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Well, let's see what Max Chafkin has to say Bloomberg business Week Senior Report. He's also co host of the Everybody's Business podcast, author of the contrarian Peter tele and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. He joins us right here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. This is Peter Teal's company. What are you making of this? It sounds like just Gangbusters.
Yeah, I mean this is a company where you have a couple of trends working in its favor. One is, and we heard it mentioned earlier, aivolunteer is marketing itself as like essentially a way for big companies to incorporate artificial intelligence in their workflows. That's obviously something lots and lots of companies are spending huge sums of money. On the other thing is this is a big defense contractor and it happens to be and you mentioned Peter Teele's
name earlier. He's co founder of the company. You know, it is a it is a company that is very close to the Trump administration. So so it's both a company that is sort of well positioned to in its government business at least in the US, and well positioned in its commercial business.
You've seen in revenue grow now.
I think what what you see skeptical analysts say, and this is a company where there's a bit of a divide between how professionals see it and the kind of masses you know, who are who are trading, you know, on platforms like Robinhood. I think a lot of a lot of analysts feel like this stock is wildly overvalued. You're talking about you know, even at four billion dollars of anual revenue, it's not a huge amount of money for a company that's worth like a half a trillion
dollar in terms of market cap. But for now, you know, the market likes it. This has become you know, it's almost a cliche to say, but it is a meme stock.
It is.
It is a company that has a real business but also a company. It's interesting, has this very very you know, dedicated following.
Why would you call it a memestock. I mean, you kind of answered the question right then, you said as a dedicated following. But this is a company that has
an increase in revenue of sixty three percent. Analyst on average estimated one point zho nine billion dollars in terms of revenue increase went to one point one eight billion dollars average projection of one point one to nine billion dollars for sales for the current quarter that the company says it'll come in at one point three three billion. There's some real numbers here that I think critics would say, Okay, well memestocks don't have those kind I mean, it's.
Different from like, haha, this is totally a joke. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that the demand for this stock is happening at the retail level, just like Tesla Motors where you see you know, that, which is another stock with similarly like very elevated private The price earnings ratio on this company is huge, It's really really high.
Six hundred and ninety one the forward pt F forward pe excuse me, it's.
Three hundred and twenty.
I mean, like what you said before about how much in revenues and what the market cap is, it's going to take a lot of growth.
Over and ocet for multiple qu dspe ratio is sixty point five seay, yeah, even.
For a tech company, even for a high growth tech company. We're talking about a very very very expensive stock. And that you know, that stock either reflects the kind of new dynamics that that certain equities are trading it where where where if.
There's demand on social media?
And the Bloomberg story that was published gets into some of this, you know, investor Alex Karp, the CEO of Palenteer, is this kind of almost like a cult like figure, a cultural figure. Certainly shareholders call him Daddy Carp, you know, and he has he has these antics right like it's he is this kind of larger than life figure. There is also a business story. It's not like it's totally just hot air, right. The idea is that artificial intelligence is becoming more and more important.
Palenteer is positioned, well.
What exactly do they do?
They build software that essentially makes it easier for companies to organize their data and.
So and make decisions.
Now, the thing you've probably most people have probably heard most about with Palenteer is the military and intelligence agencies incorporated software in their sort of in like searching out terrorist cells and that sort of thing. Now, there's a lot of debate about just how sort of automated this is, how important it is, but it is a piece of software that is being used in more and more big
companies to handle data. And that's a valuable thing because like, once the software is being used by a given entity, it's kind of hard to take it out. It's kind of same dynamics that protect lots of of sellers of enterprise software max.
This is a company that was founded back in two thousand and four. Facebook was also founded back in two thousand and four. I think a lot of people would say this was kind of a late bloomer for a lot of years, it kind of just like got by until then suddenly it was on everybody's radar. Why was it so slow to grow?
Well, I mean it took them a very long time to figure out a product, and the company was founded essentially with the idea of providing you know, intelligence gathering software to the military, adapting some of the security tools that Peter Teel and his co founders had used at PayPal and applying in other areas. That was the pitch.
