SunPower Q4 2025 Sunpower Corp Earnings Call | AllMind AI Earnings | AllMind AI
Q4 2025 Sunpower Corp Earnings Call
Speaker #1: Good morning. My name is Sioban Hickie. I'm VP of IR, and I would like to welcome everyone to SunPower's fourth-quarter earnings call. I will review a few housekeeping items before turning the call over to our CEO, Dr. TJ Rodgers.
Siobhan Hickie: Good morning. My name is Siobhan Hickie. I am VP of IR, and I would like to welcome everyone to SunPower's fourth quarter earnings call. I will take a few, I will review a few housekeeping items before turning the call over to our CEO, Dr. T.J. Rodgers. This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available within the events section of SunPower's investor relations website. Please note that today's presentation may contain projections and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in our statements. Also, on today's call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of any differences between those non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is available within our press release.
Siobhan Hickie: Good morning. My name is Siobhan Hickie. I am VP of IR, and I would like to welcome everyone to SunPower's fourth quarter earnings call. I will take a few, I will review a few housekeeping items before turning the call over to our CEO, Dr. T.J. Rodgers. This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available within the events section of SunPower's investor relations website. Please note that today's presentation may contain projections and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in our statements. Also, on today's call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of any differences between those non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is available within our press release.
Speaker #1: This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available within the Events section of SunPower's Investor Relations website. Please note that today's presentation may contain projections and other forward-looking statements.
Speaker #1: These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in our statements.
Speaker #1: Also, on today's call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of any differences between those non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is available within our press release.
Lastly, we will hold a question-and-answer session after the end of formal remarks today. For those watching via the webcast, you may submit a written question at any time via the submission box located on the right-hand side of your screen.
Siobhan Hickie: Lastly, we will hold a question-and-answer session after the end of formal remarks today. For those watching via the webcast, you may submit a written question at any time via the submission box located on the right-hand side of your screen. I will now turn the call over to Dr. T.J. Rodgers, SunPower's Chairman and CEO.
Lastly, we will hold a question-and-answer session after the end of formal remarks today. For those watching via the webcast, you may submit a written question at any time via the submission box located on the right-hand side of your screen. I will now turn the call over to Dr. T.J. Rodgers, SunPower's Chairman and CEO.
Speaker #1: I will now turn the call over to Dr. TJ Rodgers, SunPower's Chairman and CEO.
Speaker #2: Good morning. We have some guests here today. First, we have John Berg, many introduced later. And we have two directors of SunPower, Dan McCranie and Will Anderson, both of whom I have slides to introduce.
T.J. Rodgers: Morning. We have some guests here today. First, we have John Berger. I'm going to introduce later. We have two directors of SunPower, Dan McCranie, and Will Anderson, both of whom I have slides to introduce. Let me get right into it. Our logo is the Helios airplane. It had 35,000 watts of SunPower solar cells on it back when it flew under its own power, takeoff 92,000 feet, an unbroken record. I'll relate to one more aspect of this airplane today. You notice this reflection here. That reflection means that the bottom side of this wing is clear plastic.
T.J. Rodgers: Morning. We have some guests here today. First, we have John Berger. I'm going to introduce later. We have two directors of SunPower, Dan McCranie, and Will Anderson, both of whom I have slides to introduce. Let me get right into it. Our logo is the Helios airplane. It had 35,000 watts of SunPower solar cells on it back when it flew under its own power, takeoff 92,000 feet, an unbroken record. I'll relate to one more aspect of this airplane today. You notice this reflection here. That reflection means that the bottom side of this wing is clear plastic.
Speaker #2: So let me get right into it. Our logo is the Helios airplane. It had 35,000 watts of SunPower solar cells on it back when it flew under its own power.
Speaker #2: Takeoff, 92,000 feet. And unbroken record. I'll relate to one more aspect of this airplane today. You notice this reflection here. That reflection means that the bottom side of the swing is clear plastic.
Speaker #2: So this wing, if you looked at it, you can look right through it, and you see the struts and clear plastic on one side and the solar panels on the other side.
T.J. Rodgers: So this wing, if you looked at it, you can look right through it, and you see the struts and clear plastic on one side and the solar panels on the other side, meaning all the light coming from down here can come in the bottom of the wing and add power. And that's what's called bifacial. That is, the cells accept energy from either side. I'll talk about that later. Dan McCranie, I introduced to you, very short introduction. He's been on 10 NASDAQ boards. That's what he did. After he left Cypress Semiconductor, he ran VP of marketing sales. And he was the chairman of both halves of Motorola when they split up into Freescale and ON. And he was on the Cypress board as well. He's also run SEEQ Technology, which was a spinout of Intel in non-volatile memories. Will Anderson is on the far side.
So this wing, if you looked at it, you can look right through it, and you see the struts and clear plastic on one side and the solar panels on the other side, meaning all the light coming from down here can come in the bottom of the wing and add power. And that's what's called bifacial. That is, the cells accept energy from either side. I'll talk about that later. Dan McCranie, I introduced to you, very short introduction. He's been on 10 NASDAQ boards. That's what he did. After he left Cypress Semiconductor, he ran VP of marketing sales. And he was the chairman of both halves of Motorola when they split up into Freescale and ON. And he was on the Cypress board as well. He's also run SEEQ Technology, which was a spinout of Intel in non-volatile memories. Will Anderson is on the far side.
Speaker #2: Meaning all the light coming from down here can come in the bottom of the wing and add power. And that's what's called bifacial. That is, the cells accept energy from either side.
Speaker #2: I'll talk about that later. Dan McCranie, I introduced to you—very short introduction. He's been on 10 NASDAQ boards. That's what he did after he left Cypress Semiconductor; he ran VP of Marketing and Sales.
Speaker #2: And he was the Chairman of both halves of Motorola when they split up into Freescale and on. And he was on the Cypress board as well.
Speaker #2: He's also run Seek Technology, which is the spinout of Intel in non-volatile memories. Will Anderson is on the far side. He's MIT, MBA Stanford, MBA, credentialed guy.
T.J. Rodgers: He's MIT, Stanford MBA credentialed guy. He's been on the SunPower board since 2010. And he was actually the founder and CEO of Complete Solar, the company which acquired SunPower under the SunPower name. Now he's on our board. And he's a glutton for punishment. He's got another startup called Same-Day Solar, and he's learning how to do financing. So if that works out, that may be a way for us to get into that business, which we're not in right now. Okay. I showed you the slide before, and I'm showing it again because I think it's cool. This is a picture of the Helios flying at 80,000 feet. Curve of the Earth clearly above the atmosphere, unbridled sun coming right in. Of course, that means more energy. And I did a little engineering work since last time you saw this.
He's MIT, Stanford MBA credentialed guy. He's been on the SunPower board since 2010. And he was actually the founder and CEO of Complete Solar, the company which acquired SunPower under the SunPower name. Now he's on our board. And he's a glutton for punishment. He's got another startup called Same-Day Solar, and he's learning how to do financing. So if that works out, that may be a way for us to get into that business, which we're not in right now. Okay. I showed you the slide before, and I'm showing it again because I think it's cool. This is a picture of the Helios flying at 80,000 feet. Curve of the Earth clearly above the atmosphere, unbridled sun coming right in. Of course, that means more energy. And I did a little engineering work since last time you saw this.
Speaker #2: He's been on the SunPower board since 2010. And he was actually the founder and CEO of Complete Solar, the company which acquired SunPower and the SunPower name. Now he's on our board.
Speaker #2: And he's a button for punishment. He's got another startup called SameDay Solar. And he's learning how to do financing. So if that works out, that may be a way for us to get into that business, which we're not in right now.
Speaker #2: Okay. I showed you the slide before, and I'm showing you again because I think it's cool. This is a picture of the Helios flying at 80,000 feet.
Speaker #2: Curve of the Earth, clearly above the atmosphere, unbridled sun coming right in. Of course, that means more energy. And I did a little engineering work since last time you saw this.
Speaker #2: At 80,000 feet, atmospheric pressure is down to 0.4 pounds per square inch from 14.7 PSI at sea level. And okay, what does that mean?
T.J. Rodgers: At 80,000 feet, atmospheric pressure is down to 0.4 pounds per square inch from 14.7 PSI at sea level. And okay, what does that mean? Well, here, obviously, you can't breathe, but there's more than that. The boiling point of water at sea level is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and the boiling point of water at that pressure is 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Said another way, if your body's at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, your body temperature is enough to boil your blood. Hence, if you fly in one of these airplanes, you have to wear a spacesuit. And this is my favorite of all the pictures. You can see completely sealed up oxygen. They'll run 4.7 pounds of oxygen, which is partial pressure that you get on Earth. And I really like this one. And this airplane can stay up forever because it has batteries in it.
At 80,000 feet, atmospheric pressure is down to 0.4 pounds per square inch from 14.7 PSI at sea level. And okay, what does that mean? Well, here, obviously, you can't breathe, but there's more than that. The boiling point of water at sea level is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and the boiling point of water at that pressure is 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Said another way, if your body's at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, your body temperature is enough to boil your blood. Hence, if you fly in one of these airplanes, you have to wear a spacesuit. And this is my favorite of all the pictures. You can see completely sealed up oxygen. They'll run 4.7 pounds of oxygen, which is partial pressure that you get on Earth. And I really like this one. And this airplane can stay up forever because it has batteries in it.
Speaker #2: Well, here, obviously, you can’t breathe. But there’s more than that. The boiling point of water at sea level is 212°F, and the boiling point of water at that pressure is 59°F.
Speaker #2: Said another way, if your body's at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, your body temperature is enough to boil your blood. Hence, if you fly in one of these airplanes, you have to wear a spacesuit.
Speaker #2: And this is my favorite of all the pictures. You can see, completely sealed up, oxygen. They'll run in 4.7 pounds of oxygen, which is the partial pressure that you get on Earth.
Speaker #2: And I really like this one. And this airplane can stay up forever, because it has batteries in it. This is a report we put out this morning, early.
T.J. Rodgers: This is a report we put out early this morning. Record financials. I'll talk about that. We have two acquisitions I'll mention. We just signed a $55 million equity line of credit. I'll go through this in detail on the next page. The main points are our revenue set a record of $88.5 million, up from $70 million last quarter. The main thing is that we have two new acquisitions, Sunder, which contributed a full quarter of revenue, and Ambia, a partial quarter. Our operating income for the new SunPower is a record of $3.5 million. That's only 4% of revenue. Our target is to get the operating income to 10%. Our ending cash balance was $9.3 million, up from $5.1 million in the prior quarter. I already mentioned this, but we increased our equity line of credit with White Lion Capital.
This is a report we put out early this morning. Record financials. I'll talk about that. We have two acquisitions I'll mention. We just signed a $55 million equity line of credit. I'll go through this in detail on the next page. The main points are our revenue set a record of $88.5 million, up from $70 million last quarter. The main thing is that we have two new acquisitions, Sunder, which contributed a full quarter of revenue, and Ambia, a partial quarter. Our operating income for the new SunPower is a record of $3.5 million. That's only 4% of revenue. Our target is to get the operating income to 10%. Our ending cash balance was $9.3 million, up from $5.1 million in the prior quarter. I already mentioned this, but we increased our equity line of credit with White Lion Capital.
Speaker #2: Record financials. I'll talk about that. We have two acquisitions I'll mention. And we just signed a $55 million equity line of credit. I'll go through this in detail on the next page.
Speaker #2: The main points are our revenue set a record of $88.5 million, up from $70 million last quarter. The main thing is that we have two new acquisitions: Sunder, which contributed a full quarter of revenue, and Amby, a partial quarter.
Speaker #2: Our operating income is, for the new SunPower, a record of $3.5 million. That's only 4% of revenue. Our target is to get operating income to 10%.
Speaker #2: And our ending cash balance was $9.3 million, up from $5.1 million in the prior quarter. And we already mentioned this, but we increased our equity line of credit with White Line Capital.
Speaker #2: That's our vendor in Southern California to $55 million on January 11th. It's now signed. And the shareholders have to approve it because it's an equity transaction.
T.J. Rodgers: That's our vendor in Southern California to $55 million on 11 January. It's now signed, and the shareholders have to approve it because it's an equity transaction. We've got a shareholder meeting coming up. A little bit of details. These are abbreviated preliminary financials. I don't expect them to change a lot, but I've limited to the key numbers that investors want to see based on my experience. So on the Non-GAAP side over here, we jumped 26 quarter-on-quarter revenue to $88.5 million. On the gross margin, we had exceptional gross margin because we cleaned up some old backlog that we bought from SunPower. And the reason I put base 38% is to say that's our normal fall-through gross margin. I urge you not to change models and put in some giant numbers which are unmakeable in the long haul.
That's our vendor in Southern California to $55 million on 11 January. It's now signed, and the shareholders have to approve it because it's an equity transaction. We've got a shareholder meeting coming up. A little bit of details. These are abbreviated preliminary financials. I don't expect them to change a lot, but I've limited to the key numbers that investors want to see based on my experience. So on the Non-GAAP side over here, we jumped 26 quarter-on-quarter revenue to $88.5 million. On the gross margin, we had exceptional gross margin because we cleaned up some old backlog that we bought from SunPower. And the reason I put base 38% is to say that's our normal fall-through gross margin. I urge you not to change models and put in some giant numbers which are unmakeable in the long haul.
Speaker #2: We've got a shareholder meeting coming up. A little bit of details. These are abbreviated, preliminary financials. I don't expect them to change a lot, but I've limited to the key numbers that investors want to see based on my experience.
Speaker #2: So on the non-GAAP side over here, we jumped 26% quarter on quarter, revenue at $88.5 million. On the gross margin, we had exceptional gross margin because we cleaned up some old backlog that we bought from SunPower.
Speaker #2: And the reason I put base 38% is to say that's our normal fall-through gross margin. I'd urge you not to change models and put in some giant numbers, which are unmakeable in the long haul.
Speaker #2: And then I'll point out that our OPEX went up only 8.5% quarter on quarter. And by the way, we're working on that. That can get better yet.
T.J. Rodgers: Then I'll point out that our OPEX went up only 8.5% quarter-on-quarter. By the way, we're working on that. That can get better yet. That left us with a record profit of $3.545 million, up from $2 million last quarter. We also added $4.3 million in cash. This did not include any money from the ELOC I mentioned. This was the "natural quarter" that we had. This is a graph of our operating income. So it shows time before acquisition, time after acquisition, $0 here, massive loss for the three components of what now calls SunPower, one quarter of loss, and then now four quarters of profit, including a record profit this quarter. We came out of the, this is a revenue sort of a footnote. We came out of SunPower acquisition with about $80 million a quarter in revenue, $320 million run rate.
Then I'll point out that our OPEX went up only 8.5% quarter-on-quarter. By the way, we're working on that. That can get better yet. That left us with a record profit of $3.545 million, up from $2 million last quarter. We also added $4.3 million in cash. This did not include any money from the ELOC I mentioned. This was the "natural quarter" that we had. This is a graph of our operating income. So it shows time before acquisition, time after acquisition, $0 here, massive loss for the three components of what now calls SunPower, one quarter of loss, and then now four quarters of profit, including a record profit this quarter. We came out of the, this is a revenue sort of a footnote. We came out of SunPower acquisition with about $80 million a quarter in revenue, $320 million run rate.
Speaker #2: That left us with a record profit of $3,545 million, up from $2 million last quarter. We also added $4.3 million in cash. This did not include any money from the ELOC I mentioned.
Speaker #2: This was the quote natural quarter that we had. This is a graph of our operating income. So it shows time before acquisition, time after acquisition, zero here, massive loss for the three components of what’s now called SunPower.
Speaker #2: One quarter of loss, and then now four quarters of profit—including a record profit this quarter. We came out of the—this is a revenue, sort of a footnote.
Speaker #2: We came out of the SunPower acquisition with about $80 million a quarter in revenue, $320 million in run rate. The record was set in the second quarter.
T.J. Rodgers: The record was set in Q2. We got the bad news of the ITC cut in Q2, and our revenue dropped precipitously, but we were ahead of it with cost cutting, and we actually made almost the same profit on a lot less revenue. We recovered in Q3 a little bit to $70 million for revenue. This number, when I first showed it to you 91 days ago, was $3.123 million, and it was a record. We chose because we had a lot of aged backlog that we inherited from SunPower, now completely collected, I might add. But at that time, we had aged backlog. We took $1.1 million out of this number and stuffed it into reserves. So we have reserves in the $8 million range.
The record was set in Q2. We got the bad news of the ITC cut in Q2, and our revenue dropped precipitously, but we were ahead of it with cost cutting, and we actually made almost the same profit on a lot less revenue. We recovered in Q3 a little bit to $70 million for revenue. This number, when I first showed it to you 91 days ago, was $3.123 million, and it was a record. We chose because we had a lot of aged backlog that we inherited from SunPower, now completely collected, I might add. But at that time, we had aged backlog. We took $1.1 million out of this number and stuffed it into reserves. So we have reserves in the $8 million range.
Speaker #2: We got the bad news of the ITC cut in the second quarter. And our revenue dropped precipitously, but we were ahead of it with cost-cutting.
Speaker #2: And we actually made almost the same profit on a lot less revenue. We recovered in the third quarter a little bit, up to $70 million of revenue.
Speaker #2: This number, when I first showed it to you 91 days ago, was 3.123 million. And it was a record. We chose it because we had a lot of aged backlog that we inherited from SunPower.
Speaker #2: Now completely collected, I might add. But at that time, we had aged backlog. We took a million one out of this number and stuffed it into reserves.
Speaker #2: So we have reserves in the $8 million range, where we've been getting our reserves so we can have some sort of hiccup in the future and not trash our earnings.
T.J. Rodgers: We've been getting our reserves so we can have some sort of hiccup in the future and not trash our earnings. The quarter we're in now, it's 88.5, primarily a large growth due to the acquisitions just starting to kick in. And that led record revenue to record profit. For the next quarter, I've got a conservative estimate here where, by the way, this shows the acquisitions, Sunder, Ambia, and Cobalt. I'll talk about each of them later. I went down 4.4% in the estimate, and the profit is commensurate with that. That's conservative. We believe we can make that number. But this quarter is typically the bad quarter for solar, the winter quarter, and we're deployed in the north. And then you've got the ITC uncertainty.
