E67: Doge, Politics, the Space Race, and the Future of Meat
💥 Is the USA becoming uninvestable? A thought-provoking question from a Patreon supporter sparks a deep dive into the political and economic future of the United States. Are we heading toward autocracy, and what does that mean for investors? Bonus shout-out to fans of the TV show The Americans!
🚀 The Space Race Heats Up! T-Mobile’s big Super Bowl announcement puts satellite-to-phone connectivity in the spotlight. Is this space race minnow primed to disrupt SpaceX’s Starlink, or is this a two-horse race with room for both?
🪙 $TRUMP & $MELANIA Coins – The Wild World of Political Crypto. We break down the bizarre rise of Trump and Melania-branded tokens – hype or high-risk gamble?
🔪 Doge (Department of Government Efficiency) – Necessary Reform or Overreach? Elon Musk’s new government efficiency initiative aims to cut $1 trillion in spending. Will it help stabilize the US economy, or is it an unconstitutional power grab?
🥩 The Future of Food – Cultured meat is gaining traction; could we be witnessing the beginning of the end for traditional livestock farming? Luke shares why he just invested in this startup and what it means for the future of sustainable protein.
Sources:
Mosa Meat crowdfunding (do your own due diligence): https://www.crowdcube.eu/companies/mosa-meat-1/pitches/qaav9q
Jon Stewart Questions Defense Deputy Secretary on Budget Failures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50MusF365U0
Segments:
00:00 Introduction
02:18 Will the US Be Investable in Five Years?
04:02 Patreon Community and Political Poll
05:19 Stephen’s Complex Question on US Autocracy
09:11 The Americans TV Show and Ideology
23:02 COVID-19 and Trust in Institutions
28:15 The Doge Initiative: Government Efficiency
42:25 Uncovering Government Grifts
43:44 Defense Spending and Contractor Incentives
44:47 The Tragic Reality of Musk’s Initiatives
47:02 Jon Stewart’s Definitional Argument
49:26 Constitutional Concerns and Executive Overreach
53:18 The Future of US Education
01:03:22 Space Communications Showdown
01:10:55 Investing in Cultured Meat
01:14:23 Patreon Shoutouts
 E67: DOGE POLITICS ASTS MOSA MEATS
[00:00:00] Luke: Is the US going to be investable in five years time?
[00:00:03] Luke: Oh, my
[00:00:03] Luke: Oh my.
[00:00:04] Krzysztof: It’s obvious that this industry space communications will have room for multiple winners. It’s not going to be a winner take all.
[00:00:15] Luke: I definitely think in like maybe 20 years time, we’re going to look back and think
[00:00:18] Luke: it’s weird that we were eating animals, like rearing these things and like ethically horrible and bad for the planet. Plus not to mention the diseases that. Well, that get kind of across herds and things like that. So Moser Meats approach, and there’s multiple companies doing this, is to take a small sample, like cell sample of a cow, and then brew.
[00:00:41] Luke: Like culture it and grow cells and grow, essentially grow like a steak, , like a chemistry experiment. [00:01:00] [00:02:00]
​
[00:02:08] Luke: Welcome to the latest episode of Wall Street Wildlife with Christophe and Luke. Oh my god, we’ve got an interesting discussion today prompted by a tough question from one of our Patreons. Is the US going to be investable in five years time?
[00:02:22] Luke: Oh, my
[00:02:23] Luke: Oh my. Uh, Christophe is also going to give us an update on AST’s Mace Mobile and tell us why it’s better than Starlink.
[00:02:31] Luke: I’m kind of skeptical as a Starlink shareholder. Oh, and I’m going to chat about another private company that I just invested in and I’m really enthusiastic about. And this is one that you guys might be able to invest in too.
[00:02:44] Krzysztof: Good to see you badger. You’re looking freshly. You got that little dirt off your face. I see like back to back to being handsome and presentable. I’m proud of, you know, for a little for a little bit. Let me [00:03:00] just say I was although a big ocean divides us, uh, in theory, had I run into you, I’m not sure I would have been, uh, willing to be side by side with, rake ruffian like you with, with the, with the mud on your face, but now, you know, I’ll be seen with you anywhere.
[00:03:18] Luke: it’s a, yeah, I’m, I’m happily clean shaven once again, but oh my God, like we started when you got on video and he fell out of my chair, he’s back. The beautiful young Christophe is back, if you’re not looking, checking us out on YouTube. Actually, I will just tell you, because my mum watches us on YouTube.
[00:03:35] Luke: And I forwarded a WhatsApp to you, a couple actually. And she said, what’s happened to Christophe? He used to be so handsome. What has he done to himself? So that bush has gone. Well done.
[00:03:47] Krzysztof: yes. My students did not recognize me. Like when I walked into class, they, they, they, they had to look a couple of times, like who, what?
[00:03:55] Luke: Well, and we can happily put the beard talk behind us now and [00:04:00] focus on the important stuff.
[00:04:01] Krzysztof: Indeed. So let’s start this episode by first of all, thanking our patrons over our patreon. com slash wall street wildlife. We can’t do this without you. And that is one of the main sources of our topics today. Like you said, one of our patrons asked a really brilliant question. , and. I don’t know when it hit the, wire.
[00:04:22] Krzysztof: I think it was Friday, maybe when, when we got it and I spent all weekend really deeply thinking about it and preparing it. So I think in this way, it’ll be a little bit unusual. And at that moment, while you were probably out. You were somewhere high on the, on the Alps, right? Parachuting or gliding and outrunning avalanches.
[00:04:46] Krzysztof: I went rogue again and posted a little political poll on our Patreon community asking our members, you know, what do you think about explicit political conversation? [00:05:00] On a podcast that is dedicated to investing and we know right that politics is tricky and there’s a reason why people say don’t discuss political things at the dinner table because it could kind of blow up and cause severe damage and irreparable harms and break communities apart and all
[00:05:18] Luke: Yeah. I mean, and just on that, like the question came in the DMs because our Patreon, Stephen, um, was like a little nervous about putting the question out there in the public because it is a big complex question and you know, some aspects of, well, let’s get, let’s get actually, let’s say frame what his question was and like set up the discussion because Stephen was saying. there’s like a ton of stuff happening in the U S right now, maybe it’s tipping into an autocracy as opposed to a democracy. Like we are, we’re afraid as investors, or we should be afraid about investing in China and maybe that’s turning a little bit, but that’s always been, you know, I’ve had a bunch of Chinese [00:06:00] equities.
[00:06:00] Luke: It’s always been something that’s been a little bit of a concern. Like the iron grip that, , president Z has over like the whole economy and all companies in China. And what if the U S is starting to go in that same direction led by Trump and perhaps by some of the like tech leaders that are buddied up with him, like particularly Elon Musk, like might we’ll be looking at the U S in five, 10 years time and saying.
[00:06:26] Luke: Maybe this is equally uninvestable. So yeah, that’s what we want to get into in today’s discussion.
[00:06:32] Krzysztof: Yeah, it’s a brilliant question. And so backtracking. That’s why I posted the poll on Patreon and, uh, it was a little tongue in cheek, but I basically said, Hey, are you guys, uh, in our community okay with us talking about politics explicitly? And the, the results were, I think, really, really affirming in the, in the positive sense, meaning that 70 percent of our members said, quote, [00:07:00] voted for the option that was, we’re like a hundred year old weathered turtles, having seen it all and nothing will shock us or surprise us, hit us with the truth.