It took them a really long time to find a customer base, but once they did, and as they've been able to kind of build a brand and take the company public and benefit from some of these trends that I'm talking about, these cultural trends, it's really it's gone gone very very well.
You know, it's interesting too.
And I'm looking at the FA page on the Bloomberg So at the end of last year, about almost fifty five percent of their revenue was government and then about forty five percent was commercial. And I'm just thinking they compete with right like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and then some of these data specialist companies out there, whether it's Snowflake and others. I mean, is there somebody who could ultimately, you know, take over their business? I mean, do they really own their niche?
No, there are other there are other players in this space. I think a lot also a lot of the companies, a lot of those competitors companies are buying both palenter at Microsoft it's not like you're buying one it at the ex sense of the other. I mean, you know, Palenteer is i think very recently got into some litigation with a copycat product. There are other companies that are attempting to offer sort of similar kind of like data
integration services. We've also seen critics over the years sort of say like this company, this is actually a consulting company.
Kind of masquerading.
There's some there's there's a lot of debate over just how how how much it is like a product company and should be valued that way, although of course, like on Wall Street or sorry, on the stock market, that debate is long gone because it's being traded, you know, at multiples that are much higher than even some very very successful software companies.
How big of a deal is it that this administration has or members of this administration have been aligned at least philosophically with leadership at Palatineer.
If you if you listen to Palenteer, they're going to say, no, this is not political. That where people the government is just choosing.
Our product because it's the best product.
I think if you look historically, the last Trump administration was an incredible time for Palenteer.
The company grew a lot, it.
Managed to go public, won lots and lots of contracts, including taking some contracts from some other big tech companies. And if you look at what has happened over the past whatever it is, ten months of the Trump administration, it's great for Palenteer.
You had this dough.
I mean, obviously the Doje effort, we haven't heard.
Much about it.
But the idea of building these databases that are better going to integrate information across different agencies, that is like right up Pallenteers Alley, and you know you're seeing Alex carb show up at the White House, show up at these dinners. They are punching above their weight in terms of influence.
We should point out though, shares of Palenteer now down about a quarter of a percent here in the aftermarket, so they've definitely pulled off their highs of this session.
Hey Max, thank you so much.
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
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Yes.
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Let's do it. Megan Horneman has to say she's back with us.
She's chief investment officer in Verden's Capital Advisors, from has more than four billion in assets under management. Once again with us from Hunt Valley, Maryland. Megan, good to have you here. It has been quite a bounce back from the lows back in early April. How do you describe the market environment right now?
I think there's a lot of over optimism about several things. We did get the FED the cut rates, and that's what really you know, the markets we're focusing on Prior to September. We got the Fed cutting rates. We got two of them this year. The jury is still kind of out for the December number. But we also have seen some thawing in the trading tension since that you know April tiff, I guess tariff tiff, and now you
have the AI taking back over again. So you have this momentum trade that's driving these markets higher into the year end.
Here.
Worried about valuations, absolutely, we are very worried specifically from the mag seven the technology. These are all looking a little bit bubble like. I'm not saying this is a dot com bubble, but there is the risk here for some valuation correction. Keep in mind that these valuations have driven higher on this, you know, pricing and perfection, the perfect soft landing of the economy, the perfect I'm fixed to inflation and the FED coming in and easing policy.
This is something that's really up in the air into twenty twenty six. That there is no certainty, and I think the FED is pretty clear about that when they mentioned that the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion.
Megan, you say, it's not akin to the Internet bubble, but it does bubble like.
But it looks bubble like. But why do you say that?
Is it?
You know what we always hear as well, Wait, there's companies that actually have revenues and earnings, and I get that. But the company that I feel like is the nucleus of this AI trade Open AI. We have yet to really see their books, right, It's a privately held company.
They're tying up with everybody. There's this massive spend.
It's hard not to feel like this is a bit heady and wonder where it all ends.
Yeah, you said it exactly. There's not a lot of clarity.