We've been getting our reserves so we can have some sort of hiccup in the future and not trash our earnings. The quarter we're in now, it's 88.5, primarily a large growth due to the acquisitions just starting to kick in. And that led record revenue to record profit. For the next quarter, I've got a conservative estimate here where, by the way, this shows the acquisitions, Sunder, Ambia, and Cobalt. I'll talk about each of them later. I went down 4.4% in the estimate, and the profit is commensurate with that. That's conservative. We believe we can make that number. But this quarter is typically the bad quarter for solar, the winter quarter, and we're deployed in the north. And then you've got the ITC uncertainty.
Speaker #2: The quarter we're in now, it's 88.5, primarily a large growth due to the startups just starting, to the acquisitions just starting to kick in.
Speaker #2: And that led record revenue to record profit. For the next quarter, I've got a conservative estimate here. By the way, this shows the acquisitions: Sunder, Amby, and Cobalt.
Speaker #2: I'll talk about each of them later. I went down 4.4% in the estimate, and the profit is commensurate with that. That's conservative. We believe we can make that number.
Speaker #2: But this quarter is typically the bad quarter for solar—the winter quarter. And we're deployed in the north. And then you've got the ITC uncertainty.
Speaker #2: So this will still be our second-best quarter ever, even in the uncertain, perfect storm quarter of Q1 '26. Okay, it was our fourth consecutive profitable quarter.
T.J. Rodgers: So this will still be our second-best quarter ever, even in the uncertain, it's a perfect storm quarter of Q1 2026. Okay, it was our fourth consecutive profitable quarter. So our whole year was profitable. That comes off of four consecutive years that the prior SunPower, a different company, did not make money. Our Q4 2025 revenue and operating income were both records. Our 2025 revenue totaled $308.8 million. So we managed to hold the revenue and not lose it. There are factors that can cause you to lose revenue in our business. I'll talk about that later. With a profit. And that included a loss of this profit of $1.1 million in bad debt reserve we took last quarter. Our Q1 2026 revenue is expected to be $84 million, and I say it's highly uncertain. I'm pretty sure of the 84, but I put some slack in the writing.
So this will still be our second-best quarter ever, even in the uncertain, it's a perfect storm quarter of Q1 2026. Okay, it was our fourth consecutive profitable quarter. So our whole year was profitable. That comes off of four consecutive years that the prior SunPower, a different company, did not make money. Our Q4 2025 revenue and operating income were both records. Our 2025 revenue totaled $308.8 million. So we managed to hold the revenue and not lose it. There are factors that can cause you to lose revenue in our business. I'll talk about that later. With a profit. And that included a loss of this profit of $1.1 million in bad debt reserve we took last quarter. Our Q1 2026 revenue is expected to be $84 million, and I say it's highly uncertain. I'm pretty sure of the 84, but I put some slack in the writing.
Speaker #2: So our whole year was profitable. That comes off of four consecutive years that the prior SunPower, different company, did not make money. Our Q4 '25 revenue and operating income were both records.
Speaker #2: Our 2025 revenue totaled $308.8 million, so we managed to hold the revenue and not lose it. And there are factors that can cause you to lose revenue in our business.
Speaker #2: I'll talk about that later, with a profit. And that included a loss of this profit of $1.1 million in bad debt reserve we took last quarter.
Speaker #2: Our Q1 '26 revenue is expected to be $84 million. And I say this is highly uncertain. I’m pretty sure of the $84 million, but I put some slack in the writing.
Speaker #2: Our Q1 '26 operating income is expected to be positive. That's the main event. And if we make it through Q1 with a positive income, we're going to make it through 2026.
T.J. Rodgers: Our Q1 2026 operating income is expected to be positive. That's the main event. If we make it through Q1 with positive income, we're going to make it through 2026. I'm going to say one thing about marketing. This is the Energy Information Administration, sort of one of the official places to get data. This is United States residential solar penetration. So it says that in the United States, we currently, as of 2024, this report, we're 5.6% penetrated, up from 3.7% in 2020. And then here you can see in the west, the sunny west in California, where green is in big time. The penetrations are higher. Even then, the highest penetration on the list is 15.5%. Point is, I don't think about the market as being competitive like I used to with chips. Don't worry about my competitor.
Our Q1 2026 operating income is expected to be positive. That's the main event. If we make it through Q1 with positive income, we're going to make it through 2026. I'm going to say one thing about marketing. This is the Energy Information Administration, sort of one of the official places to get data. This is United States residential solar penetration. So it says that in the United States, we currently, as of 2024, this report, we're 5.6% penetrated, up from 3.7% in 2020. And then here you can see in the west, the sunny west in California, where green is in big time. The penetrations are higher. Even then, the highest penetration on the list is 15.5%. Point is, I don't think about the market as being competitive like I used to with chips. Don't worry about my competitor.
Speaker #2: I'm going to say one thing about marketing. This is the Energy Information Agency, sort of one of the official places to get data. This is United States residential solar penetration.
Speaker #2: So, it says that in the United States, we are currently, as of 2024 in this report, 5.6% penetrated, up from 3.7% in 2020. And then here you can see in the West, the sunny West in California, where green is in big time, the penetrations are higher.
Speaker #2: But even then, the highest penetration on the list is 15.5%. Point is, I don't think about the market as being competitive like I used to with chips.
Speaker #2: Don't worry about my competitor. It's got a RAM cheaper than mine, or a processor with more megaflops per milliwatt—don't think about any of that.
T.J. Rodgers: It's got a RAM cheaper than mine or a processor with more megaflops per milliwatt. Don't think about any of that. The market here is an ocean, infinite. And when you throw your cork in the ocean, it doesn't cause somebody else's cork to go up or down. It's just there to be taken. And that's why I am not going to talk at all about ITC and speculate on rates going up and down because this is an exponential growth curve. And the reason it is, is there. Today, 94.6%, 100% minus that, of qualifying homes do not yet have solar. And the price of solar, your competitor is incompetent. The price of solar goes up. The price of electricity goes up every year, and it goes up faster than the index, than any inflation index. So your competitor is giving you business.
It's got a RAM cheaper than mine or a processor with more megaflops per milliwatt. Don't think about any of that. The market here is an ocean, infinite. And when you throw your cork in the ocean, it doesn't cause somebody else's cork to go up or down. It's just there to be taken. And that's why I am not going to talk at all about ITC and speculate on rates going up and down because this is an exponential growth curve. And the reason it is, is there. Today, 94.6%, 100% minus that, of qualifying homes do not yet have solar. And the price of solar, your competitor is incompetent. The price of solar goes up. The price of electricity goes up every year, and it goes up faster than the index, than any inflation index. So your competitor is giving you business.
Speaker #2: The market here is an ocean. Infinite. And when you throw your cork in the ocean, it doesn't cause somebody else's cork to go up or down.
Speaker #2: It's just there to be taken. And that's why I am not going to talk at all about ITC and speculate on rates going up and down, because this is an exponential growth curve.
Speaker #2: And the reason it is, is there. Today, 94.6%—100% minus that—of qualifying homes do not yet have solar. And the price of solar—your competitor is incompetent.
Speaker #2: The price of solar goes up, the price of electricity goes up every year, and it goes up faster than the index, than any inflation index.
Speaker #2: So your competitor is giving you business, so stop thinking about do you have a hiccup, what happens with a dislocation in the market. Stop thinking about that and go take some market share.
T.J. Rodgers: So stop thinking about, do you have a hiccup? What happens with the dislocation in the market? Stop thinking about that and go take some market share. That's where my head is. This is a graph of acquisition-related increases in our sales rep headcount. So in the solar business, we talk about 1099s, meaning in the IRS, they're 1099s, meaning they're independent contractors. They don't work for us. We can't give them orders. We can't force them to domicile somewhere. And they can quit at will. And the fact is, in the 1099 world, oftentimes people will go to a different company, and you'll find out about it later. So these are our reps. And the name of the game here is since you don't pay for them, you pay them only commission. They're only incremental costs, big incremental costs, but only incremental costs.
So stop thinking about, do you have a hiccup? What happens with the dislocation in the market? Stop thinking about that and go take some market share. That's where my head is. This is a graph of acquisition-related increases in our sales rep headcount. So in the solar business, we talk about 1099s, meaning in the IRS, they're 1099s, meaning they're independent contractors. They don't work for us. We can't give them orders. We can't force them to domicile somewhere. And they can quit at will. And the fact is, in the 1099 world, oftentimes people will go to a different company, and you'll find out about it later. So these are our reps. And the name of the game here is since you don't pay for them, you pay them only commission. They're only incremental costs, big incremental costs, but only incremental costs.
Speaker #2: That's where my head is. This is a graph of acquisition-related increases in our sales rep headcount. So in the solar business, we talk about 1099s—meaning, in the IRS, they're 1099s, meaning they're independent contractors.
Speaker #2: They don't work for us. We can't give them orders. We can't force them to domicile somewhere. And they can quit at will. And the fact is, in the 1099 world, oftentimes people will go to a different company and you'll find out about it later.
Speaker #2: So, these are our reps. And the name of the game here is, since you don't pay for them—you pay them only commission—they're only incremental cost. Big incremental cost, but only incremental cost.
Speaker #2: You get as many as you can. Okay, so now we go back to the beginning of this year. We had 1,126 reps. They all came from old SunPower.
T.J. Rodgers: You get as many as you can. Okay, so now we go back to the beginning of this year. We had 1,126 reps. They all came from Old SunPower. Old SunPower was in the process of a strong decline because Old SunPower went bankrupt. A lot of the guys decided to head for the road and find a new home at that time. In Q3, we announced Sunder. Sunder was, in my mind, the most important sales company in Salt Lake. That's Solar Valley, Salt Lake City, Utah. We brought on, we more than doubled our sales force. Now, you notice here, while this sales force was declining in Q3, the Sunder sales force actually grew.
You get as many as you can. Okay, so now we go back to the beginning of this year. We had 1,126 reps. They all came from Old SunPower. Old SunPower was in the process of a strong decline because Old SunPower went bankrupt. A lot of the guys decided to head for the road and find a new home at that time. In Q3, we announced Sunder. Sunder was, in my mind, the most important sales company in Salt Lake. That's Solar Valley, Salt Lake City, Utah. We brought on, we more than doubled our sales force. Now, you notice here, while this sales force was declining in Q3, the Sunder sales force actually grew.
Speaker #2: And old SunPower was in the process of a strong decline because the old SunPower went bankrupt. And a lot of the guys decided to head for the road and find a new home at that time.
Speaker #2: In Q3, we announced Sunder. Sunder was, in my mind, the most important sales company in Salt Lake. And that's a solar valley—Salt Lake, Utah.
Speaker #2: And we brought on more than doubled our sales force. Now, you notice here, while this sales force was declining, in Q3, the Sunder sales force actually grew.
Speaker #2: So, when Eric Nielsen took over and started running sales—right, better than me for sure—then the 1099s decided it was in their interest to kind of work for us.
T.J. Rodgers: So when Eric Nielsen took over and started running sales, right, better than me for sure, then the 1099s decided it was in their interest to come to work for us. So this number has actually been growing. Then in Q4, we announced Ambia. And Ambia added 203 salespeople, and they're still with us. This is a snapshot on today so I could give you where we are now. And then we've never announced this, but another company in Salt Lake went bankrupt. It's called PureLight. It had 350 sales reps that were generally considered to be really top-notch. So we created a program to bring them in, talk about it later. And we hired them. So I didn't put this on any of the financials because they're 1099s. We have now more 1099s working for us, and these guys are pretty good.
So when Eric Nielsen took over and started running sales, right, better than me for sure, then the 1099s decided it was in their interest to come to work for us. So this number has actually been growing. Then in Q4, we announced Ambia. And Ambia added 203 salespeople, and they're still with us. This is a snapshot on today so I could give you where we are now. And then we've never announced this, but another company in Salt Lake went bankrupt. It's called PureLight. It had 350 sales reps that were generally considered to be really top-notch. So we created a program to bring them in, talk about it later. And we hired them. So I didn't put this on any of the financials because they're 1099s. We have now more 1099s working for us, and these guys are pretty good.
Speaker #2: So this number has actually been growing. Then in Q4, we announced Amby. And Amby added 203 salespeople, and they're still with us. This is a snapshot of today.
Speaker #2: So I could give you where we are now. And then we've never announced this, but another company in Salt Lake went bankrupt. It's called Pure Light.
Speaker #2: It had 350 sales reps that were generally considered to be really top-notch. So we created a program to bring them in, talk about it later.
Speaker #2: And we hired them. So I didn't put this on any of the financials because they're 1099s. We have now more 1099s working for us.
Speaker #2: And these guys are pretty good. And the fact is, the results they're producing so far are pretty impressive. So bottom line, we've gone from 1,100 to 2,000—rounded off, almost double—in our sales rep headcount.
T.J. Rodgers: The fact is, the results they're producing so far are pretty impressive. So bottom line, we've gone from 1,100 to 2,000, rounded out, almost double in our sales rep headcount. Having said that, there's another headcount that matters and matters in a different way. This is our direct employee headcount, piece we call W-2. So it's at work for us, and we pay them to standard employees. That needs to stay stable because when this goes up to a first order, directly proportional, your cost going up and your gross profit going down. So this thing goes all the way back to Q3 2024, back in that massive loss quarter I showed you earlier. You can see why there was massive losses. The combined companies had 3,499 employees. We used the ARC strategy and said we could handle 1,225 on the ARC.
The fact is, the results they're producing so far are pretty impressive. So bottom line, we've gone from 1,100 to 2,000, rounded out, almost double in our sales rep headcount. Having said that, there's another headcount that matters and matters in a different way. This is our direct employee headcount, piece we call W-2. So it's at work for us, and we pay them to standard employees. That needs to stay stable because when this goes up to a first order, directly proportional, your cost going up and your gross profit going down. So this thing goes all the way back to Q3 2024, back in that massive loss quarter I showed you earlier. You can see why there was massive losses. The combined companies had 3,499 employees. We used the ARC strategy and said we could handle 1,225 on the ARC.
Speaker #2: Having said that, there's another headcount that matters, and matters in a different way. This is our direct employee headcount, the piece we call W2. So it's a workforce, and we pay them as standard employees.
Speaker #2: That needs to stay stable, because when this goes up, it's a first-order, directly proportional to your cost going up and your gross profit going down.
Speaker #2: So this thing goes all the way back to Q3 '24, back in that massive loss quarter I showed you earlier. You can see why there were massive losses.
Speaker #2: The combined companies had 3,400 and 99 employees. We used the ARC strategy and put—we said we can handle 1,225 on the ARC. And we achieved that by the fourth quarter of the year before last.
T.J. Rodgers: We achieved that by Q4 of the year before last. Then we tightened our target to 980, and we achieved that. Now we're in the game of acquiring and acquiring, acquiring and acquiring. So we've pushed up a little bit. We actually were down here, but then we pushed up. Ambia had a bunch of direct employees because they were a real company with EPC and real meat in that company. Now we've started using synergy where we have two of this and two of that to cut down, and we're back down to 847. The goal is still to get to 820 after having absorbed the best people from three companies. All of the sales reps that want to work for us, plus the best of the other W-2 people using synergy to use the best of decision, who stays and who doesn't.
We achieved that by Q4 of the year before last. Then we tightened our target to 980, and we achieved that. Now we're in the game of acquiring and acquiring, acquiring and acquiring. So we've pushed up a little bit. We actually were down here, but then we pushed up. Ambia had a bunch of direct employees because they were a real company with EPC and real meat in that company. Now we've started using synergy where we have two of this and two of that to cut down, and we're back down to 847. The goal is still to get to 820 after having absorbed the best people from three companies. All of the sales reps that want to work for us, plus the best of the other W-2 people using synergy to use the best of decision, who stays and who doesn't.
Speaker #2: Then we tightened our target to 980, and we achieved that. And now we're in the game of acquiring and acquiring and acquiring, so we've pushed up a little bit.
Speaker #2: We actually were down here, but then we pushed up. Amby had a bunch of direct employees because they were real companies with EPC and real meat in that company.
Speaker #2: And now we've started using Synergy, where we have two of this and two of that to cut down. And we're back down to 847.
Speaker #2: The goal is still to get to 820 after having absorbed the best people from three companies—all of the sales reps that want to work for us, plus the best of the other W-2 people. Using Synergy to make the best decisions about who stays and who doesn't.
Speaker #2: Okay, if you then hold your headcount constant and grow to record revenue, then our overarching metric is revenue per employee per year. And this is a relatively crude metric, but it's not that bad.
T.J. Rodgers: Okay, if you then hold your headcount constant and grow to record revenue, then our overarching metric is revenue per employee per year. And this is a relatively crude metric, but it's not that bad. You just think somewhere between $70,000 and $78,000 a year for the average employee in solar. Multiply that, and you got a cost. And take your headcount, and you've got a major part of your cost. Furthermore, everybody has other expenses. Okay, so we came out in Q1 at $285,000. We lost money that quarter. We cut our expenses that quarter. So I'm going to tell you that this number right here, $285,000 per employee per year, is our break-even level. It wasn't in this quarter, but it is now. Then we jumped up to $360,000. Times are flying high.
Okay, if you then hold your headcount constant and grow to record revenue, then our overarching metric is revenue per employee per year. And this is a relatively crude metric, but it's not that bad. You just think somewhere between $70,000 and $78,000 a year for the average employee in solar. Multiply that, and you got a cost. And take your headcount, and you've got a major part of your cost. Furthermore, everybody has other expenses. Okay, so we came out in Q1 at $285,000. We lost money that quarter. We cut our expenses that quarter. So I'm going to tell you that this number right here, $285,000 per employee per year, is our break-even level. It wasn't in this quarter, but it is now. Then we jumped up to $360,000. Times are flying high.
Speaker #2: Just think, you just think somewhere between $70,000 and $78,000 a year for the average employee in solar. Multiply that and you got a cost.
