00:00How much of a game changer is this for funding the new economy through space, through getting more eyeballs in
00:07it?
00:07What difference does it make to have this mega IPO come to Wall Street?
00:10I think there's many, many implications of this.
00:12Clearly, one of the big ideas is to get more public money involved in this through retail investors and others.
00:20What they're looking to do is really changing the game in terms of the infrastructure that runs our lives and
00:25runs industry both on Earth and in space.
00:28I want to ask first, because of your book, about the infrastructure that runs our lives in space.
00:34What is there in space or what have we achieved or found in space that makes our lives different than
00:42they would otherwise be?
00:43I think a lot of people don't realize just how much space actually influences our lives.
00:47Financial markets are run via satellites, agriculture, weather, GPS, your Uber, your taxis, global supply logistics.
00:56There's also now a lot of research going on in life sciences for drug research that's starting to come back
01:03down onto Earth.
01:05Many of the materials and advanced materials that we use on Earth were actually formed and created so we could
01:11survive space.
01:13Your background is perfect for this moment, starting as an engineer with Rolls-Royce and then eventually moving it into
01:18finance, too.
01:19I would love to combine those two things and just ask you what you think of the $28 trillion TAM
01:24that SpaceX says that it has.
01:26Is that opportunity actually what's out there for us, almost $29 trillion for this company?
01:32It's a big number, just like its valuation.
01:37It's a big, big, big stretch number.
01:39But I think you've got to look at what SpaceX is actually doing.
01:42It's essentially becoming an AI infrastructure company.
01:45So you've been talking all morning about AI and compute.
01:48And you maybe saw last week that Google is now going to pay SpaceX a billion dollars a month for
01:54compute space.
01:55So what SpaceX is doing is actually integrating not just across its space technologies, but it's creating infrastructure on Earth
02:03and in space to basically do a lot of AI compute.
02:07To how much of it will be in space?
02:08You know, when I was, I was going to say when I was a kid, but I should just say
02:12like last year, the most fantastical thing about space was the idea that we could somehow get on asteroids and
02:18then mine them for really cool materials.
02:20Now, people kind of accept the idea that we could have gigawatts of compute in space.
02:26Is that realistic?
02:27Well, I think the idea of compute being in space is realistic.
02:31And I think that's the basis of what Elon Musk is trying to do.
02:34And not just SpaceX, but, you know, Amazon, Leo, other rocket lab or vertically integrated space companies.
02:41So they are putting a lot of infrastructure in space.
02:44With regards to the mining of asteroids, I think that's a little bit further away.
02:48I think what's more realistic is what Jared Eisenman from NASA is trying to do, which is to, you know,
02:53see how we can establish technologies on the moon that would allow them to do further deep exploration.
02:59And we need power.
03:00You need energy.
03:01You need resources on the moon.
03:03So there's a little bit of mining in there.
03:05I think that will happen before the asteroids get mined.
03:08You draw this parallel to the moon kind of being like a beach, like anyone can sit on the beach,
03:12but it's a different thing to own it.
03:13And how much of this will just straight up turn into a competition of who gets there first between the
03:18U.S. and China?
03:20100%.
03:20It's exactly that.
03:22So there's a lot of treaties, a lot of space treaties, which doesn't allow anyone to own the moon.
03:27But those who get, it's like getting onto the beach.
03:29You can play with the sand.
03:30You can use the sand, but you don't own the sand.
03:31So if China or anyone else gets to the south pole of the moon first, they will establish a presence
03:37that will make them a leader and be able to use those resources.
03:42The moon is, I mean, we've been there.
03:44By the way, why is it so difficult for us to get back?
03:47You know, we went to the moon, landed people on the moon, walked around the moon in the 1960s.
03:53And now it seems like a Herculean task, like it's impossible to get back there and do it again more
04:00than 50 years later.
04:01And in that time, computers have gone from the size of like industrial buildings to this.
04:08So like, why is it still so hard to get back and do that?
04:11Well, you've also got to look at how hard it was to land on the moon in the first place.
04:14When, you know, JFK announced it in the early 60s, it was a decade long project, right?
04:19But before we were born, dude, it was like a long time ago.
04:23Well, there was lots of things that have happened politically and technically.
04:26You know, you had the space shuttle.
04:27You know, that took a lot of political and financial effort to make that happen.
04:31Challenger.
04:31And so that put the space programs back a lot.
04:34And so there wasn't necessarily a political or financial appetite for that.
04:38And I think what SpaceX has done with reusable rockets and showing that there is much more of a commercial
04:44aspect to this
04:45and that we are doing more commercial things in space,
04:47that's reinvigorated what the global economy is looking to do.
04:53And the other thing that's doing, driving that are geopolitical and, you know, military Golden Dome type programs.
04:59But doesn't that also just underscore how difficult it would be to do things like putting data centers on the
05:04moon?
05:04Like just the physics of it is so incredibly difficult.
05:09How realistic is that?
05:10What is the timeline for actually getting, using the moon for its full potential of what it might be?
05:14I mean, I think it's quite far away.
05:16I mean, I think when we talk about data centers, we're talking about low Earth orbit.
05:19That's really where it is.
05:21And if you think about it from a commercial standpoint, you know, NASA, SpaceX have said already,
05:27they're looking at moon and Mars and deep space exploration, which opens up low Earth orbit.
05:33And specifically, if you think about the International Space Station, it's going to stop being used.
05:37And new commercial space stations are coming up.
05:39Again, that's going to be where the public sector, the private sector are really looking to innovate.
05:46I have to ask about the stipulation for Elon Musk to get massive compensation out of SpaceX.
05:54He has to get a million people to live on Mars, right?
05:58And that's more people than live in Glasgow.
06:01So how likely is that?
06:04Like, would we even want to be there?
06:06It can't be a very pleasant place to inhabit.
06:08I don't think most people in Glasgow would want to live on Mars.
06:12It's an incredibly large stretch number.
06:16I mean, just the time to get a few people there, the risks involved, what we need to do to
06:21develop a population and infrastructure.
06:24It's decades out, in my view.
06:26Just quickly, is this IPO a good or bad thing for all the smaller space companies?
06:30Does this suck some of the oxygen out of the room?
06:34See, it's tough.
06:35Bulls and bears will give you different answers on that.
06:37I'm generally positive about it because it's going to create a lot of millionaires
06:40and it's going to create a lot of tech people coming out of SpaceX that will go and form their
06:44own companies.
06:45I think it's a signal that the commercial industry and the innovation is there.
06:50So I think overall it's positive.
06:53I think creating that awareness also with the private sector, so your venture capital, your private equity,
07:00that this is becoming a commercial opportunity where there's actual revenues, which is the key part to this,
07:06I think it's opening everyone's eyes and I think it's good.
07:09I do think a lot of smaller, privately held tech companies will not live on,
07:15but I think that just gives the increased focus to focus on who your customer is when you're building a
07:21space tech company.
07:22And I would argue, apart from the military and national reasons, that is really non-space industries.
07:30So we talked about finance, agriculture, global supply, logistics, etc.
07:34And I think that's also why I wrote the book, because it's actually about an education for those people who
07:39are not in the space industry
07:41to understand what the potential here is from a commercial standpoint.
07:45I think that's a good point.
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