This is what we're seeing is just more this euphoria around this changing technology. And we completely believe in that. And AI is going to change the way we do a lot of things. It's going to make a lot of things, a lot of things efficient. But we've seen this before in other market bubble type of situations where the markets just have this overly optimistic view. You can even go back to some of the times when people said, oh, home prices will never go down. I heard that and
the EITO nine crisis. So good, good.
Well, the one thing I want to ask you about with the AI trade, and like I said, there are companies and we know with the hyperscalers where we see an ROI and we were just talking with our own man, Deep Singh about some of the numbers that we see. I think it was specifically was it in Google and so on? So we do see payoffs. But having said that, the other thing we were just talking with a member of the Google and Alphabet team is about jobs that
could be lost, whether it's encoding in other places. If we have an economy where a lot of people are put out of work and there's a dislocation, be it for a year, two years, five, five year, seven years, who knows, maybe a generation.
That's got to be a problem.
No, I think, But we're not as negative on what AI can do to the job market as some people are.
Let's keep in mind that some jobs will.
Be replaced by AI, and these may be some.
Clerical type of jobs.
But then if you look at a lot of other areas in this market, in the labor market, some of these jobs may just get better at productivity, efficiency will just.
Improve by the use of AI.
So I'm not ready to say that this is a really detrimental thing to the labor market going forward. I think that it can actually help improve quite a bit.
Okay, So how do you advise clients to, I mean, what to do in this bubble like environment that we're in. Sit on their hands and do nothing, or move a little bit away from some of these MAG seven companies?
Yeah?
Absolutely. First of all, look at your allocation.
Are you overweighted to these MAG seven to these growth sectors, because keep in mind, just the market movement may have you allocated to this a lot more than you should be, So rebalance. And I know that may seem kind of boring, but it's the end of the year. Rebalance portfolios where you think is necessary, where it's overrun. The growth technology names,
these are the most at risk. So any of these big high flyers that you've seen this year, those with really high multiples, these are the ones that we would start reducing. Make sure that you're more diversified than just holding on to those.
Because what we have seen in.
Historical pullbacks or corrections in the market that sometimes when there's a valuation correction, the biggest winners are the ones that get sold because they're just turns. It turns into this indiscriminate selling where you're selling all the winners.
So be very careful there. Make sure that your portfolios.
Balance where you want to be and don't be overweighted a substantial amount to these growth and technology large cap names.
And then yet, having said that, those large cap tech names are the ones that continue to you know, provide you know, you see the growth top and bottom line over and over again.
It's kind of interesting that everybody's.
Like, wait time to back off, and then we see once again another quarter or another year where that's where the momentum is. So how do you be smart about not just chasing maybe games that won't happen or realizing the reality of our world is a big tech world and you look at those companies and they are part of really almost all of our lives in a big way.
Yeah, just be careful of what you're paying the price that you're paying for these names. Are you paying for earnings that are now two years forward? And that's what we see. When you look at the S and P five hundred, which is primarily your mag seven stocks, you can see that earnings estimate's going on to twenty twenty seven.
You put a reasonable valuation on that.
There's really not much upside if you're looking at the fair value the SAP five hundred, and that's in twenty twenty seven. So just be very careful what level of earnings you're paying for and how far out because there is a lot of uncertainty between now in twenty twenty seven, so be careful paying up for that momentum.
You're happy with earnings thus far?
Thus far, yes, earnings have been great, but let's also keep in mind that earnings tend to beat off the estimates between three and five percent every earning season. I'm more concerned about what we see for next year and then now that we are starting to get some of those estimates for twenty seven, what are people looking at going forward?
What do you think is the biggest risk in a week where we have the Supreme Court taking up a case against President Trump's tariffs, if that gets undone, what would.
That mean for financial markets?
I think the markets are looking for any kind of news because we don't really have the economic data obviously with the government shut down, so they're looking for any catalyst, whether it's to the upside or downside. Unfortunately, we think there's more downside risks in the near term.
But if that tariff gets undone, what would that mean for financial market? It's just got about twenty seconds, I.