Speaker #2: And take your headcount and you've got a major part of your cost, furthermore, everybody adds other expenses. Okay, so we came out in the first quarter at 285,000.
Speaker #2: We lost money that quarter. We cut our expenses that quarter. So I'm going to tell you that this number right here, $285,000 per employee per year, is our break-even level.
Speaker #2: It wasn't in this quarter, but it is now. Then we jumped up to 360 times our flying high. Then we got clobbered, with revenue going down.
T.J. Rodgers: Then we got clobbered with revenue going down, and we stayed at $304,000. That's a make a little bit of money level. Then we climbed to $337,000 last quarter. And this quarter, we're setting a record. First time we've been over $400,000 per employee per year. So there's Sunder coming in, and there's Ambia coming in. And those companies brought in more salespeople in sales than they brought in people. Therefore, revenue per employee went up in each case. I'm comparing to Sunrun because I admire them. If you take their revenue of $240 billion and 1,105 employees, these are published numbers, you get $217,000. Not a completely fair comparison because they also run utilities, right? They keep their jobs. They don't sell them like we do to some other financial company or the owner of a house.
Then we got clobbered with revenue going down, and we stayed at $304,000. That's a make a little bit of money level. Then we climbed to $337,000 last quarter. And this quarter, we're setting a record. First time we've been over $400,000 per employee per year. So there's Sunder coming in, and there's Ambia coming in. And those companies brought in more salespeople in sales than they brought in people. Therefore, revenue per employee went up in each case. I'm comparing to Sunrun because I admire them. If you take their revenue of $240 billion and 1,105 employees, these are published numbers, you get $217,000. Not a completely fair comparison because they also run utilities, right? They keep their jobs. They don't sell them like we do to some other financial company or the owner of a house.
Speaker #2: And we stayed at 304. That's a make a little bit of money. Level. Then we climbed to 337 last quarter. And this quarter we're setting a record first time we've been over 400,000 per employee per year.
Speaker #2: So there's Sunder coming in, and there's Amby coming in. And those companies brought in more salespeople and sales than they brought in people. Therefore, revenue per employee went up in each case.
Speaker #2: I'm comparing to SunRun because I admire them. If you take their revenue of $240 billion and 11,058 employees—these are published numbers—you get 217,000.
Speaker #2: It's not a completely fair comparison because they also run utility. They keep their jobs. They don't sell them like we do—to some other financial company or to the owner of a house.
Speaker #2: They keep them, and they're building utility, and they have infrastructure to build and collect it. But nonetheless, I'm very proud of our productivity per employee.
T.J. Rodgers: They keep them, and they're building utility, and they have infrastructure to build and collect it. But nonetheless, I'm very proud of our productivity per employee. I don't know because there's not a lot of data, but I think it's probably the best in the industry. Certainly as good as the chip industry was when I was in that. Final point, we have a clear line of sight to get to $500,000 per employee per year. You can see that because we're just now starting to incremental revenue doesn't add. I don't add an incremental lawyer to add incremental revenue. I don't add an incremental controller to get incremental revenue, etc. So we're amortizing overhead. This is a graph of market cap.
They keep them, and they're building utility, and they have infrastructure to build and collect it. But nonetheless, I'm very proud of our productivity per employee. I don't know because there's not a lot of data, but I think it's probably the best in the industry. Certainly as good as the chip industry was when I was in that. Final point, we have a clear line of sight to get to $500,000 per employee per year. You can see that because we're just now starting to incremental revenue doesn't add. I don't add an incremental lawyer to add incremental revenue. I don't add an incremental controller to get incremental revenue, etc. So we're amortizing overhead. This is a graph of market cap.
Speaker #2: And I don't know, because there's not a lot of data, but I think it's probably the best in the industry—certainly as good as the chip industry was when I was in that.
Speaker #2: And final point, we have a clear line of sight to get to half a million dollars per employee per year. I can see that because we're just now starting to—incremental revenue doesn't add, I don't add an incremental lawyer.
Speaker #2: They add incremental revenue. I don't add an incremental controller to get incremental revenue, etc. So we're amortizing overhead. This is a graph of market cap.
Speaker #2: Your ratio of market cap to revenue—if you looked at it on a stock basis, it's the price per share to sales per share ratio, or P/S ratio.
T.J. Rodgers: Your ratio of market cap to revenue, if you looked at it on a stock basis, it's the price per share to sales per share ratio or PS ratio. So it's the analog of PE ratio, but market cap on sales. And here you see an interesting trend. You see SunPower. I mean, that's almost Planck's constant. I actually had written it in here, and I got rid of it because it was too cute. It's 0.55 ± 0.15. So then I said, "Is that good or bad?" And a while back, when we were down here, I said, "Well, you know the whole solar industry is getting clobbered, and we're doing about as well as them." Well, if you look at the leader, Sunrun, they've recovered, and we haven't. And I'm going to address that today.
Your ratio of market cap to revenue, if you looked at it on a stock basis, it's the price per share to sales per share ratio or PS ratio. So it's the analog of PE ratio, but market cap on sales. And here you see an interesting trend. You see SunPower. I mean, that's almost Planck's constant. I actually had written it in here, and I got rid of it because it was too cute. It's 0.55 ± 0.15. So then I said, "Is that good or bad?" And a while back, when we were down here, I said, "Well, you know the whole solar industry is getting clobbered, and we're doing about as well as them." Well, if you look at the leader, Sunrun, they've recovered, and we haven't. And I'm going to address that today.
Speaker #2: So it's the analog of the PE ratio, but market cap on sales. And here you see an interesting trend. You see SunPower—I mean, that's almost Planck's constant.
Speaker #2: I actually had written it in here, and I got rid of it because it was too cute. It's 0.55 plus or minus 0.15. So then I said, is that good or bad?
Speaker #2: And a while back, when we were down here, I said, well, the whole solar industry is getting clobbered, and we're doing about as well as them.
Speaker #2: Well, if you look at the leader, SunRun, they've recovered. And we haven't. And I'm going to address that today. That is a problem for me and an opportunity for investors.
T.J. Rodgers: That is a problem for me and an opportunity for investors because, yeah, you guys managed to move that thing right across my arrow. Okay, because that's a 3x change. If we can figure out the formula to get to that multiple, which is achievable. And I'll also point out that we have a high-tech index where that PS ratio for five, six companies is 2.2. And if you look at a company like Enphase, a solar company, they're up at 3.3. So this is still depressed as an industry. The leader should be higher, and we just want to catch up. That's my job. Okay, so why did Sunrun recover from the ITC cut? Well, SunPower didn't. And I've listed three reasons here. One is cash. Last quarter in this meeting, the last quarter, we reported $5.1 million in cash.
That is a problem for me and an opportunity for investors because, yeah, you guys managed to move that thing right across my arrow. Okay, because that's a 3x change. If we can figure out the formula to get to that multiple, which is achievable. And I'll also point out that we have a high-tech index where that PS ratio for five, six companies is 2.2. And if you look at a company like Enphase, a solar company, they're up at 3.3. So this is still depressed as an industry. The leader should be higher, and we just want to catch up. That's my job. Okay, so why did Sunrun recover from the ITC cut? Well, SunPower didn't. And I've listed three reasons here. One is cash. Last quarter in this meeting, the last quarter, we reported $5.1 million in cash.
Speaker #2: Because yeah, you guys managed to move that thing right across my arrow. Okay. Because that's a 3x change. If we can figure out the formula to get to that multiple, which is achievable.
Speaker #2: And I'll also point out that we have a high-tech index. That P/S ratio for five, six companies is 2.2. And if you look at a company like Enphase, a solar company, they're up at 3.3.
Speaker #2: So this is still depressed. As an industry, the leader should be higher. And we just want to catch up. That's my job. Okay. So why does SunRun recover from the ITC cut?
Speaker #2: Well, SunPower didn't. And I've listed three reasons here. One is cash. Last quarter, in this meeting—the last quarter—we reported $5.1 million in cash.
Speaker #2: And I did that honestly, so you all know where we were. And I won't say freak out, but people are going, whoa, that's not enough.
T.J. Rodgers: I did that honestly so you all know where we were. I won't say freak out, but people are going, "Whoa, that's not enough." So we have raised our equity line of credit. This is an equity line of credit. You sign a contract. A broker agrees to have stock put on them and sell it and give you back proceeds. So it's like an ATM where you do it yourself. And the proper ELOC has got professionals selling it. It's kinder on the market and doesn't cost any more than an ATM. So that got raised from $20 to $55 million. No, $30 to $55 million. Point here is we chose an ELOC because that's an option to raise money, not a raise. But you can raise now, and you can raise on demand. And that means we weren't forced to raise expensive money immediately.
I did that honestly so you all know where we were. I won't say freak out, but people are going, "Whoa, that's not enough." So we have raised our equity line of credit. This is an equity line of credit. You sign a contract. A broker agrees to have stock put on them and sell it and give you back proceeds. So it's like an ATM where you do it yourself. And the proper ELOC has got professionals selling it. It's kinder on the market and doesn't cost any more than an ATM. So that got raised from $20 to $55 million. No, $30 to $55 million. Point here is we chose an ELOC because that's an option to raise money, not a raise. But you can raise now, and you can raise on demand. And that means we weren't forced to raise expensive money immediately.
Speaker #2: So, we have raised our equity line of credit. This is an equity line of credit. You sign a contract. A broker agrees to have stock put on them.
Speaker #2: And sell it, and give you back proceeds. So it's like an ATM where you do it yourself. And the proper ELOC has got a professional selling it.
Speaker #2: It's kinder on the market and doesn't cost any more than an ATM. So that got raised from $20 million to $55 million. $30 million to $55 million.
Speaker #2: The point here is we chose an ELOC because that's an option to raise money, not a raise. But you can raise now, and you can raise on demand.
Speaker #2: And that means we weren't forced to raise expensive money immediately. So right now, that's expensive. And our share price—I think equity is expensive.
T.J. Rodgers: So right now, that's expensive at our share price. I think equity is expensive. So what I want to do is have $10 million at the end of every quarter come hell or high water. But I don't want to pay for that right now other than a promise to work with these guys over time, which we certainly will. These guys are pretty good White Lion. We also have three other funding deals in progress. I talked about these last year. I've worked on every one for the last six weeks. We've got meetings and discussions in three other areas, and I will be announcing things over time. Second point, we had a late SEC report. Our Q3 was late. And it turned out everybody's going, "Oh my God, what's going on?" The old SunPower had problems with their auditor, blah, blah, blah.
So right now, that's expensive at our share price. I think equity is expensive. So what I want to do is have $10 million at the end of every quarter come hell or high water. But I don't want to pay for that right now other than a promise to work with these guys over time, which we certainly will. These guys are pretty good White Lion. We also have three other funding deals in progress. I talked about these last year. I've worked on every one for the last six weeks. We've got meetings and discussions in three other areas, and I will be announcing things over time. Second point, we had a late SEC report. Our Q3 was late. And it turned out everybody's going, "Oh my God, what's going on?" The old SunPower had problems with their auditor, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker #2: So what I want to do is have $10 million at the end of every quarter, come hell or high water. And then, but I don't want to pay for that, right?
Speaker #2: Now, other than a promise to work with these guys over time, which we certainly will, we like these guys. They are pretty good—White Lion.
Speaker #2: We also have three other funding deals in progress. I talked about these last year. I've worked on every one. For the last six weeks, we've had meetings and discussions in three other areas.
Speaker #2: And I will be announcing things over time. Second point, we had a late SEC report. Our Q3 was late. And it turned out everybody's going, 'Oh my God, what's going on?'
Speaker #2: The old SunPower head had problems with their auditor, blah, blah, blah. It turns out we're just slow. And not okay, but we were slow. And the actual change that happened after all of that was de minimis.
T.J. Rodgers: It turns out we're just slow and not okay, but we were slow. The actual change that happened after all of that was de minimis. It was that $1.1 million I talked about, which actually is in ensuring future performance if you look at it that way. Our financial system is currently a mix of acquired systems. So now we have two brand new acquired systems. That slows us down. We're not nimble on finances the way I'm used to. If you want to ask about being king, talk about Intel. They report early in the quarter with their reports filed. They're always ready to go. That's my goal, and that's what I'm demanding from our finance people. But we go back and forth with the auditor, and those cycles are long, and that's what dumped us over on the late SEC report.
It turns out we're just slow and not okay, but we were slow. The actual change that happened after all of that was de minimis. It was that $1.1 million I talked about, which actually is in ensuring future performance if you look at it that way. Our financial system is currently a mix of acquired systems. So now we have two brand new acquired systems. That slows us down. We're not nimble on finances the way I'm used to. If you want to ask about being king, talk about Intel. They report early in the quarter with their reports filed. They're always ready to go. That's my goal, and that's what I'm demanding from our finance people. But we go back and forth with the auditor, and those cycles are long, and that's what dumped us over on the late SEC report.
Speaker #2: It was at $1.1 million I talked about, which actually is insurers' future performance, if you look at it that way. Our financial system is currently a mix of acquired systems.
Speaker #2: And now we have two brand new acquired systems, and that slows us down. We're not as nimble on finances as I'm used to. And if you want to ask about King, talk about Intel.
Speaker #2: They report early in the quarter, with their reports filed—always ready to go. That’s my goal, and that’s what I’m demanding from our finance people.
Speaker #2: But we go back and forth with the auditor, and those cycles are long. And that's what pushed us over on the late SEC report.
Speaker #2: There was no smoke indicating fire or anything like that. But I'm tired of it. And therefore, I've hired a guy named Cal Hogan. He's a well-known Silicon Valley financial consultant.
T.J. Rodgers: There was no smoke indicating fire or anything like that. But I'm tired of it. And therefore, I've hired a guy named Cal Hogan. He's a well-known Silicon Valley financial consultant. He's worked for 20 companies. He comes in. He's an auditor himself, and he helps you straighten up your finances by bringing in his knowledge of state-of-the-art systems. In the last three years, he's worked for 20 companies. And his longest tenure at any one of the companies has been seven months. So he comes in, helps you fix it, and then goes on to his next company. And he's been with us for a few weeks right now. And he's going to help us speed up, upgrade our financial systems. Finally, I've been talking to CFO now for six months. I've used my own network, which I could find a CFO.
There was no smoke indicating fire or anything like that. But I'm tired of it. And therefore, I've hired a guy named Cal Hogan. He's a well-known Silicon Valley financial consultant. He's worked for 20 companies. He comes in. He's an auditor himself, and he helps you straighten up your finances by bringing in his knowledge of state-of-the-art systems. In the last three years, he's worked for 20 companies. And his longest tenure at any one of the companies has been seven months. So he comes in, helps you fix it, and then goes on to his next company. And he's been with us for a few weeks right now. And he's going to help us speed up, upgrade our financial systems. Finally, I've been talking to CFO now for six months. I've used my own network, which I could find a CFO.
Speaker #2: He's worked for 20 companies. He is—he comes in. He's an auditor himself, and he helps you straighten up your finances by bringing in his knowledge of state-of-the-art systems.
Speaker #2: In the last three years, he's worked for 20 companies. The longest tenure at any one of the companies has been seven months. So he comes in, helps you fix it, and then goes on to his next company.
Speaker #2: And he's been with us for a few weeks right now, and he's going to help us speed up, upgrade our financial systems. Finally, I've been talking to the CFO now for six months.
Speaker #2: I've used my own network, which is how I could find a CFO. I'm right here in Silicon Valley right now. But I could use my network and talk to three CFOs and have one in two weeks.
T.J. Rodgers: I'm right here in Silicon Valley right now. I could use my network and talk to three CFOs and have one in two weeks. I want somebody in Salt Lake, and that's been harder for me. We're working on it, and we have a list of Salt Lake CEOs right now, and we're doing methodical interviews. So we have a formal search going on. Finally, I've talked about this before. Disinformation from financial services. This quarter, I read in one place that we were being investigated by the SEC, not true. The old SunPower was being investigated by the SEC, etc. I've asked them to stop and be careful, and they're not listening. The next time they hear from me, it'll be a formal demand, not, "Why don't you guys claim to show the light for finances?
I'm right here in Silicon Valley right now. I could use my network and talk to three CFOs and have one in two weeks. I want somebody in Salt Lake, and that's been harder for me. We're working on it, and we have a list of Salt Lake CEOs right now, and we're doing methodical interviews. So we have a formal search going on. Finally, I've talked about this before. Disinformation from financial services. This quarter, I read in one place that we were being investigated by the SEC, not true. The old SunPower was being investigated by the SEC, etc. I've asked them to stop and be careful, and they're not listening. The next time they hear from me, it'll be a formal demand, not, "Why don't you guys claim to show the light for finances?
Speaker #2: But I want somebody in Salt Lake. And that's been harder for me. And we're working on it. And we have a list of Salt Lake CEOs right now.
Speaker #2: And we're doing methodical interviews, so we have a formal search going on. And finally, I've talked about this before: disinformation from financial services. This quarter, I read in one place that we were being investigated by the SEC—not true.
Speaker #2: The old SunPower was being investigated by the SEC, etc., and I've asked them to stop and be careful. And they're not listening. And the next time they hear from me, it'll be a formal demand, not, 'why don't you the light for finances.'
Speaker #2: Work with me. Because I tell you how to invest. Well, if you can't get the name of a company right, what credibility do you have?
T.J. Rodgers: Work with me because I tell you how to invest." Well, if you can't get the name of a company right, what credibility do you have? So that's going to be subject to my purse strings, my next initiative. Monolith. We announced this a while back. This is the name of a solar panel. I picked the name, and we have a thing called SunPower at the movies in Salt Lake. And I showed 2001: A Space Odyssey done in 1968, an amazing movie. And there's this mysterious monolith that follows them around. Black monolith. You never know what it is, and the movie never tells you. Roger Ebert, when he reviewed the movie back when it came out, said it asked more questions than it answers. So we called our all-black, high-wattage panel Monolith. This is our sales conference.
