Rocket Lab Enters SpaceX Arena, Meta’s Prediction Market, America’s Tech Wishlist | Diet TBPN

**John Coogan** (0:02)
People were clamoring for a Rocket Lab story that never came yesterday.
Rocket Lab enters the arena with SpaceX, Brandon Grell fired up the TBPN newsletter, which you can subscribe to at tbpn.com today, because we were on the horn with Prof G. We did his podcast, very excited for that to come out. Anyway, Rocket Lab, they are duking it out with SpaceX. Let's go through it. Yesterday, the launch services and space systems provider, Rocket Lab agreed to purchase a satellite manufacturer slash operator, Iridium, in a cash and stock deal that values the company at 8 billion, or 20% more than the share price at Friday's close. Iridium pioneered Leo's, Leo satellites, launching its first one some 30 years ago. The Iridium network was the original sat phone, this huge block of a phone. You would take out the antenna out of the back, and the antenna was big enough to kill you instantly if you let it get near your brain. No, just kidding, it was very safe. But it would be terrifying to anyone worried about microwave technology or any sort of radiation. But it was wildly successful, the company grew and grew, and now it's part of Rocket Lab. Today, they operate a fleet of 66 satellites. That seems low, that's because these are bigger, older satellites, but this partnership is probably going up against Starlink. So it connects handsets and other devices used by ships, mining sites, US government agencies, enterprise connectivity play. The move represents yet more vertical integration at Rocket Lab. Over the years, the company has grown from small niche satellite launch provider to an integrated space powerhouse. It now designed satellites and aerospace components, serves the defense primes, has the second most launched US rocket annually, the Electron rocket, and is currently developing a reusable medium lift launch vehicle. But Jeff Bezos was probably coming for that silver medal any day now. With the Iridium acquisition, Rocket Lab is positioning itself to compete directly with SpaceX, which already connects, which already operates a 10,000 satellite fleet. Rocket Lab has its work cut out for it, says Brandon Gurel. On August 25th, 2021, Rocket Lab spacked at $4.1 billion, the usual SPAC price, probably $10 a share, $4 billion valuation. It stayed at or below that price in the public markets for three whole years, until September 2024, when it started to grow both revenue and get rerated. Now, it's acquiring Iridium for $8 billion, twice its original IPO price.
And Delian says, this is the value.

**Jordi Hays** (2:29)
Yeah, you could buy it for around $4.80 a share on July 1st in 2024 It is now sitting at $101.

**John Coogan** (2:38)
Yeah, what a run. And yeah, the whole space economy has been booming. Very, very good. It's a $60 billion company, so they're picking up an $8 billion connectivity provider.
And we can play a little bit of this from the founder of Rocket Lab, the CEO, Rocket Man himself. Rocket Lab is acquiring Iridium communications.

**Peter Beck** (2:59)
Last time I was wearing this blue jacket, look at this, I was announcing Neutron. So I guess that means there's something important to announce today.

**Jordi Hays** (3:08)
Do you ever wait, pause for a second. Do you ever put on a jacket like that?

**John Coogan** (3:12)
Is this really the important?

**Jordi Hays** (3:14)
This seems to be one of the more- Neutron. Over the top. Look at this, wait.

**Peter Beck** (3:18)
Whoa, we went up. I don't know.

**Jordi Hays** (3:22)
I mean, I don't think I have, but now I want to try it.

**Peter Beck** (3:24)
We try, we try.

**John Coogan** (3:26)
This thing is hard too.

**Peter Beck** (3:29)
Okay, we're going to go back to school for a little bit. I want to introduce you to the space application equation.
So you've heard me talk a lot in the past about applications. It's where all the value in space truly lies. But in order to exploit that value to the fullest, you need a few other things. First thing is unfitted access to space. So you need your own launch.
And then of course, you need your own ability to build spacecraft at scale. We've got that too. But there's some other really big barriers to building large successful constellations in orbit. And the first one...

**John Coogan** (4:16)
Romantic companions.

**Peter Beck** (4:18)
Spectrum. Spectrum is a finite, almost impossible to get. And of course, not all spectrum is created the same. The next thing is, it takes a long time to build and launch your infrastructure. A long time to design and build your satellites, launch them, and even longer time to get the first $1 of revenue. And then finally, it's a long time to a sustained cash flow model, a long time to build your business model, a long time to build your customer base, and it takes just that long extended time until you've got proper reoccurring cash flow. So those of you who know me will know that I'm way too impatient for that. So we found a bit of a shortcut.