Think, just just volatility instability, because then we've all got to go back and kind of reprice what the teriff expectations may be. So and then what will the Trump administration do. What's the next lever that they may have to pull in order to get the terror through.
It'd be kind of messy, that's for sure, all right, Megan, thanks so much.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five eastering. Listen on Apple Karplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Ryan Gould is Bloomberg News USIPO and Deal's reporter. Red Brown is Bloomberg News Consumer Reporter. They both join us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Kenview surging as much as twenty percent earlier in the session, Kimberly Clark following as much as fourteen and a half percent earlier in the session, now down just fourteen percent, but still investors are sending the message. When I heard this news
this morning, I'm thinking of myself, where did this come from? Well, we're on the call, We're on our editorial call, and I'm saying, who wants to deal with the litigation that tail and all could potentially see as a result of being front and center in this These comments that President Trump and RFK said at the White House earlier this year, read ken View is not just talent, al zertech listing, band aid, nutrient GENA and more. But what's the litigation risk here for Kimberly Clark.
It's obviously it's hard to say right now, Like this is a very fast moving story when it comes to Tiland, like we have just that one lawsuit right now in Texas. There's been some asks, some some some petitions, some some consumer petitions to have label changed on Thailand as well. But I think what you're getting in the reaction in Kimberly Clark shares today do kind of underline that that is what is on people's mind, right, is this legal risk?
There is there is a there's an argument you made that like ken View is a really great property, like tim you just named off all of those like Marquee brands, right, so you know, I think there's a kind of a consensus among the analysts that this is probably a long term play, like potentially maybe getting a really good deal here considering how like how poorly can your shares have done so far this year. That's not just the legal risk, it's also just kind of bad performance as well, but
remains to be seen. I guess on this legal risk question, we.
Should remind everybody this is the consumer products division of Johnson and Johnson. It was spun off back in twenty
twenty three. Shares have struggled this year. There's the Bayer Monsanto situation that one analyst brought up Carol earlier today read in company writing that vital knowledge is Adam chris A fully said that there could be concerned about whether the Kleenex maker is getting itself into a Bayer Monsanto situation, referring to Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto back in twenty eighteen, which laid in the German pharmaceutical company with legal costs.
Could it would have?
Should?
I like, we have to guess. I guess see how it like plays out.
Ultimately we should point out shares of ken View down twenty three percent year to date.
Ryan, come on in on this.
I mean they are paying a forty six premium to ken VU's closing price on Friday. Mind you, this share has been the share price has been beaten up a little bit.
What's the thinking?
What are you hearing from bankers about why this has come together and why now?
Well, just on the Bio Monsanto piece, I think you know it's something that we're also hearing this morning. I think it depending on who you speak to. I think on the Kenview side, there's a view that you could in no way make that comparison. These are very very
different types of companies. I think you know, we were just talking about the litigation risk, but at the same time either it was really interesting and I think Mike Sue the Sea of Kimberly was out this morning saying that in the statement that the world's foremost scientific or medical, regulatory and legal experts had kind of concluded that you know, this is something you need to go for I need to go on the record saying such things so publicly,
I think is one thing. But the other piece of this is that you know, there's a massive dispute within ken view as to what the actual liability is, and so depending on who you speak to, I think there's a view that there could actually be no liability at all, which you know that's going to be for a court to decide and maybe not for me to speculate, Tom.
But that's what this comes down to, which is why I think you can have people come out and say things like, you know, this is a generational value creation.
Opportunity, but they're talking about it that there is potentially a liability issue.
The folks that can view.
Yeah, oh no, for sure. And I think there's you know, a company people I was speaking to who kind of said that they would probably take the under on you know exactly how much market cap CANVU has lost in this whole debacle vis a vis the liability that they'll end up with. That's one view, but you know, you could also say the flip side right, because who knows how this is going to turn out, and you know, this could be a case study in an HPS h at HPS in a few years time.
So we should point out that can view at it ties up almost twenty percent in today's session, as much as seventeen dollars and eighteen cents a share. Here read read come back in on this because I do wonder is there anybody else who might come in and say we're interested or not.
