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#MeetTheTeam SpaceX had entered the mobile phone race and I heard questions about whether they'd go recruit all of $ASTS's employees. First of all, if you are an ambitious engineer, do you want to work at a $125bn valuation company or a $2bn company? Starting point matters... 
Quick aside, the other day I saw a sky blue Porsche Taycan Turbo S with the plates "MARSHIP" that had a SpaceX plate holder. To say SpaceX has been a place of wealth generation is an understatement. As well it should be. They should all be canonized for their achievement
But there is a reason that there has always been talent flow out of winners like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, etc...talent wants to ring the bell for themselves if they were late comers. If they were early, they want to do it again. "LFG!"
To validate exactly what I had said about the difficulty of determining the "unlock" - imagine my surprise when I woke up to see $ASTS up 5-10%. I was already prepared to be "pissed" at the stock being up 25-30% because I thought the stock deserved to be a lot more
Successful launch should have been routine, but for a stock where so much sentiment is tied up in BW-3, anything that deviated from plan would have been taken out of context (never mind that $ASTS accrued all the IP and learning value from getting BW-3 through testing)
In reality, the probability of a successful launch was ~100%, so there was not that much risk into launch, as dramatic as a launch is. I know I was a nervous wreck. Anyone who didn't have the finale of Koyaanisqatsi somewhere in their mind is lying en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisq…
One thing that I think about a lot, but rarely get right, is understanding the ultimate "unlock" for a stock. $ASTS is obviously a story stock with myriad events coming over the next six months. What will ultimately be the unlock? Let's think about it and look at some examples
One example I had studied previously was Cheniere ($LNG). For those with memory, $LNG was a disaster for investors prior to 2008 as an import story (and before that, a near-shore seismic company). As it pivoted to export, there was a huge overhang to clear
$LNG had commercial risk (would people buy US LNG), regulatory risk (would FERC allow it), construction risk (could they get an EPC contract), financing risk (can they finance it), and management risk (CEO is a nutjob)
We had our @SmithsonianEnv Holiday Party yesterday and a couple of our wonderful lab members got awards and recognition. Stay tuned to #MeetTheTeam!
@SmithsonianEnv First up is our Invasions Lab Data Manager Stacey Havard! Havard earned a 10 year pin for a decade of research on both the #FoulingProject and #ChesapeakeBay shoreline survey! Congrats!
Next is our lab's best method-man, AKA the fixer, the builder, and the "yes I can make that out of PVC man" George Smith, who was recognized for twenty years with the lab! Here he is with the #ShipFoulingExp flume he built for us.
