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Avory's Sean Emory on Clear Security $YOU

64m 13s

Avory's Sean Emory on Clear Security $YOU

Clear Security operates a biometric identity platform that offers expedited airport security lanes, functioning as a premium subscription service ($200+/year) competing with free TSA lines. The business model relies on a unique network of 60+ U.S. airports and partnerships like AMEX, which sponsors memberships. Key growth drivers include expanding into more airports/terminals, raising prices to manage lane congestion, and integrating TSA PreCheck enrollments (high-margin, $15-$20 per transaction). Clear faces inherent tensions: success depends on maintaining shorter wait times than free TSA lines, yet adding members risks congestion. It mitigates this by adding lanes, premiumizing pricing, and bundling TSA PreCheck to increase clear lane value. Competitive threats include airline-specific biometric offerings (e.g., Delta) and TSA’s own digital ID projects, but Clear’s agnostic, multi-airline positioning and technology innovations like eGates—which automate security screening—offer defenses. TSA disruptions (e.g., shutdowns) temporarily boost subscriptions, though retention depends on consistent value. Long-term, Clear may evolve into a technology provider for TSA rather than just a lane operator, leveraging its 31 million verified identities. The company’s success hinges on balancing growth with service quality, navigating regulatory partnerships, and staying ahead of TSA’s own tech upgrades.