Necessarily I haven't heard anything on that. I'd be interested what Ryan has to say on that bit. But like there was a lot of interest in the company, like like I said, like it is Marquee Brands Thailand will probably chief among them, despite some of these these risks that they did that are overhanging that that unit. But you know, the company has has all of the pieces to do well for the long term, and I think that is why there is the conviction that this is
has good long term potential. And then just on the legal issue there. You know, Les Ryan makes a point like they have the top scientists going in and speaking with them in the room, like this is not a this is not a surprise that this issue is kind of going on in the background.
So I think what I would say just in the dynamics of this and charity your question on whether we'll see an intelo or not. You know, take the fact that this had not one, but two, but actually three activists in the stock you know, Starboard chief among them. July fourteenth this year, the company announced to replace them to the CEO, replaced the CEO and then said they were going to explore strategical al tentatives doing that at the same time as having a hedge fund hotel in
your stock. We kind of make this point in the deal's news statter today. I think the process was very robust, and so, you know, there were definitely multiple parties around this situation.
Kimberly Clark known for Diaper's, toilet plate, paper clean X. They also have ingredients like you know, and like some of the brands are like Scott Cottonell, Viva and more, Huggies, ken View known for of course tail and all, but also Motrin, band Aid, Benadryl, Decotin. I'm just trying to think of like this, you know, quote unquote synergies which oftentimes mean job cuts, but there's some back end stuff, there's some distribution stuff. But how do these brands come together?
Ryan?
I think that's a really interesting question because I asked someone this morning who is around this deal? You know exactly how are you defining the synergies? I mean, is it cost? Is it strictly cutting cost? I think Ken, do you sees this as you know, they see a massive upside and keeping the brands together. I know that there was interest in my Sterin for instance, on its own, and I think there were other pieces where you could
say there was a stand up buyer. But I think as you think about this combined company, Yeah, I think it's probably a location factor. It's a supply chain factor, and I think it's about concentration of suppliers as well. Uh and so yes, paper, you know paper is you know they hit the kimity clock is also making Phoenix. But you know Hockey's has that that's solvency obsorpancy pay perfect with two.
So yeah, I would think the shelf space is kind of similar, but it's good to have some different products right to kind of fill our shelves.
Definitely, definitely.
I think one of the during the investors presentation today, one of the things that I found most like convincing was this like regional discussion, like I don't I don't know if if Kimberly Clark has a great like presence in India, And that was one of the points that the com both CEOs made during the call. As an example they used at the potential synergies is that, like you know, ken View has like one point three million I think if that's the I think that's the correct
number of distribution points within the country. And like we all know that India is a fantastic you know market to be in with the potential growth there, and it doesn't seem like that's right where kimberly Clark has presence.
Yet another example they use with Singapore. I believe again ken you has doesn't have like a smoking cessation business there yet where then you know, Kimberly Clark has a robust supply chain there, so like Kene exactly exactly, So there's there's there's the potential there to just kind of use those existing distribution channels and you know, potentially increase the marketing around some of these new products that Kimberly Clark is picking up.
It's kind of fascinating in a world where we spend so much time talking about, you know, the AI build out in data centers read that, it's just these are products that we all use, right and no matter what, we're going to use them, good times, bad times. We might trade down a little bit, but these are things that we use all the time.
Yeah, yeah, No, It's a great point and I think probably is kind of underlining a little bit of the conviction here from Kimberly Clark.
I think, did I come into this year thinking that Kimberly Clark acquiring ken View would be the fourth largest EM and a probably not the fourth largest in this year? Is it's pretty announced this year. I mean, you've got opening Ion VideA, which we have Bloomberg Classifiers as a deal. You could sort of make two ways about that, but Norfolk Southern by being acquired by Union Pacific second, and then you've got Electronic Card has been taken out by
the Saudis. And then this so some of the times maybe I don't know.