[00:07:08] Krzysztof: And then, uh, another 11 percent said politics are hard. Understanding the other side is hard, beating the market is hard, but doing hard things gets us paid. And, 0 percent voted for basically the option that was like, no, don’t talk about politics. So I think that’s our mandate that says, yeah, we want to acknowledge that feathers may be ruffled, but that is the way into it, right?
[00:07:36] Krzysztof: We, we have to be willing to voice our positions and hopefully. Under, try to understand more deeply and potentially change our minds depending on shifting narratives, but into the fray we go, Badger.
[00:07:48] Luke: Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I had a sort of side conversation about this. Well, one of my friends, Christine, uh, yesterday, and, she was like, Oh, you know, how, how do you guys prepare for this conversation? And I said, well, like Christophe and I will [00:08:00] generally have like a schedule of things we want to talk about.
[00:08:03] Luke: Maybe we have like a few like beats we want to hit, but we want to talk about this part of the discussion, that part of discussion, but we’ve got no idea what each other. Actually think about these topics because we like to have the conversation live. So I kind of got no idea where we’re going to end up with this, but let’s try and.
[00:08:19] Luke: Like not be partisan, let’s just try and look at the facts as best we can. And ultimately there is an investing question at the end of this, which is, well, I suppose it’s Stephen’s question. Like, should we be worried as investors about perhaps being quite overexposed to us companies? So we’re trying, we’re trying to navigate our way to that, but it’s going to be a bit of a tangly journey, I suspect
[00:08:43] Krzysztof: Yes. And uh, yeah. So this episode I think we’re preparing to, for it to have a slightly different flavor than all the other ones, but I think it’s warranted. So Badger this weekend, I made a mind map, in preparation for, for this [00:09:00] conversation. and now here’s where I wanna start. It’s a very long way, you know, it’s, it’s, it is a long and meandering journey towards that ultimate investing question destination.
[00:09:11] Krzysztof: But you know where I want to start with the sharing with you a television show that I’m watching and have been watching now for I think it’s three years. I’m curious if you’ve seen it or heard about it as a television aficionado. I always, hit the best television series of all time lists. And this show usually makes an appearance in the top 10, 20.
[00:09:37] Krzysztof: It’s called the Americans. Have you seen or heard about it? It ran from, I believe, 2013 for six seasons. So maybe, I don’t know when it ended. Was it 2018, 19, something like that. It couldn’t be more timely. It’s a show that takes place in the 1980s, early 1980s, [00:10:00] in which the two main protagonists, Phillip and Elizabeth, are a married couple, but they’re KGB, Russian KGB spies, living in America, raising their American kids.
[00:10:16] Krzysztof: in order to infiltrate the U. S. Government. Their neighbor happens to be an FBI agent. And that’s the sort of like, that’s the wind up, right? by the way, first two seasons are very, very slow going and tough. There’s just a lot of like spy, you know, like following very complicated threads, yada, yada. But oh my goodness, I’m at season four and we can’t We can’t get enough.
[00:10:44] Krzysztof: We’re at the next, you know, um, it’s so good. It is so good. Highly, highly recommend it. Here’s why I want to talk about that in the philosophical world. There’s a term called [00:11:00] ideology, which is, I mean, it’s not just in the philosophical world. It’s pretty common phrase, wouldn’t you say right in the regular world, but in the philosophical world, it has like a kind of heft to it.
[00:11:15] Krzysztof: It’s talking about specific frames with which we see the world. What’s fascinating about what you see unfolding on this television show, The Americans, is that when you’re with the KGB couple, you understand why they think it’s a matter of life and death to do what they do, to do this really difficult job of spying and killing people, because From their point of view, their country depends on it, right?
[00:11:55] Krzysztof: And the world depends on it. When you shift over [00:12:00] to the FBI side and all the agents trying to stop the KGB agents, it’s the same thing. we must stop these people because the world depends on it. I think that’s an important point to really sit with for a little bit. I think we understand it mostly intellectually.
[00:12:21] Krzysztof: Like, sure, there’s multiple sides to everything. Fine. But the extent to which, people can’t sort worldview is a pretty powerful philosophical point. And the show is great because as things get more and more complicated, like how do you raise, how do Russian spies raise American kids, right? Things get gray, things get messy and the marriage, what is a marriage?
[00:12:49] Krzysztof: You know, all that kind of fascinating stuff gets talked about. So you begin to see the cracks of ideologies and I wanted to start this conversation there [00:13:00] as an invitation to our listeners to say, okay. You might have a position in this wherever we get to, right? But first, understand, or at least try to acknowledge that your position is actually a kind of, I wouldn’t say prison.
[00:13:18] Krzysztof: That’s too drastic, but you really can’t see or it’s very hard to see beyond your own horizon.
[00:13:24] Luke: that makes sense. When I was thinking about this topic over the weekend as well. I was conscious of that, and I think I see other commentators kind of fragmenting into essentially like left versus right and not seeing the facts clearly. And this is like a, like what’s happening in the U S right now is a really complicated nuanced situation.
[00:13:47] Luke: And I think this does demand putting aside your political biases and just saying. Like, what is the right thing to do here?
[00:13:57] Krzysztof: May I offer a slightly [00:14:00] annoying professional rhetorical adjustment to something you just said? So my professorial rhetoric hat on. Rhetoric is the study of how people communicate and it’s always a kind of It involves an audience. So there’s always a speaker in an audience. It’s always, I explained to my students that could dance, you can’t have rhetoric without call it multiple parties, like in the dance ballroom dance, right? This notion that there are facts. In rhetoric is complicated by saying there are no facts. There are only claims, right? Which is another subtle point, but it’s different because each side thinks of their own position as factual, right? But in this situation where people are dancing, you might, [00:15:00] it’s more about, I think this is the case. And the other person’s, therefore I claim, and that’s, let’s put that also, right?
[00:15:07] Krzysztof: think about that too. Let’s try to get away from, Yeah, fact, when possible, see if we could use. The word claim instead of fact, right?
[00:15:20] Luke: facts. I totally agree with, I totally agree with your clarification, but there are some facts like the U S is in quite a difficult financial situation today, like many countries, but like the U S deficit is. Big and the U. S. national debt is very, very big and something, something needs to be done that isn’t, hasn’t been done up until recently.
[00:15:46] Luke: So it’s kind of a fact that, you know, well, it’s because of numbers too, right? It’s a fact that the U. S. national debt is currently 36 trillion and forecasted to grow at maybe, like 2 trillion. in [00:16:00] 2025 and it’s a fact that right as of December, just like two months ago, it was costing us taxpayers. So like you 308 billion a year, just to maintain the debt, like pay the interest on the debt.
[00:16:15] Luke: And that’s 17 percent of federal spending. That’s planned for this year. So like, you know, the first 17 percent of all of your taxes you pay are literally just paying the interest on this massive debt, which is growing anyway.
[00:16:30] Krzysztof: So I would parse that as using that same lens. Fact first claim, I would say factual is yes, we have a debt of whatever the amount is, but it’s more of a claim that something needs to be done
[00:16:46] Krzysztof: because somebody else might say nothing needs to be done, right? But okay. Okay. So that aside. So the first step I wanted to take in this conversation to take my own medicine about, you know, the whole ideology [00:17:00] thing is to say that I have like, I’m trying to examine what my own lenses and understanding this stuff.