Work with me because I tell you how to invest." Well, if you can't get the name of a company right, what credibility do you have? So that's going to be subject to my purse strings, my next initiative. Monolith. We announced this a while back. This is the name of a solar panel. I picked the name, and we have a thing called SunPower at the movies in Salt Lake. And I showed 2001: A Space Odyssey done in 1968, an amazing movie. And there's this mysterious monolith that follows them around. Black monolith. You never know what it is, and the movie never tells you. Roger Ebert, when he reviewed the movie back when it came out, said it asked more questions than it answers. So we called our all-black, high-wattage panel Monolith. This is our sales conference.
Speaker #2: So that's going to be subject to my purse strings—my next initiative: Monolith. We announced this a while back. This is the name of a solar panel.
Speaker #2: I picked the name, and actually, we have a thing called SunPower at the Movies in Salt Lake. And I showed 2001: Space Odyssey, done in 1968.
Speaker #2: An amazing movie. And there's this mysterious Monolith. It follows them around. Black Monolith. You never know what it is. And the movie never tells you.
Speaker #2: Roger Ebert, when he reviewed the movie back when it came out, said it asked more questions than it answers. So we called Monolith. This is our sales conference.
Speaker #2: And me pulling the thing off to also spark their true strut, the music from Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, ta-da, the music from the movie. What's good about it is I call it a record 470 watts.
T.J. Rodgers: And me pulling the thing off to also spark their interest, the music from, you know, bum, bum, bum, ta-da, the music from the movie. What's good about it is I call it a record 470 watts. Now, if you ask, go on your phone and say, "List 500-watt panels for me," you'll get a big list. So why is 470 a record? Because the real name of the game here is that OSHA enforces a weight limit, and they say a panel can't weigh more than 50 pounds. And if it does, then the work limits change. For example, you need two guys to lift a panel and install it. Disaster for efficiency. So there is in the residential area. Now, you go, and that's 2 square meters for the panel area.
And me pulling the thing off to also spark their interest, the music from, you know, bum, bum, bum, ta-da, the music from the movie. What's good about it is I call it a record 470 watts. Now, if you ask, go on your phone and say, "List 500-watt panels for me," you'll get a big list. So why is 470 a record? Because the real name of the game here is that OSHA enforces a weight limit, and they say a panel can't weigh more than 50 pounds. And if it does, then the work limits change. For example, you need two guys to lift a panel and install it. Disaster for efficiency. So there is in the residential area. Now, you go, and that's 2 square meters for the panel area.
Speaker #2: Now, if you ask for, go on your phone and say, list 500-watt panels for me, you'll get a big list. So why is 470 a record?
Speaker #2: Because the real name of the game here is that OSHA enforces a weight limit. And they say a panel can't weigh more than 50 pounds.
Speaker #2: And if it does, then the work limit's changed. For example, you need two guys to lift a panel and install it. Disaster for efficiency.
Speaker #2: So, there is in the residential area. Now, you go and that's two square meters for the panel area. If you go into utilities, a typical panel is three square meters.
T.J. Rodgers: If you go into utilities, a typical panel is 3m², so it's 1.5 times more power. Many of them are over 500W. But they're lifted into place by robots in a construction site. It's not apples to apples. I want to give credit to our partner, REC, which is the largest non-Chinese panel company in the world, solar panel. And actually, they're the largest in the United States for residential solar panels. And this is nice to see why I use the Monolith for a word. Otherwise, I'd have to talk about our Alpha Pure RX 470W panel, which I don't want to do. But I want to give credit to these guys. They're good. And we're the only one that got that panel, by the way. They offered us an exclusive.
If you go into utilities, a typical panel is 3m², so it's 1.5 times more power. Many of them are over 500W. But they're lifted into place by robots in a construction site. It's not apples to apples. I want to give credit to our partner, REC, which is the largest non-Chinese panel company in the world, solar panel. And actually, they're the largest in the United States for residential solar panels. And this is nice to see why I use the Monolith for a word. Otherwise, I'd have to talk about our Alpha Pure RX 470W panel, which I don't want to do. But I want to give credit to these guys. They're good. And we're the only one that got that panel, by the way. They offered us an exclusive.
Speaker #2: So it's one and a half times more power. And then you have the more, over 500 watts. But they're lifted into place by robots.
Speaker #2: In the construction site, it's not apples to apples. I want to give credit to our partner, REC, which is the largest non-Chinese solar panel company in the world.
Speaker #2: And actually, they're the largest in the United States for residential solar panels. And this is—now you see why I used 'Monolith' for a word.
Speaker #2: Otherwise, I'd have to talk about our Alpha Pure RX 470-watt panel, which I don't want to do. But I want to give credit to these guys.
Speaker #2: They're good. And we're the only one that got that panel, by the way. They offered us an exclusive. And we're working to make the site—I mentioned this earlier—bifacial.
T.J. Rodgers: And we're working to make the site, I mentioned this earlier, bifacial. That is, instead of having black plastic on the back of the panel and glass on the front, if you put glass on the front and glass on the back, then light can come in from either side. And if you can get some reflected light, like the light reflected from the earth I showed you earlier, coming in the back, you can get more power. Now, it's not going to blow you away, but it's perfectly reasonable, depending upon the installation and the place, to get the panel over 500 watts just by putting glass on the back. And that's our plan. Cobalt. We announced on 16 January, we signed a letter of intent to acquire Cobalt Power Systems.
And we're working to make the site, I mentioned this earlier, bifacial. That is, instead of having black plastic on the back of the panel and glass on the front, if you put glass on the front and glass on the back, then light can come in from either side. And if you can get some reflected light, like the light reflected from the earth I showed you earlier, coming in the back, you can get more power. Now, it's not going to blow you away, but it's perfectly reasonable, depending upon the installation and the place, to get the panel over 500 watts just by putting glass on the back. And that's our plan. Cobalt. We announced on 16 January, we signed a letter of intent to acquire Cobalt Power Systems.
Speaker #2: That is, instead of having black plastic on the back of the panel and glass on the front, if you put glass on the front and glass on the back, then light can come in from either side.
Speaker #2: And if you can get some reflected light, like the light reflected from the Earth I showed you earlier, coming in the back, you can get more power.
Speaker #2: Now, it's not going to blow you away, but it's perfectly reasonable, depending upon the installation and the place, to get the panel over 500 watts just by putting glass on the back.
Speaker #2: And that's our plan. Cobalt. We announced on January 16th. We signed a letter of intent to acquire Cobalt Power Systems. And I wrote these words carefully.
T.J. Rodgers: I wrote these words carefully, "Silicon Valley's premier solar company." I was around when SunPower went public in 2002. I was chairman of SunPower. Everybody knew about Cobalt. They made a big deal about the Monolith panels. My guys back in Salt Lake said, "Yeah, we got some more panels. That's great." We got a lot of different kinds of panels. John Berger called me up and said, "When can I get some?" I said, "When you need them." He said, "Now." So they got put in his parking lot just last week. One of our first projects is going to be 111kW. So they do bigger stuff. There's a building called the Fortinet building in Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is two cities south of Palo Alto, dead center of Silicon Valley. It's an iconic building. That's going to be one of our first ones.
I wrote these words carefully, "Silicon Valley's premier solar company." I was around when SunPower went public in 2002. I was chairman of SunPower. Everybody knew about Cobalt. They made a big deal about the Monolith panels. My guys back in Salt Lake said, "Yeah, we got some more panels. That's great." We got a lot of different kinds of panels. John Berger called me up and said, "When can I get some?" I said, "When you need them." He said, "Now." So they got put in his parking lot just last week. One of our first projects is going to be 111kW. So they do bigger stuff. There's a building called the Fortinet building in Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is two cities south of Palo Alto, dead center of Silicon Valley. It's an iconic building. That's going to be one of our first ones.
Speaker #2: Silicon Valley's premier solar company. I was around when SunPower went public in 2002. I was chairman of SunPower. And everybody knew about it. Everybody knew about Cobalt.
Speaker #2: And they made a big deal about the Monolith panels. My guy back in Salt Lake said, 'Yeah, we got some more panels. That's great.' We got a lot of different kinds of panels.
Speaker #2: John Berg called me up and said, "When can I get some?" I said, "When you need them." He said, "Now." So they got put in his parking lot just last week.
Speaker #2: And one of our first projects is going to be 111 kilowatts. So they do bigger stuff. There's a building called the Fortinet building in Sunnyvale.
Speaker #2: Sunnyvale is two cities south of Palo Alto, dead center in Silicon Valley. And it's an iconic building. What we're going to do is, that's going to be one of our first ones.
Speaker #2: When the ITC news came out, I wrote a press release called 'Free at Last.' We're free of government meddling at last. There will actually be a free market in solar at last.
T.J. Rodgers: When the ITC news came out, I wrote a press release called "Free at Last." We're free of government meddling at last. There will actually be a free market in solar at last. That's going to play for us because we think free market. We don't think safe harbor, buy stuff and put it and let it rot in somewhere else. We don't work like that. We do what's best for a business. I said we would take advantage of the free market because we know how to behave in free markets. We have two goals. I've already shown them to you. To rapidly grow our rep sales force, big as we can, and to upgrade but not grow our 847-person workforce. By the way, every one of them is an option holder.
When the ITC news came out, I wrote a press release called "Free at Last." We're free of government meddling at last. There will actually be a free market in solar at last. That's going to play for us because we think free market. We don't think safe harbor, buy stuff and put it and let it rot in somewhere else. We don't work like that. We do what's best for a business. I said we would take advantage of the free market because we know how to behave in free markets. We have two goals. I've already shown them to you. To rapidly grow our rep sales force, big as we can, and to upgrade but not grow our 847-person workforce. By the way, every one of them is an option holder.
Speaker #2: And that's going to play for us because we think free market. We don't think safe harbor, buy stuff and put it and let it rot somewhere else.
Speaker #2: We don't work like that. We do what's best for a business. And I said, "We would take advantage of the free market because we know how to behave in free markets." And we have two goals.
Speaker #2: And I've already shown them to you. To rapidly grow our rep sales force, as big as we can, and to upgrade but not grow our 847-person workforce—and by the way, every one of them is an option holder.
Speaker #2: So that's a little piece of Silicon Valley we brought to Salt Lake. Now, I can introduce John Berg. This is a picture. He has a house in Santa Cruz.
T.J. Rodgers: So that's a little piece of Silicon Valley that we brought to Salt Lake. Now, I can introduce John Berger. This is a picture. He has a house in Santa Cruz. And this is a picture of him, self-made man. His dad had a water well business and died. And he got yanked out of college in his junior year to take the family business. He started working on solar thermal collectors. This is solar energy focused to heat water. Worked his way into understanding PV. I knew about him at SunPower. He started as a salesman and walked right through up to the Silicon Valley regional sales manager, arguably the most important sales position in sales other than maybe one of the biggest companies in Salt Lake. He went to work for Qcells. It's a Korean manufacturer that sells a lot of panels in the US.
So that's a little piece of Silicon Valley that we brought to Salt Lake. Now, I can introduce John Berger. This is a picture. He has a house in Santa Cruz. And this is a picture of him, self-made man. His dad had a water well business and died. And he got yanked out of college in his junior year to take the family business. He started working on solar thermal collectors. This is solar energy focused to heat water. Worked his way into understanding PV. I knew about him at SunPower. He started as a salesman and walked right through up to the Silicon Valley regional sales manager, arguably the most important sales position in sales other than maybe one of the biggest companies in Salt Lake. He went to work for Qcells. It's a Korean manufacturer that sells a lot of panels in the US.
Speaker #2: And this is a picture of him. Self-made man. His dad had a water well business and died. And he got yanked out of college.
Speaker #2: His junior year, to take the family business. He started working on solar thermal collectors. This is solar energy-focused to heat water. Worked his way into understanding PV.
Speaker #2: I knew about him as SunPower. He started as a salesman and walked right through up to the Silicon Valley Regional Sales Manager, arguably the most important sales position in sales other than maybe one of the biggest companies in Salt Lake.
Speaker #2: He went to work for QCells, as a Korean manufacturer that sells a lot of panels in the US. And he was in business development, selling at a high level using technology, BizDev, $336 million business.
T.J. Rodgers: He was business development, selling at a high level using technology, BizDev, $336 million business. He used his own funds to buy Cobalt systems. Cobalt was well known. He bought it how long ago? 18 months ago. 18 months ago. It's been exploding right now. It was always a $25 million business. This year, they did 33. He invented a Cobalt concept, and that I call sales system designers. One of our companies, Ambia, had a concept that made us more efficient. Their concept was a salesman who sells at a house needs to do the site visit. The site visit is the next thing. Normally, some salesman or seller sells the home. Then you go in and do a site visit and ask them to take pictures of all the wiring and everything so you can create a plan for the house.
He was business development, selling at a high level using technology, BizDev, $336 million business. He used his own funds to buy Cobalt systems. Cobalt was well known. He bought it how long ago? 18 months ago. 18 months ago. It's been exploding right now. It was always a $25 million business. This year, they did 33. He invented a Cobalt concept, and that I call sales system designers. One of our companies, Ambia, had a concept that made us more efficient. Their concept was a salesman who sells at a house needs to do the site visit. The site visit is the next thing. Normally, some salesman or seller sells the home. Then you go in and do a site visit and ask them to take pictures of all the wiring and everything so you can create a plan for the house.
Speaker #2: He used his own funds to buy Cobalt Systems. Cobalt was well known. He bought it how long ago? Eighteen months ago. Eighteen months ago.
Speaker #2: And it's been exploding right now. It was always a $25 million business. This year, they did $33 million. And he invented a Cobalt concept.
Speaker #2: And that I call sales system designers. One of our companies, Ambien, had a concept that made us more efficient. And their concept was a salesman who sells at a house needs to do the site visit.
Speaker #2: The site visit is the next thing. Normally, some salesmen or seller sells the home. Then you go in and do a site visit, and that's when you take pictures of all the wiring and everything.
Speaker #2: And so you can create a plan for the house. And Ambien asked their sales force to do site visits. They eliminated a whole step in the process, shortened the process, and also obviously made it more efficient.
T.J. Rodgers: Ambia asked their sales force to do site visits. They eliminated a whole step in the process, shortened down the process, and also obviously made it more efficient. These guys have gone one step farther. They're salespeople that are called system designers, and they can design things. So they can go into some mogul's house in Silicon Valley and put together a big system, which requires more elaborate and detailed plans than a simple retrofit on a suburban house. He's also an athlete and a coach in youth sports. He's going to run Cobalt, which we are going to run due to fact he runs it. I've been there. I was there for their company picnic. It's got great esprit de corps. They're far away, except not for me. So I can meddle as frequently as I want. John, you got some words for us. I do.
Ambia asked their sales force to do site visits. They eliminated a whole step in the process, shortened down the process, and also obviously made it more efficient. These guys have gone one step farther. They're salespeople that are called system designers, and they can design things. So they can go into some mogul's house in Silicon Valley and put together a big system, which requires more elaborate and detailed plans than a simple retrofit on a suburban house. He's also an athlete and a coach in youth sports. He's going to run Cobalt, which we are going to run due to fact he runs it. I've been there. I was there for their company picnic. It's got great esprit de corps. They're far away, except not for me. So I can meddle as frequently as I want. John, you got some words for us.
Speaker #2: These guys have gone one step farther. Their salespeople, who are called system designers, make and design things. So they can go into some mogul's house in Silicon Valley and put together a big system, which requires more elaborate and detailed plans than a simple retrofit on a suburban house.
Speaker #2: He's also an athlete. And a coach. A youth sports coach. And he's going to run Cobalt, which we are going to run due to the fact he's running it.
Speaker #2: I've been there. I was there for their company picnic. It's got great—it's free to core. And they're far away. Except not for me.
Speaker #2: So I can meddle as frequently as I want. John, you got some words for us. I do. Excited to be here. Been involved with SunPower since late 2006.
John Berger: I do.
T.J. Rodgers: Excited to be here. Been involved with SunPower since late 2006, where our customers had to wait six months to get panels. Well, now they don't have to wait six months, and they don't want anything that's safe harbored and waiting in a warehouse for two years. They want the newest technology, and they want it deployed, and they want it deployed on their house now. Cost of electricity is going up. But what Cobalt Power Systems really represents here, and it's a different type of acquisition for Mr. Rodgers and Mr. McCranie and his team, is we represent a differentiated scalable revenue vector for SunPower. So we're uniquely positioned to integrate sales origination, operational execution, and next-generation renewable energy technology deployment, all within the single platform.
Excited to be here. Been involved with SunPower since late 2006, where our customers had to wait six months to get panels. Well, now they don't have to wait six months, and they don't want anything that's safe harbored and waiting in a warehouse for two years. They want the newest technology, and they want it deployed, and they want it deployed on their house now. Cost of electricity is going up. But what Cobalt Power Systems really represents here, and it's a different type of acquisition for Mr. Rodgers and Mr. McCranie and his team, is we represent a differentiated scalable revenue vector for SunPower. So we're uniquely positioned to integrate sales origination, operational execution, and next-generation renewable energy technology deployment, all within the single platform.
Speaker #2: Where our customers had to wait six months to get panels, well, now they don't have to wait six months. And they don't want anything that's safe harbored.
Speaker #2: And waiting in a warehouse for two years. They want the newest technology, and they want it deployed. And they want it deployed on their house now.
Speaker #2: The cost of electricity is going up. But what Cobalt Power Systems really represents here—and is a different type of acquisition for Mr. Rogers and Mr. McCranie and his team—is we represent a differentiated, scalable revenue vector for SunPower.
Speaker #2: So we're uniquely positioned to integrate sales origination, operational execution, and next-generation renewable energy technology deployment all within a single platform. So together, our combined capabilities, as TJ has mentioned earlier with the sales capability—I mean, right now, we've got a dozen system designers.
T.J. Rodgers: So together, our combined capabilities, as TJ has mentioned earlier with the sales capability, I mean, right now we've got a dozen system designers, and they're top-notch. They're top tier. But having access to 1,800 or over 1,800 sales reps, that plays right into our position. So together, we can address the full spectrum of demand of the market, spanning residential, new home construction, multifamily, light commercial, large-scale commercial, industrial applications, including up to large-scale data center power infrastructure. By operating Cobalt as a focused subsidiary within a publicly traded enterprise, SunPower unlocks a multiplier effect, unknown or unseen in the market. It's got efficient access to capital for a company like Cobalt. Its workforce scale and its institutional resources as a publicly traded company will allow us to scale, grow, and meet the market demand for renewable energy power.
