Yet Another Value Podcast - Avory's Sean Emory on Clear Security $YOU

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Sean Emory of Avory & Co analyzes Clear Security, a biometric identity platform operating in airports nationwide. They examine the company’s subscription model, competitive positioning against TSA and airlines, and the impact of recent TSA disruptions on demand. The discussion covers Clear’s pricing power, partnerships with credit card providers like Amex, and the durability of its airport footprint. Sean also outlines a developing enterprise identity segment and its potential role in future growth. The conversation addresses valuation, risks, and whether Clear’s moat can sustain long-term returns. ___________________________________________________________________[00:00:00] Andrew introduces Clear Security debate[00:03:54] Clear explained: biometric airport platform[00:07:11] Growth limits and line congestion[00:10:00] TSA PreCheck economics and strategy[00:14:04] Competition from TSA and airlines[00:18:15] Airport partnerships and revenue sharing[00:23:12] Market missing enterprise identity opportunity[00:28:48] Debate on enterprise business significance[00:34:11] TSA disruption impact on stock[00:39:36] Valuation and growth assumptions[00:43:24] Pricing power and customer behavior[00:49:21] Amex partnership risks and dynamics[00:56:12] Capital allocation and cash usage[01:00:56] Long-term identity and AI implicationsLinks:Yet Another Value Blog - https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com See our legal disclaimer here: https://www.yetanothervalueblog.com/p/legal-and-disclaimerProduction and editing by The Podcast Consultant - https://thepodcastconsultant.com/

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All right, hello, welcome to the Yet Another Value Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. Today, I've got one of the companies I will say I've like torn my hair out the most as a consumer and a potential investor thinking about. It is clear security. The ticker there is you, YOU, with Sean Emery from Avery Capital. And the reason you'll hear this throughout the podcast, the reason I tear myself part is because it is such a unique potential business with such a unique and deep potential moat. But on the other side, there are like, you know, clear security. You can go through the Clear Line, which costs you $200 plus per year to be a member of,

or you can go through the TSA line for free. And it's kind of, you know, the TSA line sucks, but it's free. And anytime you've got something where there's a premium offering and a free offering that's just given to everyone, all these potential modes, all these potential risks, all these potential rewards, I just find it absolutely fascinating. We record this on March 26th. I'm recording this on March 26, which is, you know, deep in the cuts of, deep in the throes of the TSA shutdown, which has caused TSA lines to go crazy, which has caused TSA lines to go crazy,

which has caused a huge spike in clear stock because people are going through that TSA preline and be like, it's four hours here. If I pay 200 bucks and get the clear line in five minutes, yeah, I'm going to pay that. But that makes it even more interesting because what better advertisement for their service. It, you know, it's a subscription service. If all of a sudden you have 600,000 new people who sign up because the TSA lines are awful, six years that some of them are going to stick. How many are going to stick? All this for yourself. Anyway, I'm rambling. This is too long. The intro is almost as long as the podcast. We're going to get to the podcast with John and one second, but first, a word from our sponsors.

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I wish they had more coverage. I wish there were more transcripts. I wish there were more stocks that I'm invested in their covering. And you know how you can help go join Trotta and put it. some interviews up there. So I really enjoyed it. If you go to try trotta.com, that's try t-R-Y-T-R-A-T-R-A-T-A.com, you can check it out and I'd encourage you to it. All right, hello and welcome to yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. With me today, I'm happy to have on for the first time from Avery, Sean, how's it going? What's going on, man? Thanks for, uh, you know, having me on

today. It's super excited. And I, you are talking about a company that I am, I followed for a while and I'm really excited to talk about them. We'll get there in one second. First disclaimer. Mind everyone, nothing on this podcast is investing device. Please see the full disclaimer at the end of the episode or in the legal disclaimers. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Sean, the company we're going to talk about. They are kind of tangential to the news quite a lot today because you and I are talking on March 26th, and the TSA shutdowns have been going on for almost a month now. But I'll just toss it over to you and get out the way.

It's clear security. The ticker there is U, Y, OU. What is clear and why are they so interesting? Yeah, straight to it. So yeah, no, clear secure. It's a biometric, you know, identity platform. I think most of us all know and have seen it when you go in the airports, right? You have the TSA lines.

You have the security lines. And then you see this thing on the right side or left side that is, you know, clear. And usually they have these ambassadors trying to get you to go through these clear lanes. And, you know, most of the time you look past it. But, you know, there's that one time where you're, you know, you're in a rush. You know, TSA is potentially backed up. And that's kind of what you're seeing today. and ultimately what happens there is you're moving into that line.

And all it does really is bypass you in front of, you know, the guests that are all going through the airports through TSA to the security tenant that's sitting there at the front. You get to the front of the line, right? And ultimately, that's what it is. It's, you know, think of the toll roads, the express lane. You need it when you need it. You don't need it when you don't. But you'll pay for it or you'll pay for it through third parties as well.

So their core business has historically been that, a subscription business with roughly 7.2 to 7.7 million members that are actively subscribed there. And those come through different ways, which are, you know, MX that, you know, sponsors and, you know, will pay on your behalf and refund you or other partners that exist in the ecosystem. So that's like step one. They're in 60 plus airports across the country. You know, they've manifested or moved and migrated into using. I think their expertise in identity, which is becoming a big topic into enterprises. And we can get more into that, you know, specifically. But that's it. I mean, it's that simple. It's, you know, an airport business that works with TSA, one of the few, if any, companies that are approved, you know, to work inside of airports and they're moving outside the airports into enterprises.

Perfect. No, that's a greater view. So, and again, I'm sure most of my listeners have taken up flight and had that thing of going through and, you know, you're walking through and you look over and you say, what's that thing that everybody's scanning their face in and doing it? So a lot of questions here. Look, I have always wanted to like this company. Like, I'll reveal my biases. It is just a super unique moat. You go into the airport and there's a TSA line and there's this. And you can imagine how white glove service, all this sort of stuff that you've got a super unique moat with this

thing. But there have been a lot of questions in my mind. And we can just go through them to start. You know, the first question that I've always had was, I remember, I, you know, I think they used have a chase. I think they had a Chase partnership. I can't remember. But they've had the MX partnership for six or seven years. My wife had an AMX and we got clear through her. Right. And I remember we went through it once. And the clear line was like five minutes and the TSA pre line was two minutes. And I was just looking and I was like, damn, this sucks. Like I've got TSA pre. I could be through it faster with TSA pre. And that's just one anecdote. But it kind of speaks to they do have this issue where if too many people sign up for clear,

it dilutes the value of the service. Right. If all 365 million people in the U.S. were clear and wanted that every time. Well, then the TSA lines would be empty and clear would be backed up. So I was listening to say, hey, is there a restriction here where there's like kind of a cap on their growth or as they grow? You know, we're all familiar with businesses that as more people get there, you know, a club is really nice when there's 50 people in there, but if there's 250 people, it's just too crowded. How do you kind of think about that limiting factor on the growth and that push and pull? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, when we were thinking about it, you know, clearly that the growth algorithm is,

as follows, you have, obviously have more airports, more lines within airports, meaning more terminals and more ways to get in. So as of right now, they're not all airports and they're also not in every terminal in those airports. Right. So there's some expansion opportunity there from that standpoint. They can carve out new lines within the airport outside of that. So like a terminal they're in.

