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Friday, October 30, 2026

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@kevin__mak

Kevin Mak on X

$ASTS So many questions about ASTS (please don't reply to unrelated threads to get my attention, just DM me). I have no position in the company. My comments from 3+ quarters ago is that I wanted to see "more metal in space". My concern from 5+ quarters ago was "how do they go from producing 1 satellite in 6 months, to 6 satellites per month, that's a really hard scaling problem". I think Starlink screwed up with their Swarm acquisition and trying to force that tech to work, it put a 18+ month delay on them. My hope was that ASTS would capitalize on that, and it generally appears that they've had scaling issues that prevented that from happening. That isn't really their fault, "space is hard" and "mass production is different from prototypes". I think money isn't a problem for them, they have so much cash (they were smart to take advantage of their high stock price). The problem is execution is hard even if you have lots of cash. Strategically they're in a good place, the MNO's definitely want/need them to work to compete w/ Starlink. But the MNO's are powerless, they're awful at execution (they're only good at increasing your monthly bill!). The BO failure was a really big problem. SpaceX (Starlink) had very little leverage on ASTS before. If they slowroll/deny F9 launches, they just push ASTS towards their competitor (BO). Two competitors (BO and ASTS) become stronger. But since BO was offline, it makes SpaceX the de facto monopolist to ASTS' launch. That gives them a ton of power in this situation and I imagine (but have no way to prove it), they would flex that competitive pressure on the company. That's not illegal anti-competitive behavior, that's just "pressure". It's a tricky set of problems that face the company and the stock price reflects that. I don't have a strong view in either direction of whether things get better or worse from here. But my initial hopes/thesis were steadily eroded by the execution issues (and valuation), hence my eventual exit from my long position. I don't think I'm saying anything thoughtful or what people don't already know/experience. But worth putting it out there because I've received _a lot_ of questions. Disclosure: No position in ASTS.
@kevin__mak 3 clicks

Kevin Mak on X

$CORZ Some quick notes on this one. 1) In my view, CORZ has the most economically advantaged deal in the entire HPC industry. Their series of ~590mw of deals with CRWV was heavily tilted in their favor, and no deal after that has the same terms. 2) That deal is 70%+ finished construction, so there's no "if they get it built", it's largely built and should be fully built by early 2027. 3) According to CFO Jim Nygaard, the CRWV infrastructure cost $5.5B but would cost $7.5B to rebuild today, and CORZ holds the first lien. I call this a “capex put,” because IF there’s a problem with CRWV paying its contracts, CORZ has a claim on substantial infrastructure that could be re-leased to another customer. Depending on assumptions (discount rate, terminal value, etc), I see this as being worth $10-$13 per share in todays terms. They still have a ~530MW deal with AMD, plus another 1.5GW of "future expansion". The upside of CORZ is not the same as the other HPC/neocloud type plays. There's very little/no scenarios where I can see this stock going up by 5-10x. But the downside scenario is also very different. This is significantly less risky than its peers, yet, in this indiscriminate "vibes/basket" based market, it often trades very similarly. There lies the opportunity. When the market treats different assets as the same, because nobody cares about the nuance anymore. Positioning: I sold all of my shares between $20-$26 per share and thought I was done with CORZ forever. It's a pleasant surprise to be able to buy them back sub $15. Disclosure: Creek Drive and its affiliated funds holds positions in CORZ. Views expressed are current opinions for information only, subject to change and are not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Investing involves the risk of loss and past performance is not indicative of future performance. See the disclosures link in my bio for more important information.

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