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We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

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Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#251

Post by adammarples »

credit_guy wrote: post #77
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because 50 rocket launches seems hard to make cheaper than a building.

Why? It seems to me to be much cheaper than a building. Musk's aim is for the cost of one Starship launch to be under $10 million in the long run. 50 rocket launches would be less than half a billion dollars. Can you get a datacenter built on the ground for half a billion dollars?

You haven't built a data center for half a billion mate, you've just launched rockets. You still have to build the data centre! Only not from bricks, it's going to be complex modular units made of radiators and solar panels and you have to buy the gpus too, and the whole thing will be bombarded with cosmic background radiation but you can't replace or repair any part of it.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#252

Post by slowmovintarget »

80% of all mass launched from Earth in 2025 was launched by SpaceX, and 95% of those launches were with reusable systems.

That dwarfs all other launch capabilities on Earth, including all governments. Short and medium term value may be shaky if you evaluate SpaceX as a typical business.

Compute in orbit is "stupid" only to those who don't think it through. Their biggest initial customer for that feature will be Google, and through Google, Apple; two of the highest value tech companies on Earth. Seems like a fascinating flywheel to me.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#253

Post by Grombobulous »

NathanKP wrote: post #79
verandaguy wrote: post #44

I need to understand what possible benefit there is to doing DCs in space. The cost would be, no pun intended, fucking astronomical. The cooling situation would make no sense at all -- the major up-and-coming application of DCs, LLM training, has absurd cooling requirements even here on earth where convective cooling is an option, to the point where many DCs use open-loop cooling. Latency might be better, in some cas…

It's easy to see the benefit in DC's in space if you look at a few ingredients: 1. The recent Iran drone attacks on AWS data centers 2. Growing anti-AI and anti data center sentiment at home, plus Larry Fink (ceo of Blackrock) in a recent interview being terrified of dissident groups using consumer drones to attack data centers. 3. Anthropic, Grok, and other AI vendors becoming more and more integrated into defense a…

I would like to add to my reply to this comment, that heat management in space is extremely difficult.

The idea that we can manage heat in a data center scale in low earth orbit is pretty much impossible.

Look into the physics of the problem and how heat transfer works in the vacuum of space.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#254

Post by Zigurd »

ralph84 wrote: post #105
oldfuture wrote: post #15

And the prospectus says it plainly: "Mr. Musk will be able to control the outcome of matters requiring shareholder approval." Musk holds over 85% voting power through Class B super-voting shares (10 votes/share). Public investors combined will have 15%. What Musk Controls: - CEO removal = his consent. You can't fire him even if he destroys the company - Take business for himself. SpaceX gets a rocket deal? Musk can s…

Voting control doesn't change management's fiduciary duty to all shareholders. The founders retaining voting control has worked out fine for Alphabet shareholders.

Fiduciary duty is meaningless without recourse. The governance structure denies any recourse. A case of breach of fiduciary duty would never make it to trial under the governance structure.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#255

Post by Zigurd »

hparadiz wrote: post #17
kldavis4 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The orbital data center thing is really strange. Without some kind of massive technological breakthrough the physics of an orbital data center make no sense. Napkin math for a single data center including solar panels, radiators, compute and structure is somewhere on the order of ~6500 tonnes. Let's say Starship can put 100-150 tonnes into orbit per launch, that is somewhere between 40-65 launches for just one single…

The video they posted today outlines their specs. They are gonna be smaller. About 100T. Based on Starlink architecture but with way larger radiators and solar panels. Apparently the design is simpler than existing Starlinks because it has fewer different parts. Specs: https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/2064108916611420273?s=20

That projection depends on packaging and cooling breakthroughs that we would already be seeing in terrestrial data centers if they were practical.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#256

Post by archagon »