So together, our combined capabilities, as TJ has mentioned earlier with the sales capability, I mean, right now we've got a dozen system designers, and they're top-notch. They're top tier. But having access to 1,800 or over 1,800 sales reps, that plays right into our position. So together, we can address the full spectrum of demand of the market, spanning residential, new home construction, multifamily, light commercial, large-scale commercial, industrial applications, including up to large-scale data center power infrastructure. By operating Cobalt as a focused subsidiary within a publicly traded enterprise, SunPower unlocks a multiplier effect, unknown or unseen in the market. It's got efficient access to capital for a company like Cobalt. Its workforce scale and its institutional resources as a publicly traded company will allow us to scale, grow, and meet the market demand for renewable energy power.
Speaker #2: And they're top-notch. They're top-tier. But having access to 1,800 or over 1,800 sales reps, that plays right into our position.
Speaker #2: So together, we can address the full spectrum of demand in the market, spanning residential, new home construction, multifamily, light commercial, large-scale commercial, and industrial applications, including up to large-scale data center power infrastructure.
Speaker #2: By operating Cobalt as a focused subsidiary within a publicly traded enterprise, SunPower unlocks a multiplier effect, unknown or unseen in the market. It's got efficient access to capital for a company like Cobalt.
Speaker #2: It's workforce scale, and its institutional resources as a publicly traded company will allow us to scale, grow, and meet the market demand for renewable energy power.
Speaker #2: It takes five to seven years for a gas turbine to be installed on one of these units. They need power now. They need solar.
T.J. Rodgers: It takes five to seven years for a gas turbine to be installed in one of these units. They need power now. They need solar. They need wind. They need infrastructure and execution, which we can provide. Cobalt brings a proven track record of building, operating a profitable business unit, which is unique in solar. It's positioned to deliver meaningful, sustainable profitability while accelerating the deployment of industry-leading energy solutions to end users at scale. That's why when we first got our first shipment of Monolith last Friday, we have customers that have already oversold. We're already oversold our first container. So we're getting our second container. They want the most power-dense module. They want to use the best parts of the roof. Why? Because they have EVs. They have complex energy demands that are requiring more electricity. We're here to serve that function.
It takes five to seven years for a gas turbine to be installed in one of these units. They need power now. They need solar. They need wind. They need infrastructure and execution, which we can provide. Cobalt brings a proven track record of building, operating a profitable business unit, which is unique in solar. It's positioned to deliver meaningful, sustainable profitability while accelerating the deployment of industry-leading energy solutions to end users at scale. That's why when we first got our first shipment of Monolith last Friday, we have customers that have already oversold. We're already oversold our first container. So we're getting our second container. They want the most power-dense module. They want to use the best parts of the roof. Why? Because they have EVs. They have complex energy demands that are requiring more electricity. We're here to serve that function.
Speaker #2: They need wind. They need infrastructure. And execution, which we can provide. Cobalt brings a proven track record of building and operating a profitable business unit.
Speaker #2: What is unique in solar is that it's positioned to deliver meaningful, sustainable profitability while accelerating the deployment of industry-leading energy solutions to end users at scale.
Speaker #2: That's why, when we first got our first shipment of Monolith last Friday, we had customers that had already oversold. We've already oversold our first container.
Speaker #2: So we're getting our second container. They want the most power-dense module; they want to use the best parts of the roof. Why? Because they have EVs.
Speaker #2: They have complex energy demands that are serve that function. But quality—quality is at the foundational standard. And it always has been with SunPower.
T.J. Rodgers: But quality is at the foundational standard, and it always has been with SunPower. Quality, technology, that's the core of our platform. And now with T.J. and his team, we have the discipline execution at scale that will reestablish SunPower and establish the new SunPower in a league of its own over the coming months and years. So I couldn't be more excited. Thank you. So you said, "What should I do?" And I said, "Just tell them what you're planning on doing and being enthusiastic." And he did that. Okay. I want to talk about our other acquisitions for a minute. We talked about Sunder, I told you before. Sunder Sales Company, they're six years old, accumulated a lot of sales. Eric Nielsen is their co-founder and president.
But quality is at the foundational standard, and it always has been with SunPower. Quality, technology, that's the core of our platform. And now with T.J. and his team, we have the discipline execution at scale that will reestablish SunPower and establish the new SunPower in a league of its own over the coming months and years. So I couldn't be more excited.
Speaker #2: Quality, technology—that's the core of our platform. And now, with TJ and his team, we have the disciplined execution at scale that will reestablish SunPower and establish the new SunPower in a league of its own over the coming months and years.
Speaker #2: So, I couldn't be more excited.
T.J. Rodgers: Thank you. So you said, "What should I do?" And I said, "Just tell them what you're planning on doing and being enthusiastic." And he did that. Okay. I want to talk about our other acquisitions for a minute. We talked about Sunder, I told you before. Sunder Sales Company, they're six years old, accumulated a lot of sales. Eric Nielsen is their co-founder and president.
Speaker #1: Thank you. So you told them what you’re planning on doing, and being said, what should I do? And I said, just sound enthusiastic. And he did that.
Speaker #1: Okay. I want to talk about our other acquisitions for a minute. We talked about Thunder. I told you before—Thunder Sales Company. They're six years old.
Speaker #1: Accumulated a lot of sales. Eric Nielsen is their co-founder and president. And he's now the EVP of Sales and Marketing for the whole company, and all the sales guys except for a small group in New Homes.
T.J. Rodgers: He's now the EVP of sales and marketing for the whole company, and all the sales guys, except for a small group in new homes that sell to corporations that build projects, work for him. He recently created options so we can attract 1099s with stock options. This is not unique to us, but it's relatively new, and it's a formal program. This is going to be part of our get as big a sales force as you can. His co-founder is Max Britton. My favorite story about him is he was a tank commander, Abrams tank commander in Iraq. Then after he got out, he signed up and went for another service. So he calls me Yes Sir in my new name, not TJ anymore. He's running the Sunder sales division. That means Sunder is going to sell sales.
He's now the EVP of sales and marketing for the whole company, and all the sales guys, except for a small group in new homes that sell to corporations that build projects, work for him. He recently created options so we can attract 1099s with stock options. This is not unique to us, but it's relatively new, and it's a formal program. This is going to be part of our get as big a sales force as you can. His co-founder is Max Britton. My favorite story about him is he was a tank commander, Abrams tank commander in Iraq. Then after he got out, he signed up and went for another service. So he calls me Yes Sir in my new name, not TJ anymore. He's running the Sunder sales division. That means Sunder is going to sell sales.
Speaker #1: They sell to corporations that build projects. They work for him. And he recently created options, so we can attract 1099s with stock options. And this is not unique to us.
Speaker #1: But it's relatively new, and it's a formal program. And this is going to be part of our 'get as big a sales force as you can.'
Speaker #1: Co-founder is Max Britton. My favorite story about him is he was a tank commander—an Abrams tank commander in Iraq. And then after he got out, he signed up and went for another service.
Speaker #1: So he calls me 'Yes, sir.' My new name, not TJ anymore. And he's running the Thunder sales division. And that means Thunder is going to sell sales—that is, they're going to do contracts with customers.
T.J. Rodgers: That is, they're going to do contracts with customers, create final contracts that are, let me call them, almost bulletproof, and sell those. Those things are worth $10,000, $12,000, $15,000. They're going to keep that business going. So there's a higher velocity of sales going through our company than we're actually installing, meaning we can keep level loaded all of our internal capacity so that we don't have ups and downs with installers, for example, working half the time. Devin Glassman is their first employee. He's a lawyer, MBA, and he's sales ops for the whole company. I picked one slide to illustrate. This is us before. This is us before, and this is us after Sunder. I showed light coverage in the sun states. Now we have heavy coverage in the sun states, and we were in 45 states. That'll make a difference.
That is, they're going to do contracts with customers, create final contracts that are, let me call them, almost bulletproof, and sell those. Those things are worth $10,000, $12,000, $15,000. They're going to keep that business going. So there's a higher velocity of sales going through our company than we're actually installing, meaning we can keep level loaded all of our internal capacity so that we don't have ups and downs with installers, for example, working half the time. Devin Glassman is their first employee. He's a lawyer, MBA, and he's sales ops for the whole company. I picked one slide to illustrate. This is us before. This is us before, and this is us after Sunder. I showed light coverage in the sun states. Now we have heavy coverage in the sun states, and we were in 45 states. That'll make a difference.
Speaker #1: Create final contracts that are—let me call them—almost bulletproof, and sell those. And those things are worth $10,000, $12,000, $15,000. And they're going to keep that business going.
Speaker #1: So there's a higher velocity of sales going through our company than we're actually installing. Meaning, we can keep level-loaded all of our internal capacity so that we don't have ups and downs with installers, for example, working half the time.
Speaker #1: And Devin Glassman is their first employee. He's a lawyer MBA, and he's the sales ops for the whole company. And this is—I picked one slide to illustrate.
Speaker #1: This is us before. This is us before. And this is us after Thunder. I showed light coverage in the sun states; now we have heavy coverage in the sun states.
Speaker #1: And we were in 45 states. That'll make a difference. The next acquisition was Ambea. They're an $80 million company. And they got a couple more stars out of them.
T.J. Rodgers: The next acquisition was Ambia. They're an $80 million company, and they got a couple more stars out of them. Connor Ruscio is their co-founder and CEO. He's an ultramarathon athlete, and he's running our SunPower Direct, which is all of SunPower except for new homes and sales. So SunPower has now got three parts: new homes, direct, which is all of the startups merged together, and sales, which is selling of orders, not the installing of product. And he's got an excellent COO. I'm an operating guy, right? So I know if these guys are good or not. And he's really good. And same as Spencer Jensen. And he's running direct operations for the largest part of the company. And I'll show you what that means shortly. We just acquired him. So I threw in two slides that they lured me with. This is their revenue growth.
The next acquisition was Ambia. They're an $80 million company, and they got a couple more stars out of them. Connor Ruscio is their co-founder and CEO. He's an ultramarathon athlete, and he's running our SunPower Direct, which is all of SunPower except for new homes and sales. So SunPower has now got three parts: new homes, direct, which is all of the startups merged together, and sales, which is selling of orders, not the installing of product. And he's got an excellent COO. I'm an operating guy, right? So I know if these guys are good or not. And he's really good. And same as Spencer Jensen. And he's running direct operations for the largest part of the company. And I'll show you what that means shortly. We just acquired him. So I threw in two slides that they lured me with. This is their revenue growth.
Speaker #1: Connor Ruscio is their co-founder and CEO. He's an ultramarathon athlete, and he's running our SunPower Direct, which is all of SunPower except for new homes and sales.
Speaker #1: So SunPower has now got three parts: New Homes; Direct, which is all of the startups merged together; and Sales, which is selling of orders, not the installing.
Speaker #1: Of product. And he's got an excellent COO. I'm an operating guy, right? So I know if these guys are good or not. And he's really good.
Speaker #1: And same as Spencer Jensen. And he's running direct operations for the largest part of the company. And I'll show you what that means shortly.
Speaker #1: We just acquired him, so I threw in two slides that they lured me with. This is the revenue growth, and it shows they actually spun out of SunPower.
T.J. Rodgers: It shows they actually spun out of SunPower. They spun out of SunPower, and then they came back to sort of put us back together. Then they had a very successful run up to $80 million level in 2025. They're bringing back that expertise on the operating side that'll make us better as well. When we decided who would be in the ark or not, we picked Blue Raven, a subsidiary of SunPower, and we shut down two other manufacturing groups. Now these guys will come in, and they're running our manufacturing for direct, which is our biggest part because they took Blue Raven to the next level at their company, Ambia. I'll show one thing. It may not mean anything to you, but if you're in my business, it's the world. This is cycle time.
It shows they actually spun out of SunPower. They spun out of SunPower, and then they came back to sort of put us back together. Then they had a very successful run up to $80 million level in 2025. They're bringing back that expertise on the operating side that'll make us better as well. When we decided who would be in the ark or not, we picked Blue Raven, a subsidiary of SunPower, and we shut down two other manufacturing groups. Now these guys will come in, and they're running our manufacturing for direct, which is our biggest part because they took Blue Raven to the next level at their company, Ambia. I'll show one thing. It may not mean anything to you, but if you're in my business, it's the world. This is cycle time.
Speaker #1: And they spun out of SunPower. And then they came back to sort of put us back together. And then they had a very successful run up to the $80 million level in 2025.
Speaker #1: And they're bringing back that expertise on the operating side. That'll make us better as well. Then, when we decided who would be in the ARC or not, we picked Blue Raven, a subsidiary of SunPower.
Speaker #1: And we shut down two other manufacturing groups. And now these guys will come in. And they're running our manufacturing for Direct, which is our biggest part.
Speaker #1: Because they took Blue Raven to the next level at their company, Ambea. I'll show one thing. It may not mean anything to you, but if you're in my business, it's the world.
Speaker #1: This is cycle time. So what this says is the 50th percentile in median cycle time, in days, for various things. So, from the project received to permit submitted: seven days.
T.J. Rodgers: So what this says is the 50th percentile in median cycle time in days for various things. So from the project received to permit submitted, seven days. Bam. They get out of the blocks. Project received installation complete, put it in, 41.6 days. Then we go through getting inspection. That's the city to say, Okay, you're approved. And PTO, that's to get the utility to say, Okay, you can hook it up. And all of these are exemplary numbers. And what's even better is even their ugliest numbers are pretty good. We won't have stuff hanging out that didn't get shipped before the end of the quarter. And I'll just point out that this is 15 days faster than SunPower. In turn, SunPower was faster by weeks than the other two areas that I shut down at the original merger. Okay. What are we trying to do?
So what this says is the 50th percentile in median cycle time in days for various things. So from the project received to permit submitted, seven days. Bam. They get out of the blocks. Project received installation complete, put it in, 41.6 days. Then we go through getting inspection. That's the city to say, Okay, you're approved. And PTO, that's to get the utility to say, Okay, you can hook it up. And all of these are exemplary numbers. And what's even better is even their ugliest numbers are pretty good. We won't have stuff hanging out that didn't get shipped before the end of the quarter. And I'll just point out that this is 15 days faster than SunPower. In turn, SunPower was faster by weeks than the other two areas that I shut down at the original merger. Okay. What are we trying to do?
Speaker #1: Bam. They get out of the blocks. Project received installation complete—put it in 41.6 days. And then we go through getting inspection. That's the city to say, okay, you're approved.
Speaker #1: And PTO, that's to get the utility to say, okay, you can hook it up. And all of these are exemplary numbers. And what's even better is even their ugliest numbers are pretty good.
Speaker #1: We won't have stuff hanging out that didn't get shipped before the end of the quarter. And I'll just point out that this is 15 days faster than SunPower in turn.
Speaker #1: SunPower was faster by weeks than the other two areas that I shut down at the original merger. Okay. What are we trying to do?
Speaker #1: Zoom up a little bit. The goal is consistently profitable growth from our current $300 million level to $1 billion in 2028. If you do $1 billion divided by $300 million and take it to the 0.33 power, you get 50% per year.
T.J. Rodgers: Zoom up a little bit. The goal is consistently profitable growth from our current $300 million level to $1 billion in 2028. If you do one billion divided by 300 million and take it to the 0.33 power, you get 50% per year. So that means we have to have inorganic growth as well as organic growth to do that. Here's an example from the latest quarter in Q4. We did 88 million profit. We now have 111 million shares fully diluted. Our price-to-sales ratio still sucks, just I told you that earlier. And our share price, when I was finishing the slide this morning, I pushed the button on my phone, and that was the number I got. We have a plan. This is like the ninth revision of the second major plan. And here we're going to 250 million. That's a billion-dollar run rate.
Zoom up a little bit. The goal is consistently profitable growth from our current $300 million level to $1 billion in 2028. If you do one billion divided by 300 million and take it to the 0.33 power, you get 50% per year. So that means we have to have inorganic growth as well as organic growth to do that. Here's an example from the latest quarter in Q4. We did 88 million profit. We now have 111 million shares fully diluted. Our price-to-sales ratio still sucks, just I told you that earlier. And our share price, when I was finishing the slide this morning, I pushed the button on my phone, and that was the number I got. We have a plan. This is like the ninth revision of the second major plan. And here we're going to 250 million. That's a billion-dollar run rate.
Speaker #1: So that means we have to have inorganic growth as well as organic growth to do that. Here's an example from the latest quarter, in Q4.
Speaker #1: We did $88 million. Profit—we now have 111 million shares, fully diluted. Our price-to-sales ratio still sucks. I just told you that earlier.
Speaker #1: And our share price when I was finishing the slide this morning—I pushed the button on my phone, and that was the number I got.
Speaker #1: We have a plan. This is like the ninth revision of the second major plan. And here we're going to $250 million. That's a $1 billion run rate.
Speaker #1: We're going to spend some more stock, but not a lot more. We've pretty much acquired what we need to acquire. If our price-to-sales ratio gets to 1.72—I showed you that calculation earlier.
T.J. Rodgers: We're going to spend some more stock, but not a lot more. We're pretty much acquired what we need to acquire. If our price-to-sales ratio gets to 1.72, I showed you that calculation earlier. That's 554. That's a 3x. And that's a bogey for, I'll say, just becoming competent. Vision. So who will we be? Who will care? SunPower will again be recognized as number one in solar by introducing advanced technology hardware and software-controlled solar. Now this, if you have the best hardware, then you're going to get jobs you wouldn't get otherwise. But it's not dominant like the old SunPower had dominant panels that nobody could touch. The new world is going to be software-controlled solar system products, meaning everything is smart. Everything has a compatible computer and language, and everything has a compatible bus. And that doesn't mean Wi-Fi or any bullshit radio. It means wires.