But our base case isn't really any of that, right? It's actually honing in on the premiumization, this being a premium product. and working through price. So, you know, like you said, you may show up. The last thing you want to do is essentially, you know, get into a line that you're paying for that's longer than the line you're not paying for. And what they're doing in different ways is working with TSA. So as of right now, they're one of three of participants that are allowed to offer TSA precheck,

where you can get verified for TSA precheck. And so it's them, Idemia, and one other, that if you're getting, TSA precheck. You can, you know, you go online, you go to the website for TSA precheck. It'll show one of the three providers that you go and verify with. When I did this a long time ago for TSA precheck, I went to some back alley, some random spot for them to verify me. I brought my ID. I walked through the entire thing. And ultimately, you know, it was something where, you know, it was a precheck, you know, situation where, you know, a tenant or a person in there is verify me individually. From there, I Demi and some others have stayed in that kind of capacity,

but what Clear offers really well is you can verify yourself at the airport number one. You can also then go to one of their, you know, 350 locations across the country now. They partner with Simon Property Group, so you can verify yourself in the shopping malls. And so they've made it easier. So back to your question, which is really around the idea that, you know, they would eat into their business by adding more people into it, meaning and not throttling it. Ultimately, having more lines helps that, number one, raising the price so you have less throughput per line. And then three is working and having more people go in and approving them in the TSA precheck

line. So being one of those providers. And that is seeing a lot of traction today. So those are like the three areas of which they can, you know, ultimately grow their, you know, grow their offering without ultimately impacting, I guess, throughput and wait to Just on the TSA pre, so they are one of the three TSA pre providers, and I think they get like 15 or 20 bucks if they are the person who verifies the TSA. But is that just, I mean, that's just fee for service, right?

Like it's not applying to their core business. That's just kind of a nice add-on, right? It's a nice add-on. And on one side, kind of like what you were saying before is it's adding more people to TSA pre-check. So the best thing to do with Clear is actually have TSA pre-check and Clear. So Clear gets you to the TSA representative, right? So Clear gets you to the front. TSA is in a line.

So precheck will have a line. You're in that line and you get to the guard. Clear is typically, you know, you go there, you scan your face or your finger. A representative will take you to the front of the line. So oftentimes when you're in Clear, you know, there's people waiting in TSA precheck and you'll be the next person if you're in the front of the line. no matter how long anyone else has been waiting. So they take you to the guard. So having that combination is the combination.

So what they're doing, again, is offering TSA precheck. As you said, if it's a new application, they make roughly $20. If it's a renewal, it's roughly $15. All of that is flow through margin. So it's 100% margin to them. And that allows, again, two things. It puts more people in a TSA precheck line. So it makes the clear line a little bit more advantageous.

if they're not clear members. So in some ways, you're using Clear as a way to get your TSA pre-check, even if you're not a clear member. It's the fastest way to do it. You go on your phone, airport, or shopping malls, as opposed to the other options. So there's an advantage there. And then the best thing you want to do is there's kind of this, when they first announced it, we kind of thought about it and we're like,

well, there may be people that think Clear and TSA Precheck are kind of one of the same. So if they can offer like a bundle solution, you're likely not going to give up your TSA pre-check thinking it's kind of your clear product as well. And ultimately, you're keeping both of those just in case. Like, I'm a business traveler. I have my clear through Amex. But it's one of those things. If I'm in a rush and I need to go, I'm getting in that clear line, you know, whether it's, you know, 50 bucks or free, right?

I need to get to the other side. If it's a family trip, same thing. So that's ultimately the margin structure, like how they're, There's a flow through for TSA pre-check for them. And then, you know, at the same time, I think it adds value to their line relative to the other line. So they're benefiting on both sides. It's not worth it.

Okay. Let me go to something else. You mentioned premiumization. And this is the other area where, again, I love the idea of Clear when I first started looking at it because I was like, it's a unique business, right? There's no one else who's offering it. It's a unique boat, multi-airport across the country. I never really bought into, I know at MSG, they're talking about doing stadiums and stuff.

Like, I never really bought into that side of it. But just a multi-air support network across the country. I just love the idea of that unique boat. And as you're saying, like travels growing, preemization. But on the preemization side, the other thing that, aside from my anecdote of TSA lines being shorter than clear lines, the other thing that kind of caught me was you started seeing, like, I guess they don't control, even though they have the lines, they don't control. a lot of the things. And I started worrying about other premiumization offers. So, for example,

TSA starts offering faceless or touchless TSA, where you can kind of scan your identity to do it. I know Delta rolled out their premium offering where, hey, you can go through security if you've got Delta and they'll kind of face adjust you before. And I started worrying about because you, like because they're operating in the TSA environment, which they don't control, if the airlines start cutting them out, if the airlines start premiumizing their offerings, if TSA improves their offerings. Like I just worried, Even though TSA's tech forward, there's only so much they can do when they don't control the environment. And there's all these things outside of their control that could come with the competition.

So if I brought that into today, you know, I'd point you to the Delta Touchless offering. I think TSA started doing a biometric scan offering that you can do. So how do you think about the clear line and the clear offering when they've got these kind of other competitors out there that can respond in an almost asymmetric way? Yeah, no, obviously something we think about. you know, one specific to the airlines, you know, many of those airlines are, are only for those airlines customers, right? So if you're thinking of an agnostic player that can exist across airlines plus across airports and across terminals, clear as the one, right? So there's this, you know, if you're Delta and you're only serving Delta customers,

you're somewhat isolated. So if I'm a user, most people travel multiple airlines. And therefore, you know, I think that risk is more off the table. the TSA kind of like, you know, walk through digitalization, you know, digital ID that they continue to work on, I think is great. I think it speaks to the technology side of this equation. But at the same time, we all know, you know, TSA and, you know, governmental, you know, agencies for the most part are mostly, you know, fairly slow to react. At the same time, Clears working on different things. So they have EGate. I don't know if you saw that.

But EGate is something where, you know, it's a gate and, you know, you kind of bypass some of these. you know, TSA, you know, agents, let's say, in certain environments. And I think ultimately, like, if you fast forward 10 years, we're going to have more and more of that and less of, you know, guard sitting in front of you, you know, waiting in line. And it's going to kind of be this speed through. So as long as they're continuing to evolve their technology, I think, ultimately the combination of, you know, TSA precheck, clear, and maybe some of these other solutions can all coexist together. Also, remember, these airports benefit and these terminals all benefit from Clear, given the fact that Clear is paying money to be there.