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All right, hello, welcome to the other 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 Emory from Avery Capital. And the reason you'll hear this throughout the podcast, the reason I tear myself apart is because it is such a unique potential business with such a unique and deep potential mode, but on the other side, there are like, you know, clear security. You can go to the clear line, which costs you $200 plus per year to be a member of or you can go to 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 26th, which is, you know, deep in the cuts of deep in the throws of the TSA shutdown, which is caused TSA lines to go crazy, which is caused a huge spot, a spike in clear stock, because people are going to that TSA preline and be like, it's four hours a year. 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, some of them are going to stick. How many are going to stick? All this stuff. Anyway, I'm rambling. This is too long. Venture is almost as long as the podcast. We're going to get to the podcast with Sean Henry in one second. But first, a word from our sponsors. The podcast is sponsored by trytrada.com. Look, I've been mentioning Trata on the podcast where it's got to be five, six months at this point. I really enjoy them. And if you listen to this podcast, I promise you that you're going to enjoy them too. Trata is two buy setters who hop on and they start talking about stocks that they know and cover. And probably have positions in, you know, you'll sometimes you'll hop on and you'll see, hey, I'm a Tesla bull and hey, I'm a Tesla bear. Let's talk about our two different angles. Sometimes you'll see people hop on and they'll say, hey, I'm an oracle bull and I'm an air, I'm also an oracle bull. And they'll just go off and they'll talk about all their bullish points on oracle. But you know, whatever it is, I've just, I've really enjoyed it. It is just a fantastic way to get up to speed and see how smart people who are covering stocks who have positions in them see how they're thinking about the position. See what's keeping them up at night. And I will tell you, especially when you're going to, especially when you're going to have to speed, but also kind of as the environments moving under you, it's really useful seeing, hey, what do I not know that I should be thinking about? What are other investors thinking about that? Maybe I'm overlooking or maybe I haven't put enough thought behind. So I just think it's a fantastic tool for fundamental investors. Almost every investor I talk to who's learned about it likely from this podcast reached out to me and says, they've really enjoyed it. Again, I keep saying it. The most frequent feedback I get is, hey, I tried Trata. I really like it. 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 Trata and put some interviews up there. So I really enjoy it. If you go to try trata.com, that's try TRY trata. T-R-A-T-A. com, you can check it out. And I encourage you to it. All right, hello and welcome to the yet another value podcast. With me, say I'm happy to have on for the first time from Avery and Co. Sean Emory. Sean, how's it going? What's going on, man? Thanks for you having me on today. It is super excited. And 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, remind 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 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 tell us whenever you can get out the way. It's clear security. The ticker there is you, why oh you? What is clear? Why are they so interesting? Yeah, straight to it. So yeah, clear secure. It's biometric identity platform. I think most of us all know. And I've seen it when you go in the airports. 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 clear. And usually they have these ambassadors trying to get you to go through these clear lanes. And most of the time you look past it. But there's that one time where you're in a rush. 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 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. And ultimately, that's what it is. It's 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 court business has historically been that a subscription business with roughly 7.2, the 7.7 million members that are actively subscribed there. And those come through different ways, which are AMX that sponsors and will pay on your behalf and refund you or other partners that exist in the ecosystem. So that's like step one. There are 60 plus airports across the country. They've manifested or moved and migrated into using, I think, their expertise and identity, which is becoming a big topic into enterprises. And we can get more into that specifically. But that's it. I mean, it's that simple. It's an airport business that works with TSA, one of the few, if any, companies that are approved, to work inside of airports. And they're moving outside the airports into enterprises. Perfect. No, that's great review. So, and again, I'm sure most listeners have taken a flight and had that thing of going through, and you're walking through and you look over, and you say, what's that thing that I really scanned in their face and and doing it? So a lot of questions here. I have always wanted to like this company. I'll reveal my biases. It is just a super unique mode. You go into the airport and there's a TSA line, and there's this. And you could imagine how white glove service, all this sort of stuff that you've got a super unique mode with this thing. But there have been a lot of questions in my mind. And we can just go through them to start. The first question that I've always had was, I remember, I, you know, I think they used to have a chase, I think they had a chase partnership. I can't remember, but they've had the AMX partnership for six or seven years. And 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's I lose the value of the service, right? If all 365 million people in the US were clear and one of that every time, well, then the TSA lines would be empty and clear would be backed up. So I was just like saying, 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. Well, 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, you know, ways to get in. So as of right now, you know, 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, you know, 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, 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 verifying me individually. From there, Idemia 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 times. - 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? - Nice add on. And on one side, kind of like what you were saying before is it's adding more people to TSA precheck. So the best thing to do with clear is actually have TSA precheck 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 they will be, 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 you know, 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 you're in some ways you're using clear as a way to get your TSA precheck. 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 option. 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 bundled solution, you're likely not going to give up your TSA precheck 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 AMX. 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, whether it's 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 or like how there's a flow through but for TSA precheck for them. And then at the same time, I think it adds value to their line relative to the other line. So they're benefiting on both sides. - Just, it's not worth it. Okay, let me go to something else. You mentioned Premiization. And this is the other area where, again, I love you. I love the idea of clear when I first started looking at it 'cause I was like, it's a unique business, right? There's no one else who's offering it. It's a unique boat, multi-air port 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 port network across the country. I just love the idea of that unique boat. And as you're saying, like travel is growing, you're a musician, but on the Premiization 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 Premiization offers. So for example, TSA starts offering faceless, or touchless TSA where you can kind of scan your identity to it. I knew Delta rolled out their premium offering where hey, you can go through security if you've got Delta, and they'll kind of face a gesture 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 if the 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 almost asymmetric way? - Yeah, obviously something we think about, one specific to the airlines, many of those airlines 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 it's 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, clear is 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 gonna have more and more of that unless of, you know, guard sitting in front of you, you know, waiting in line and it's gonna 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 pre-check, 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. - Yeah, that's kind of that in one second. But you hit on something really interesting, I just wanna 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 gonna get people through security faster, they're not gonna have to wait in line for a person to scan them or 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 destroys, 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 clear is bringing to 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 it 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 off, 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. 