[00:17:09] Krzysztof: So, first of all, I think it’s kind of interesting. I don’t know. Tell me if you agree in my own self assessment. First of all, I’m Polish. I was born in Poland, which means that, I was surrounded by Germany, Nazi Germany, and Soviet, Russia. Very ideological wars, right? And I’m an immigrant to the United States. I was naturalized when I was, whatever, 2001. And therefore, in some ways. Very natural to me in this sense, you know when I hear of Call it, you know authoritarian regimes and You know the war in the Ukraine like Russia invading Ukraine. [00:18:00] I have a sympathy Against that kind of stuff right naturally to Professionally, I studied literature and in literature literature departments you think about questions Of how, stories are written and what ideas they contain and you try to unpack all these sort of ideologies, many of which have to do with race, equality, gender stuff, colonialism, all this stuff.
[00:18:31] Krzysztof: But by virtue of doing that, English departments tend to be left leaning because that’s what we’re talking about, right? So by profession, I’m trained in sort of leftist frameworks. And so I think I’m trying to say, That there’s all that in me on one side, but then in the business world, where I spend so much of my time, a lot of the policies and, and [00:19:00] ideas, I would say lean more conservative and right, right leaning, because there’s this notion that business is about the bottom line. And I can see. A lot of those policies pretty clearly. And I think to my credit, if I may pat myself on my own shoulders in the four years after Trump’s first term, I took, I made it, I gave myself my own mandate. to study what this other side is saying and thinking so that I’m not reacting like, you know, out of a pure ideological framework.
[00:19:46] Krzysztof: So I think I’m coming to the table with a pretty, I’ve done a lot of work kind of bouncing, like moving from this side to this side to this side. And I think that’s [00:20:00] important to be able to do in moments like this, you know, to be able to, in one way, defend like each position from a place, not of a straw man argument, but something like that could really be an authentic, true best case of that argument.
[00:20:18] Krzysztof: And I think we could do, try to do both here.
[00:20:20] Luke: And as a non American, like really my true, truly my only vested interest is like the health of my investments, which are predominantly us equities. And like, I don’t want us to destroy the environment, just the kind of. It’s a dumb thing to do. And I don’t really want us to enter into world war three and blow ourselves up.
[00:20:42] Luke: , so putting those kind of pretty important things aside, I’m no longer, I no longer have like, I used to, I previously had like very strong negative feelings about Trump in his first term and despaired when like we got Trump and we got Brexit and like everything seemed to be going to [00:21:00] shit. now like maybe, I don’t know, maybe it’s the best option.
[00:21:03] Luke: Maybe it’s not. I’m less emotionally attached to. Like the person of Donald Trump, I can laugh at stupidity like Trump coin and Melania coin. , and I can focus more, I think, on like the outcomes that we’re likely to see. So I’m, I feel somewhat, well, whatever the opposite of partisan is, like in the middle.
[00:21:21] Krzysztof: Yeah, I’m glad. So I think you and I are both trying to do a similar thing. Now, somebody on the left, by the way, a critique of that would be the way to, you know, the worst horrors in the world are by good people kind of just not being alarmed. and as we know, in the case of Germany, the rise of, The fascist party.
[00:21:42] Krzysztof: We know that was true. And the Hannah Arendt writes about this, the banality of evil, like, oh, things will be fine, right? So that’s the left’s critique of our attempt to be sort of more, less alarmist,
[00:21:55] Luke: there is a ton of alarmist ness. Like, I mean, just to see some of the [00:22:00] rhetoric from, say, journalists like Scott Galloway. I don’t know if you saw some of the things he’s been saying over the last few days. and Bernie Sanders, somewhat hysterical commentary about, you know, some of the things that are happening are illegal.
[00:22:15] Luke: We should be arresting, like we’re going to focus on Doge for a big part of this conversation, department of government efficiency. I don’t know what, to what extent you think we should go back and just kind of explain what it is and why it is, but essentially like people on the left are like. And like the house is on fire, they’re up in arms screaming at what’s going on and calling for like the employees of Doge to literally be like thrown in jail.
[00:22:43] Krzysztof: right? This is a great segue to really one of the last points I wanted to bring forward in this background piece, that as I was thinking through this stuff, There’s one example that I thought, Oh, damn it. Do I do? Do I need to bring this [00:23:00] in? And I think I do. And that’s a little bit of a refresher on what happened during COVID.
[00:23:09] Krzysztof: Because it seems to me, correct me if I’m wrong, please, you know, like, I really want, want to hear your perspective on this. From everything that I understand, there’s a almost like perfect one to one analogy. With what happened during COVID and what might be happening now. And it’s this that at the beginning of the COVID.
[00:23:34] Krzysztof: Outbreak anybody that critiqued or found call it alternative ways of seeing was pre Musk ownership of Twitter literally censored and told to, you know, d d platform and all of that, right? Then during the whole [00:24:00] Twitter files saga, Musk gave access to journalists to a lot of the Documents and files that were email exchanges between world leading scientists including Fauci and we learned They’re in writing black and white that the top authorities were doing things and saying things that differed from what they were saying publicly.
[00:24:29] Krzysztof: That led to the whole, Loss of trust in institutions and so forth. But there’s one moment, you know, about this stuff. Like, for example, the one I remembered was when, uh, on the left, Leaning show, Stephen Colbert, late night with Stephen Colbert, they were discussing the origins of the virus at the Wuhan lab.
[00:24:50] Krzysztof: Right. And Jon Stewart, who very much is a creature of the left came on the show and said, wait a second, Stephen, , there’s reason [00:25:00] to doubt the left narrative, because it really does seem based on a lot of these discoveries that the virus did originate in that lab. And it was. I’m not going to go, it’s, this isn’t a show about COVID,
[00:25:15] Krzysztof: but he was Jon Stewart. The person on the left was saying, Hey, you lefties. You know, people on the right aren’t necessarily just being conspiratorial. Like, turns out they were actually right. So I’ll pause there and say, do you, do you, I have a lot more, details about that. I don’t think that’s the point when you hear, when I remind you of that moment.
[00:25:41] Krzysztof: Right, that what at first seemed like complete, crazy, right, conspiracy theories ended up being actually true. Is that not a lesson to have learned about this stuff, which only happened a couple years ago? Have we forgotten all that?
[00:25:59] Luke: Well, I [00:26:00] mean, it sort of ties into your, your original point about like beliefs and claims. And I can see, I can see like the motivation for governments to have operated the way they did because they believed. That we just had to get a clamp on the virus and we had to, take certain steps and get, like, jabs in arms.
[00:26:19] Luke: And so anything that was kind of counter to that narrative or questioned it was, like, slammed and shut down and people were shamed for being, like, vaccine deniers. they were doing it for what they thought were good reasons. And as it turned out, you know, now we’re asking quite complicated questions about that.
[00:26:35] Luke: Now it’s in the rearview mirror. So, yeah, I think you’re right, like, to some extent. We’re in the midst of another totally different kind of crisis will be ironically one that’s to a large extent caused by the COVID pandemic, because that’s what really drove fiscal spending through the roof, evidently spending rose 50 percent between 2019 and 2021.
[00:26:58] Luke: And it was all of the. [00:27:00] At the time, like sensible decisions that were taken to keep the economy going, stimulus programs, increased spending, adjust like taxes and, pay like stimmies to people, we probably had to do some of those things, but that’s led to. The new crisis, which is this financial crisis that the US is in.
[00:27:20] Krzysztof: Okay, yes, thank you for, for that backdrop. I think I feel, uh, ready to move on, like, as far as the background stuff goes.
[00:27:29] Luke: Yep.
[00:27:30] Krzysztof: I think in summary, you know, my bow tie is using the covid example in myself as the main character. I’d say at one point, I thought everybody that wasn’t listening to Dr. Fauci was an idiot.
