Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

Post by seattle_spring » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

good8675309 wrote: post #154

mannyv wrote: post #151

Whatever you think of Musk personally, he's one of the few people trying to move the needle. According to Wikipedia design started in 2015, which means it's taken them more than 8 years to get to cash-flow break even. This is why you need billions of dollars to get started. And that doesn't include the fact that they had to build a rocket company to launch their birds. Looks like they picked the right 60 engineers. T…

Sorry, you make good points but rocket man makes mean tweets so none of that matters. Jokes aside, I really wish we could just discuss the article instead of it turning into a flame war but this happens everytime someone posts anything that has anything to do with Musk.

Post by Waterluvian » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #69

Waterluvian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Starlink has colossal potential to do tremendous good in the world. That's exactly why I care so much about how much control and impact a character like Musk has. Would suck if my ISP suddenly just started sending me dank memes and poop emojis one day because the CEO got broken up with.

The fact that, at this point, this is not a totally ridiculous thing to be concerned about is very surreal but also pretty funny honestly.

Post by slibhb » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:10 PM UTC

next_xibalba wrote: post #14

drannex wrote: post #6

I don't trust a single thing he says at this point without evidence, I just can't possibly see it as breakeven without it, which we likely won't receive as they are a private corp.

Why does it matter to you? I am fascinated by people who have such strong opinions about Musk, particularly on the negative side. The vast majority have never met him and, if they were honest, have probably been positively impacted by him (or not at all). Personally, I hope it’s true. Starlink is good for the world.

Post by RC_ITR » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

dunmalg wrote: post #164

RC_ITR wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "trick" here is that he is likely speaking of operational cashflows (i.e. the 'correct' metric for low CAPEX companies). The rub, of course, is that most of the cost for something like Starlink is designing, building, and launching the satellites, which shows up in investing cashflows. Put differently, if the company was actually generating more cash than it consumes on all levels, start the IPO right now and Spa…

SpaceX will never have an IPO because being publicly traded means ceding a certain degree of control. The founders' goal is to make life multiplanetary, and the typical goal of rando shareholders is to pump up the stock price. They don't want to have to deal with the latter. They may at some point spin off Starlink and IPO that, but not until it's fully deployed and not heavily dependent on frequent, super cheap, low…

Post by LargeTomato » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #114

LargeTomato wrote: post #64

I read an analysis by Morgan Stanley that it costs $40B to launch the entire constellation. That doesn't include the cost of the satellite, just the launches. According to SpaceX their satellites last 5 years. That means Starlink must make, at minimum, $8B/year to maintain the constellation. `$8B/yr / ($200/mo * 12 mo) = 3.33 Million users` 3.3 million users paying $200/mo in order to break even. The starshield contr…

This is break-even on just one cost aspect though. If you add satellites, bandwidth/internet connectivity (a significant portion of the cost to service a user for traditional ISPs), renting/maintaining ground stations, marketing, and eventually R&D/offices/etc, that all rapidly increases. Additionally, $200/m is not price competitive compared to traditional ISPs in most of the world, $20-50 is more typical for many a…