In our Q2 2025 investor letter we made our first formal statements about a stock that has had a tremendous impact on our fund over the past year. That impact has been in terms not only of performance, but of how it has challenged our own thinking about what constitutes value investing. If you have been following us on social media or have seen some of our podcast appearances last year, you may have already guessed that the stock we were alluding to in our “What is Value?” thought piece was AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS).

In our Q2 letter, we referred to a 70-plus page report we would be releasing to our LPs. That report was released to them in Q4 2025. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive, and as a result we’ve decided to release a series of excerpts, summaries, and mini-“deep dives” from it.

Many of you may be saying, “But we have a collaborative relationship where we work through ideas together.”  If that truly applies to you, don’t worry: We will continue to share our work on an individual basis with those of you who add value to our research process. You know who you are, and you’ve been invaluable to us. Thank you. 

Many people have helped us on our $ASTS journey. That’s why when we were discussing which section of the $ASTS report we wanted to release first, it was clear that it could be only one section. Not our valuation math, our comparisons to “competitors” like Starlink (lol), or even our breakdown of the ever-increasing list of corporate and government partners that make this stock so compelling to us. No, it had to be the section about the “SpaceMob” (that’s what the online community of $ASTS-supporting investors call themselves) and the other investors who’ve helped us understand the magnitude of this opportunity.           

The following is an abridged and appended excerpt from the report that was released to our LPs in Q4 2025.  

Connected Conviction – From Deep Diligence to Lasting Community: AST’s Unique Culture

A close friend of the Fund as well as the individual most responsible for waking us up to the opportunity before you today is Toan Tran of 10West Advisors. Toan summed up the business and larger opportunity with beautiful simplicity last November in a write-up published to Value Investor’s Club, a short excerpt of which we’ve included below: 

“ASTS was founded in 2017 by Abel Avellan with a mission to “connect the unconnected.” Abel takes no salary, has never sold stock, and is probably the right kind of crazy. He looks pretty good in a cowboy hat. ASTS has 64 partnerships with over 50 mobile network operators around the world, including AT&T and Verizon in the U.S., that service over 3 billion subscribers. AST will provide service on a wholesale revenue share basis using the partner MNO’s cellular spectrum. For example, if AT&T and Verizon offer AST’s service for $10/month, AST would receive $5/month (50% share). Obviously, not all markets can support ARPUs like the U.S., but AST just needs a little from a lot of people. $1/month from 300 million subscribers is $3.6 billion of super high margin recurring annual revenue from a constellation that costs $1 billion to build and launch. This also does not account for other use cases. The Bluebirds are the largest antennas ever put into orbit with the ability to detect electromagnetic radiation anywhere on earth. I’m sure the U.S. government can figure out something to do with these satellites. Anyway, AST could end up with 1 billion subscribers or something. If that happens, it’s probably worth a lot.”       

Looking back at Toan’s remarkably concise assessment, what strikes us most isn’t just the accuracy of his fundamental thesis but the clarity of his thinking as he cuts through market-related noise. His analysis offers a powerful reminder about what separates prescient investment insight from mere luck in a single paragraph. Our view is bold predictions succeed not through an ability to predict the future (which would be absurd), but by doing the disciplined work required to see the present clearly, seeing reality as it is rather than as we wish it would be.

Much like our analysis offered here today, Toan’s commentary anchors on durable competitive advantages: the physics-defying scale of AST’s Bluebirds as “the largest antennas ever put into orbit,” the capital-efficient wholesale revenue-sharing model, and the optionality embedded in its multi-use satellite capabilities. These weren’t hopeful projections but structural observations about why ASTS would become differentiated at scale and remain that way once its global constellation turns on. And his insight that “AST just needs a little from a lot of people” captures the essence of what makes network businesses so powerful once they achieve critical mass – marginal costs approach zero while the addressable market exponentially expands.   

In any case, perhaps the most important takeaway here is that where others saw a proverbial “instashort,” i.e., a space SPAC meme stonk with an active ATM, Toan saw, in classic Buffett parlance, a 65 proverbial “inevitable,” i.e., an extraordinary business set to benefit from a perfect storm of factors, including an innovative business model characterized by multiple moats, a large and rapidly expanding addressable market, technological leadership, and excellent execution from a mission driven founder with skin in the game and uncommon competitive intensity. Add in an unsustainably cheap valuation based on normalized economics and worst-case growth prospects, and what more could a defensive margin of safety-focused investor ask for?