[00:27:43] Krzysztof: And then sometime later, I’m like. Oh, the idiots have not proven that, you know, they’re the smart ones. And now everybody that naively believed him are the idiot. So everybody’s an idiot, you know, and I’m like, Oh, man, so let’s, you know, [00:28:00] hold back are that reactionary fervor. I think that’s, how I want to summarize this.
[00:28:06] Krzysztof: So badger, you want to take us into. The, the specifics of, today’s conversation and, the points we want to address and talk through.
[00:28:14] Luke: Yeah. Well I think that’s, I think a good, a good sort of central part of the conversation is the Doge initiative. So maybe we should start with just like, ’cause we’ve explained the problem, like there’s not enough money and we’re spending too much money. So one of Trump’s angles on Doge on addressing this problem was to.
[00:28:36] Luke: create a new government department, Department of Government Efficiency, somewhat controversially putting Elon Musk in charge of it. We can debate whether that’s a good idea or not. And their mission essentially is to cut as much of the wasteful spending as they can. And I think they had an initial target of, of cutting 2 trillion of spending a year.
[00:28:57] Luke: I think they’ve revised that down to like [00:29:00] 1 trillion. And that’s still, that, that will make a big difference. And if. it’s a claim that this is like something that should be done. But if you buy into the idea that the national debt is something that should be solved, you do need to do something about that.
[00:29:15] Luke: You do need an initiative like this. There is a ton of controversy about the fact that it’s being run by like a private citizen, not an elected. Person and maybe the mechanisms that they’re taking and some of the hysteria just to acknowledge it is that this is illegal. I’m not a constitutional lawyer.
[00:29:35] Luke: It probably is illegal, but you know, maybe there’s like a gray where it might be illegal, but it might be the right thing to do anyway. That’s something I would like to discuss. Maybe let’s start with that. Like, what are your views on Doge and what it’s trying to do?
[00:29:50] Krzysztof: Yeah, well, so this is where I think I have to take this one step at a time and put on multiple pairs of glasses. On the side of, [00:30:00] for short, the left, one of the sources that I trust over the years is this, author, Anne Applebaum. She’s an expert historian about totalitarian regimes. I have a bunch of her books all about, you know, the gulags and the rise of the Soviet Union and the massacres and the horrific, awful things that happened.
[00:30:21] Krzysztof: This is her new book called Autocracy Incorporated, The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. From that perspective, from a professional historian’s perspective, she’s seen this playbook over and over and over again, and it maps out quite nicely that people who have immense amounts of power get seduced by the power, and in the end, they are only doing it for themselves, and so here we go again, and it’s happening in the United States, and if you think this time it’s different, you’re [00:31:00] naive.
[00:31:00] Krzysztof: That’s her perspective. When I’m wearing my Polish immigrant left leaning glasses, I’m like, Oh, shit. She’s right. Like, why would this time be different? And, you know, in full transparency, I think Trump’s character is one of the lowest, I think he’s a man of very low level character, to put it bluntly, from my perspective. That doesn’t give me comfort. At all, like, you know, Trump coin, millennium coin, grifting, all of that, so when I can’t trust a person’s character, it seems likely that the same playbook is carrying out, it’s being played out. Therefore, the stuff you just mentioned. that they’re breaking laws, probably true, and that they’re breaking the laws, not for the betterment [00:32:00] of the world or the country, but because this is what dictators do, that gives me chills.
[00:32:06] Luke: , there is a difference though. I’m not trying to say this time is different and I haven’t read the book and I’m certainly not an expert in history at all, but like the world is quite different now in terms of the level of transparency and communication. And it would be almost impossible now to stop like grassroots information, just kind of getting out there and leaking.
[00:32:28] Luke: And then people just kind of know. To a greater extent probably than ever before what’s going on. And then maybe they’re not publishing everything, but there is like a Doge Twitter account, X account. And every day it’s like, they’re publishing like, obviously like the wins and the success stories. But we’re seeing, you know, maybe it’s like.
[00:32:49] Luke: Like this initiative, I, so I just to state my position, I think this is actually a really good idea and I’m very supportive of Doge and I’ve, like, I’ve helped organizations do this [00:33:00] kind of thing in the past, like massive cost cutting and cost saving exercises and. Like the government have tried to do this in the past and failed because you’re just not set up to like change yourself.
[00:33:13] Luke: You do need like an external change agent to come in and then just say, guys, like we’re doing it my way, totally different way. I think this is kind of set up in the right ways for success. Now I’m very concerned about like the, the risk of. Bad actions happening perhaps because of like misaligned incentives and, personal objectives of people like Musk and Trump and everybody else who’s like an insider in this organization.
[00:33:41] Luke: But if they do like a little bit of corruption, okay, like maybe it’s going to happen anyway, but maybe the big picture is still net positive. If you can cut like a trillion dollars out of spending, there is so much benefit to the country long term if that can be done. And maybe some of the grits and the stuff is going to happen anyway.[00:34:00]
[00:34:00] Luke: So you know, part and parcel.
[00:34:02] Krzysztof: You know, that’s an interesting point, because in, in thinking about both sides, Each side is calling the other a kleptocracy. Kleptocracy is, you know, power, basically when power and politics are melded and each side with so much power has the undeniable control. , temptation to grift and cheat and corrupt.
[00:34:25] Krzysztof: But isn’t that interesting though? Just, just, you know, to take a pause, right? The left is saying, these are nothing but kleptocrats. and then, Musk, I think actually in one of his tweets, used that same exact word with regard to the government, , agencies that are You know, , being paid for who knows what, right?
[00:34:43] Krzysztof: So, you know, the two fingers pointing at each other. One important thing, it’s not much of a tangent, but that was thrilled by which I think aligns with your point is that the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong tweeted [00:35:00] something like, and this is why. All of the government’s finances need to go on chain. This is why the crypto industry is basically four because if we can get all of the the government agencies On chain, that means everything becomes de facto transparent, and I read that, when I read that, I was like, my off go my left leaning glasses, on go my right leaning glasses, if crypto’s right somehow.
[00:35:34] Krzysztof: Right. And I say, yeah, that’s a good idea. Like, why would I not want full transparency in where my tech scholars go?
[00:35:42] Luke: Yeah. We don’t need blockchain to have transparency, but it’s one way.
[00:35:48] Krzysztof: . I think I differ with you there. There’s probably like gray area, but knowing human nature, I’m like, , maybe we don’t need it, but at some point there’s going to be, you know, spiders and cockroaches in some [00:36:00] shadowy corner. So if we, if, if we can have it, why not? But so anyway, so that’s an argument, I think.
[00:36:07] Krzysztof: Against myself in, in that sense. That it’s, it’s needed.
[00:36:12] Luke: So I’ve stated a position, which is, I think this is net positive, even though like some bad things will happen. What’s your view?
[00:36:21] Krzysztof: This is where, yeah, I feel a deep sense of ambivalence. That’s as genuine as anything I felt in a long time. All the way up. I’ll put it this way. I don’t trust Trump, but weirdly I trust Elon. Not weirdly, but maybe because I follow his story for 10 years. And it’s hard to articulate this, but if I strip away all his layers and all the call it crazy talk, I [00:37:00] legitimately think he’s not about it.
[00:37:03] Krzysztof: He’s not doing this for the money per se, even though that’s how you keep score yada yada. I think he is doing this for call it. the betterment of the United States and a better space on which businesses can thrive and we could innovate our way out of the debt.
