from Hacker News

Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

by arcadeparade on 11/2/23, 3:23 PM with 190 comments

• by Difwif on 11/2/23, 3:52 PM

  I know a lot of people with access to fiber in cities discount Starlink and I miss my 1Gbps fiber. Also the Elon hate train probably has something to do with it.

  Starlink is life changing for a lot of people. You would not believe how many different communities ISP market has been shaken up by Starlink. Many people went from high latency metered internet measured in kilobits to 100Mbps at 30ms. I've seen this both in the US and outside the US. Not mention previously unthinkable things like living on a sailboat and working remotely.

  The biggest issue at this point is cost. It's mostly a premium product for high income people. I hope access gets cheaper as they scale. I think in general having a globally connected planet with high speed internet is going to make the world better (once we overcome the negative side effects of things like social media addiction)

• by dougmwne on 11/2/23, 3:42 PM

  Who knows what this even means. Breakeven including launch costs? Breakeven on only satellite operation costs? Breakeven when you exclude all satellite and ground infrastructure costs? Breakeven when you exclude all costs except Elon’s ego stroking expenses?

• by fdaslkjlkjklj on 11/2/23, 3:39 PM

  For those who don't know, capital expenses are depreciated over their useful lifetime (for StarLink sats, estimated at 5 years) and aren't accounted for by cashflow.

  Cash flow positive tells you they're not going to go broke, at least until they need more capital expenses (5 years...), which is a milestone, sure.

  But profit is a better measure of a business's value as a going concern. What happens in 5 years when they can finance with interest rates at 5% and they have competition? I don't know... If they were profitable and could give returns investors needed, that would tell you they can survive.

• by mannyv on 11/2/23, 4:56 PM

  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.

  They presumably also had to build all the ground stations and infrastructure to manage all those devices...unless they're using AWS Ground Control, which would be hilarious.

• by goalieca on 11/2/23, 3:36 PM

  I can’t understate how revolutionary this technology is for those outside of dense urban center. It has even been well utilized by Ukraine in the war and is jamming resistant.

• by megaman821 on 11/2/23, 3:53 PM

  It's cool that Starlink is sustainable. Space-based, fast internet is the infrastructure we never knew we needed. It seems too useful to fail, there are a lot of areas where satellite internet is the best choice, from airplanes, boats, remote science outposts, emergency situations, and rural communities.

• by rpmisms on 11/2/23, 3:38 PM

  This is huge. Space-based individual consumer services being profitable was a pipe dream a decade ago.

• by bbatchelder on 11/4/23, 3:53 AM

  I personally think that Musk is kind of a dipshit when it comes to his political views, that he is a bit of a charlatan (FSD this year, I swear), that Tesla jumped the shark tank about 2-3 years ago, and I laugh every time I see more bad news about X/Twitter...

  BUT I am really rooting for SpaceX and Starlink. Honestly I hope the shiny toy that is X/Twitter keeps his attention for a while and he leaves those orgs to run as they have been.

• by LargeTomato on 11/2/23, 4:03 PM

  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 contract probably covers a good amount, too.

• by MangoCoffee on 11/2/23, 4:17 PM

  "Elon Musk has repeatedly stated his intention to offer an initial public offering (IPO) for Starlink once its revenue is growing predictably enough to attract investors"

  I'll buy some shares if Starlink go IPO. this break even cash flow might bring the IPO one step closer.

  https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/spacex-wins-a-$70-million-sp...

• by ortusdux on 11/2/23, 4:20 PM

  Quick math puts the total mass of all currently orbiting starlink satellites at 1582 metric tons, which is about 3.5 x the mass of the ISS. Unless I'm mistaken, this should make them responsible for the most mass in orbit.

• by jauntywundrkind on 11/2/23, 4:53 PM

  Whomever and whatever is what % of constituents in the user-base: it was charging governments and large operators lots of money that was going to fill the coffers.

• by senectus1 on 11/2/23, 11:59 PM

  If this is true then its a tipping point.

  Starlink is going to start making obscene amounts of money

• by drannex on 11/2/23, 3:38 PM

  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.

• by kossTKR on 11/2/23, 3:36 PM

  Isn't Starlink basically a part of the US military-industrial complex hiding behind stories of private enterprise, just like many other Silicon Valley companies intricate relationship with the security state as laid out in Yasha Levines Surveillance Valley?

• by bparsons on 11/2/23, 4:25 PM

  Seems highly credible!

• by slowhadoken on 11/2/23, 4:31 PM

  Congratulations.

• by olalonde on 11/2/23, 3:57 PM

  Wait, all the HN commenters who asserted this would never happen were wrong?

• by technojamin on 11/2/23, 4:24 PM

  Here's a great video by Ordinary Things that talks about the development and proliferation of satellites over the past century, space debris, and how things could play out in the near future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90N6IZnV85c

  Especially relevant because Starlink has been causing numerous near-collisions over the past few years.