Let's go to that in one second. But you hit on something really interesting. I just want to pull on that. The EGate thing you offer, you mentioned that Clear is doing, where you can describe it more fully again. But that is an example of an innovation that seems awesome, right? Like, hey, you're going to get people through security faster. They're not going to have to wait in line for a person to scan them, pat them, whatever

it is. That sounds awesome. But at the same time, you're like, hey, if this is really successful and speeds through, if TSA starts rolling this out, like, isn't clear debt. So how do you think about like almost every innovation they do is great for their customers, but the moment TSA, who's literally has agents on the ground who are five feet away, like, staring at the innovations, the moment a TSA rolls this out. Now, you can say, oh, hey, you roll it out to seven million clear members that's different

than, you know, 60 million Americans flying. But the moment TSA copies that innovation, it really destroyed, it kind of, destroys the core clear business? So number one, obviously TSA would require everyone to be verified on their digital identity, right? So you'd have to require that. Right now, Clear has 31 million members associated on that. So there is this advantage there. There's 30 million travel, you know, in a given year.

So you could argue, you know, Clear is well penetrated from just a verification standpoint. Now, TSA can choose to build or partner. And if you go through a TSA line, any of those lines, right, the only thing that is actually TSA is the guard itself. Everything else is idemia. There's Lidos, the big technologies where all of your luggage and stuff go through, where you walk through. So they're definitely a technology buyer, not necessarily a technology operator. So if that's in mind, and they like EGates or they like some of these other technologies that I think Clears bring into the table, I think they ultimately become buyers of the technology as opposed to anything else.

And I could see a world where everything in TSA starts functioning and running through, you know, things like Lidos, idemia, and clear as the main solution providers for that. So again, they would become a solution provider. And the monetization equation could change in that environment. But as of right now, I think the status quo is more likely the status quo, you know, in this environment. But, you know, when you are offering a service, it's working. They see the data. they can see how fast people are walking through something like an eGate.

I think TSA is likely more inclined to partner than build on their own, and that's what they've done in the past. They've never really built anything on their own. Let me go to something that I kind of switch you off, but I'd love to discuss. I mean, the other really interesting thing about the clear model, right, is the way they rolled out is they did revenue shares with the airports, right? And I think Denver was their first airport, if I remember correctly. But, you know, they say, hey, every person who signs up,

or I think you can correct me wrong. I think at this point it's every head who goes through, like the airport gets a service. So airports actually really love this because TSA is, you know, it's a fixed cost. At best, it's a neutral, it's a huge piece of the airport that is revenue neutral at best. And all of a sudden, you turn this huge piece of the airport that's revenue neutral into a revenue generator. That's what every person wants, right? Every airport wants that. And then it also maybe alleviates the traffic and everything.

But let's talk about their partnerships with airports. Because the other worry you had is there were some airports if I remember who kind of didn't want to do this or I know a lot of people worried, hey, LaGuardia, critical airport, Denver, critical airport, like, Clear needs them more than the airport needs clear. Now, hopefully it's a beneficial partnership where, you know, it's revenue shares and everything. But if Denver says, hey, clear, you guys put through, if five million people came through our gates last year, right, and we think we're 5% of your revenue. So we think we're, I don't know, let's just say 50 million dollars, right? We're going to need to be, we got 25 million of that 50 million last year.

we're going to need to be 30 million or else we just cut you out. And, you know, people have to go through Denver Airport no matter what, but you'll just lose that. I kind of always worry about the asymmetricness of that relationship. So how is the partnership structured with airports and how do you think about that asymmetricness? Yeah, it's something they don't provide a lot of detail on because every single airport has very different structures. And so we've obviously dug into these things to try to figure out, is there any sort of like blanket risk across airports, how fragmented it is it. And that's the benefit is that all these airports for the most part are fragmented. Some of them are, you know, privately owned, some of them publicly owned, some of them

where the terminal is owned and operated by the airlines. Everything is different. So none of those come in the same, you know, flavors at all. A lot of it has to do, again, like you said, with throughput. So if there's more people going through, you know, there's different types of equations that happen there. Some of them are, again, throughput-based, meaning how much capacity comes through the airports and how many people walk through. And then there's ones where there's just blanket, you know, standardized, you know, kind of like more flat fees for service in that environment. And then they just pay out, you know, based on that. Now, again, the fragmentation, I think, speaks to the question of the risks, which is, yes, you could lose an airport.

They've lost airports. They've gained airports and run them back. Ultimately, I think, again, it all comes back to what are they trying to provide here? what's service? And, you know, is it making financial sense for the airport itself, number one? Is it making a better experience for the customers that, you know, ultimately are walking through this airport? And I think for the most part, it's a yes and a yes. And as they continue to enhance their technologies, meaning clear, they used to, obviously used to walk up to these things. And it took a little bit longer to get through. Now they have the handheld. And then again, they're moving towards

EGates. And all of that is to speed the line up and get people through the gates at the end of the day. And that's ultimately what an airport wants. And so, look, fragmentation, I think, is key here. And again, like, we haven't spoke about valuation, but you're talking about something that is, you know, valued in that, you know, kind of low double digit, low teens, let's say, you know, multiple on a free cash flow basis. So I think a lot of the stuff we're even just bringing up here is what's in the company's valuation from a free cash flow basis. But I think fragmentation is a big deal here and these network effects with the 31 million members across the board. Okay, I'm going to return to valuation a second, but let's go to something different.

Again, I'm really interested in just, and you've done a great job discussing just like the potential for a truly unique mode, right? Because once you're up, as you said, if you're up at 50 airports, it's really tough. if you and I are like, hey, clear is not in the Baton Rouge airport. Let's go launch a screen service. Nobody's going to want to sign up for Andrew and Sean's Baton Rouge only clear identity service. Nobody's going to want that. The airport's not going to want it. And it's kind of unvaluble to us.

And then we go and try and take one. It's just, it's got this really unique moat that I'm so interested in because it could either be the super strong mode or very weak. Let me pause on the moat self. I'll come back to some other risk. I'll come up to outside. We haven't even talked. Everybody knows we're talking the end of March.

There's the TSA stuff that's going. on that's helped. But I'm going to pause there and just ask you, you know, the market's a really competitive place. The market has, we'll talk to TSA stuff in a second, but the market has responded to, it sees these long lines. It sees all the CNN articles that says, hey, the TSA waits four hours unless you've got clear in which case you can get through in 10 minutes. It sees all that. Stocks up quite a bit over the past year. What do you think you're seeing that the market is missing that makes this a risk-adjusted opportunity? Yeah. I think it's, I don't think most people, Like, you ask anyone clear, what did they do?