[00:37:24] Luke: Yeah. Look, I look, maybe, maybe a nuance on that because like, I kind of don’t trust either of them. Trump, because he’s. Like, we all know what we all know his character pretty much Elon because he’s just like a like an act almost like an agent of chaos in the way you operate sometimes. but I feel like I feel like his incentives are actually broadly aligned with, like, my incentives for like a better world.
[00:37:49] Luke: So if he does. Like dubious things, probably perhaps to enrich or himself or support his companies. Well, I mean, that suits me because I’m invested in most of them [00:38:00] personally, but I like the mission of his companies. So I kind of don’t mind a bit of putting your finger on the scales in that way.
[00:38:07] Luke: Obviously, if you’re like BYD or like another auto manufacturer or your AST space mobile. You know, maybe you’ve got other reasons to not like that too much, but I think he’s a, I think he’s a great person to be doing this, particularly because like what we saw, the way he managed like Twitter X, when he took over and he essentially like, what did he fire?
[00:38:32] Luke: Like 70 percent of the employees, like the guy is fricking ruthless. And focused, not just ruthless, but like laser focused on like, what’s the real thing we’re trying to do? Asking that, not like all these other side missions and bullshit. Like, what’s the thing we’re trying to do? And then just stripping out everything else, focusing on the core important thing.
[00:38:57] Luke: , and then, you know, maybe you add back some [00:39:00] things later, like you went a bit too far. You stripped out something, so okay, got to add it back, got to rehire my HR department, whatever it is. And I think that’s that kind of quantum of approach is, is probably needed when you’re dealing with something like this persistent debt issue, because you can’t solve it with another approach, really, I don’t think.
​[00:40:00]
[00:40:03] Krzysztof: exactly. That’s what I want to return us to. Ray Dalio has recently been talking about his new book, why countries go broke. I have, uh, a book of his called the debt crisis and you know, what gets countries in the spiral and long story short, the solution to some of this stuff requires. immediate fast action that is often painful but has to be done otherwise, right?
[00:40:27] Krzysztof: The United States could go bankrupt. And in that scenario, it’s, in that scenario, I think the consequences are so, are as bad as whatever, say, a kleptomaniac grifter might attain. Because the world could potentially fall into Great Depression and, you know, like bad, bad zombie stuff. So, returning to the premise of this, like, why are we talking about this?
[00:40:55] Krzysztof: We’re talking about it because the United States is on the verge of bankruptcy. [00:41:00] We need to solve this problem. So in that sense I am in favor of this initiative, ideologically, from the financial side, standpoint, and for one more reason. This is what, this is what I discovered in my poking around this internet. As an example, as a lead example, did you hear about, you know, all the headlines regarding USAID funding being, uh, cut, right? So, let’s, for simplicity’s sake, let’s call it a philanthropic charitable organization that does a lot of good in the world. Like, share, and subscribe. Sending food and water to hungry people.
[00:41:46] Krzysztof: So from that perspective, like, yes, we need organizations like that and we should support them. However, it also turns out [00:42:00] when you do a little digging that the USA ID has also been. publicly acknowledged and documented as a kind of front for the CIA, which helps a country like the United States enter a poor country and then call it, establish their own agendas.
[00:42:19] Krzysztof: So now you have, it’s not so simple as this is just a pure do gooder. Right. All of a sudden you have all kinds of under laying stuff. When I poked at a lot of these kinds of documents this weekend, you find, or musk has found by turning over the log and seeing all the brooches that a bunch of these organizations that were getting a lot of money from the U S taxpayers.
[00:42:45] Krzysztof: Were themselves forms of grifts, like I think the main headline was political, kind of left leaning, call it journalistic, uh, enterprise that was getting 500 million for [00:43:00] 37 recipients. And I think when Musk posts that, everyone’s like, what is this? Who are these 37 people? Is this justified? And I think from that end, it’s obvious that there are many, many, many instances like this.
[00:43:17] Krzysztof: I fully 100 percent support full transparency. Let’s, I’m not saying get rid of USAID, right? I am saying let’s backtrack. Find out what the facts are to the, I think, the appropriate use of that word. What is the money? Where is it going to? And then rebuild from there.
[00:43:43] Luke: Yeah. And, and rebuild some of these organizations like in different ways, like a huge chunk of us spending is on like defense. And for very important reasons, the way that the government [00:44:00] engages with like the primes, like Raytheon and Lockheed and Boeing and all these guys, like, it just doesn’t make no sense at all.
[00:44:08] Luke: The supplier has no incentive. To cut costs, be efficient. In fact, they’re incentivized to spend as much money as possible. Because then they get like their cost plus they get like, you know, the more they can spend, the more the cost is of building like the next, war fighter or missile or whatever the hell it is.
[00:44:27] Luke: Like the more they can, the more they spend on that, the more they’ll make. Cause they add on like that percentage, their markup, that’s no way to, you know, if you were getting in someone to like renovate your library, right. That’s no way to engage with a contractor, . Cause you know, you’ll end up with bloody library of Alexandria behind you.
[00:44:47] Krzysztof: You know, there’s a tragic element in all this. That one the name and here I want to define the word tragic not as call it sad or like, you know Bad things happen and people are sad but [00:45:00] tragic in the sense that in human life There are moments where bad things happen and there is no quote unquote like justice in either side and in this sense There are people I know that I’ve been talking to who are call it on the receiving end of a lot of these Trump Doge initiatives where they’re being fired or let go or made to do things that are in their lives now really, really hard or challenging.
[00:45:32] Krzysztof: And because I know these people, I feel for them. they’re legitimately good people. who are doing good work. They’re not in this grifting bucket. They’re not frauds. When you take an agent like musk and he’s saying you just cut and ask questions later The baby is being thrown out with the bath water situation And it makes me think this is one of these hard instances where the problem is [00:46:00] so bad That something needs to be done, but the solutions there are no perfect solutions.
[00:46:06] Krzysztof: So you’re going to cause harm one way or another there is no Easy way out, which is tragic, right? I feel like, you know what I’m saying? it’s almost like we each side ideologically want thinks that there is a happy solution if you just don’t do this, right? Or do you just behave yourself?
[00:46:26] Krzysztof: I don’t think that’s the case. This is bad options, no matter where you look. And hopefully this is the least bad option. Maybe yeah.
[00:46:33] Luke: Yeah. And like, and just, you know, take, take the pain, swallow the pill and just get it done. if you set it up in the right way with the right transparency and monitoring. Like maybe the U. S. can kind of reinvent its economy and, you know, be, be, you know, much more stable and predictable for many, many decades to come.
[00:46:55] Krzysztof: Exactly. So I think we’re on the verge of addressing some of Stephen’s questions [00:47:00] directly, like the upshot. I have one more thing though I found which delighted me to no end, and we’ll put this in the show notes. It’s a clip of John Stewart from 2023. He’s on stage at some university, I think talking to an agent of the federal department of, I want to say defense, but don’t quote me on that.
[00:47:25] Krzysztof: Some, some large federal bureau, right? Oh my God. I watched this like four times because it is so instructive into I think what we’re seeing here. The federal agent. Is basically lecturing John in, and this is not, not, not a small issue. She’s lecturing him aggressively, like you could tell tone of her voice.
[00:47:51] Krzysztof: She’s like borderline attacking him and saying, John, there’s a difference between [00:48:00] auditing and waste. And she’s defending the U S government in 2023, right. And Jon Stewart’s reply is when things go on audited, that’s how I would define waste. So it is a definitional argument, but to Jon Stewart’s great credit.