‍‍On the topic of peers who’ve helped better our understanding of a complicated space (bad pun intended) and the true magnitude of AST’s numerous technological advantages, we'd be remiss to not acknowledge yet another unique aspect of the AST story, "the SpaceMob.”
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For those of you that aren’t familiar, the “SpaceMob” – depicted in the picture above – is an eclectic mix of RF engineers, satellite hobbyists, private investors, and space nerds who, rather than chasing meme-stock theatrics, bring both genuine technical chops and conviction to the table. Think of it as a cult following—but one fluent in spectrum charts, orbital mechanics, and the fine print of 3GPP standards.‍All of which is to say that what’s emerged around AST SpaceMobile is more than just a shareholder base – it’s a community, and an exceptional one at that, filled with dozens of contributors that we’re proud to call friends. With time we’ve come to believe this borderless investor community (brought together by the very digital connectivity that underpins AST’s larger mission) reflects the best of what happens when people come together to pursue a shared mission. The journey is about much more than financial opportunity – it’s a living testament to distributed intelligence, collective action, and what’s possible when we’re earnest in striving to make the world better.

‍Perhaps more to the point, this unlikely group has become both a proprietary expert network and sounding board for us during our ongoing due diligence – which candidly amounts to almost a fulltime job in and of itself. Blending grassroots enthusiasm with real world expertise, unflinching intellectual honesty and a world class sense of humor, the SpaceMob carries diamond hands and more importantly, knows exactly what they own™.

This unique differentiation is fundamental and multifaceted. In contrast, most meme-stock cults, or “stonk” crowds, are driven primarily by emotional momentum, superficial social media hype, and unsophisticated speculation – often wildly detached from fundamental business analysis and characterized by little understanding of what these companies truly do or how they generate lasting value. 

‍Again, unlike meme stock communities, investors in the SpaceMob do their homework – reading technical filings, analyzing regulatory filings, and directly interacting with management and industry experts. There’s a culture of collective enlightenment and robust debate about both risks and opportunities. The former is marked by crowd psychology, echo chambers, and reactionary trading – often jumping in after viral trends, squeezing shorts, or chasing rumors.

‍SpaceMob is a genuine expert network that frequently acts as an informal “distributed expert network,” with actual practitioners in related telecom fields influencing community understanding and helping others separate hype from reality. Meme stock communities as traditionally understood lack this knowledge base, are more likely to misinterpret essential business facts, not to mention generally act in a manner that is anathema to the principles of long-term wealth creation.

We could go on, but the larger point is that the “SpaceMob” stands apart from the average meme stonk crowd by being a deeply informed, technically conversant, and values-driven investor community that supports AST SpaceMobile’s mission with conviction based on rigorous analysis and foundational understanding—not just internet hype or fleeting retail mania.‍We repeat: Unlike retail “meme stonk” crowds, which thrive on fleeting emotional momentum and superficial social media chatter, AST’s SpaceMob is defined by a depth of understanding and technical fluency rarely seen in public markets. Members dissect FCC filings, analyze satellite constellations, and debate regulatory nuances. This is due diligence elevated to an art form: collaborative, rigorous, global, and unafraid of complexity—all in the pursuit of truth, wherever the truth leads them. Better yet, seeing the active resistance of the “institutional imperative” by this amazing group over the last year has been nothing short of inspirational.

‍‍Moreover, with time and reflection, it’s ironic it took us so long to realize that what makes this tapestry possible is the boundaryless connectivity of our time. No longer limited by geography, class, or credentials, SpaceMob members hail from every continent, their backgrounds as diverse as their talents.

‍In this globally connected world, it’s fitting that this community harnesses collective intelligence (i.e., the wisdom of crowds) and accountability in a manner that no single individual, research firm, or actively managed investment fund could hope to match on their own. And to be perfectly clear, we really mean that, as we’ve witnessed firsthand how in the act of collaboration, fierce debate, and mutual education, something extraordinary happened amongst this group of retail enthusiasts - call it a distributed “brain trust” that grows smarter and more resilient with every new member and every challenge overcome.

‍We also want to highlight how, in eras past, investing in emerging technologies demanded physical proximity, access to exclusive networks, or privileged information channels. Today, thanks to the radical connectivity of our age, we are witnessing the emergence of self-organizing global “expert networks”—like AST’s SpaceMob—that bring together engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, and mission-driven investors from all walks of life. In contrast, we’ve found traditional Wall Street expert networks as well as go-to industry consultants have become closer to contra indicators vs. genuine sources of wisdom and insight. I (Ryan here) can tell you firsthand that we’ve made considerable money on multiple occasions by doing the work on various names where 95% of the expert transcripts that get passed around Wall Street had it exactly wrong.

