Mobile is about to be signed, or maybe is signed, then GRAIN is not disinterested in that. GRAIN, having got its spectrum from T-Mobile, would presumably be doing a deal with ASTS that would have revenue share on the very usage of that spectrum by T-Mobile. All of these things kind of fit as related to me, and the sequencing of timing would be MNO JV done, T-Mobile contract not done. My speculation can be wrong, often am. Then Grain Spectrum again, lots of evidence to suggest that's a possibility. FCC testing authorizations sure dismiss the bear camp that says. That's not a possibility. Clearly, it is a possibility. We had the snafu the other week where the FCC refiled the application that revealed that there had been a contract with T-Mobile. Again, another really exciting little tidbit. And so then we also had more activity in the Legato docket, more big meetings. We have Iridium kicking and screaming as usual. The kicking and screaming usually happens right before spectrum. amendments are approved. It's like your one last shot to see if you can scream super loud and get someone's attention, but the FCC is not stupid. And so a lot of things are kind of happening right at the same time. And usually good things happen to ASTS when the stock sucks. It's just funny how that is. It's like the stock wants to see the whites of our eyes and see us all like just get so close to giving up. And then it's like, JK, JK, I'm awesome. And so we're right kind of at that point we've seen before, and that's why I've sort of calmed down. It's like, oh, we're doing this again. And, you know, for the newbies, it's that meme of the guy on the gallows, and I'm looking at them just going, first time? This is like my 5th time, and it sucks, but, you know, you'll get through it. So then we go back to ViaSat. Alex from Babylon really got me on this research strain this weekend. So I was just really doing more due diligence on ViaSat. He just points out that Mark Danberg, not to be ageist, but he's 71 years old and all of his VPs are leaving. B. Riley is for some reason terrified. But then you just unpack that again. Mark Damberg, does he have founder energy right now? Does he have the ability to be killing himself in the way that Abel is killing himself? Does he have the ability to attract top talent? Well, the evidence suggests no. Does he have any experience actually innovating? The guy's only built geostationary satellites. They don't have the people, the experience. They're not a manufacturer. They were looking for their prime contractor and they can't get one. If I just don't know how you could bet more heavily against Viasat being an actual competitor in this, it just seems as clear as day that they're just trying to kick up a storm and follow Charlie Ergen's playbook. To try to get the highest value for their L-band, which is seemingly a bidless and stranded asset at this point. The market, it revalued it, but it's not clear to me anyone's showing up for it. And it seems like their game is really to try to get ASTS to pay up for it, which is a good strategy, and they might, but that kind of seems where this is right now. Meanwhile, ASTS, like I said earlier, is setting the policy. Abel and Brandon Carr having a meeting together in person at the FCC. It's probably not to talk about the Yankees. Meanwhile, are there big problems for a little iridium? And so in that docket where iridium is kicking up a storm about Legato Tanner, who I refuse to give up his identity. I will protect my friends and their anonymous IDs till the death. But Tanner Kirk Otaway is bringing up a very interesting point: is that Iridium actually has a bunch of liability because they're the one creating harmful interference and severe data data loss? Interesting. And so, what happens then? if ASTS gets approval. All of a sudden, some of these other guys get their nuts clipped. So that's one good reason for them to not want or to try to throw lawfare at this, but lawfare it is. And when you look at the companies that are innovating and putting valuable spectrum to use at a pace that has not been done before, you could only imagine that ASTS is very popular within the offices of the FCC. So then we have to think about going back to my new favorite book, thinking about satellites as part of the kill chain. And so what was interesting is this thing which we had known before, thanks to Katzy, is that you can use 5G technology, 'cause it's just beaming lots of electromagnetic frequency. When you disturb the EM, you see what's disturbing it. So as it turns out, when you fly a stealth fighter, you disturb electromagnetic energy and you can see them. And so what the long-term effect of this is for the US is interesting. On one hand, it allows us, because we have all these satellites, to see things, but in a pure strategic race with the very few companies that can have equal capabilities, This starts to get kind of interesting, and not interesting in a good way because it might render our stealth fighters less valuable. Remains to be seen how you can detect these in real time. It's also kind of curious timing that we're bringing back to life the SR-71 Bluebird Blackbird, which is basically the coolest thing ever. And so maybe the strategy from now on is no longer going stealth, just. Let it rip and go as fast as possible. But then we have Hexeth talking about the new arm of the military that's focused on autonomous drone warfare. This relies on connectivity, PNT, and sensing as these autonomous systems are brought to life. And again, I highly recommend everyone read this book, The Kill Chain. It'll really open your eyes to What's happening? This book is the foundational book that Palmer Luckey uses to build Anduril. Seeing as Palmer Luckey is now in the driver's seat of future military strategy, you know it's it's a phrase I always like to repeat. But when Patton defeated Rommel in North Africa, if you ever watch the movie, he goes, "You know, Rommel, you bastard! I I read your book." Because Rommel had written a book on tank strategy, which turned out to be not a great idea. When then your adversary in a few years' time could read your book and understand your playbook and defeat you with it. And so Palmer Luckey has a book that he uses to guide Anduril, and as an extension, more likely than not, is going to be the book that's going to be guiding the Pentagon. Pretty smart thing to do is read that book and then invest in things that are consistent with it. ASTS— I was reading this book, the whole thing is basically just why ASTS is important and why Starlink is important. And so you should just not overthink it. And these autonomous drone systems are gonna be a really big deal. And one thing I hadn't really appreciated is just how terrible all of the current military networks are and how unconnected most of our systems are. They just