I don't think anyone's talking about their enterprise business. So they have 7.7, 7.2. They obviously, they just did a recast on their, on their membership totals. But they have a roughly like 7.5 million paid members. And a lot of people see that. They also see that, you know, some of the, you know, things you articulated, which is airports, risks along that side. You have the idea that, you know, their relationships with some

something like an Amex, for example, could hinder them. Again, I can totally push back on some of those things. We'll go there in a second. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, so I think a lot of people see a lot of those things. And they haven't done the work to see what the enterprise business is doing. And the enterprise, again, I was trying to articulate, you know, they have seven and a half million paid members.

But 31 million members, their total membership is growing, you know, 30 plus percent. They're paid memberships growing 6%. So what's the delta there? Like, what is the delta there between total members and that? And it's this enterprise business as they continue to enroll people into clear. And what do I mean by enterprise business? I mean, they, you know, Mount Sinai, Epic, which is, you know, the EHR platforms, Baptist Hospital here in Miami, Florida.

You know, they're using. Austria Hospital in New Orleans. When I was looking like two days ago, they roll out an Austria hospital in New Orleans. I was like, oh, I'm from New Orleans. So I, yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And this is kind of what, you know, even, you know, we're about a year old in this investment thing. And, you know, a lot of our idea around this was simple. And it actually didn't stem necessarily from their airport business. I think the airport business is credibility. I think the airport business is members, paid members, usage. It's advertising for them. People know clear. And again, so if you're walking into an enterprise organization, Baptist Hospital, you're saying, hey, you know, how do you let people into your hospital? How do your employees reset their passwords?

Do they reach out to the health desk? How do they verify? How do you know who's on the other side so that when they log into these, you know, your health records, that it's the right person? And everybody on the other side knows who clear is. And they're like, hey, look, we're TSA approved. And, you know, we have all the credentials. We're HIPAA and, you know, many of the things that you look for for an identity platform.

Now, in a world of AI, obviously everyone's talking about it, the need for identity solutions is massive. And that's ultimately what got us to this place. And then we're like, man, this airport business is actually a pretty good business. But they have this enterprise business that's starting to grow. So again, some of the use cases that I was talking about is, you know, the hospital systems and password resets. Very simple. But something where you can verify yourself.

And they're using Clear's identity biometric solution on the back end for this. If you're checking into the hospital system, they send you an email, you verify yourself at home, you walk into the hospital, you show a QR code. You're not waiting in line at the front desk for 30 minutes. Uber drivers can verify themselves. On LinkedIn, you can verify yourself, which is important in the world of, you know, AI and, you know, recruiters searching for real humans, not for, you know, identity, you know, AI, call it fakes.

Also, Home Depot, rental. You can rent equipment, which is a big deal. And you can go in there and rent equipment. So, you know, they're going from this airport business, which is a great business, monetarily into other parts. And it's showing up in the numbers. So when you see that booking inflection this past quarter going from, you know, 16% revenue growth to a bookings target of 24 to 6%.

There's real inflections happening here. And that's outside of the, you know, the airport business. From our view, again, the delta between total members and paid members is that delta, right? There's no free, clear membership in the airport, really. And nobody signs up for that unless you're going to actually go through these things. So ultimately, I think that's what the market's missing or hasn't even, I don't even think they're missing. I just don't think they're looking.

And, you know. Let me just pause on that. So I hear you, though, when I've looked at this, it is cool, right? Again, I see they roll out Oshner and you say identity, like you're basically getting insecurity. And you can go look at like anything security that could be, you can slap pretty big multiples onto these things. But then when I just kind of look at the numbers and you've spent more time, like, I don't believe they've broken out how much of bookings are from the non-clear Plus, which Clear Plus is the airport business versus just normal Clear. I don't think that. And when I do

the simple math, when I just look at, hey, you know, 7.2 million Clear Plus members growing to 7.6 million throughout 2025, revenue goes from 770 to 900. Like, it doesn't seem to me like there's a lot of revenue from the non-clear plus, clear plus members coming in. So like this business that they keep talking about. And it just like, like, I know hospitals. Like, yes, I'm sure you're getting a little bit for being the person who verifies the QR code and all this sort of stuff. But there is an alternative, right? Somebody just handed you to the driver's license and the nurse looks. So there's an alternative that is free. So it's going to be very difficult to price that. It doesn't appear like there's a lot of numbers. And then the last thing I'd say is like the airport

business is so valuable, even if I'm wrong on both of those things, like if it's not to me visible in the numbers, like, it's just so far away from mattering versus the whole scheme and value of the airport thing. Like, it just seems to me like it's a growth case. It's a nice story, but it's kind of, it pales in comparison to the airport business to me. It does. It does. So again, you have this beautiful foundation of the airport business. They're innovating there. They're doing a wonderful job. And, you know, so you have this margin of safety from our standpoint, which is a good business at a good price outside of, again, here in the last year and a half, two years, accelerating or really instituting the TSA pre-check business, which again, 15 to 20 bucks per.

That's building membership, or not membership, building, you know, total members, but not paid members into the clear plan. So that's number one. And then number two, again, is this, you know, I would call it brand new business. You know, they started talking about it two years ago. They got approval specifically in different areas, you know, about a year ago. And about two quarters ago is really when they started to articulate that they were starting to see bookings momentum and starting to name real deals. Now, these things tend to start off as pilots, and then they move into full production. And what you're seeing is these announcements for the most part going from pilots about 12 months ago to full production. So we're starting to see those

use cases there. So again, on one side you have this, you know, high quality business or quality business that is, you know, a cash machine training what we consider to be, you know, a cheap multiple that's done well that we think is fragmented and somewhat insulated from some of these risks that we articulate. On the other side, you have, you know, or right down the middle, you have TSA precheck, which is somewhat, you know, obviously connected to their airport business. I mean, it is, but in a different way. But it's also, you know, some sort of risk hedge to them getting thrown out of the airports, let's say, because ultimately they're the ones that would just be the onboarding tool for all of these members that assign and adopt TSA precheck.

And then lastly, you have, again, this enterprise business that is very interesting and you're seeing real traction with, again, it doesn't show up in the numbers or they don't break it out, let's say. But we are seeing, again, an inflection in bookings. So you see bookings going from revenue starting out at 16% at the quarter end to accelerating to 26% either comes from a couple of things. Maybe their airport business is, you know, the reason and rhyme and reason behind this. or it's, you know, some of these, you know, paid pilots are turning into, you know, real usable opportunities for them and long-term contracts. And ultimately, that is starting to show up into revenue or bookings, which will show up into revenue in the future.

So I think that is the delta there. And again, when you see total members relative to paid members, there's a big difference there and it's not the active memberships from the paid plan that is showing up in that growth rate. So total members growing 31%, paid members growing 6%. They just did revenue of six. I know I'm a little wonky. You're throwing numbers out, but 16% revenue growth, but bookings guidance, you know, at eight point delta of acceleration.

