The SpaceX IPO, an unprecedented scale in human history, and its prospectus are currently a hot topic. Reading it closely, one realizes it clearly presents what comes after the "30-year history of the internet industry."
In my first book,
7 Radical Changes: The 30-Year History of the "Internet Industry" Where the Shady Characters Were the Protagonists,
I wrote about how Search, SNS, Video, EC, Advertising, Culture, and Entrepreneurship became industrialized, and how to prepare for the upcoming AI-driven society.
Despite being in the pre-order stage, this book reached #1 in the Amazon "Business Books" category.
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Looking back on these 30 years after finishing this book, much like Masayoshi Son's Yahoo! BB,
"How to lower the cost of handling information"
Reading the SpaceX prospectus
gives the impression that what is written there is not a continuation of the information revolution of human society on Earth.
It's bigger. This looks like a manifesto for:
"The revolution of turning the costs of the physical world into software!"
Below, I will write about the grounds for this in seven points, just like in my book.
① SpaceX is not a rocket company
Many people perceive SpaceX as a "rocket company."
However, reading the prospectus reveals that this perception is incorrect.
SpaceX is not making rockets.
What they have built and are trying to build is
Infrastructure within the solar system that exceeds the global scale.
Rockets are merely the means to that end.
To use an internet company analogy, it's the same as Google not just making a search engine, but building a "foundation for access to the world's knowledge."
② Starlink is the core
The prospectus is surprising.
The center of revenue is not rockets. It's Starlink.
I already use Starlink for communication in remote areas like hunting and fishing, and it's well known that it significantly influenced the war situation in the early stages of the Ukraine war.
In essence, Starlink is not just a satellite communication service.
Fundamentally, it seems they are envisioning a Space Version of the Internet.
In the 1990s, internet companies depended on line providers. Realizing that traffic for services like Yahoo! wouldn't grow if communication remained slow and narrow-band, Masayoshi Son started Yahoo! BB himself and later entered the telecommunications industry by leasing lines from NTT.
But SpaceX is different.
They own the communication network itself.
What if Yahoo! had owned the phone company back then?
What if Google owned all the undersea cables?
I believe Starlink is the answer to that.
③ A new form of vertical integration
The 30 years of the internet industry were a history of division of labor.
Server companies, communication companies, OS companies, search companies, and EC companies were all separate.
And in the final chapter of "7 Radical Changes," I explain how GAFAM and others are heading back toward vertical integration.
But SpaceX is different.
They:
- Build rockets
- Build engines
- Build satellites
- Build communication networks
- Write software
- Build AI
They state in the prospectus from the beginning that they will do everything in-house.
This is not 20th-century vertical integration.
It's 21st-century, intentional vertical integration.
It seems like a challenge to establish vertical integration through the power of software without causing "big company disease."
④ What the number of launches means
Before the new management structure in 2012, Yahoo's main KPIs were monthly users and impressions. Under the new structure, President Miyasaka and I (as Vice President) instantly switched them to DAU (Daily Unique Browser) and smartphone app downloads.
In the SpaceX prospectus, figures for rocket launch frequency are listed.
Ordinary readers skip this part.
But this is actually the important part.
Because the value of a rocket is not the launch itself.
What's important is the launch frequency.
In the past, internet companies competed for "access counts."
Cloud companies competed for "number of servers."
AI companies are now competing for "number of GPUs."
SpaceX is competing for launch frequency.
In other words, they are treating rockets not as products, but as infrastructure.
⑤ The fusion of AI and Space
The real highlight of the prospectus starts here.
Many people think of AI companies and space companies as separate entities.
But in SpaceX's worldview, they are different.
What AI needs are:
- Computing resources
- Communication networks
- Data
Starlink becomes the communication network.
Satellites become data acquisition devices.
Space becomes a massive sensor network.
In other words, SpaceX is not just doing space industry.
They perceive themselves as building the solar system infrastructure for the AI era.
⑥ A company that competes with nations
This was the most shocking part.
SpaceX states that its competitors are not other private companies.
They are nations.
NASA, ESA, Russia, China.
A private company is doing what originally only nations could do.
This is very similar to the early days of the internet.
In 1995, venture companies took over the distribution of information that had been dominated by nations and telecommunications carriers.
SpaceX is now doing the same thing in space.
There is no ambition more exhilarating for a venture company.
What Elon Musk is trying to do with the IPO.
Many people think Elon Musk built rockets.
But what he is building is
A new equation for cost reduction.
Amazon lowered logistics costs.
Google lowered information search costs.
OpenAI is lowering the cost of intellectual labor.
SpaceX is lowering space transport costs in the solar system.
Companies that change history always lower massive costs.
SpaceX is no exception. (The prospectus even mentions the concept of "cost per token" for AI.)
⑦ What comes after "7 Radical Changes"
The 30-year history of the internet industry was a story of humanity digitizing information.
But the future SpaceX is showing is different.
In the next 30 years:
- Energy
- Transport
- Manufacturing
- Communication
- Space
All of them will be software-ized. They will become available only when you want to use them.
Search engines democratized knowledge.
Smartphones democratized information terminals.
Generative AI is democratizing intellectual production.
And SpaceX is trying to democratize space itself.
Conclusion,
The SpaceX prospectus is not just an IPO document.
I believe it is also a manifesto for "what the world after the internet has covered the Earth will look like." The fact that this is not a national declaration like the "Declaration of Independence," but a declaration by a single private company, symbolizes the era.
"7 Radical Changes" depicted 30 years of the information revolution.
I think the SpaceX IPO prospectus depicts the dream of the first 30 years of the information revolution encroaching into the physical world.
Therefore, it is more interesting to read this prospectus as a "blueprint for the next radical change" rather than as financial data for a rocket company.
After reading the SpaceX prospectus, please read "7 Radical Changes" for a sense of "learning from the past"!
Oh, and please invest at your own risk.
7 Radical Changes: The 30-Year History of the "Internet Industry" Where the Shady Characters Were the Protagonists
Kentaro Kawabe
Toyo Keizai Inc.**
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