'Cause the other way 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, look, what, you have a critical airport, Denver, critical airport, like, clear needs them more than the airport needs clear. Now, hopefully it's a beneficial partnership where 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 five percent of your revenue. So we think we're, I don't know, let's just say $50 million, right? We're gonna need to be, we got 25 million of that 50 million last year. We're gonna need to be 30 million. Or else we just cut you out. And, you know, people have to go through Denver or a port no matter what, but you'll just lose that. I kind of always rid of 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 'cause every single airport has very different structures. And so we, I'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. fit is that all these airports for the most part are fragmented. Some of them are 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 flavors at all. A lot of it has to do, again, like you said, with throughput. So if there's more people going through, 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, standardized, kind of like more flat fees for service in that environment. And then they just pay out 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 won them back. Ultimately, I think, again, it all comes back to what are they trying to provide here? What's service? And is it making financial sense for the airport itself, number one? Is it making a better experience for the customers that 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 technology's 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 handhelds. 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, we haven't spoke about valuation, but you're talking about something that is valued in that low-double digit low-teens, let's say, 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 in these network effects with the 31 million members across the board. >> Okay, I'm going to return to valuation second, but let's go to something different. Again, I'm really interested just in you've done a great job discussing just 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. I didn't be service. Nobody's going to want that. The airport's not going to want it. And it's kind of invaluable to us. And then we go and try and take one. It's just, it's got this really unique mode that I'm so interested in because it could either be the super strong mode or very weak. Let me pause on the mode itself. I'll come back to some other race. I'll come up to this outside. We haven't even talked. Everybody knows we're talking then of March. There's the TSA stuff that's going on that's helped. I'm going to pause there and just ask you, you know, the markets are 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 scene in our 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 few. 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 they do. I don't think anyone's talking about their enterprise business. So they have 7.7, 7.2. They just did a recast on their membership totals, but they have roughly like 7.5 million paid members. And a lot of people see that. They also see that some of the things you articulated, which is airports, risks along that side, you have the idea that, you know, their relationships with something like an AMX, for example, could hinder them. Again, I can totally, it's my next question. - It's my next question. - It's a little 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 7.5 million paid members, but 31 million members overall, 31 million members, their total membership is growing, you know, 30 plus percent, their paid membership is 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, if Mount Sinai, Epic, which is, you know, the EHR platforms, Baptist Hospital here in Miami, Florida, you know, they're using. - Oscar and New Orleans. - Oscar and New Orleans, when I was looking like two days ago, they rolled out an Oscar hospital in New Orleans. I was like, oh, yeah, 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 stand 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, and 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 it? 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 reset. It's very simple. But something where you can verify yourself, and they're using clear as 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 it 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 20, you know, 4% 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, let me 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 they're basically getting security. And you can go look at anything security that, but 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 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 7.70 to 900. Like, it doesn't seem to me like there's a lot of revenue from the non-clear plus members' communities or 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 isn't alternative, right? Somebody just handed you 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 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 and it's a nice story, but it's kind of, it pales in comparison to the airport business to me. - That's 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 precheck 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 it's starting to name real deals. Now, these things tend to start off as pilots, and then they move into, you know, full production. And what you're seeing is these announcements for the most part going from pilots about it 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, that is, you know, cash machine, training at what we consider to be, you know, a cheap multiple. that's done well that we think is fragmented and someone insulated from some of these risks that we articulate. On the other side, you have right down the middle, you have TSA precheck, which is somewhat obviously connected to their airport business. I mean, it is, but in a different way. But it's also 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 the reason and rhyme and reason behind this. Or some of these paid pilots are turning into real usable opportunities for them in 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, at eight point delta of acceleration. And that's showing up in our view, 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 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, that is like the small incremental points we want to see to continue to build on that thesis outside of just the airport. No, look, I hear you. It just reminds me of times I've gotten really excited about companies that launch small growth efforts. And then two years later, I come back and I'm like, oh, well, that growth effort actually went great. But the core business didn't do as I planned. And guess when I go back and hindsight, I'm like, oh cool, the best case for the growth effort was it was worth 2% of the core business. It just seems to me like the story here is so much the airline business, like everything else is a cheer here 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. Even before that said, sorry, it's maybe they're in it. If you pull up the stock chart here, you're going to pull up the year 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 be too much, but their bookings, their guidance, everything beats like crazy. And then 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 happen 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 who've felt clear, aside from all the moat questions I've been hitting is, hey, if the government ever gets this 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 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, obviously there's the short-term, long-term ideas and thought process here, look as a firm or not, short-term oriented, like all the stuff I've been mentioning is really around the bigger thesis at hand and 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 clear is