[00:48:26] Krzysztof: The way he replies to her is so much more humane and he’s a professional, right? I mean, he’s so good at what he does. but to me, the way you respond to these things matters. And I think Stuart is right. In this particular case, if you don’t audit things and you don’t know what things are, how can you with a straight face? say that’s not wasteful. So [00:49:00] I implore all of our viewers, listeners to check out our show notes to watch this clip.
[00:49:04] Krzysztof: It’s like three minutes long. To me, it encapsulates the whole thing. Really stride and see versus call it. Let’s talk about this. Let’s be humane to each other and You know, and this is, yeah, from 2003. So this is a year in advance.
[00:49:19] Luke: don’t want to go here with the conversation because I think we’re sort of aligning around this is actually probably the right thing to do. What’s your feelings as a U. S. citizen, but actually this is unconstitutional. That this is actually, I mean, I don’t know, but it seems like, it seems like the claims, plausible claims are that.
[00:49:39] Luke: this is an overreach of power to use an executive action in this particular way, and really budget spending is approved by Congress. So if you wanted to do something like Doge, great, but it has to be from Congress, not from Trump and Musk, like buddying up and just cracking on with it.
[00:49:58] Krzysztof: I think [00:50:00] I agree with that. And it’s been a while since I’ve done my us history. but at some point, yeah, I was pretty clear that the United States, the strength of its government is the checks and balances system. And in order to prevent somebody like Musk, who is the world’s richest man. To basically do whatever he wants when obviously he has a stake.
[00:50:22] Krzysztof: ,let’s not be naive, right? He’s running Tesla and SpaceX and five other companies. He, he wants as few rules and he wants to be able to do basically whatever he wants for the betterment of his own businesses. I’m not denying that. So it seems, does seem legitimately dangerous. That one individual could have this much of an effect one part of me one motivated Individual could have this much effect where all of a sudden because of his call it leanings and desires thousands and thousands of jobs in federal [00:51:00] Departments are being closed the as far as I could tell the US Department of Education has been closed as of this morning.
[00:51:09] Krzysztof: Maybe that was a fake article. I didn’t read into it, but that’s massive, right? So no, that’s, approaching what monarchy, I mean, or some version of, so no, I think it’s right. Unconstitutional,
[00:51:21] Luke: But,
[00:51:22] Krzysztof: probably highly illegal.
[00:51:24] Luke: what if, like, if you stuck with the constitution and you waited for Congress to have an opinion on this and do things in the right way, like chances are. It just wouldn’t happen. And it wouldn’t happen to the same extent. And I think we started where we navigated to like 15 minutes ago was this is the right thing to do.
[00:51:42] Luke: So is it like, how do you feel about the fact that this is probably illegal? But we should probably do it anyway, like it feels a bit like just to sort of say, like, it feels a bit like a case of like, just do it and then like [00:52:00] ask for forgiveness afterwards.
[00:52:02] Krzysztof: I’m going to give you my intuitive answer. This is the one that I’m legitimately like sitting with, despite my ability to reason both sides. I think this is overall a good thing. so I think we align there, uh, with, with real fingers crossed that it does in fact not deteriorate to maniacal egomaniacs actually imposing some crazy fascists.
[00:52:35] Krzysztof: thing in that democracy as we knew it crumbles and this is a new system brought in that’s somehow dangerous and worse than what we have.
[00:52:45] Luke: And that prompts a question I haven’t thought about actually, like, how do we, how would we know? When would we know? And what could we look at to try and get a sense of the extent to which it’s becoming? [00:53:00] Like no longer like a good set of activities to cut costs and drive efficiencies. And it’s now starting to step more and more into like an authoritarian China style governance.
[00:53:14] Luke: And essentially, like, ignoring the constitution.
[00:53:18] Krzysztof: Well, here’s one example I thought of to use the Department of U. S. Education as the case study. As a professional educator, I could make an argument that that’s a wasteful department. So let’s say I side with Musk, right? But we need schools, right? You can’t just abandon kids. So let’s examine, let’s keep, let’s say our focus on what happens with that story.
[00:53:44] Krzysztof: Let’s say that department is cut. Okay. We save money. Good. But then the question is to tracking it, what is the next step? What replaces that? What happens to the test scores? In other words, is the [00:54:00] billionaire saving? lot of money by closing down a bunch of schools and the kids are there to fend for themselves, or at some point does the billionaire say, okay, we got rid of the rot, but now we’re going to engineer our way to something better.
[00:54:15] Krzysztof: And look, the test scores five years from now are higher. That’s what I would look for in all the different iterations of this. Like what is. replacing the previous structure. And this is why maybe the tandem of Musk and Trump is somehow better than if it was one of, of the two, like Trump, if it was just Trump, I wouldn’t believe it for a second.
[00:54:38] Krzysztof: But I think Elon could actually implement the next phase because he’s a builder.
[00:54:45] Luke: Yeah, I mean, he’s certainly, he’s, like, he’s, he’s done this before. Maybe not at this scale and this complexity, but he’s done this multiple times in his companies. So I buy that. Like, he’s probably, he’s probably among the best people [00:55:00] to be doing this. No argument. And something he’ll do, which is interesting into the example you gave, like, I don’t know anything about the U.
[00:55:06] Luke: S. education system, and I’m not an educator. He’ll probably drive people to focus on Like the, the true desirable outcome, which in the case of education, isn’t actually test scores, right? Because test scores are, you know, it’s like the whole, I don’t know, I don’t want to diss your industry, but it’s kind of, it’s set up badly, right?
[00:55:30] Luke: It’s just rewarding people for rote memorization, not the ability to actually think and operate and navigate in the world and maybe You know, if you are going to reinvent education, maybe you should start from that position. Like, what is it we’re actually trying to do?
[00:55:45] Krzysztof: Exactly. I talk about this stuff all the time in my classes. I’m saying, look, young ladies and gentlemen, AI is here. A paradigm shift is absolutely necessary. You cannot approach [00:56:00] your education in the same way anymore. And my, true feeling is that were they say something like the U.S Department of Education to stay exactly as it were, it’s like a dinosaur walking with a meteor, right? like coming closer and closer. So this kind of like tear it down because it’s dead anyway approach I think is correct. And so it’s just, it gives more of a chance for the new thing that needs to be born to actually be born. And we could check that, right? And that’s why, you know, my thesis here would be if we do use blockchains more often going forward, then these kinds of things could be more easily traced, like school performances or whatever the new thing is. So that’s not just politicians saying fake things and everybody buying it, but we could track whatever metrics we need to.
[00:56:54] Luke: Yeah, maybe. I mean, it’s, let’s not turn it into a blockchain argument. Cause that’s like a whole nother layer of [00:57:00] potential like controversy and complexity. But yeah, like I agree with transparency and, you know, I can ensure, like there are some agencies that have to. definition have like an element of secrecy, but you want some checks and balances.
[00:57:18] Luke: So, you know, that, you know, if they do have some element of opaque spending, it’s at least like proportionate to like their mission. Not, they’re not just like wildly like funding all sorts of like wars overseas and strange things.
[00:57:34] Krzysztof: Right. So are we at the point, Badger, that we could address Stephen’s question directly? Is the U. S. on its way to becoming uninvestable? What do you think?
[00:57:47] Luke: I really like this and I think the US, I think the US could become uninvestable if it doesn’t do something like this. As you said there is certainly precedent for the [00:58:00] US defaulting. It’s debt obligations, and that would be very bad. Like that’s happened in the past.
