Steve Stanton

Building Better Banks, Credit Unions & Fintechs in Y’All Street | Shaping Strategy & Driving Execution | Tech Innovation in Regulated Firms

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

Thanks for visiting my X feed.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@ewarren Keep taxing until you destroy the future.

Ruin everything for everyone.

Envy is a cardinal sin for a reason.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@Mrcanthony88 @kushika_twt Anecdotes <> data

Don't build new data centers in Antarctica just because you know a guy who buildt a few old data centers badly.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@jmhorp What is the right value for the undisputed winner of the space race?

Launching >80% of payload to orbit (and beyond)?

Owning and controlling more satellites than the rest of earth combined?

Plus top AI contender and premiere AI data center builder for itself and other models?

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

Agree.

I'll add that public transport is not compatible with low density. Where do you put the bus stops and train stations?

How do you go from point to point when most people are NOT headed to midtown or downtown as in Manhattan?

What public transport would link Prosper, McKinney, Irving, Denton, Frisco and Southlake?

Cybercabs will do a great job. But trains need density to add value.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

A proper valuation of a SpaceX includes..

Predicted net cash flows from super all future orbital flights for external customers..

From all Starlink, orbital compute, lunar base, mars base missions...

From all AI customers...

From all compute customers... (Eg anthropic)...

From military contractors

From point to point logistics

From all media /advertising

From all agents

Etc

Now you can assume these numbers will be small or impossible to achieve...

But if you're doing backward PE on a hyper-growth company That is plowing into starship, AI, and next gen capabilities....

All you are really doing is insisting that none of these projects will pay off.

It's not math

It's a decision.

You might even be right. I don't think so but maybe.

More likely is that having launch capabilities with a hundred times more capacity at 10% of the cost of the nearest competitor...

Is worth $10 trillion in a few years.

Let's find out.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

YES.

There are, of course, bad ways to do anything.... .

Don't do the bad ways.

Make new data centers efficient with resource use.

It's happening.

[Alex Volkov @altryne]

.@satyanadella just put the whole "water" debate to rest.

Datacenters run on a closed loop cooling system, the water usage of a datacenter for an entire year is roughly equivalent to a usage of 1 restaurant!

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@aakashgupta Your conclusion is not connected to your analysis.

Money is fungible and spending is cumulative.

If you're already falling behind financially: It makes no sense to fall $7k further behind.

Like adding a milkshake to every meal because your diet already has too many calories.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

1. Data center spend is private money, not tax money.

2. AI will solve healthcare, housing, transport and elder care better than ANY govt program you can name.

3. The massive fraud from hospice and learing center abuse could probably fund everything you want without sacrificing the future.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

Spacex is the world's best, most reliable, and cheapest orbital launch platform.
Starship aims to 10x cost and 100x capacity delta.

Starlink is the best global internet service.

Xai is the world's best/fastest Nvidia data center builder.

Tesla makes the world's safest cars and most capable self driving platform, with the cheapest to build robotaxis.

Optimus shows promise as the leading humanoid bot on earth (due to Tesla vision tech + hand engineering).

Terafab aims to 50x global chip production.

None of this is to support any particular market cap valuation for either Tesla or SpaceX.

Just pointing out that it's easy to dismiss cheap criticisms of these two companies as being nothing more than AI hype.

That's like calling the internet " no bigger than the fax machine" in the mod 90s.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

We agree that:

1. A stock price is based on assumptions about future cash flows.

2. All the frontier AI model companies have been losing money because of massive capex and training runs ahead of revenues from a model after launch

3. Each generation of model tends to cost more than the prior one to train... So even if an AI company would be profitable without trainimg costs for the next model... That would not be sustainable.

4. Perspective buyers of the stock are going to have wildly divergent views on future cash flows

5. Some group of investors will be the most accurate about how the future cash flows actually show up when the time comes

6. It's not obvious that the bears are the most accurate.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

The dumber your audience

The easier it is to persuade them with stupid tricks

You don't have to have a low IQ to be dumb

Wisdom and intelligence are not correlated

People who score high on IQ tests assume they are wise

Then embrace really dumb ideas

You are what you do

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@jutyrannus This line of thinking killed more than 100 million people in the last 100 years.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@jeffreytucker @tomselliott This feels accurate.

Also note that if "inflation" metrics fail to capture a drop in purchasing power ..

Then those are bad metrics.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

Half right.

The tax is not linked to consumption.

The purpose is to finance consumption of services and attempt some link to consumption.

Let's all agree that some govt services are vital and should be funded.

Let's also agree that even the best taxes are "necessary evils".

When the spending is too high or the tax is badly designed/distributed... The "necessary" aspect goes away.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@cayimby It's possible to make good housing affordably.

Only if the government allows it.

Supply growth is the best solution to escalating rents.

Rent control is horrible.

Or you can go full Detroit and drive away residents with crime. Demand side price adjustment.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@BernieSanders What a horrible bill.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

@FlynDutchman466 @MackinacCenter I'm not anti-union. I'm anti coercion. Anti-gatekeepkng. Pro-progress. Pro-efficiemcy.

A person should be allowed to work for an employer without needing to join any group or org.

Unions should be run so awesomely that people WANT to join them.

[Steve Stanton @baaslaunch]

Treating predictions as fact... Whem facts already show trends in the opposite direction...

Is something cult leaders do.

I'm not saying you're wrong...

But your argument is poorly formed...

Al Gore did the same with "an Inconvenient Truth"... Which was all wrong.

[@jason @Jason]

There are a ton of variables to consider with the job market in the age of AI

People’s opinions are largely based on their political tribe.

Demoocrats want to believe the sky is falling, and republicans want to believe it’s the Trump Golden Age — both of these are bad takes

The reality is that 10-20m jobs are going away in the next decade.

from taxi drivers to white-collar middle managers to factory workers.

This is obvious.

At the same time, millions of jobs are being created, from AI trainers to data center builders — and of course, my favorite, startups!

we will have massive job displacement and creation at the same time.

The Trump administration will claim these are because of the President's brilliance, while the democrats and America First crowd will say President Trump double-crossed them by not deporting 20 million immigrants and by allowing H1B abuse.

It’s a concerning amount of destruction combined with early signs of a boom for select jobs.

We will get through it, but it will be chaotic and challenging,