somewhat important to the travel ecosystem. And some of the demand, some of the booking data that we're tracking, and they highlighted in the quarter, I think speaks to that, right? So I think it's a, we're a long ways away from, being convinced that TSA is going to be this technology foundation that's going to build its own stuff in-house and be able to handle stuff without public private partnerships for the most part. So I'm not going to, I don't think that. So like, the reason why the number, the stock jumped really for the most part was that booking's number, you're basically, they're basically articulating, they're going to grow 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 priests, in between, you could kind of sandwich between last quarter, this quarter, in terms of some of the stuff that is happening with TSA. And so I don't think that's the biggest point there. We're tracking web traffic to their TSA, web portal and that is now second place behind idemia, which is number two. Or number one, so that they're now in number two position, in terms of just like web traffic coming to TSA pre-check for them. So I think more people want TSA pre-check to get the lines, get through it, then you also have, 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, today. And then if you take that and you think through the thesis around clear being more than airports, meaning an identity platform, I think again, even with a run up, we've owned it, we've owned it through the run up. And again, we're not patting our backs at the end of the day. Like, as you said, like tomorrow, it can fall. And so as long as that thesis is tracking, we think it's interesting. And I don't think even at this point, it commands a very high multiple because there are concerns continuing around the idea that TSA and 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 the world cup and stuff and e-gates and technology, the more embedded they are and more entrenched they are. So it's one of those things where I think the longer this last, 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 risks you're qualifying, and we're clearly worried about here is TSA, like, Stephen has, 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, there's, 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 precheck. 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 at Baptist at one point, it's just an ease of use. And then you're starting to get these micro networks locally, then you start to get the scaled out network nationally. And 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, if there was another provider right next to it, and I'm clear, 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, my own business get through the line. And when people go on the airport, they're just trying to get to the other side. So 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. They provide 26 guidance. I think they're free cash flow advantages. 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 guidance and you just have to imagine Q1's gang blusters. 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, which, you know, float as 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 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 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. - Yeah. - I mean, 26% growth. So the question is, is, you know, what's the duration of this growth cycle? And, you know, and how long is that going to stay at right? 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, right? There's operating income, there's, you know, net income for them, there's operating cash flow and there's free cash flow. You know, 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 know, you're somewhere in your mid 30s of margin structure there. And ultimately, you know, 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 or secure. At least as of today, the way it sits today, right? And we don't want to get over our skis and anticipate that. So we believe, you know, they add in Chameleon, another, you know, 800 to, you know, 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 articulate 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? Consiers that's, you know, curbed 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 that, 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%, even from these numbers. And they've been price takers here for the last year and a half. You know, on pricing, that's super, 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 talk about a TSA sucks, but you can always not pay for the clear membership, not even pay for TSA precheck, though TSA precheck's like a hundred bucks 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 and just looking at their key for 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 don't, I'm not 100% sure. - Yeah, seven X. - Yeah. - That's an annualized number actually. So it's only seven times for year. Okay, so you're paying 200 bucks 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 extra paying $200 per use to go through on the clear members, seven times like 30 seems 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 seven X, they're sure for, 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 two. And ultimately, you're 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 in consumer. You know, because you'll be holding 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, a lot of this is wrapped behind these, you know, these credit card. - That was going to be by our partnerships. - 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? 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, you know, roughly, you know, 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, you then have their, you know, they can mix and match their own, you know, card plans. And, you know, if you have these travel heavy users that are using it more frequently than the seven times, 'cause 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 gonna want to keep these number shapes, you know, with or without these plans. I'll want you to 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 increase value and the, you know, vice versa. And I think they're doing so. And I, you know, 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, but 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, you know, 20, 25% at the time, you know, 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 continue to grow. So I think there's more networks, international as well. And, you know, some of the other value added services that come in it, you know, I updated my, my passport the other day. And so in clear, you know, they have a partnership with a passport, whatever the company is, you know, it saved me, I don't know, 60 bucks, 70 bucks on my passport, Rinal. 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 ship sticks, 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 line a little bit more valuable in that scenario. So you can just raise prices on a smaller, you know, subscription membership size. And then lastly is, you know, the enterprise business, which again, I think fast forward two years from now, I think will be, you know, a decent part of their business. So last question. And this used to be the big bear case. And I think there's still some questions about it, but the MX partnership, right? I don't know if they've disclosed recently how much of their bit, how much of their member base is coming from the MX partnership, but they have this MX 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, MX is paying you, paying clear a wholesale price for the membership. A lot of their members come from MX. And for a long time, the bear case was, MX is going to cancel this partnership. Now, 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 MX. And when asked on the call, if I remember correctly, 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 MX works 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 again, this is a big piece of business. So I think it's the last risk to work the dressing. So I'll just toss that over to you. - Yeah, it's funny, because 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 MX. So look, MX for a long time was at the top of mind for prospective investors, bears, whatever. We, I would always ask about it every time I spoke with management. And, you know, net, net, the story was, look, We're working with MX. There's plenty others out there that would willingly love our business to love to, you know, be, us be part of their, you know, plan. We like MX because of the brand. We like MX 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 Robinhoods 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. And 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, you know, monetarily purposes and many other reasons, but, you know, obviously