And that's showing up in our view, you know, in combination of obviously what's happening with TSA today in terms of backups at airports and likely more people joining. But also more importantly, I think you're starting to see an inflection and you're hearing that, you're hearing the bookings commentary around it. And then we obviously are tracking a bunch of stuff relative to it to figure out, are you seeing more use cases and more partners announced? And I think last the quarter before, they announced 20 new partners.

And then this quarter, they said they had the biggest bookings quarter ever for their enterprise business outside of the airport. So I think ultimately, you know, that is like the small incremental, you know, points we want to see to continue to build on that thesis outside of just the airport. No, look, I hear you. It's just like, it reminds me of times I've gotten really excited about companies that launch like small growth efforts. And then two years later, I come back, I'm like, oh, well, that growth effort actually went great, but the core business didn't do as I planned. And guess, you know, when I go back in hindsight, I'm like, oh, cool, the best case

for the growth effort was it was worth like 2% of the core business. Like, it just, it seems to me like the story here is so much the airline business, like everything, else is a cherry on top, but all that matters is getting the airline business right. Speaking of the airline business, I know what happens. Somebody hears an idea they like, the first thing they're going to do is they're going to go and they're going to pull up, hey, let's look at the stock chart, right? They even maybe before the episode starts, maybe during it, if you pull up the stock chart here, you know, you're going to pull up for your stock chart and you're going to see two jobs.

One of them is at the end of February when they report numbers. And as you say, I don't think the numbers for Q4 beat too much, but their bookings, their guidance, everything beats like crazy. and then, you know, the stock goes from, let's just call it 33 to 45. And then it stays around there for two weeks. And then this TSE shutdown that we're in happens. And the stock goes from 45 to 55 as it gets obvious real quick that people are waiting in three-hour TSA lines, seeing open, clear lines and saying, hey, why don't I just go join Clear

and get through this F and security line? So I want to ask you, like, when you look at the stock today and it's building in, like, the most frequent question I got when I posted this on Twitter or when I've talked to people without clear, aside from all the moat questions I've been hitting, is, hey, if the government ever gets its stuff together and this TSA shutdown ends, like, aren't you just kind of riding wave? And if this lasts for six months, it's going to be awesome and people are going to sound up like crazy. But if this ends tomorrow, the stock just crashes, everybody's like, hey, there's short-term silence. So how do you kind of think about that dynamic when it comes to the stock?

Yeah, it's definitely like, I mean, look, obviously there's the short-term, long-term, you know, ideas and thought process here, you know, look at as a firm, we're not. you know, short-term-oriented, like all the stuff I've been mentioning is really around, you know, the bigger thesis at hand. And, you know, is that tracking? I think ultimately at the end of the day, all this stuff that we're talking about just proves the point that, you know, clear is, you know, somewhat important to the travel ecosystem. And, you know, some of the demand, some of the booking data that, you know, we're tracking, you know, and they highlighted in the quarter, I think speaks to that, right? So I think we're a long ways away from being convinced that TSA is going to be this, you know, technology foundation that's going to build its own stuff in-house and be able to handle stuff, you know, without public-private partnerships for the most part.

So I'm not going to, you know, I don't think that. So like in the, look, the reason why the number, you know, the stock jumped, really, for the most part, was, you know, that bookings number, you know, they're basically articulating. and they're going to grow, you know, mid-20s percent this year. And that's their guidance. And they proved to be fairly conservative most of the time. And so a 26% guidance number, and that was pre, you know, in between, you know, you can kind of sandwich between last quarter or this quarter in terms of, you know,

some of the stuff that is happening with TSA. And so I don't think that's the biggest point there. You know, we're tracking web traffic to their TSA, you know, web, web, web portal. And, you know, that is now second place. behind idemia, which is, you know, number two. And so, or number one, so that they're now in number two position in terms of just like web traffic coming to TSA precheck for them. So I think more people want TSA precheck to get to the lines, you know, get through it.

Then you also have, you know, what's the better solution is then clear. So look, I think it just shows, honestly, just highlights that they're in an advantage position, you know, today. And then if you take that and you, you know, you think through the thesis around. clear being more than airports, meaning an identity platform. I think, again, even with a run-up, you know, we've owned it. We've owned it through the run-up. And again, we're not patting our backs, you know, at the end of the day, like, you know,

as you said, like tomorrow it can, you can fall. And so as long as that thesis is tracking, you know, we think it's interesting. And I don't think even at this point, you know, the, it commands, you know, a very high multiple because there are concerns continuing around the idea that, you know, they, TSA in theory or Delta or some of these airlines could, in theory, remove them quickly. But again, as time goes on, the more members they get, the more airports they're in, the more now international travel for like the World Cup and stuff and EGates and technology,

the more embedded they are and more entrenched they are. So it's one of those things where, you know, I think the longer this lasts, the more entrenched they are and that's how it works. No, it's funny. You mentioned at the start like TSA becoming their inventor of technology. And as you said, I was like, dude, Andrew, one of the first of the, risk you're qualifying. We're clearly worried about here is TSA, like, stepping ahead of time, I mean, TSA can't even pay their own people. And like, you really think that there's going to be a

budget for TSA to go modernize and do all this sort of stuff. Like, it is funny. It doesn't seem like it'd be crazy hard to replicate, but just the inefficiencies of government, it seems to just play square into their hand. I want to go ahead. Yeah. So that stored identity is important, though. Like, when you walk there, they're not verifying you at that point in time, right? You are already verified, right? You've given the documentation. You went and visited somebody. You did it easily unclear. It's the easiest way to get TSA pre-check. It's the easiest way to get verified. And therefore, your identity is stored there. And that identity can then take you, like, when I went on LinkedIn and verified myself, it was the same portal. And now I'm verified on

LinkedIn, whether that matters for me personally or not. But for some people, it does. But if I'm then going to the hospitals, which I used, you know, at BAS. at one point, you know, it's just an ease of use. And then, you know, you're starting to get these micro networks locally. Then you start to get, you know, the scaled out network nationally. And, you know, I don't think the average person's thinking in that way, like, hey, I'm part of this, like network. But it's more that, hey, you know, I can, if there was another provider right next to it and I'm clear, you know, I'm not sure I would enter that line, even if it was, you know, I don't know, what price point, 30% off? I still probably wouldn't even care. I would just walk

through clear and mind my own business, get through the line. And when people go in the airport, they're just trying to get to the other side. So I think, you know, I think that's important is that stored identity where TSA doesn't necessarily have all that today. There's one other risk I want to talk about, but let me just, you mentioned valuation a few times. You know, that they provide 2026 guidance. I think their free cash flow guidance is $440 million. I would have to imagine they're going to beat that both because I think they've been historically conservative and because, you know, the TSA stuff happens after the guide. and you just have to imagine Q1's gangbusters.

You know, I think there's some debate. Free cash flow number, this is a consumer subscription business. So free cash flow is going to be higher than EBITDA as long as you're growing, but, you know, float is moat. So I don't know, we can just use free cash flow. Market cap 7.2 billion, EV of 6.6. So you're paying about 15 times plus for on free cash flow numbers. Like, how do you kind of think about the fair valuation?