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
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Their next guest a player in the industry. The company reporting earnings later this week. Adam Goldstein is founder and CEO of Archer Aviation. It's the six point seven billion dollar market cap aerospace company that trades under the ticker ac HR. He joins us from San Jose, California. Archer designing and developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft evitalls for use in urban air mobility networks. When are Carol and I going to take one of these to Newark Airport.
We're flying out tomorrow. We're both taking cabs.
Well, it's great to be here.
The industry is actually, you know, as you said, it's been around for a while and it's getting pretty mature. So the good news is that in June of this year, President Trump issued an executive order that will mandate really the speed of these being brought to market. So by next June you should expect to be seeing these aircrafts flying in and around the big urban cities. Five cities
are getting announced. They'll be announced in January. It will be flying in June, and so that's when you'll start to see him flying around in the US.
Flying in June without passengers.
They'll start piloted with just no passengers, and the goals to ramp operations there through the certification process.
So go back to my original question, which is really when we will be using these as easily as we can hail a cab using uber lyft.
Yeah, it's hard to say.
It's really you know, the company's job to build the safe airplanes and then the FA's job to certify.
So our hope is soon after that.
Three at a time, when we're showing that these aircrafts are safe, we're showing that there's a really good consumer experience, and overall we've gotten a lot of you know, buying from community acceptance.
Are you having active conversations with FA right now, yes.
So there's constantly active conversations.
Of course, the government shutdown, you know, kind of created some slowdowns with that, but the conversations continue and it's been ongoing for a very long time. We have long standing relationships there and the programs are very very well established. This is a priority of the administration. That's what the executive order in June was all about. And so this is one of those programs that I think does get
a lot more attention. We kind of punch above our weight as an industry, and so you know, they've been very good to us.
So what is your definition, Adam of commercial operations and exactly when do they start meaning revenue generating passenger flights.
I just want to clarify.
So Archer has two sides of the business. We have a civil business which is moving around in a defense side of the business. On the civil side of the business, we have a two pronged approach. There's an international strategy and a domestic strategy. On the international side, we've been working very closely with the UAE and the UAE government. Specifically, the largest helicopter operator in the Middle East is called Abu Dhabi Aviation, which we've partnered with and has acquired aircraft.
So we've already started to receive dollars from that. We'll start to recognize revenue in a first quarter of next year, and so that's when you'll start to see some of those numbers come in. It'll be very small though to start, and then we'll ramp that over time. On the defense side of things, the contracts have to be announced and
so that still hasn't happened yet. There's a lot of talk, and I think the programs are starting to firm up, and there's a lot of excitement around KNEW what they call autonomous and atriadable aircraft, but those programs have yet to be announced. We're hopeful that those will be announced soon.
So my understanding too, going back to the stuff you're doing in Abu Dhabi, so that launch was the first correct of your company's Launch Edition program and was supposed to be kind of the playbook for Ethiopian airlines and in Indonesia.
So lessons learned so far, and how is it among those lessons being learned changing the future?
Yeah, those are great questions. Launching in the UAE or really just the broader GCC has provided a lot of lessons around weather and so of course it's very hot there. There's a lot of kind of harsh conditions with a lot of sand in the air. So We've learned a lot about how to keep these aircrafts cool and very very hot weather, not just the interiors for consumers, but actually like the safety of the aircraft. So that testing,
I think has been hugely helpful. And so you start in one of the harsher environments, you can work our way to some of the more mild environments like here in California, and so that's provided a lot of the sort of base layer lessons for operating in really difficult conditions. But the goal is really to just continue to get reps, learn figure out how these aircrafts will we'll get to market.
The good news is they're all based around safety, and so multiple sets of propellers providing multiple sets of redundancy. So I think we can deliver a really high quality, safe product.
From an infrastructure perspective, Carol mentioned that we have to have infrastructure in the right place. I'm wondering if there are cities in the US that work right now or do not work for this type of technology.
Yeah.