We're going to spend some more stock, but not a lot more. We're pretty much acquired what we need to acquire. If our price-to-sales ratio gets to 1.72, I showed you that calculation earlier. That's 554. That's a 3x. And that's a bogey for, I'll say, just becoming competent. Vision. So who will we be? Who will care? SunPower will again be recognized as number one in solar by introducing advanced technology hardware and software-controlled solar. Now this, if you have the best hardware, then you're going to get jobs you wouldn't get otherwise. But it's not dominant like the old SunPower had dominant panels that nobody could touch. The new world is going to be software-controlled solar system products, meaning everything is smart. Everything has a compatible computer and language, and everything has a compatible bus. And that doesn't mean Wi-Fi or any bullshit radio. It means wires.
Speaker #1: That's 554. That's a 3X. And that's a bogey for, I'll say, just becoming competent. Vision. So who will we be? Who will care? SunPower will again be recognized as number one in solar by introducing advanced technology hardware.
Speaker #1: And software-controlled solar. Now, if you have the best hardware, then you're going to get jobs you wouldn't get otherwise. But it's not dominant like the old SunPower had—dominant panels that nobody could touch.
Speaker #1: The new world is going to be software-controlled solar system products. Meaning everything is smart. Everything has a compatible computer, and language, and everything has a compatible bus.
Speaker #1: And that doesn't mean Wi-Fi or any bullshit radio. It means wires. And the cheapest, most important wire to control things that you care about is called CAN bus.
T.J. Rodgers: And the cheapest, most important wire to control things that you care about is called CAN bus. It's the wire that connects your brake pedal. You think it's actually connecting your brakes. It's not. [It's the] wire that connects your brake pedal to the calipers on your brake and your steering, and. So we have ARM computers and CAN bus that work with everything, meaning the panels themselves, that's the Enphase inverter. The battery, that's the Enphase battery, which has, by the way, the same inverter in it. And you can run it forward to charge the battery and backwards to discharge the battery. And it talks to the other inverters on your panels. And then in the garage, you'll have an EV plug. And that EV plug will have the same hardware in it.
And the cheapest, most important wire to control things that you care about is called CAN bus. It's the wire that connects your brake pedal. You think it's actually connecting your brakes. It's not. [It's the] wire that connects your brake pedal to the calipers on your brake and your steering, and. So we have ARM computers and CAN bus that work with everything, meaning the panels themselves, that's the Enphase inverter. The battery, that's the Enphase battery, which has, by the way, the same inverter in it. And you can run it forward to charge the battery and backwards to discharge the battery. And it talks to the other inverters on your panels. And then in the garage, you'll have an EV plug. And that EV plug will have the same hardware in it.
Speaker #1: It's the wire that connects your brake pedal. You think it's actually connected to your brakes. It's not. It's the wire that connects your brake pedal to the calipers.
Speaker #1: On your brake, and your steering, and... and. So, we have ARM computers and CAN bus that work with everything—meaning the panels themselves. That's the in-face inverter.
Speaker #1: The battery—that's the in-face battery—which has, by the way, the same inverter in it. And you can run it forward to charge the battery.
Speaker #1: And backwards to discharge the battery. And it talks to the other inverters on your panels. And then, in the garage, you'll have an EV plug.
Speaker #1: And that EV plug will have the same hardware in it, so your electric car can talk to your battery and do what's right for you at that time.
T.J. Rodgers: So your electric car can talk to your battery and do what's right for you at that time. Your battery can talk to your panels to do what's right. Your battery knows when it's high and low price time because that's all downloaded from the cloud into your battery. So software-controlled true systems, not hacked together somebody's panels and somebody else's batteries. That's the future. So what are we doing about the future? I already told you about the panel. I told you about the bifacial panel. The next level of sales is going to be Perovskite Silicon. I'm on the board of two companies that are working on Perovskite Silicon. Not ready yet. That's why I put a warning out here. Talked a lot. Then there's Enphase inverters. The IQ8 is the first inverter in the world to allow sunlight backup.
So your electric car can talk to your battery and do what's right for you at that time. Your battery can talk to your panels to do what's right. Your battery knows when it's high and low price time because that's all downloaded from the cloud into your battery. So software-controlled true systems, not hacked together somebody's panels and somebody else's batteries. That's the future. So what are we doing about the future? I already told you about the panel. I told you about the bifacial panel. The next level of sales is going to be Perovskite Silicon. I'm on the board of two companies that are working on Perovskite Silicon. Not ready yet. That's why I put a warning out here. Talked a lot. Then there's Enphase inverters. The IQ8 is the first inverter in the world to allow sunlight backup.
Speaker #1: And your battery can talk to your panels to do what's right. And your battery knows when it's high and low price time, because that's all downloaded from the cloud into your battery.
Speaker #1: So, software-controlled true systems—not hacked together, somebody's panels and somebody else's batteries. That's the future. So, what are we doing about the future? I already told you about the panel.
Speaker #1: I told you about the bifacial panel. The next level of cell is going to be perovskite silicon. I'm on the board of two companies that are working on perovskite silicon.
Speaker #1: Not ready yet. That's why I put a warning out here. Talked a lot. Then there's in-face inverters. The IQ-8 is the first inverter in the world to allow sunlight backup.
T.J. Rodgers: If you have no battery because you don't want to afford one now, when the sun rises, it will freeze your freezer for you, and your freezer won't melt with a three-day outage. Just by having a solar system with an inverter, it's not perfect, but it's way better than a normal solar system. Their IQ-9 inverter uses gallium nitride, and it starts providing high voltage for commercial applications. Gallium nitride transistors instead of silicon transistors. And then there's the electric vehicle with zero carbon. There, you can tell your system in your cell phone, and this is deployed. I want my car to be charged only with solar electrons. Well, why would you do that? Because if you're green and you live in California, you bought an electric car. And by the way, I can almost throw a rock and hit Tesla from where I am right now.
If you have no battery because you don't want to afford one now, when the sun rises, it will freeze your freezer for you, and your freezer won't melt with a three-day outage. Just by having a solar system with an inverter, it's not perfect, but it's way better than a normal solar system. Their IQ-9 inverter uses gallium nitride, and it starts providing high voltage for commercial applications. Gallium nitride transistors instead of silicon transistors. And then there's the electric vehicle with zero carbon. There, you can tell your system in your cell phone, and this is deployed. I want my car to be charged only with solar electrons. Well, why would you do that? Because if you're green and you live in California, you bought an electric car. And by the way, I can almost throw a rock and hit Tesla from where I am right now.
Speaker #1: Battery, because you don't want to afford one—if you have none now, when the sun rises, it will freeze your freezer for you. And your freezer won't melt with a three-day outage.
Speaker #1: Just by having a solar system with an inverter, it's not perfect, but it's way better than a normal solar system. Their IQ-9 inverter uses gallium nitride.
Speaker #1: And it starts providing high voltage for commercial applications. Gallium nitride transistors instead of silicon transistors. And then there's the electric vehicle with zero carbon.
Speaker #1: There, you can tell your system on your cell phone, and this is deployed. I want my car to be charged only with solar electrons.
Speaker #1: Well, why would you do that? Because if you're green and you live in California, you bought an electric car. And by the way, I can almost throw a rock and hit Tesla from where I am right now.
Speaker #1: You bought your electric car because you didn't want to burn oil. And then the problem is, the electricity you put in your car burned oil or gas in order to make it.
T.J. Rodgers: You bought your electric car because you didn't want to burn oil. And then the problem is the electricity you put in your car burned oil or gas in order to make it. But if your electricity comes from the sun, it didn't burn anything for anybody. And you actually can commute to work in a nice car without using any oil of any kind. And that maybe you're not jumping up and down about that, but I guarantee you people here in California will jump up about it. And that has just become available in the last quarter. And then EV battery for backup. The flip side is if I charge your car with green electrons, when will I be able to take those green electrons out of your car and have a massive battery, 10 times bigger than a typical solar battery that I have for free?
You bought your electric car because you didn't want to burn oil. And then the problem is the electricity you put in your car burned oil or gas in order to make it. But if your electricity comes from the sun, it didn't burn anything for anybody. And you actually can commute to work in a nice car without using any oil of any kind. And that maybe you're not jumping up and down about that, but I guarantee you people here in California will jump up about it. And that has just become available in the last quarter. And then EV battery for backup. The flip side is if I charge your car with green electrons, when will I be able to take those green electrons out of your car and have a massive battery, 10 times bigger than a typical solar battery that I have for free?
Speaker #1: But if your electricity comes from the sun, it didn't burn anything for anybody. And you actually can commute to work in a nice car without using any oil of any kind.
Speaker #1: And that, maybe you're not jumping up and down about that, but I guarantee you people here in California will jump over about it. And that has just become available.
Speaker #1: Like in the last quarter. And then EV battery for backup. The flip side is, if I charge your car with green electrons, when will I be able to take those green electrons out of your car and have a massive battery—10 times bigger than a typical solar battery—that I have for free? Not always there, but I have for free.
T.J. Rodgers: Not always there, but I have for free. So I'm an R&D guy. So I don't talk about futures. These are now, now, now, now. And this is what is going to differentiate us in advanced technology, hardware, and software-controlled solar system products. This is our plan, the long-range plan. It's a work in progress. But you can see here we have three divisions. SunPower Direct is green is the big one. I told you that earlier. That's all of SunPower except for Sunder. We sell only contracts, including to inside contracts to our divisions. And new homes, which sells to corporations and also has a procurement management system that can manage other installations where we can get credit for everything by using partners, not internal people. So that is the new organization of SunPower. We just did a $309 million year.
Not always there, but I have for free. So I'm an R&D guy. So I don't talk about futures. These are now, now, now, now. And this is what is going to differentiate us in advanced technology, hardware, and software-controlled solar system products. This is our plan, the long-range plan. It's a work in progress. But you can see here we have three divisions. SunPower Direct is green is the big one. I told you that earlier. That's all of SunPower except for Sunder. We sell only contracts, including to inside contracts to our divisions. And new homes, which sells to corporations and also has a procurement management system that can manage other installations where we can get credit for everything by using partners, not internal people. So that is the new organization of SunPower. We just did a $309 million year.
Speaker #1: So, I'm an R&D guy, so I don't talk about the futures. These are now, now, now, now. And this is what is going to differentiate us in advanced technology hardware and software-controlled solar system products.
Speaker #1: This is our plan, the long-range plan. It's a work in progress. But you can see here we have three divisions. SunPower Direct is green—it's the big one.
Speaker #1: I told you that earlier. That's all of SunPower except for Sunder. We sell only contracts, including inside contracts to our divisions. And New Homes, which sells to corporations and also has a procurement management system that can manage other installations where we can get credit for everything by using partners, not internal people.
Speaker #1: So that is the new organization of SunPower. We just did $309 million a year. I haven't promised a word yet about 2026 because I want to find out what's going to happen this quarter.
T.J. Rodgers: I haven't promised a word yet about 2026 because I want to find out what's going to happen this quarter. But it's a number looking like that. There's 2027. There's 2028. So, this I called, by the way, G stands for God. And the implication is if you don't make the plan, the wrath of God falls on you. And I'm an agent of the Lord in this particular case to make sure that people believe in the plan. So right up to here, I've made promises to investors, which I consider to be sacred. I want to point out to you that from this point on, we're still modeling, and you will see upgrades of this over time. In the plan, I just want to tell you that currently a 4% op inc. This is a quarter where we see 8.1% op inc.
I haven't promised a word yet about 2026 because I want to find out what's going to happen this quarter. But it's a number looking like that. There's 2027. There's 2028. So, this I called, by the way, G stands for God. And the implication is if you don't make the plan, the wrath of God falls on you. And I'm an agent of the Lord in this particular case to make sure that people believe in the plan. So right up to here, I've made promises to investors, which I consider to be sacred. I want to point out to you that from this point on, we're still modeling, and you will see upgrades of this over time. In the plan, I just want to tell you that currently a 4% op inc. This is a quarter where we see 8.1% op inc.
Speaker #1: But it's a number looking like that. There's 2027. There's 2028. So this I call—by the way, G stands for God. And the implication is, if you don't make the plan, the wrath of God falls on you.
Speaker #1: And I'm an agent of the Lord in this particular case to make sure that people believe in the plan. So, right up to here, I've made promises to investors which I consider to be sacred.
Speaker #1: I want to point out to you that from this point on, we're still modeling, and you will see upgrades of this over time. In the plan, I just want to tell you that currently a 4% op-inc.
Speaker #1: This is a quarter where we see 8.1% op-inc. And this is a quarter where we see revenue of $250 million—times four is a billion dollars.
T.J. Rodgers: This is a quarter where we see revenue of $250 million times 4 is $1 billion. This is a plan which, if executed already, can move us into our mission statement. We're sitting back here all the way back here. One more point, cash. Again, telling you where we are. We have cash in the bank. We have an ELOC to feed the cash in the bank. We have made a promise to investors that we're going to have minimum cash of $10 million. That means if we have to raise cash in the quarter, we'll raise it to $10 million and stop. Or if we have cash flow positive, cash will go above $10 million. This is what our plan looks like. This is the quarter, last quarter, where people freaked out about the low level of cash.
This is a quarter where we see revenue of $250 million times 4 is $1 billion. This is a plan which, if executed already, can move us into our mission statement. We're sitting back here all the way back here. One more point, cash. Again, telling you where we are. We have cash in the bank. We have an ELOC to feed the cash in the bank. We have made a promise to investors that we're going to have minimum cash of $10 million. That means if we have to raise cash in the quarter, we'll raise it to $10 million and stop. Or if we have cash flow positive, cash will go above $10 million. This is what our plan looks like. This is the quarter, last quarter, where people freaked out about the low level of cash.
Speaker #1: So this is a plan which, if executed, already can move us into our mission statement. And we're sitting back here, all the way back here.
Speaker #1: One more point: cash. Again, telling you where we are. So, we have cash in the bank. We have an ELOC to feed the cash in the bank.
Speaker #1: We have made a promise to investors that we're going to have a minimum cash balance of $10 million. That means if we have to raise cash in the quarter, we'll raise it to $10 million and stop.
Speaker #1: Or, if we have cash flow positive, cash will go above $10 million. So, this is what our plan looks like. This is a quarter—last quarter.
Speaker #1: People freaked out about the low level of cash. We're back at the $10 million. And this is when, in Q4 of this year, our plan says we're going to be cash flow positive from operations and fund the thing.
T.J. Rodgers: We're back at the $10 million. And this is when in Q4 of this year, our plan says we're going to be cash flow positive from operations and fund the thing. In order to keep this up, this is being supported. We have two raised at $17 million in this quarter and $29 million in this quarter. So that is our cash need to cash flow positive, two rounds, $46 million. You guys ought to understand that, I think. Okay. Next quarter is going to be $84 million. It'll be our second best-ever quarter. We're going to be down, quote unquote, only 4%. We expect the industry to be at least 10% and maybe 15% or maybe even more down. So we expect to gain share. We're going to have operating profit, and we're going to have that for every quarter. That's our expectation. I didn't promise every quarter of 2026.
We're back at the $10 million. And this is when in Q4 of this year, our plan says we're going to be cash flow positive from operations and fund the thing. In order to keep this up, this is being supported. We have two raised at $17 million in this quarter and $29 million in this quarter. So that is our cash need to cash flow positive, two rounds, $46 million. You guys ought to understand that, I think. Okay. Next quarter is going to be $84 million. It'll be our second best-ever quarter. We're going to be down, quote unquote, only 4%. We expect the industry to be at least 10% and maybe 15% or maybe even more down. So we expect to gain share. We're going to have operating profit, and we're going to have that for every quarter. That's our expectation. I didn't promise every quarter of 2026.
Speaker #1: In order to keep this up, this is being supported. We have two raised at 17 in this quarter and 29 in this quarter. So that is our cash need to cash flow positive.
Speaker #1: Two rounds, $46 million. I just think you guys ought to understand that, I think. Okay. Next quarter is going to be $84 million. It'll be our second-best ever quarter.
Speaker #1: We're going to be down only 4%. We expect the industry to be at least 10%, and maybe 15%, or maybe even more down. So we expect to gain share.
Speaker #1: We're going to have operating profit, and we're going to have that for every quarter. That's our expectation. I didn't promise every quarter of 2026.
Speaker #1: I noticed I didn't put my lawyer weasel word in that sentence. Cash. We have a vehicle now to keep cash above $10 million, and three more deals pending, which you'll be hearing about this quarter as we finalize it.
T.J. Rodgers: I noticed I didn't put my lawyer's weasel word in that sentence. Cash. We have a vehicle now to keep cash above $10 million with three more deals pending, which you'll be hearing about this quarter as we finalize it. That's it. Ready for questions. Great. Thank you. We will now begin our Q&A session. As a reminder, for those joining via the web, you may submit a written question via the submission box located on the right side of your screen. For those joining via our live Q&A line, please click the raise hand located on the bottom of your screen within the black bar. And when it's your turn, you will receive a message on your screen allowing you to speak. When you hear your name called, please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question.
I noticed I didn't put my lawyer's weasel word in that sentence. Cash. We have a vehicle now to keep cash above $10 million with three more deals pending, which you'll be hearing about this quarter as we finalize it. That's it. Ready for questions.
Speaker #1: That's it. Ready for questions. Great, thank you. We will now begin our Q&A session. As a reminder, for those joining via the web, you may submit a written question via the submission box located on the right side of your screen.
Siobhan Hickie: Great. Thank you. We will now begin our Q&A session. As a reminder, for those joining via the web, you may submit a written question via the submission box located on the right side of your screen. For those joining via our live Q&A line, please click the raise hand located on the bottom of your screen within the black bar. And when it's your turn, you will receive a message on your screen allowing you to speak. When you hear your name called, please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question.
Speaker #1: For those joining via our live Q&A line, please click the 'Raise Hand' button located at the bottom of your screen within the black bar. When it's your turn, you will receive a message on your screen allowing you to speak.
Speaker #1: When you hear your name called, please accept. Unmute your audio and ask your question. Our first question today comes from the line of Derek Soderbergh at Canterfort.