What would be a fair value in your opinion be? Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, it's, it's, tends to be at the higher range of what we would say is a steady state multiple. So anytime we underwrite something, we're at 10 to 15 times, that's kind of our multiple. But we're not at steady state. They just got it for 26 times. I mean, 26% grows. So the question is, what's the duration of this growth cycle?

And how long is that going to stick? And what numbers do we get to on the top line? Margin structure, I'm not concerned about margin structure. I think they've handled that well over time. You know, everything from, you know, depending on which metric you're looking at, There's operating income. There's net income for them. There's operating cash flow and there's free cash flow.

You can range from 20 to 40% on those. But if we stick with the, again, somewhere between operating cash flow and free cash flow, you're somewhere in your mid-30s of margin structure there. And ultimately, the way we looked at it was we wanted to, we built out a path to roughly 8 million members. Like we actually do not think this is going to be a 10, 20 million member clear, secure, at least as of today, the way it sits today, right? we don't want to get over our skis and anticipate that.

So we believe, you know, they add incrementally another, you know, 800 to, 600,000 new net members over the next several years. And at the same time, the biggest lever for them is actually pricing, pricing on the wholesale side, which are their partner channels, and then pricing directly both for individuals and for bundled family plans. And we think that's ultimately where you're going to get the lift. And last quarter, you know, they articulated. that even further. And again, back to the early part of this conversation is kind of how do you

throttle the lines? The best way to throttle the lines is one, add new features and capabilities in the line. What is that? Concierge, that's, you know, curb to gate, you know, capabilities, which is, you know, 20 bucks or 30 bucks for older people or people that are traveling with family, you can go in there and they'll literally walk to your car, walk you to the TSA for like 50 bucks or 20 bucks, but you have to be a member first in that environment. And so adding more capabilities, value, and then incrementally increasing that price. We think ultimately that's the bigger lever for this business. And, you know, we think the, you know, when you put that all combined, we think actually

they can double the size of their revenue footprint, both from increasing the amount of users, members they have on the platform. And then the pricing, you know, we think they can increase by incrementally more like 30 to 40 percent, even from these numbers. And they've been price takers here for the last year and a half. You know, on pricing, that's a super interesting thought. Let me pull on that for a second. So, you know, they do have something interesting where this can be the hallmark of

great business or this can be tough. But they're charging and you have a free alternative, right? And right now that free alternative, as we talked about, TSA sucks. But you can always not pay for the clear membership, not even pay for TSA pre-check, though TSA pre-check is like $100 for five years. I don't know why you wouldn't get it if you're traveling. And you can just go through the TSA line, right? And I think the average clear member is traveling.

I'm just looking at their key four, seven times per year. Is that right? Or is that seven times per quarter? Must be seven times per quarter if you're a clear user. I'm not 100% percent. Yeah, the seven X? That's an annualized number, actually. So it's only seven times for year.

Okay. So you're paying $200 plus seven times per year, right? So you're paying $30 to $40 per use of clear if you're a clear member. How much pricing do they have, right? Like at what point, if you're only charging one X, you're paying $200 per use to go through on the clear members. Sometimes, like, 30 scenes about where you start pricing people out, right? Now, are there some people who are going to pay $100, who would pay $1,000 for $7X through? Sure, but it's probably small. So you've got that push and pull. How much pricing power do you

think they actually have when there is that free alternative? Yeah, we've actually seen them raise price quite, or considerably. The biggest thing they can do is bundle too. And ultimately, like, your kids on it. And if your kids, like, you know, 18 years old and they travel a little bit, You're not like the family plan is the ultimate plan and consumer, you know, because you're beholden to all the pillars of the family and, you know, no one's going to want to give it up. Or if one doesn't want to give it up, no one wants to give it up. And also, also a lot of this is wrapped behind these, you know, these credit card. That was going to be by last question. And, you know, you could argue the clear member, depending on, you know, that clear member, typically the household is much higher household income.

and so it's a very, you know, quality member to have. So credit card companies, from what I've spoke to different people, would line up and take it on assuming someone like AMX, you know, stepped out. And so, you know, that's a big deal, right? I mean, there would be some confusion in that moment, but you would probably have like a year cycle before you, you know, you lose any of these people. And then you're building, you know, the new base or additional base thereafter.

But pricing, so the wholesale pricing historically has been very low. So that's one avenue. And we estimate roughly 30 to 50% of their revenue comes from these partnership channels. And therefore, those are easy incremental increases. You're passing that on to the partners who then have their, you know, they can mix and match their own card plans. And, you know, if you have these travel heavy users that are using it more frequently than the seven times, because that's the.

average, you have someone that's actually using this, you know, twice a month, you know, 24 times a year, roughly for your like admin business traveler. I think those people are going to want to keep these memberships, you know, with or without these plans once you start to get used to it. So pricing, I do think they continue to have levers and there's proof points again here over the last, you know, several last year, year and a half where they've raised prices pretty dramatically. And again, I think always like anything, anytime you increase price, you have to increased value and vice versa. And I think they're doing so.

And again, it goes back to the throughput part as well as like, does this help throughput of their overall business? Have you seen any survey work on like kind of how far they could push pricing? Yeah, we had, we did have one survey done. This was like a year and a half ago, two years ago. That was done. And again, it was one where, you know, the pricing lever, they could push price. I believe at the time was like 20, 25% at the time.

I think they could push higher than that, you know, as a user, as someone that's seeing it, we're also two years away from that pricing survey. So, you know, I would assume that, you know, obviously prices have risen since. But I do think, again, they're more embedded. I think at the time they were in 40 airports or something. So 60 airports now, 65 plus continuing to grow. So I think there's more networks, international as well. and some of the other value-added services that come in it.

You know, I updated my passport the other day. And so in clear, they have a partnership with passport, whatever the company is. You know, it saved me, I don't know, 60 bucks, 70 bucks on my passport rental. So like once you start to like use it more, you start to see extra value that, you know, isn't directly implicit to, you know, just walking through the line. It's kind of one of these more like partner in app where you can, you know, luggage or this or that, send this, shipsticks. If you're sending golf clubs and, you know, you save 20% here, 20% there. And you start to utilize it more.

And me, my perceived value increases every time I use that. So I'm a one of one. But at the same time, again, you know, we've seen it in their strategy, raising price without limited, with limited impacts on any sort of membership. We know they rose, they raised their wholesale pricing and MX just signed a new deal for multiple years. So again, these are like little proof points and signals to us that, you know, they've raised price and it hasn't really impacted them. The question again, like you said, can they raise price more? And I think they can. And what's the opposite of that is you get a turned user, but then you have a better line.