‍A strange turn, to say the least, that we ascribe to the typical herd behavior that is deeply rooted in human nature and the fact that a Tegus subscription has become table stakes in investment management and thus has come to represent the opposite of the edge these information sources claim. What they really represent is just a novel way for lazy managers to substitute the thinking of others for doing the hard work to know things for themselves.

‍In any case, a community that transcends geography, harnessing the world’s collective intelligence to increase conviction, diligence, and original insights amongst its members well beyond what any individual involved could have assembled on their own is ironically a much bigger edge in 2025 than the tens of thousands of dollars spent by the average manager on subscriptions to expert networks and/or industry consultants. We often laugh about how if the shorts could spend even a day within the private SpaceMob thread they’d freak out, fire their consultants, cancel their expert network subscription and cover their short, all within a week or less.

‍We suspect that lesser value investors would have locked into any number of irrelevant factors, focusing on things like book value, perceived funding shortfalls, trailing financials, or a variety of other traditional metrics that couldn’t be more beside the point.

‍At any rate, we highlight the above because this is what we meant in our latest thought piece “What is Value?” when we talked about how the best valuation work – indeed, the best security analysis - isn’t about what looks cheap now; it’s about uncovering what becomes obvious later, not to mention having the courage to diverge from consensus well before the herd catches on. It’s also why developing a deep understanding of the intrinsic nature of a company’s business, as well as a very good idea of how that business will operate, improve, and scale over time, is fundamental to investing excellence, now more than ever.

‍The claim may annoy or even anger many Fama French style cigar butt investors, but we’re going to say it anyway, not only because it’s the Truth, but because identifying and owning the next great growth business before its widely understood and therefore priced as one, requires an act of forward-looking business analysis by definition. In today’s day and age, the ability to sustainably outperform the broad market indices over the fullness of time absolutely requires one to think ahead to where a company will be several years down the line rather than relying on crude heuristics or backward-looking GAAP financial statements.

‍As much as we wish we could go back in time and invest in the grossly inefficient markets of the great depression or the late 1950’s when Buffett was running laps around the competition, with the full benefit of hindsight, the reality is that world no longer exists and investors that don’t evolve to succeed by adapting to the realities around us, will fail – as so many of our peers have more recently.

It’s also what we mean when we talk about investing with a 5 to 10-year view – as the ability to see second-order effects and structural shifts before they become obvious to consensus thinking is the essence of analytical sophistication and genuinely insightful security analysis. Anyone telling you that durable alpha can be garnered by picking randomly from a basket of statistically cheap stocks culled from the most recent 52-week low list either has a newsletter to sell you or candidly, doesn’t know what they are doing – and that’s being kind.

Given the number of times we’ve seen this stock derided by the lazy for its resemblance to some of the most egregious retail-driven meme stocks, we felt it was important to address some common criticisms of the SpaceMob, and to explain why we take a different view of the company’s association with a passionate group of retail investors. We understand why pod shop analysts and similarly credentialed professional investors residing on either coast may look at this association and say, “I can’t take this to my PM. My career would be over if this blows up in my face. What if he finds out I found this idea on Twitter?” This fear is our opportunity. We will gladly welcome those investors to the SpaceMob once the clouds of uncertainty part and what has been clear to us and the scrappy bunch of investors we are proud to be a part of is rapidly priced in by the backward-looking, Daloopa-worshiping class that dominates Wall Street.

There has been one group of retail investors that resembled today’s SpaceMob: the early Tesla bulls. Before Tesla became a ~$1.5t company, Elon Musk’s grandiose vision for it was better understood by retail investors than it was by Wall Street. Reasonable people can debate whether Tesla deserves its staggering market cap – and we would certainly fall in the skeptical camp – but that’s beside the point. Those Tesla bulls saw what Wall Street couldn’t, invested in that potential, and (aside from a few early institutional converts and Elon himself) were the biggest winners.

Interestingly, Elon has likewise set his sights on satellite broadband internet via his company Starlink, and that decision has thrust the Tesla and AST investing communities together. Each group recognizes the importance of the technology, but disagree on who the eventual winner will be. The SpaceMob spends a considerable amount of time fielding questions from, and battling what we believe are uninformed criticisms from, Starlink bulls. Our next mini-deep dive excerpt will be dedicated to comparing these two companies’ technologies, products, and business models. We hope it will become the go-to reference on the subject, saving our SpaceMob friends the time and effort of typing out the same explanations and counter-arguments over and over again.

We look forward to sharing more excerpts from our full research report on $ASTS. In the meantime, we welcome your questions, commentary, and critiques.            

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