it's top of mind, but I don't, 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 AMX, like, it isn't on an, because again, you pay and you get a statement credit. So it is on all of the renews. So if you lost, I do wonder how many of those people who are hopefully using AMX would actually go and cancel their subscription, right? So that's, 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 AMX, you have chase Sapphire, right? Those are the two that are always competing. Capital one launched the ventures card and 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, you know, if you told me they went to chase Sapphire and chase Sapphire gave them better terms, like, then you're, 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 AMX partnership when they extended this time, which maybe they're being quarried, 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 the AMX kind of clawed back some wholesale pricing power from them and that that had impacts in the medium term. Oh, thanks. They gave a free cash flow guidance, which proved out again, and the third quarter of every year they do their payouts to their AMX, their partnerships. And so you can see the net effective cash outlays from that. So you get these big lump cash outflows from the cash flow statement in the third quarter of each year. And so that's a good tell of like the increase or take up in usage and of their partnerships. And that's continued to rise steadily up into the right free cash flow again for the full year is what they guided to the held in their own. So if you extrapolate their their bookings into revenue over the course of the next 12 months and 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 you know, 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 advent, 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. And it's very similar like planet finnis, you know, where people go to the gym and but they'll use it, but they continue to pay for it. You know, you could see it where ultimately, you know, they're not covered by mx, but they keep you know 30 40% of those users and migrate over and you could, you know, there's. And if you have articulated them, is there 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 widespread, 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 neo banks that are all trying to deliver perks at different price points that I think continue to prosper and I think. And you're seeing more and more of that, whether it's so far, 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. If I remember, I mean, I have a Robin could have card and I really like it and they are leaning in travel so I certainly could see that and they do have the membership moment alright two last questions actually. They've got 700 really 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 started they're going to have a capital allocation question at some point, what do you think capital allocation looks like you're going forward. So they've done historic a lot of special dividends they have a dividend actually which it look, 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 bought it out of bankruptcy absolutely. Yeah, I bought this out of bankruptcy just for the story for everyone you know listening is about that a 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 investor lens and then again capital allocation they've done a historical some tuck ins they bought a company in the finance space for KYC's 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 on board where you scan your face and maybe tap your finger and all of a sudden your 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 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 counter to do 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 time I think they've done that four times each in the realm of you know a couple of cents and then lastly you know capital allocation the form of you know small tuck ins 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 are going into itself 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 everything like they've just got a unique data set and it's kind of. It's kind of interesting to think about the monetization potential of that in the longer term though again that's probably two Galaxy brand but that it isn't. 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 sell identity even if it's again you know white labeled or you know classified as sensitive I think more importantly is that there's so many layers of I 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 of this is like second third order or effects of AI. And in about two years from now I could you and I can get on the 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 emotion and the same voice and all these other things there's avatars and zoom and they zoom their earnings calls I don't know if you saw in there the first you know airquan does it in his AI avatar and it looks and sounds you know pretty much like him. And 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. And making sure it's not somebody calling in and pretending it's them and saying, "Hey, I'm outside in the red truck." And it sounds just like me in the front, you know, a desk doesn't know or inside the hospital. And you're like, "Hey, you know, pick up." We're sitting in the patient to the third floor and it's some fake something or getting on these calls because more things are happening digitally. So there's more sensitivity to that. So my thing there is less so about the data they have, but 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 clear is going to win that, but I do think the opportunities vast for them. They're positioned with, they're reusable identity solution to do that. And I think they have the brand to do it. There's nothing more, you know, ability to sell than saying we sell to TSA and the government. No, it's three-point. And so, 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. But it's also branding when you go to a gallery 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 hip-hippock compliance, like we can be trusted. The government would not to choose a coupe. I got to go ahead, last thing. Yeah, yeah, last thing too is like, you know, if you're following the EVTOL 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 I'm thinking of a world where we're all, you know, people are taking more and more of these EVTOLs 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 spread of garbage. What I'd like to do is better track air traffic control is what I would want in that environment. Yeah, for sure. There you go. But you would, you're like smaller facilities, TSA is not going to put their representatives there. And therefore, you're going to need these e-gates and like 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 EVTOL 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 TSA to get into a helicopter right now? I don't think so now. So I would contend that if EVA is 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 any ball is going to be able to go 30 miles, 45 miles, it's not going to be able to go a thousand miles at, you know, 250 miles per hour. But I would just contend there would just be no TSA. And 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 kind of be where I think it would go. Sure, 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, you know, 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 going to still going to have the front desk, but you're going to have people identify themselves through like these e-gates and stuff to get onto the EVTALS, to get on the helicopter's, unless you're trying to again create these very, very premium experiences like some of the helicopter, you know, 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 Emory, Avery and Co. This is awesome. Really enjoyed learning, 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. Guess or the hosts may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. Please do your own work and consult a financial advisor. Thanks.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Clear Security is a biometric identity platform primarily known for its airport express lane service, bypassing TSA lines for a subscription fee (around $200/year).
  2. The company faces a growth paradox
  3. Clear generates high-margin revenue from TSA PreCheck enrollments ($20 new, $15 renewal) and benefits from partnerships like AMEX and Simon Property Group.
  4. Competition risks include airline-specific offerings (e.g., Delta’s touchless service) and TSA’s own digital ID initiatives, but Clear’s agnostic, multi-airline platform and technology partnerships (e.g., eGates) provide differentiation.
  5. Clear’s value spikes during TSA disruptions (e.g., shutdowns), as travelers seek faster security, creating potential for subscriber retention.