And then now you have stickier users potentially because the value of the line becomes a little bit more clear. And then at the same time, again, what we've been talking about is TSA precheck. So let's put more people. Let's make it easier to sign up for precheck. So more people are in the precheck line and makes the clear. clear line a little bit more valuable in that scenario. So you could just raise prices on a smaller subscription membership size. And then lastly is the enterprise business, which again, I think, fast forward two years from now, I think will be a decent part of their business.

Last question. And this used to be the big bear case. And I think there's still some questions around it, but the AMX partnership, right? I don't know if they've disclosed recently how much of their how much of their member base is coming from the MX partnership, but they have this AMX partnership, which if I remember correctly, it's you pay for the clear membership, you get a statement credit on your clear card, and then obviously Amex is paying you, paying clear a wholesale price for the membership. A lot of their members come from Amex, and for a long time, the bear case was Amex is going to cancel this partnership. Now they, until this year, they had been renewing yearly, and it's not lost on me. They were putting out PRs when they renewed yearly,

and then this year at their Q4 earnings, they just said, hey, we had a multi-year renewal with AMX and when asked on the call, if I remember KVE, they didn't really have that much to say on it. So I guess my question is like, how, I think a lot of the AMX risk is in the past because they do have this multi-year renewal. But I think there are questions on, hey, what does the economics of this look like going forward? And who needs who in this relationship? And, you know, again, this is a big piece of their business.

So I think it's the last risk and it's worth addressing. So I'll just toss that over to you. Yeah, it's funny because the MX just raised their pricing. and renewed the contract with Clear for business, platinum, and also for some of the others, the personal platinum as well. And so they're raising prices while likely they're, again, I took that a signal that Clear is holding its own as one of the benefits inside of that ecosystem in terms of perks for Amex.

So look, Amex for a long time was at the top of mind for investors, prospective investors, bears, whatever. I would always ask about it every time I spoke with management. And, you know, NetNet, the story was, look, we're working with Amex. There's plenty of others out there that would willingly love our business to love to, you know, us be part of their, you know, plan. We like Amex because of the brand. We like Amex because they have high premium customers.

So there's a lot of benefits to it, clearly. But at the same time, I do think there's more card plans than ever out there. We're watching the Robin Hoods of the world and some others, you know, come out with all these different plans that are trying to mimic the platinum cards. And so, look, I think you fast forward to a multi-year cycle here for their contract renewal, of which, again, a year ago, we anticipated that this relationship would potentially sizzle out with a decent degree of probability there. But with the anticipation that they would land someone else just through discussions that we had that, you know, there's potentially somebody there. My guess is, again, Amex razor pricing that allows them to afford, you know, continuing the price raises in the ecosystem, some of the perks in there. And I'm actually not that worried about it. Again, obviously, we just got the renewal commentary around it.

They're pretty zip on, you know, those type of deals, obviously for competitive purposes and also for, for, you know, monetarily purposes and many other reasons. But, you know, obviously it's top of mind, but I don't think it's like any sort of existential threat that if they did lose a card provider that they would, you know, be, you know, materially impacted. Not because of the size of it, but because of the ability to, you know, pretty seamlessly migrate to other providers and have those perks paid for pretty easy. So no, I hear you, you know, it's it is interesting because if you lost Amex, like it isn't on and because again, you pay and you get a statement credit. So it is on auto renew. So if you lost Amex, like I do wonder how many of those people who are hopefully using

Amex would actually go and cancel their subscription, right? So that's one question. But then the other side of it is you mentioned other partners. Like, I mean, to me, there's only, it's Amex. You have Chase Sapphire, right? Those are the two that are always competing. Capital One launched the Ventures Cardin has really been trying to blow that out. But outside of that, like, yeah, I'm sure you could go get a Wells Fargo or a Bank of America to partner with you, but their user base is so much smaller, like, it's just, it's not going to be a natural fit. So now, if you told me they went to Chase Sapphire and Chase Saffir gave them better terms, like, then you're in Nirvana mode, right?

But I don't know. It's probably neither here nor there. But I guess the other reason I was worried about it was, again, the 2025, renewal, they put out a PR that says one-year extension and I think same economic terms. They did not comment on the economic terms of the Amex partnership when they extended this time, which maybe they're being core, maybe it doesn't matter. It probably doesn't matter because this quarter is going to be gangbuster because of the TSA, but I was wondering if AMX kind of clawed back some wholesale pricing power from them and that had impacts in the medium term. I don't think so, right?

Because they gave a free cash flow guidance, which proved out, again, in the third quarter of every year, They do their payouts to their M-X, you know, their partnerships. And so you can see the net effect of cash outlays from that. So you get these big lump, you know, cash outflows from, you know, the cash flow statement in the third quarter of each year. And so that's a good tell of like, you know, the increase or tick up in usage and of their partnerships. And that's continued to, you know, rise steadily up into the right.

Free cash flow, again, for the full year. is what they guided to, you know, held in their own. So if you, you know, extrapolate their their bookings into revenue over the course of the next 12 months, and then you, you know, you take that and you apply, you know, their historical, conservative nature of their free cash flow, you kind of get to margin structures that are very similar to prior. And ultimately, what that does is, you know, signals to us that the contract and the what they just signed, the renewal is, you know, decent enough terms to, you know, hold their their margin. structure in line. So I'm not too worried about that. The worry is, again, in that little shuffle,

but to your point, and this is me just thinking out loud here, yeah, I mean, how many of those, you know, if you have these avid travelers, you know, traveling, you know, 20 times a year, if not more, using this, but your average is seven, you probably have a huge cohort that's not using it all that much. Very similar like Planet Fitness, you know, where people go to the gym, but they don't use it, but they continue to pay for it. You know, you could see it where ultimately, they're not covered by AMX, but they keep 30, 40% of those users and migrate over. And you could, you know, there's, I've articulated them, is there a spray and pay strategy where you're at Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, you're at, you know, whatever and all the different,

you know, card providers out there, Bank of America, and all of a sudden you have, you're kind of embedded in all of them and there's no advantage to each. Or you isolate yourself to Sapphire or venture and you do one of those more exclusive deals. Or you try to go more wide. spread, you know, or, you know, I think ultimately those are like the different scenarios like you mentioned. And then again, there's this kind of these like neobanks that are all trying to deliver perks at different price points that I think continue to prosper. And I think, you know, you're seeing more and more of that, whether it's sofi, whether it's, you know, Robin Hood. These are big, big audience. And in five years from now, those users, assuming they all stick on

those platforms are going to be 25, 30, 35 years old, right, in their peak travel mode. And, you know, I keep calling out Robin Hood because they continue to do so many things that, like, you know. If I remember, I mean, I have a Robin Card and I really like it. And they are leaning into travel. So I certainly could see that. And they do have the membership component. All right, two last questions, actually. They've got $700 million in cash on the balance sheet.

Really no debt, no liabilities. Like it's a very clean balance sheet. They're going to generate $440 million plus of cash this year. What do you think they start? They're going to have a capital allocation question at some point. What do you think capital allocation looks like here going forward? So they've done historic a lot of special dividends. They have a dividend, actually.