NathanKP wrote: post #79
verandaguy wrote: post #44

I need to understand what possible benefit there is to doing DCs in space. The cost would be, no pun intended, fucking astronomical. The cooling situation would make no sense at all -- the major up-and-coming application of DCs, LLM training, has absurd cooling requirements even here on earth where convective cooling is an option, to the point where many DCs use open-loop cooling. Latency might be better, in some cas…

It's easy to see the benefit in DC's in space if you look at a few ingredients: 1. The recent Iran drone attacks on AWS data centers 2. Growing anti-AI and anti data center sentiment at home, plus Larry Fink (ceo of Blackrock) in a recent interview being terrified of dissident groups using consumer drones to attack data centers. 3. Anthropic, Grok, and other AI vendors becoming more and more integrated into defense a…

It’s trivial to attack things in space if you also have stuff in space. Just ram your cheap satellites into the other guy’s. Do it right and the destruction will cascade.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#257

Post by ericd »

Sammi wrote: post #241
ericd wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I think everyone knows he's not batting 1000. I've used Waymos and FSD, and they were both great, so I don't think we're too far off now.

My man, it's 2026. How long will you have to wait for the spacex claims to become "not too far off now"?

Which claims? I’ve been a SpaceX investor for about 8 years now, I’m completely satisfied with their progress, even despite the Starship setbacks, they’ve done astounding work on all fronts. I’m not holding my breath for humans on Mars or us becoming a Kardashev 2 civilization, if that’s what you’re asking.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#258

Post by Zigurd »

ElProlactin wrote: post #37
bayarearefugee wrote: post #3

> We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued Well... yeah, sure, everyone thinks that. And the fact that it doesn't matter and won't impact demand for shares illustrates how increasingly and dangerously untethered the stock market is from reality.

> ...and dangerously untethered the stock market is from reality. "Disconnected from historical valuation norms" is a more sensible statement. The idea that the stock market is "detached from reality" is dangerous too because the stock market is...reality. People make and lose real money in it every day. There are good arguments that the historical valuation norms are reasonable and deviation from them is "dangerous"…

There is a simpler explanation: passive investing in index funds turned out to be too effective and ruined the game for active investment management. Now the banks have figured out how to exploit passive investors and turn them into involuntary bag holders. That is why the IPO will go out at the stated price and the underwriters face little risk.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#259

Post by Ancapistani »

queenkjuul wrote: post #185
cryptonector wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Google founders are, lets say, more reliable than Musk when it comes to making sound business decisions. I've no idea about that and I won't opine. But every time I see that sort of statement it seems likely motivated by the whole Twitter acquisition. Perhaps that was just a toy or vanity project for him, one he could afford, so even if you think he's running X terribly it might have nothing to do with how he's…

Space GPUs are stupid, so is hyperloop, so is the Vegas Loop; robotaxis don't work, cybertruck sucks, the humanoid robots don't work, the new roadster is nowhere to be seen. SpaceX blew up an entire launchpad because Musk thought flame diverters are gay, or something. And, yes, Twitter is now a shithole.

Every single one of those examples is both valid and - I believe, at least - misunderstood.

Musk has a singular goal as far as I can tell: to make humanity a multi-planetary species. All of those things are testing the boundaries of what's possible in areas that will or could be very important for building a permanent settlement on Mars.

I posit that while there's much room for debate around whether or not those projects are viable, as far as I can tell everything Musk has done has been in service of building the corporate framework, talent pool, skills, and technology necessary to colonize Mars.

Re: We Think the SpaceX IPO Is Overvalued

#260

Post by epistasis »

the_real_cher wrote: post #25
nandomrumber wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market can remain irrational longer than you can stay scared of it.

The federal reserve can keep printing money for longer than anyone can afford.

We can print more money, but it's not about "affording" it, the money printing at most changes the value of the dollar (i.e. inflation/deflation).

The rest of the world wants dollars, and as long as they do, the US benefits massively from that demand, and it would be foolish not to satisfy that demand, as it's pure benefit to the US.

It seems that many are devoted to ending the status of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, but it's a strange and subversive thing for any US resident to want or desire.

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