[00:58:05] Luke: And if that were to happen again, that would be very, very bad. Let’s just say, you know, ruthlessly as investors, that would be really unequivocably bad for investors. Whether you’re invested in the U S or overseas, right? The U S is so fundamental to the world’s economy. So I think this is net positive and I’m glad this is happening.
[00:58:23] Luke: And I don’t think this is going to make the U S uninvestable.
[00:58:29] Krzysztof: I agree with you. And I think my only counter to that would be if I put on my left glasses and say, as I said before, if history does repeat and this time is no different, Then we actually know historically that regimes that are authoritarian in this way make for very, very bad economics, the Soviet Union and I’m not, you know, all of the, all of [00:59:00] the ways that that oligarchs and these kinds of kleptocracies have ruled in the past, it seems on paper that they would work, but they, but in the end, the power corrupts too much.
[00:59:14] Krzysztof: If that’s the case, then I think, The US is in bad shape, probabilistically, I want to say that that won’t be the outcome, at this stage of The better better of the two bad options. So I think I’m starting with you.
[00:59:33] Luke: Yeah. I’d maybe even go a little bit further than that and say, like, the bad stuff we’re acknowledging is going to happen whether or not we’re doing things like Doge. So I just kind of, at this stage, I just kind of shrug my shoulders a bit and accept that like grifter’s going to grift. I fear, like when I had this conversation with my friend Christine yesterday, like I fear there are, we’re going in a totally different direction here.
[00:59:59] Luke: We can shut this [01:00:00] down if you like, The overturning of Roe v. Wade and, and now I don’t, I’m not fully up to date on the latest news, but like now the, you know, now the power is in the hand of the states and now it’s sort of becoming illegal to, uh, have an abortion in some states. I think that might be true.
[01:00:18] Luke: And if you cross state lines to have an abortion, like the doctors can be prosecuted, you can be prosecuted. So you’ve got something there, but I think it’s like fundamental to sort of human rights, women’s rights. And I, I fear that, you know, if things like doge were used as a lever to further some of those like political goals that are nothing to do with cost and efficiency, like that would be a very bad outcome. but I suppose in the round, like I’m accepting some of this shit’s going to happen anyway. And we have to find a way to solve those problems and shine a light on them and try and stay somewhat balanced, but we’ve got to make the cost savings at the same time.
[01:00:59] Krzysztof: I think that’s [01:01:00] fair. I don’t think I have too much to add to that. That’s a fair thing to keep an eye on the only I guess the only thing to add. And this is way above the scope of this conversation is that in political theory, you have to remember that, not everybody assumes that, for example, liberalism defined as liberalism.
[01:01:24] Krzysztof: Equal rights for everybody is the best system, and there’s lots of legitimately decent, reasonable reasons for that, but that takes us too far, so, uh, I think that the upshot is that human beings are messy, and we have not figured out any perfect system of organizing ourselves. And each system comes with lots of problems, and we’re still evolving, and maybe, maybe, I mean, yeah, last point, it’s like, when I [01:02:00] was listening to Ann Applebaum talk about this, she’s, right, she’s assuming that, by definition, because they’re undermining the current system, that that’s bad. But again, from the innovator’s standpoint, maybe a new system needs to be born. And this is the messy way it has a chance at being born. So, okay.
[01:02:26] Luke: Okay. Stephen, I hope you’re satisfied. I hope I haven’t put off too many of our viewers with that conversation.
[01:02:30] Krzysztof: What’s the TLDR, right? Steven, don’t worry about it. Here’s what you do, Steven. I got you. I got your back. Monkey’s got your back. Don’t worry about it. Get yourself a glass, fill it with ice cubes. And in that glass, pour one part vermouth. One part Campari and one part rum, stir it up and you’re going to have the best Negroni of your life.
[01:02:55] Krzysztof: That’s the TLDR.
[01:02:57] Luke: Kristoff’s pulling my chain because, uh, [01:03:00] you do not make a Negroni with rum, you make it with gin, and you cannot mess with a classic. I had a, I had a, I had a take on an espresso martini the other day. Bullshit. Do not mess with the classics. They’re classics for a reason.
[01:03:13] Krzysztof: Right. And if you want to know what’s up with that, uh, check out our Patreon community. So shall we turn to what a little bit of stock
[01:03:21] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you’re, so I really want, I think we’re not ready to have this full conversation, but you are an AST space mobile, investor. I am a Starlink investor and all you guys are telling me my Starlink technology is shit and I don’t believe you. So can you explain what’s going on here?
[01:03:42] Krzysztof: So, okay, right. This is not the big deep dive that I’m going to do in some future date. But right now, A. S. T. S. I believe in king of the jungle portfolio is my number 2. No, 2 or 3. [01:04:00] It’s eos and then I think A STS or Relay. so I have a lot of, stake in this horse last night during the Super Bowl.
[01:04:07] Krzysztof: So, and then the thing happened. Here’s what happened Last night during the Super Bowl, T-Mobile released a commercial basically saying that they are ready to give internet connectivity in a better testing format to to starlink phones. Now and that that basically all carriers could kind of opt into this somehow So this was news.
[01:04:37] Krzysztof: This was a major announcement and That they’re going to charge. I believe was 15 or 20 dollars per Subscription to add this kind of connectivity one way of understanding. This is that In the old parlance shots have been fired. This has you [01:05:00] know in the most public event in the United States
[01:05:06] Krzysztof: The race is on the race. The gun’s been fired, right? We’re starting the race. What’s important to understand is that T-Mobile is the one partner, one major partner that Starlink has. ASTS is partnered with basically everybody else, to keep it simple. Verizon, AT& T, and Vodafone, and lots of the big European players. From one perspective, before the market opened today, people were like, Oh, uh, Starlink is pretty good. Technologically wise, maybe better than we thought. And they’re already basically getting after it. They already have satellites. up in space. And so they have this first mover advantage. So [01:06:00] ASTS stock is going to tank today.
[01:06:03] Krzysztof: That was one theory, but another theory, the one I subscribe to is that ASTS has the better technology by far, because it’s already been proven. In fact, last week, using the one satellite that ASTS has. They were able to, uh, do video from to a device, whereas starting technology, sometimes the text messages work, sometimes they don’t.
[01:06:30] Krzysztof: , the ASTS bulls were saying, wow, you’re starting at 20. For subscription, we were thinking more along the lines of five, 10. So that basically in theory doubled, whatever future revenue ASTS might have at this moment, badger, as we’re recording the ASTS stock is up 23%. Working backwards. This tells me what the market is saying is.
[01:06:59] Krzysztof: It’s [01:07:00] obvious that this industry space communications will have room for multiple winners. It’s not going to be a winner take all. And if in fact, the starting price for this service is 20 a month and not five or 10. Then the revenues that both companies will have will be way, way, way bigger than we even thought.
[01:07:23] Krzysztof: But on top of that, I have one more surprise for you. You’re going to love this because in our own private banter, right? As I’m kind of sending you some snippets about. ASTS being the superior investment and all that and, uh, some of our patrons are, you know, hawks about this. We’re, we’re, we’re pretty active on this stuff now.
[01:07:44] Krzysztof: Your response to me has been basically what I would expect from a Starlink shareholder. Like I don’t believe you, right?
[01:07:53] Luke: Great.
[01:07:54] Krzysztof: Well, tell me what happens when I tell you that the CEO [01:08:00] of a company called Andrew is an ASTS, investor, which he made public basically yesterday. How does that make you feel?