T.J. Rodgers: Our first question today comes from the line of Derek Soderbergh at Cantor Fitzgerald. Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So TJ, you just touched on your vision for becoming an advanced technology solar company with software-controlled systems. I guess from the investor's perspective, why is this the most sustainable, profitable model for residential solar and commercial? And what's sort of the most exciting part of the business as things have sort of come together on the sales front and the hardware front? What's the most exciting part of the model as the business sort of comes together here? That's a really good question. An analyst, a really well-respected analyst the other day, asked me, "Why do we need a national company?
Our first question today comes from the line of Derek Soderbergh at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Speaker #1: Gerald. Yeah.
Derek Soderbergh: Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So TJ, you just touched on your vision for becoming an advanced technology solar company with software-controlled systems. I guess from the investor's perspective, why is this the most sustainable, profitable model for residential solar and commercial? And what's sort of the most exciting part of the business as things have sort of come together on the sales front and the hardware front? What's the most exciting part of the model as the business sort of comes together here?
Speaker #3: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So, TJ, you just touched on your vision for becoming an advanced technology solar company with software-controlled systems.
Speaker #3: I guess, from the investor's perspective, why is this the most sustainable, profitable model for Reggie Solar and commercial? And what's sort of the most exciting part of the business as things have sort of come together on the sales front and the hardware front?
Speaker #3: What's the most exciting part of the model as the business sort of comes together?
Speaker #3: Here? That's a really good question.
T.J. Rodgers: That's a really good question. An analyst, a really well-respected analyst the other day, asked me, "Why do we need a national company?
Speaker #4: An analyst is a really well-respected analyst the other day asked me why do we need a national company? Why don't guys in pickup trucks and different cities in the United States, why can't they be solar?
T.J. Rodgers: Why don't guys in pickup trucks in different cities in the United States, why can't they be solar?" And the answer is, if all solar is driving to your house and installing something, anything, aluminum siding, then you don't need a national company. But these systems I just talked about, think about the intelligence of a system required to know what the weather is, to know whether to use or store current, to know whether or not to store current or charge your car or both, and to change that as the cloud goes across the sun. Guys in pickup trucks ain't going to do that. That's hard. And if you look, the basic thing is Enphase inverter. It looks like a VHS tape. It's that thick and this big.
Why don't guys in pickup trucks in different cities in the United States, why can't they be solar?" And the answer is, if all solar is driving to your house and installing something, anything, aluminum siding, then you don't need a national company. But these systems I just talked about, think about the intelligence of a system required to know what the weather is, to know whether to use or store current, to know whether or not to store current or charge your car or both, and to change that as the cloud goes across the sun. Guys in pickup trucks ain't going to do that. That's hard. And if you look, the basic thing is Enphase inverter. It looks like a VHS tape. It's that thick and this big.
Speaker #4: And the answer is, if all solar is, is driving to your house and installing something—anything, aluminum siding—then you don't need a national company.
Speaker #4: But these systems I just talked about, think about the intelligence of a system required to know what the weather is, to know whether to use or store current, to know whether or not to store current or charge your car or both, and to change that as a cloud goes across the sun.
Speaker #4: Guys in pickup trucks aren't going to do that. That's hard. And if you look, the basic thing is in-face inverter. It looks like a VHS tape.
Speaker #4: It's that thick and this big. And the intelligence in that, and the hundreds of man-years of time in creating it, mean that the other guys can't enjoy an advantage for the most efficient copy of it.
T.J. Rodgers: And the intelligence in that and the hundreds of man years of time in creating it mean that the other guys can't copy it. It goes back. SunPower enjoyed an advantage with the most efficient solar panels in the world. And they had that for decades. And then it went away because China Inc. We had an automatic line in 2002. China Inc. then started automatic lines later, and they went through eight generations of automatic lines. Now they're caught up. So now a panel, which is itself an engineering work of art, after two decades and a huge amount of investment, has become something you buy is a commodity. Cars are commodities. And they're amazing in their engineering anyway. So systems, we all know. The investors like software companies. We all know. Give you one example.
And the intelligence in that and the hundreds of man years of time in creating it mean that the other guys can't copy it. It goes back. SunPower enjoyed an advantage with the most efficient solar panels in the world. And they had that for decades. And then it went away because China Inc. We had an automatic line in 2002. China Inc. then started automatic lines later, and they went through eight generations of automatic lines. Now they're caught up. So now a panel, which is itself an engineering work of art, after two decades and a huge amount of investment, has become something you buy is a commodity. Cars are commodities. And they're amazing in their engineering anyway. So systems, we all know. The investors like software companies. We all know. Give you one example.
Speaker #4: It goes back, some foreign solar panels in the world. And they had that for decades, and then it went away because China Inc. We had an automatic line.
Speaker #4: In 2002, China Inc. then started automatic lines. Later, they went through eight generations of automatic lines. Now they're caught up. So now a panel, which is itself an engineering work of art, after two decades and a huge amount of investment, has become something that is a commodity.
Speaker #4: Cars are a commodity. These are amazing in their engineering, anyway. So systems—we all know—investors like software companies. We all know. Give you one example.
Speaker #4: You know who always has different rules in California than Massachusetts for what you have to do in various solar events when you hook up just an ordinary solar system?
T.J. Rodgers: Hawaii's got different rules in California than Massachusetts for what you have to do in various solar events when you hook up just an ordinary solar system. What do you do about that? The answer is we download. Enphase downloads a program into their system that not only puts you in Hawaii, but keeps up with the Hawaii legislature every time they change it and all the other venues for it. So it's that kind of fast flexibility where you're writing software for given hardware. And then you have the best hardware too. I'm not knocking that. That will differentiate. And that's why you need a national company because only a national company can be big enough to afford that, have partnerships that matter, and afford that kind of effort. TJ, who's going to be facilitating the software piece of the business?
Hawaii's got different rules in California than Massachusetts for what you have to do in various solar events when you hook up just an ordinary solar system. What do you do about that? The answer is we download. Enphase downloads a program into their system that not only puts you in Hawaii, but keeps up with the Hawaii legislature every time they change it and all the other venues for it. So it's that kind of fast flexibility where you're writing software for given hardware. And then you have the best hardware too. I'm not knocking that. That will differentiate. And that's why you need a national company because only a national company can be big enough to afford that, have partnerships that matter, and afford that kind of effort.
Speaker #4: What do you do about that? The answer is, we download in-phase downloads of program into their system that not only puts you in Hawaii, but keeps up with Hawaii legislature every time they change it.
Speaker #4: And all the other venues for it. So it's that kind of fast facility where you're writing software for given hardware. And then you have the best hardware, too.
Speaker #4: I'm not knocking that. That will differentiate. And that's why you need a national company, because only a national company can be big enough to afford that, have partnerships that matter, and afford that kind of effort.
Derek Soderbergh: TJ, who's going to be facilitating the software piece of the business?
Speaker #3: TJ, who's going to be facilitating the software piece of the business? You had mentioned that a few times today. Feels like there's an opportunity there for you guys now that you have a full hardware offering and a nationwide sales team.
T.J. Rodgers: You had mentioned that a few times today. Feels like there's an opportunity there for you guys now that you guys have a full hardware offering, nationwide sales team. Can you upsell software? Can you be a part of the recurring piece of the business? Is there a software angle to this at all? Sure. Do I have a software group? First of all, I'm not a software guy. I have dozens of software guys, but I don't think I have the group to create the vision I just described. So right now, we can't make panels, but our partner, REC, is world-class at it. We can't do software systems. We certainly can program, install, and define them. We can't do that right now with our partner, Enphase. So partnerships at our level matter.
You had mentioned that a few times today. Feels like there's an opportunity there for you guys now that you guys have a full hardware offering, nationwide sales team. Can you upsell software? Can you be a part of the recurring piece of the business? Is there a software angle to this at all?
Speaker #3: Can you upsell software? Can you be a part of the recurring piece of the business? Is there a software angle to this at all?
T.J. Rodgers: Sure. Do I have a software group? First of all, I'm not a software guy. I have dozens of software guys, but I don't think I have the group to create the vision I just described. So right now, we can't make panels, but our partner, REC, is world-class at it. We can't do software systems. We certainly can program, install, and define them. We can't do that right now with our partner, Enphase. So partnerships at our level matter.
Speaker #4: Sure. Do I have a software group? First of all, I'm not a software guy. I have dozens of software guys, but I don't think I have a group to create the vision I just described.
Speaker #4: So right now, we can't make panels, but our partner RIC has world-class at it. We can't do software systems. We certainly can program and install them.
Speaker #4: And define them. We can't do that right now. And our partner is Enphase. So partnerships at our level matter. And I think if you look at any industry, Boeing doesn't make jet engines.
T.J. Rodgers: I think if you look at any industry, Boeing doesn't make jet engines. Somebody else, Pratt & Whitney, for example, Rolls-Royce makes jet engines. It becomes very hard to do it when you partner. And that's what we're going to do, but we're going to be cognizant. We're cognizant today of what you have to do. Got it. That's helpful. A couple of clarifying questions. The $84 million guidance with $4 million of uncertainty, is the way to interpret that as $80 million of high likelihood revenue with $4 million that's uncertain, or is the $4 million potential upside to guidance? So I feel like there's a little box being put here and then another little box being put here, and then I'm starting to look up and there's a little lid going on there. I'll be honest with you.
I think if you look at any industry, Boeing doesn't make jet engines. Somebody else, Pratt & Whitney, for example, Rolls-Royce makes jet engines. It becomes very hard to do it when you partner. And that's what we're going to do, but we're going to be cognizant. We're cognizant today of what you have to do. Got it. That's helpful. A couple of clarifying questions. The $84 million guidance with $4 million of uncertainty, is the way to interpret that as $80 million of high likelihood revenue with $4 million that's uncertain, or is the $4 million potential upside to guidance? So I feel like there's a little box being put here and then another little box being put here, and then I'm starting to look up and there's a little lid going on there. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker #4: Somebody else—Pratt & Whitney, for example, Rolls-Royce—makes jet engines. It becomes very hard to do it. And your partner. And that's what we're going to do, but we're going to be cognizant.
Speaker #4: We're cognizant today of what you have to.
Speaker #4: do. Got it.
Speaker #3: That's helpful. A couple of clarifying questions. The $84 million guidance with $4 million of uncertainty—is the way to interpret that as $80 million of high-likelihood revenue, with $4 million that's uncertain?
Speaker #3: Or is the $4 million potential upside to
Speaker #3: Or is the $4 million potential upside to guidance? So
Speaker #4: I feel like there's a little box being put here, and then another little box being put here. And then I'm starting to look up, and there's a little lid going on there.
Speaker #4: I'll be honest with you. That number, 84, I invented that number the other day so I could be sure of it. And then I checked with the people, and they said, 'We can be sure of it.' And it's a little bit less than our actual internal plan, which will determine our bonus.
T.J. Rodgers: That number 84, I invented that number the other day so I could be sure of it. And then I checked with the people, and they said, "We can be sure of it." And it's a little bit less than our actual internal plan, which will determine our bonus. Got it. Got it. And then on operating expenses, they were up 41% sequentially on a GAAP basis. What was the reason for this growth? Was there kind of one-time stuff associated with you guys going out and selling some of that backlog? Can you help us understand, maybe looking forward, where we should sort of expect the operating expense run rate to be kind of in Q1, Q2? Anything to help us kind of model that for 2026? Okay. Our operating expenses are not emphatically up as much as you just said.
That number 84, I invented that number the other day so I could be sure of it. And then I checked with the people, and they said, "We can be sure of it." And it's a little bit less than our actual internal plan, which will determine our bonus.
Derek Soderbergh: Got it. Got it. And then on operating expenses, they were up 41% sequentially on a GAAP basis. What was the reason for this growth? Was there kind of one-time stuff associated with you guys going out and selling some of that backlog? Can you help us understand, maybe looking forward, where we should sort of expect the operating expense run rate to be kind of in Q1, Q2? Anything to help us kind of model that for 2026?
Speaker #3: Got it. Got it. And then, on operating expenses—they were up 41% sequentially on a GAAP basis. What was the reason for this growth?
Speaker #3: Was there kind of one-time stuff associated with you guys going out and selling some of that backlog? Can you help us understand, maybe looking forward, where we should sort of expect the operating expense run rate to be—kind of help us model that for '26?
Speaker #3: Q1, Q2, anything to
T.J. Rodgers: Okay. Our operating expenses are not emphatically up as much as you just said.
Speaker #4: Okay, not emphatically up. Our operating expenses are as much as you just said. You said they're up on a 'GAAP basis.' Well, what the hell does that mean?
T.J. Rodgers: You said they're up on a, quote, GAAP basis. Well, what the hell does that mean? Okay. Up from 35 to 49. I showed you our OpEx, less commission, is flat, almost flat. It's 8.5% quarter on quarter. The difference is shown here. It's the one non-GAAP thing I show. The OpEx has stock compensation built into it. So when you report OpEx, your people cost so much. And do you cost what you pay them plus their benefits, or does it cost what you pay them plus their benefits plus the cost of their stock options and is it this? I have a name called SunPower. I thought I bought it at a bankruptcy auction in Delaware.
You said they're up on a, quote, GAAP basis. Well, what the hell does that mean? Okay. Up from 35 to 49. I showed you our OpEx, less commission, is flat, almost flat. It's 8.5% quarter on quarter. The difference is shown here. It's the one non-GAAP thing I show. The OpEx has stock compensation built into it. So when you report OpEx, your people cost so much. And do you cost what you pay them plus their benefits, or does it cost what you pay them plus their benefits plus the cost of their stock options and is it this? I have a name called SunPower. I thought I bought it at a bankruptcy auction in Delaware.
Speaker #4: Okay? Up from 35 to 49. I showed you our OPEX less commission is flat, almost flat. It's 8.5% quarter on quarter. The difference is shown here.
Speaker #4: It's the one gap, non-GAAP thing I show. The OPEX has stock compensation built into it. So when you report OPEX, your people cost so much.
Speaker #4: And do you cost what you pay them plus their benefits? Or does it cost what you pay them plus their benefits plus the cost of their stock option as they vest?
Speaker #4: I have a name called SunPower. I thought I bought it at a bankruptcy auction in Delaware. It turns out, once I bought it, then I got told, you got to put it on your books and depreciate it.
T.J. Rodgers: It turns out once I bought it, then I got told, "You got to put it on your books and depreciate it." So I lose money every quarter because I have the name SunPower, etc. If you want to look at OpEx, look at that line right there. I also take out commission because commission is like 30%. Best case I've ever seen is 26%, and I've seen as high as 36%. So if you want to look at OpEx, you subtract out commission, you subtract out intangibles like I've been describing, and that's the real OpEx. And that's under tight control. I review our headcount twice a week, and there is no swap there, no one-time events or anything. There's distortion in accounting mandated by law. Got it. That's helpful. And my last question, T.J., the silver price has been going up. That's a key component in solar panels.
It turns out once I bought it, then I got told, "You got to put it on your books and depreciate it." So I lose money every quarter because I have the name SunPower, etc. If you want to look at OpEx, look at that line right there. I also take out commission because commission is like 30%. Best case I've ever seen is 26%, and I've seen as high as 36%. So if you want to look at OpEx, you subtract out commission, you subtract out intangibles like I've been describing, and that's the real OpEx. And that's under tight control. I review our headcount twice a week, and there is no swap there, no one-time events or anything. There's distortion in accounting mandated by law.
Speaker #4: So I lose money every quarter because I have the name SunPower, etc. If you want to look at OPEX, look at that line right there.
Speaker #4: I also take out commission, because commission is, like, 30%—best case I've ever seen is 26%, and I've seen as high as 36%. So if you want to look at OPEX, you subtract out commission, you subtract out intangibles like I've been describing, and that's the real OPEX.
Speaker #4: And that's under tight control. Our reviewer headcount is checked twice a week. And there is no swap there—no one-time events or anything. There's distortion in accounting mandated by law.
Speaker #4: And that's under tight control. Our reviewer headcount is checked twice a week. And there is no swap there—no one-time events or anything. There's distortion in accounting mandated by law.
Derek Soderbergh: Got it. That's helpful. And my last question, T.J., the silver price has been going up. That's a key component in solar panels.
Speaker #3: Got it. That's helpful. And my last question, TJ: with silver prices going up—and that's a key component in solar panels—there's some concern on potential physical supply.
T.J. Rodgers: There's some concern on potentially physical supply. Do you view that as a risk for the industry? No. I think panels will be a wash in panels. So I didn't buy any Safe Harbor panels. We had a little squeaker there at the end of the year because everybody was scrambling to buy solar panels so they could tack a couple of them up on houses here and there and then declare that they still got the subsidy. So they were running their company by buying excess inventory that they didn't need because of a government distortion in the market. That's what I mean by free markets as one example. So we didn't do that. So right now, everybody bought all those panels, and they're sitting all over hell and gone.
There's some concern on potentially physical supply. Do you view that as a risk for the industry?
Speaker #3: Do you view that as a risk for the—
Speaker #3: industry? No, I think
T.J. Rodgers: No. I think panels will be a wash in panels. So I didn't buy any Safe Harbor panels. We had a little squeaker there at the end of the year because everybody was scrambling to buy solar panels so they could tack a couple of them up on houses here and there and then declare that they still got the subsidy. So they were running their company by buying excess inventory that they didn't need because of a government distortion in the market. That's what I mean by free markets as one example. So we didn't do that. So right now, everybody bought all those panels, and they're sitting all over hell and gone.
Speaker #4: Panels will be a washing panel, so I didn't buy any Safe Harbor panels. And we had a little squeaker there at the end of the year because everybody was scrambling to buy solar panels so they could tack a couple of them up on houses here and there.
Speaker #4: And then declare that they still got the subsidy. So they were running their company by buying excess inventory that they didn't need because of a government distortion in the market.
Speaker #4: That's what I mean by free markets, as one example. So we didn't do that. So right now, everybody bought all those panels, and they're sitting all over hell and gone.
Speaker #4: Fact is, later in the year, for my economy system—the lowest cost system—I plan on buying those panels. At a steep discount to the guys that are listening to the depreciation clock in their warehouse, as the panels are worth less and less over time.