Well, I've had my site set on Los Angeles as sort of the best city I think in the US for this platform. There's so much traffic in Los Angeles, there are over five million daily trips that take greater than an hour by car going less than twenty miles in Los Angeles, so an incredible city to offer this type of platform. So last year we announced the LA Network, which really starts to show the different points of interest.
So partnerships with Sofi Stadium, with Woodland Hills, with USC Coliseum, so places where there already is existing infrastructure, all reports that are there, and we'll start building that network up. Of course, we have the Olympics coming in Los Angeles in twenty twenty eight, where we're going to be increasing the infrastructure that gets built in and around the games, and Archer was announced as the exclusive air taxi provider
for that event. So Los Angeles is a perfect city to go launch this, but of course there's other great cities like New York, Miami and San Francisco and I think will be also a great place for us to launch. So pretty much anywhere they use helicopter will be great for this product.
So exclusively your taxi partner for the Olympics out in Los Angeles, so that means you're going to actually be flying folks around.
That is certainly the goal.
So the goals to move VIPs, dignitaries, fans in and around the games. We have been partnering very closely with LA twenty eight to do that. I'm confident and that goal will be able to get there. It's a super exciting time for the industry. That's actually a goal that was set out by the FAA back in twenty twenty two, so they coined the term Innovate twenty eight, which was the first city where you'll see these aircraft used in
mass will be at the LA twenty eight Games. So that's an alignment that the goals were put out there a while ago, and we hope to deliver against that.
Do you feel at all that investors, though, are feeling a little bit of fatigue from kind of the repeated delays in the start of revenue generating passenger flights. Stocks up about seven percent year date, but you look at the chart over the last year, it's like a rough EKG. It's a little tricky. So I'm just wondering, are you feeling like investors. I think it was back in twenty twenty one that you guys slated the launch of a taxi launch service in Miami in LA by twenty twenty four.
So I get it.
You want to get it right, you want it to be safe. But do you feel like your investors are getting a little antsy? Just got about thirty seconds and then we.
Take a break and come back and talk a little bit more.
I would say it's actually quite the contrary, And that's not just an archer statement.
I think that's an industry statement.
So one of our peers and one of my good friends, Kyle Clark, is ipoing his company called Beta here. I think it's supposed to price this week, and from what I've heard is the thing is massively oversubscribed. There's tons of demands, So I think there is a ton of interest in the ebtall space. I think the investors are very excited about the progress that we have. Then I think that'll continue.
To pay off.
Hey, one thing I want to know, Adam is progress on Pilot's certific Where are you guys on that?
So the certification process is a long one, and this is actually the first new category in a very long time, first new category in sixty years at the FAA.
So it's a new process really for everybody. And there's two sides. You have to figure out the rules.
Which they call policy and then mix that against the execution, so showing that the aircrafts are safe against that policy.
So we're deep into the policy.
Side, nearly done with that, and then starting to work on the execution side of that as well. So the goal is to grind through that. But what I think the sort of the better proof points rather than trying to understand this kind of black box certification process, will be the executive order from President Trump where we'll start to see these aircrafts flying next summer in around these cities.
That's really the point where we can help gain the consumer confidence, consumer awareness of what we're doing and ultimately showcase these aircrafts are safe in and around urban environments.
Adam, we're in a world where we're trying to remove humans from the equation, whether they're uber lyft drivers with Waimo and Tesla's cybercabs or with other elements and like you know, warehouses with robots and Amazon. Do you envision a future where Archer does not have pilots.
Well, we are deep also in the autonomy process in aviation as well. There are lots of autonomous solutions that exist. In fact, we've flow in the aircraft's autonomously many times. That being said, I think the difficulty in aviation is in and around the regulation, and in and around how the aircraft will operate with the existing environments. So how will airtraft control communicate with these aircrafts and their autonomous how will they land with the given infrastructure? So I
do think we will get there. I think they will start out piloted and then work their way into the autonomy stack. I do think it's new companies like Archer that will actually invent those autonomy stacks and really try to create the network that's necessary to deploy autonomous aircrafts. But still more to come on that.
All right, and look forward to hearing more from you in the future. Adam, Thanks so much.
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