cannot communicate with each other And it's really eye-opening. So next, we have ASTS hiring for a bunch of M&A analysts. I don't want to hype this up too much because the company is and should be in a lot of deals, whether they're getting sold or not, notwithstanding things like doing a deal with Grain Management, buying suppliers, Legato, things like this. I mean, this company's going to have a very active business development function. It's going to grow in ways we can't contemplate. We should expect it to be acquisitive, to buy strategic assets to make it better. And so they're hiring cheap talent to help organize some of that. Next, we had Starship work. So again, pretty amazing to watch SpaceX do its thing. I just can't really think of a company that is more inspiring to watch. But on the flip side of the inspiration that SpaceX creates is the disgust that all the FUDsters create. And so this week, again, we had all of the normal bears having tried to spread a bunch of FUD about Bluebird 11 and Batch 3, saying that it wasn't going to work, this or that, scaring the hell out of a bunch of retail investors that Very well might have sold at the lows last week if if something good happens. They're predicting that MNOs will leave, predicting all sorts of things, and then you just would recommend everyone reading the work that Anpanman and another Smith did of just pointing out you know the timing of how they're very clearly being paid or doing favors for their friends at Viasat. And then as another Smith points out, Stewart readily admitted for some reason on Twitter. That he, he works on various funding schemes. And I don't even know this guy. Um, I've decided I'm not going to spend much brain damage on him anymore. But in the meantime, I think some people do recognize the research the Space Mob has done. And, you know, there's some, certainly some, uh, colorful elements to Space Mob. Certainly at the bottoms, people get pretty irritated at each other. Maybe we don't always paint ourselves with glory, but at another level, the research is incredible. Timing on these things is really hard. I personally don't give a lot of weight to timing predictions because of the difficulty of what they're doing. I ultimately care whether the thesis is right. So just quickly just looking at what is the IRR of an investment in ASTS if you just bought it on the day of the de-SPAC? What which was April 1st, 2021. So it was a big April Fool's joke. And if you just bought and did nothing else, you would have had a 90% drawdown, which is pretty scary, but then you would have proceeded to compound from that original purchase price of $11 at about 35% per year. And that's after the stock has been just clubbed. And so you have a winner here. delays notwithstanding, the market is telling you there's value creation here. It's performing, it's inflecting, and I personally believe the greatest days are ahead. And so I'm excited to be a shareholder, and I just want to make sure I keep seeing the fundamental milestones flip. BB11 unfolding. I'll give that to Scott.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini in Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility and availability varies, 18+.
[00:42:07] Speaker C: You're not worried about hosting for the holidays?
[00:42:11] Speaker D: Oh, Wayfair's got me covered with holiday decor, extra dining chairs, and guest bedding, all with tons of 5-star reviews, so there's no surprises.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: Unless Uncle Matt brings his dogs again.
[00:42:20] Speaker D: For worry-free hosting, Wayfair delivers.
[00:42:23] Speaker C: Made me feel great. Batch 3 shipping, proof that they continue to iron out the production line, is great. There's so many great things they're doing and it's only going to get better from here. And I've said this before and it's, you know, time is certainly passing, but always believe we're 3 to 6 months away from just a change in the things we have to worry about, and the stock market has certainly noticed this company and will continue to notice it more so as the timing to monetization becomes nearer and more present. So I'll end it with that. I continue to just bang out some of my research on Stablecoin X. It just keeps getting distracted, but I'm still working on that. Still really excited about that investment too. And I'm going to start doing a weekly newsletter on that. I've become mentally committed enough to that where I think it's going to be time. But the real thing that I live and die on is ASTS, so don't worry. But I'm setting the trap for myself to have a second horse in my race. And I'm only really looking to have maybe one good idea per year or two. I'll trade around and do some test bites. I think of myself as like an annoying shark, where I'll do some test bites and see if I like something a little bit, and very few things make the cut. I'll buy it, pray to God I can get out of it at cost, and then move on. But then every once in a while, those test bites turn into something that I believe is a big idea with a big founder who can execute. And on those things, that's when I start to really dig in and go, you know, increase my commitment. So that's what I gotta say about that. Have a great weekend, and I'm looking forward to a big week. And hopefully we have T-Mobile and I can, you know, sacrifice my career for, uh, us. Talk to everyone soon. Bye.
[00:44:24] Speaker F: 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.
[00:44:57] Speaker D: Bye.
[00:45:04] Speaker C: Listen.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Mmm, waffles.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: Hey y'all, Kelly Clarkson here with Wayfair. You know my favorite compliment during the holidays? Your house feels so cozy. That's when I know everyone's comfortable enough to kick off their shoes, grab more dessert, and stay a little longer. Wayfair makes it easy with everything from dining furniture to festive guest room essentials all in one place. So whether you're hosting for an afternoon or all weekend, everyone feels right at home. Get holiday guests ready at wayfair.com or on the Wayfair app today. Wayfair, every style, every home.
[00:45:39] Speaker E: Hi there, I am fully charged and here to tell you Toy Story 5 is now on Disney+.
[00:45:46] Speaker C: Woody! It's been too long, cowboy. Woody!
[00:45:48] Speaker E: Woody, Buzz, and Jessie are back for a brand new adventure with some seriously cool new tech.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: What? Holy butterscotch!
[00:45:55] Speaker E: You said it, Jessie. So save your batteries and watch the global phenomenon at home. And the best part? It's perfect for the whole family. Power up your movie night and watch Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now streaming on Disney+, rated PG.