[01:08:12] Luke: I’m cool with that. Lucky’s a smart guy. Um, I’d be surprised if, I’d be surprised if he’s not a SpaceX shareholder as well.
[01:08:19] Krzysztof: that’s a good followup, but my understanding of the exchange was that as somebody who is interested in, more about Andrew better than I do, but it’s like, call it the future. What defense? technology company that he’s investing in ASTS because he sees that form of technology is the one to better pair with his future.
[01:08:44] Krzysztof: What’s it called? Defensive ambitions for his own company.
[01:08:49] Luke: Yeah, maybe.
[01:08:49] Luke: I don’t think that’s necessarily meaningful. Like, I just see, like, it’s so early at this stuff. I don’t want SpaceX to be the only game in town. I want there to be multiple games. Otherwise it’s [01:09:00] just like the next frontier for antitrust and that’s just bad for everybody. So like, hoorah. Uh, I just don’t, I don’t feel that.
[01:09:09] Luke: ASTS have much of a leg to stand on compared to just the whole business model of SpaceX, which is why I’m like, I’m like Starlink bull, but if you can tell me in a future episode why Starlink’s technology is shit, like I’m, I’d like to understand that because I thought I didn’t think that was the case.
[01:09:29] Krzysztof: yeah, it’s not only that, but also the business model for ASTS is, I think, the superior one, but that’s for the, that’s for the deep dive. The only issue right now, really. As a preview with ASTS is that they’re pre revenue and it’s they’re not going to get their satellites up for another few launches, but they also have a billion dollars in cash now.
[01:09:52] Krzysztof: So, but anyway, that’s a whole whole side gig. I think the TLDR here is that as of yesterday’s Super Bowl announcement, [01:10:00] these two companies are now officially going at it. And there are lots of smart people that are backing ASTS despite the claims being made by Starlink and T Mobile. And my take is there, think of it as room enough for both, but I’m going to back what I consider the superior technology.
[01:10:22] Krzysztof: And I’m enjoying the 23 percent bump in the ASTS share price this
[01:10:28] Luke: Great stuff. Should I tell you about a pre revenue company I’ve just invested in?
[01:10:34] Krzysztof: Yes. Yes. Yes. Tell me, is it going to be more sausages?
[01:10:40] Luke: Uh, yeah, yeah, good point, good point, yeah, sort of, sort of, like we talked about Greg’s vegan sausage rolls last week. You’re right, I didn’t realize I’ve got like a food theme, ah, bloody hell.
[01:10:52] Krzysztof: From FinTech to sausages. The badger yeah, so this is another food company, yeah, exactly, so it’s a [01:11:00] startup you might have heard of because they’ve been.
[01:11:02] Luke: they were one of the O. G. companies in cultured meat. So this is Moser meat. And they’re raising money again. So, uh, there’s a private round open and they’re actually raising money on a couple of like crowd funding platforms. This is actually one that anyone can get a little bit a piece of their, uh, they’re raising with crowd cube in the UK, which is who I’m using and the fees seem reasonable.
[01:11:25] Luke: So like who are most of me, what are they doing? They’re trying to help solve. Like the problem of, uh, well, like the whole ethics around animals use it. I think I definitely feel like we’re going to look back in, I know, 20 years time, a bit like I’ve said this before, like when we look back at the wearing of seatbelts in cars, and it just seems like.
[01:11:47] Luke: Just a ridiculous thing to not wear a seatbelt when you’re driving a vehicle. But like 20, 30 years ago, like most people probably didn’t. And it probably felt a bit weird to put a seatbelt on. Like the culture changed. I definitely think in like [01:12:00] maybe 20 years time, we’re going to look back and think it’s holy fuck.
[01:12:03] Luke: It’s weird that we were eating animals, like rearing these things and like ethically horrible and bad for the planet. Plus not to mention just like, you know, the diseases that. Well, that get kind of across herds and things like that. So Moser Meats approach, and there’s multiple companies doing this, is to take a small sample, like cell sample of a cow, and then brew.
[01:12:26] Luke: Like culture it and grow cells and grow, essentially grow like a steak, in a vat, like, you know, like a chemistry experiment. They’ve been doing this for a bunch of time and they’re now raising money to accelerate R& D because they want to start getting their products into restaurants. Because the price of this stuff has come down, it’s becoming more technically feasible.
[01:12:45] Luke: And this is just gonna, you know, I feel like this is definitely the way the world is going. All of that shit with like beyond meat and impossible, like they were good products, but they’ve become like highly commoditized. I was a beyond meat shareholder. I love the idea [01:13:00] of like plant based protein, but really that’s not going to solve the problem because if someone’s a carnivore, right, they want meat.
[01:13:07] Luke: Like you got, you Americans, you love your meat. It kind of makes me laugh that. Like there’s so much lobbying against cultured meat because like the end is in sight for, um, like the U S cattle industry. And I think that’s a good thing, right? Obviously a bit like our conversation at the top of the conversation, like people are going to suffer.
[01:13:26] Luke: Things are going to change, but this is the nature of progress. So anyway, I’m a Mozermeat shareholder and, uh, I’m not saying go invest in this one. Do your own due diligence, but you can be too, if you jump in on this round, which is open right now.
[01:13:39] Krzysztof: Ooh, I love this one. Uh, I’m teaching a class this semester. The Rhetoric of Animals. So, this is stuff that I teach about directly. It’s something I care about as a, as an individual, I think the, the torture of animals, which is the predominant way animals are treated, uh, [01:14:00] is one of the, the most horrific things that, that humans are doing at the moment.
[01:14:04] Krzysztof: So any company that is addressing this is amazing. I really hope, , that you can provide for us in the show notes, the link or several links to how we could find this company. And I will definitely check it out.
[01:14:18] Luke: Great stuff. Great stuff.
[01:14:19] Krzysztof: for bringing this to our attention.
[01:14:22] Luke: Alrighty. Well, I think that brings us to the back of a big ass episode.
[01:14:26] Krzysztof: Yeah, boy. what did we accomplish? We solved the world’s problems. We freed the animals. We explored space. we also remind the viewers how to drink their Negronis. So yeah, great job badger. maybe most importantly, as we end all shows. Let’s extend a little bit of gratitude to some new Patreons, Thule, Vijay, and Matthew S.
[01:14:53] Krzysztof: Thank you so much for your support. Welcome to the tribe. Find us for the rest of you who [01:15:00] have not yet joined at patreon. com slash wall street wildlife. It’s a happen live lively place where we discuss stocks and all kinds of Other to dos.
[01:15:13] Luke: and we got like a bunch of different Patreon tiers. We have just announced last week a new tier because we nearly got merch. Like you can see I’m wearing like some random badger t shirt that I bought off Amazon and Christoph’s got like a range of animal themed hats. We do have like an actual fancy wall street wildlife logo.
[01:15:33] Luke: If you want one of those logos on a mug or a t shirt or some other bit of. Like stuff you want to wave around and show your support for the show. Then if you go join up at our dolphin, what do we know? Our jungle cat here, our jungle cats here, then we will soon have merge. It’s not quite ready yet.
[01:15:51] Krzysztof: Yeah, I have a couple prototypes of those mugs, which I gave my folks for Christmas. And man are those bang banging looking mugs. [01:16:00] That’s some fine fine design right there. I can’t wait to to get them made in quantity for all our jungle cats.
[01:16:07] Luke: Very good. All right. Well, Christophe, we end all of our episodes with that big question. Are you ready to become a beast of an investor?
[01:16:15] Krzysztof: Your journey starts right here.
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