This was ran by two private equity people that understand investments and investor bases more than anybody. This is basically how clear got created. You know, Karen and, you know, they essentially. They bought it out of bankruptcy. Absolutely. It's a crazy story. Yeah, bought it out of bankruptcy just for the story for everyone, you know, listening. You know, bought out of bankruptcy, you know, basically became the owners and founders for the most part, you know,

and took this thing from, you know, very few to very many and to where it is today. So very much astute from an investor lens. And then, again, capital allocation, they've done a historical some tuck-ins. They bought a company in the finance space for KYCs. Again, when you speak of like enterprise, I think, you know, being a financial institution or, you know, financial firm, KYC's onboarding clients is rough. you know, a single onboard where you scan your face and maybe tap your finger and all of a sudden you're onboard onto a financial platform with everything they need resonates with me.

And so they're trying to do that with that little tuck-in. So I expect a little bit more tuck-ins. Could they do anything much more material? You know, possibly they've hinted at that. But I think special dividends, buybacks is essentially, you know, the main thing. They've, you know, there's been moments at times where it's like, hey, you know, so much cash, do you take this thing private? This was when it was single digit multiples and just build in the private and, you know, just go after this thing. But, you know, I think dividends, growing their dividends,

which sounds counterintuitive to a growth company, but they have enough capital like you mentioned to, you know, kind of do all these things at the same time. And, you know, I think that's it. I think, you know, dividend, a little bit more dividends, a special dividend from time to dime. I think they've done that four times each in the realm of, you know, a couple percent. And, you know, And then lastly, you know, capital allocation in the form of, you know, small tuckins with potentially something larger, but, you know, I guess we'll see on that. Yeah. All right.

Last thing. And it is interesting. I mean, you've, you've basically hit it with the enterprise business, but it is interesting to get Galaxy brand and think about, hey, you've got a company that has identity. They've got, you know, which airports you're going into and stuff. Like, they've got a really unique brand of data. And I mean, what? This is not eight years ago, but they've got a unique brand.

of data and customers travel preferences, and if they're checking in to LinkedIn and everything, they've just got a unique data set. And it's kind of interesting to think about the monetization potential of that in the longer term. Though, again, that's probably two galaxy brain, but that it is an interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, I think anyone that is focused on security, identity, privacy, I'm not sure they're going to, you know, any sort of cell identity, even if it's again, you know,

white labeled or classified as sensitive. I think more importantly is that there's so many layers of, there's going to be so many fabrics of our life that is going to require some sort of identity layer. And again, this is a play just because this is like second, third order effects of AI. And in about two years from now, I could, you and I can get on this Zoom or this video or whatever. And you know, you're not going to know if it's me. And Ryan's going to have the same motion and the same voice and all these other things. There's avatars and, you know, Zoom and their earnings calls.

I don't know if you saw them there. The first, you know, Eric Juan does it in his AI avatar and it looks and sounds, you know, pretty much like him. And, you know, I think that there's going to be more of that. So I always think of things like, you know, picking up your kid from school and, you know, making sure, you know, it's not somebody calling in and pretending it's them and saying, hey, you know, I'm outside in the red truck. And it sounds just like me in the front desk doesn't know or inside the hospital and you're like, hey, you know, pick up, you know, we're sitting in the patient to the third floor and it's, you know, some fake something or getting on these calls because, you know, more things are happening digitally. So there's more sensitivity to that. So my, my thing there is less so about the data they have, but more the various layers outside in the world that are going to require identity layers involved for humans, for agents, for all these things. I'm not saying Clearer is going to win that, but I do think the opportunity is vast for them. And they're positioned with their reusable identity solution to do that. And I think they have the brand to do it.

There's nothing more ability to sell than saying we sell to TSA and the government. No, it's great point. I mean, I do like that it is branding. It's the TSA line. Like you go through it. And yes, it's branding people can go through it. But it's also branding when you go to your enterprise. festival and you're like, hey, like, we are the only people who can do this for TSA.

Why wouldn't you use us for, you know, Mr. Hospital? You've got hippoc compliance. Like, we, we can be trusted. The government. We're not. It's interesting. Cool. I got to, go ahead.

Last thing. Yeah, last thing, too, is like, you know, if you're following the Evital space, like, electric vertical and take off and landing, it's really like distributing the fabric of travel. And so, you know, I can imagine a world. And again, some of this is, you know, pie in the sky stuff. But, you know, I'm thinking of a world where we're all, you know, people are taking more and more of these eVTALs around the, around the country. And what you want in that environment is, you know, they're not going to put TSA agents all across these, these sporadgarious.

What I'd want is a much better air traffic control is what I would want in that environment. Yeah, yeah, for sure. There you go. But you would, you like smaller facilities, TSA is not going to put their representatives there. And therefore, you're going to need these, these, these, these, these technologies that allow us to get through them, identify us, get us through the other side without requiring more TSA human agents to be there. And ultimately, so I think we're going to see an explosion of distributed travel, whether it's autonomous vehicles on the ground or EVTAL takeoff and landings, which are all happening. They're all happening in their own pace. And again, I'm looking out three years, five years, 10 years, you know, 15 years. Do you need PSA to get into

a helicopter right now? I don't think so, no. So I would contend that if Eval's really, if they really took off and, you know, they were really frequent and they were all over, I would contend that it's just going to be like getting into a helicopter, getting into a car, and you're not going to have a TSA for that. Now, that does not invalidate the U thesis because Ineval is going to be able to go 30 miles, 45 miles. It's not going to be able to go 1,000 miles at, you know, 250 miles per hour. But I would just contend there would just be no TSA. Yeah, there would be no TSA. I mean, Clear isn't TSA, right? Oh, I would contend there, it's going to be like a helicopter.

Like anyone, you can just hop into it. would it kind of be where I think it would go. Sure. Yeah, yeah. But I'm saying just the technology could be placed everywhere so that those environments, those new networks that are forming, instead of using human labor, let's say, you can have less of them and more technology embedded

to identify the people on the way in, just like a hospital, right? You're getting someone into the hospital system. You're still going to have the front desk, but you're going to have people identify themselves through like these eGates and stuff to get onto the EVTOLs, to get on the helicopters, unless you're trying to, again, create, these very, very premium experiences, like some of the helicopter routes or, you know, small jumper jets, you know, do.

Yeah, but that's it. I was just trying to highlight a little bit of, you know, forward thinking 10 years out. If we have distributed travel, even more distributed travel, does that open the architecture for them to, you know, be in more places, not less? Cool. Cool. This is great. Sean Emery and Co.

This is awesome. Really enjoyed learning a lot more about use mode, especially. They will have to have you on again. Talk to you soon. Awesome, man. A quick disclaimer. Nothing on this podcast should be considered investment advice. Guests or the host may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast.

Please do your own work and consult a financial advisor. Thanks.