Summary:

Clear Security operates a biometric identity platform that offers expedited airport security lanes, functioning as a premium subscription service ($200+/year) competing with free TSA lines. S. airports and partnerships like AMEX, which sponsors memberships.

Key growth drivers include expanding into more airports/terminals, raising prices to manage lane congestion, and integrating TSA PreCheck enrollments (high-margin, $15-$20 per transaction). Clear faces inherent tensions: success depends on maintaining shorter wait times than free TSA lines, yet adding members risks congestion. It mitigates this by adding lanes, premiumizing pricing, and bundling TSA PreCheck to increase clear lane value.

, Delta) and TSA’s own digital ID projects, but Clear’s agnostic, multi-airline positioning and technology innovations like eGates—which automate security screening—offer defenses. , shutdowns) temporarily boost subscriptions, though retention depends on consistent value. Long-term, Clear may evolve into a technology provider for TSA rather than just a lane operator, leveraging its 31 million verified identities.

The company’s success hinges on balancing growth with service quality, navigating regulatory partnerships, and staying ahead of TSA’s own tech upgrades.

FAQs

Clear Security is a biometric identity platform, best known for its airport service that lets members bypass standard TSA lines using a paid subscription, typically costing around $200 per year.

Clear is a subscription business with about 7.7 million active members. Memberships are often sponsored by partners like American Express, which pay on behalf of users.

Clear can manage growth by adding more airport terminals and lines, raising prices to control throughput, and promoting TSA PreCheck enrollment to make its lanes more advantageous.

Clear is one of three approved providers for TSA PreCheck enrollment. It earns about $20 for new enrollments and $15 for renewals, with high profit margins, and offers convenient verification at airports or shopping malls.

Clear is an agnostic platform that works across multiple airlines and airports, unlike airline-specific services. This makes it more valuable for travelers who use different airlines.

TSA is slow to adopt new tech and often partners with providers like Clear. Clear's innovations, like eGates, could position it as a technology provider for TSA, rather than being replaced.

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