T.J. Rodgers: Fact is, later in the year, for my economy system, the lowest-cost system, I plan on buying those panels at a steep discount to the guys that are listening to the depreciation clock in their warehouse as the panels are worth less and less over time. There are dozens, literally dozens, of panel plants being built in the United States. As we speak, there's already a bunch of them. So to get by the tariffs, many of the Asian companies, they'll make their solar cells offshore. They'll import the solar cells, much lighter, much smaller, air freight, come in fast, and then put them in panels, heavy, big machines in the United States. And there's way more of those plants being created right now. The panel business is a no-profit zone. You do not want to be involved with it.
Fact is, later in the year, for my economy system, the lowest-cost system, I plan on buying those panels at a steep discount to the guys that are listening to the depreciation clock in their warehouse as the panels are worth less and less over time. There are dozens, literally dozens, of panel plants being built in the United States. As we speak, there's already a bunch of them. So to get by the tariffs, many of the Asian companies, they'll make their solar cells offshore. They'll import the solar cells, much lighter, much smaller, air freight, come in fast, and then put them in panels, heavy, big machines in the United States. And there's way more of those plants being created right now. The panel business is a no-profit zone. You do not want to be involved with it.
Speaker #4: There are dozens, literally dozens, of panel plants being built in the United States. As we speak, there's already a bunch of them. So to get by the tariffs, many of the Asian companies have—they'll make their solar cells offshore.
Speaker #4: They'll import the solar cells, much lighter, much smaller, air freight, come in fast. And then put them in panels—heavy, big machines—in the United States.
Speaker #4: And there's way more of those plants being created right now. The panel business is a no-profit zone. You do not want to be involved with it.
Speaker #4: You want to be taking advantage of the excess of supply, and that is where we’re already there. This quarter, there will be an excess of—
T.J. Rodgers: You want to be taking advantage of the excess of supply. That is we're already there. This quarter, there will be an excess of supply. Got it. Well, that's all the questions for me. Congrats on the results, guys. I'll hop back in the queue. Thank you. Thank you, Derek. Our next question comes from Gus Richard from Northland. Go ahead, Gus. Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. I was just curious how you guys are doing converting Sunder sales into installs and sort of where that is and what you think the trajectory will look like. Can you say that one more time? I'm not sure I got it. So I was wondering how you're doing on converting the Sunder sales into installations and what that trajectory might look like. You guys want to can I help? Yeah. Hey, Gus.
You want to be taking advantage of the excess of supply. That is we're already there. This quarter, there will be an excess of supply.
Speaker #4: supply. Got it.
Derek Soderbergh: Got it. Well, that's all the questions for me. Congrats on the results, guys. I'll hop back in the queue.
Speaker #3: Well, that's all the questions for me. Congrats on the results, guys.
Speaker #3: I'll hop back in with you. Thank you.
T.J. Rodgers: Thank you.
Speaker #4: you. Thank you,
Siobhan Hickie: Thank you, Derek. Our next question comes from Gus Richard from Northland. Go ahead, Gus.
Speaker #1: Derek. Our next question comes from Gus Rashad from Northland. Go ahead, Gus.
Gus Richard: Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. I was just curious how you guys are doing converting Sunder sales into installs and sort of where that is and what you think the trajectory will look like.
Speaker #5: Yes, thanks for taking the questions. I was just curious how you guys are doing converting SunDar sales into installs, and sort of where that is and what you think the trajectory will look like.
T.J. Rodgers: Can you say that one more time? I'm not sure I got it.
Speaker #4: So, can you say that one more time? I'm not sure I got it.
Gus Richard: So I was wondering how you're doing on converting the Sunder sales into installations and what that trajectory might look like.
Speaker #5: So, I was wondering how you're doing on converting the SunDar sales into installations, and what that trajectory might look like.
T.J. Rodgers: You guys want to
Speaker #4: You guys want
Speaker #4: to. Can I help? Yeah.
John Berger: can I help?
T.J. Rodgers: Yeah.
Speaker #5: Hey, Gus. We've got two pauses going on with SunDar right now. First off, is there fundamental 1099 force that they brought us in in late September?
John Berger: Hey, Gus.
T.J. Rodgers: We've got two phases going on with Sunder right now. First off, their fundamental 1099 force that they brought us in in late September has moved up dramatically in total bookings. Secondly, TJ was telling me about five weeks ago that we brought in about 350 PureLight guys. We brought them in at the very, very end of 2025, and we've been expanding in 2026. Those guys have already produced significant bookings. In their first four weeks, we have over 100 strong bookings. We have another 350 that are in the front end of the booking channel. The way it looks for us right now with Sunder is that we're going to have a larger revenue than we currently are forecast as a result of the rapid expansion in 1099 sales force with Sunder. So we're very pleased with that part of residential retrofit.
We've got two phases going on with Sunder right now. First off, their fundamental 1099 force that they brought us in in late September has moved up dramatically in total bookings. Secondly, TJ was telling me about five weeks ago that we brought in about 350 PureLight guys. We brought them in at the very, very end of 2025, and we've been expanding in 2026. Those guys have already produced significant bookings. In their first four weeks, we have over 100 strong bookings. We have another 350 that are in the front end of the booking channel. The way it looks for us right now with Sunder is that we're going to have a larger revenue than we currently are forecast as a result of the rapid expansion in 1099 sales force with Sunder. So we're very pleased with that part of residential retrofit.
Speaker #5: Has moved up dramatically in total bookings. Secondly, TJ was telling you about five weeks ago that we brought in about 350 Pure Light guys.
Speaker #5: We brought them in at the very, very end of 2025, and we've been expanding in 2026. Those guys have already produced significant bookings in their first four weeks.
Speaker #5: We have over 100 strong bookings. We have another 350 that are in the front end of the booking channel. The way it looks for us right now with SunDar is that we're going to have a larger revenue than we currently are forecast, as a result of the rapid expansion in the 1099 sales force of SunDar.
Speaker #5: So we're very pleased with that part of residential or retrofit. That's working very well for us.
T.J. Rodgers: That's working very good for us. So this is a controversial issue, which I talk about five days a week. And the reason Eric Nielsen is the better VP of sales than T.J. Rodgers or his, whoever he appoints, is that Eric understands these guys' 1099s and I don't. And I'm a bit of a do-what's-right-for-the-company, do-it-with-discipline kind of guy. But in order to keep the 1099s, Eric gives them a work environment that they appreciate. And I supported that with stock, but there's other things. And one of the things they get is they get to poke whatever button they want or which EPC, that is, installer, gets the job. Okay? Right now, they can poke 26 buttons. SunPower Direct us 27 buttons. SunPower Direct us. SunPower New Homes us. And then 25 EPCs that are literally our competitors.
That's working very good for us.
T.J. Rodgers: So this is a controversial issue, which I talk about five days a week. And the reason Eric Nielsen is the better VP of sales than T.J. Rodgers or his, whoever he appoints, is that Eric understands these guys' 1099s and I don't. And I'm a bit of a do-what's-right-for-the-company, do-it-with-discipline kind of guy. But in order to keep the 1099s, Eric gives them a work environment that they appreciate. And I supported that with stock, but there's other things. And one of the things they get is they get to poke whatever button they want or which EPC, that is, installer, gets the job. Okay? Right now, they can poke 26 buttons. SunPower Direct us 27 buttons. SunPower Direct us. SunPower New Homes us. And then 25 EPCs that are literally our competitors.
Speaker #4: So let me this is a controversial issue, which I talk about five days a week. And the reason Eric Nielsen is the better of VP of Sales than TJ Rogers or his whoever he points is that Eric understands these guys, these 1099s, and I don't.
Speaker #4: And I'm a bit of a do-what's-right-for-the-company, do-it-with-discipline kind of guy. But in order to keep the 1099s, Eric gives them a work environment that they appreciate.
Speaker #4: And I supported that with stock, but there's other things. And one of the things they get is they get to poke whatever button they want for which EPC that is installer.
Speaker #4: Gets the job. Okay? Right now, they can poke 26 buttons. SunPower Direct us 27 buttons. SunPower Direct us, SunPower New Homes us. And in 25 EPCs that are literally our competitors.
Speaker #4: And I can tell you right now, and then how do they do it? It's real simple. They keep poking the button until they see the biggest number.
T.J. Rodgers: And I can tell you right now and then, how do they do it? It's real simple. They keep poking the button until they see the biggest number, then they poke that one, and they're not forced to give the job to mom. So right now, the results are good. And I agree with Dan, and I agree with the upside. Right now, I'll tell you that the contribution of Sunder directly to SunPower is single-digit percent, mid-single-digit percent. And it's on its way to 35% over the year. How do we do it? First of all, why don't they do it? The answer is if TJ sends out a memo and says, "Do this," then they go away. So TJ doesn't do that, and he lets Eric run the show. Why don't they do it? Well, you saw that map.
And I can tell you right now and then, how do they do it? It's real simple. They keep poking the button until they see the biggest number, then they poke that one, and they're not forced to give the job to mom. So right now, the results are good. And I agree with Dan, and I agree with the upside. Right now, I'll tell you that the contribution of Sunder directly to SunPower is single-digit percent, mid-single-digit percent. And it's on its way to 35% over the year. How do we do it? First of all, why don't they do it? The answer is if TJ sends out a memo and says, "Do this," then they go away. So TJ doesn't do that, and he lets Eric run the show. Why don't they do it? Well, you saw that map.
Speaker #4: Then they poke that one. And they're not forced to give the job to Mom. So right now, the results are good. And I agree with Dan, and I agree with the upside.
Speaker #4: Right now, I'll tell you that the contribution of SunDar directly to SunPower is single-digit percent, mid-single-digit percent. Thirty-five percent over the year. And it's on its way to— How do we do it?
Speaker #4: First of all, why don't they do it? The answer is, as TJ sends out a memo and says, 'Do this,' then they go away.
Speaker #4: So, TJ doesn't do that, and he lets Eric run the show. Why don't they do it? Well, you saw that map. That map went from a stripe to the United States.
T.J. Rodgers: That map went from a stripe to the United States. Well, guess what? They now sell in places we can't install. We never had installation there. So we've got to build up some install over time and start taking jobs in states away from the local guys that they give the job to. Flip side is also a treat. We have installers in some states where they can't supply all of the jobs. And they're now working on building up the sales force in states where they have jobs. So we're building a roof and a floor that don't overlap right now and will overlap. And that will raise a percent over time. So the good news is our results don't depend on yet huge fall-through. Where's it going at the end of the year? 50% will go either to direct or to new homes.
That map went from a stripe to the United States. Well, guess what? They now sell in places we can't install. We never had installation there. So we've got to build up some install over time and start taking jobs in states away from the local guys that they give the job to. Flip side is also a treat. We have installers in some states where they can't supply all of the jobs. And they're now working on building up the sales force in states where they have jobs. So we're building a roof and a floor that don't overlap right now and will overlap. And that will raise a percent over time. So the good news is our results don't depend on yet huge fall-through. Where's it going at the end of the year? 50% will go either to direct or to new homes.
Speaker #4: Well, guess what? They now sell in places. We can't install. We never had installation there. So we've got to build up some install over time.
Speaker #4: And start taking jobs in states away from the local guys that they give the job to. Flip side is also a treat. We have installers in some states where they can't supply all of the jobs.
Speaker #4: And they're now working on building up the sales force in states where they have jobs. So we're building a roof and a floor that don't overlap right now, and will overlap.
Speaker #4: And that will raise a percent over time. So the good news is our results don't depend on yet huge fall-through. Where's it going at the end of the year?
Speaker #4: Fifty percent will go either to direct or to new homes. So that's the ever-supply of orders that I'm talking about that'll keep those organizations level loaded all.
T.J. Rodgers: So that's the ever-supply of orders that I'm talking about that'll keep those organizations level loaded all year long. And finally, Gus, the PureLight acquisition of 1099s moved us, expanded us into states where even Sunder wasn't particularly strong after the acquisition. An example of that is the Northeast and, in particular, the Oregon territory. Those are target-rich for TPOs. We were fair in coverage there. And now with the PureLight sales guys, we are very, very strong. So I'm feeling very good about retail-residential sales and retail-residential bookings for 2026. I talked about the original SunPower sales force declining partly due to bankruptcy. It's also partly due to the fact that the original SunPower sales force sold a lot in the Midwest. And in the Midwest, guys are like me. They write a check. They get it. They own it.
So that's the ever-supply of orders that I'm talking about that'll keep those organizations level loaded all year long. And finally, Gus, the PureLight acquisition of 1099s moved us, expanded us into states where even Sunder wasn't particularly strong after the acquisition. An example of that is the Northeast and, in particular, the Oregon territory. Those are target-rich for TPOs. We were fair in coverage there. And now with the PureLight sales guys, we are very, very strong. So I'm feeling very good about retail-residential sales and retail-residential bookings for 2026.
Speaker #4: year long. And finally, Gus,
Speaker #5: The Pure Light acquisition of 1099s moved us, expanded us into states where even SunDar wasn't particularly strong after the acquisition. An example of that is the Northeast, and in particular, the Oregon territory.
Speaker #5: Those are target-rich for TPOs. We were fair in coverage there. And that was the pure light sales guys. We are very, very strong. So I'm feeling very good about retro-residential sales and retro-residential bookings for 2026.
John Berger: I talked about the original SunPower sales force declining partly due to bankruptcy. It's also partly due to the fact that the original SunPower sales force sold a lot in the Midwest. And in the Midwest, guys are like me. They write a check. They get it. They own it.
Speaker #4: You talked about the original SunPower sales force declining, partly due to bankruptcy. It's also partly due to the fact that the original SunPower sales force sold a lot in the Midwest.
Speaker #4: And in the Midwest, guys are like me. They write a check, they get it, they own it, and they get all the savings of the power from day one.
T.J. Rodgers: They get all the savings of the power from day one. And they're paid back a lot earlier. Not true in California. Third-party ownership. Some finance company comes in, runs the deal, makes money on the money. So their money comes in. They've got to make a higher percentage. But my pitch for a loan or cash is, here's the calculation. If you pay this much cash, your utility bill will go down next quarter like that. And you start adding up utility bills over time. Within 4.7 years, 5.3 years, whatever, the sum of your savings on utilities will be more than what you pay. Okay? And that's a pitch that TJ would buy. The pitch in California is more California. "Oh, you can have solar." "Sure. We'll put it on your house. We'll do it for free.
They get all the savings of the power from day one. And they're paid back a lot earlier. Not true in California. Third-party ownership. Some finance company comes in, runs the deal, makes money on the money. So their money comes in. They've got to make a higher percentage. But my pitch for a loan or cash is, here's the calculation. If you pay this much cash, your utility bill will go down next quarter like that. And you start adding up utility bills over time. Within 4.7 years, 5.3 years, whatever, the sum of your savings on utilities will be more than what you pay. Okay? And that's a pitch that TJ would buy. The pitch in California is more California. "Oh, you can have solar." "Sure. We'll put it on your house. We'll do it for free.
Speaker #4: And they're paid back a lot earlier. Not true in California. Third-party ownership: some finance company comes in, fronts the deal, makes money on the money.
Speaker #4: So, their money comes in. They've got to make a higher percentage. But my pitch for a loan or cash is: here's the calculation—if you pay this much cash, your utility bill will go down next quarter like that.
Speaker #4: And we start adding up utility bills over time. Within 4.7 years, 5.3 years, whatever, the sum of your savings on utilities will be more than what you pay.
Speaker #4: Okay? And that's a pitch that TJ would buy. The pitch in California is more California. Oh, you can have solar. Sure. We'll put it on your house.
Speaker #4: We'll do it for free. No money out of your pocket. And then, by the way, we'll pay your first few payments for you. And then all you do is pay payments.
T.J. Rodgers: No money out of your pocket." "And then, by the way, we'll pay your first few payments for you. And then all you do is pay payments. And by the way, here's the calculation showing your payment with our solar will be less than you would have paid anyway. So you'll be no money out of pocket to begin with, and you'll be ahead every month after that. Would you like some solar?" And that's the switch to TPO, third-party ownership where a financing company or another solar company like Sunrun owns the system and has an intent to make money on money. And that is what was wrong. Not wrong. That's what is a difficult change. Sounds like, "Okay. Sell this one. Not that one. The pitches are quite similar. You're knocking on the same doors." Turns out it's not a trivial change.
No money out of your pocket." "And then, by the way, we'll pay your first few payments for you. And then all you do is pay payments. And by the way, here's the calculation showing your payment with our solar will be less than you would have paid anyway. So you'll be no money out of pocket to begin with, and you'll be ahead every month after that. Would you like some solar?" And that's the switch to TPO, third-party ownership where a financing company or another solar company like Sunrun owns the system and has an intent to make money on money. And that is what was wrong. Not wrong. That's what is a difficult change. Sounds like, "Okay. Sell this one. Not that one. The pitches are quite similar. You're knocking on the same doors." Turns out it's not a trivial change.
Speaker #4: And by the way, here's the calculation showing your payment with our solar will be less than you would have paid anyway. So you'll be no money out of pocket to begin with.
Speaker #4: And you'll be ahead every month after that. Would you like some solar? And that's the switch to TPO. Third-party ownership, or a financing company or another solar company like SunRun, owns the system and has intent to make money on money.
Speaker #4: That, and that is what was wrong. Not wrong. That's what is a difficult change. Sounds like, okay, sell this one. Not that one. The pitches are quite similar here.
Speaker #4: Knocking on the same doors. Turns out it's not a trivial change. And SunPower sales force had issues with that. And these new sales forces required are TPO-friendly sales forces.
T.J. Rodgers: The SunPower sales force had issues with that. These new sales forces we've acquired are TPO-friendly sales forces. They were already there. Those companies became big and famous because they saw the TPO thing before we did. They were already there. Now we're working together. Okay. Got it. Just on Cobalt, I just want to make sure I'm clear. It sounded like you do almost utility scale, industrial-size installations. You mentioned data centers. I'm just wondering sort of how do I think about the markets you address, C&I, industrial, utility scale, and kind of how big a system to install at this point? Go ahead. Sure. Well, we've been limited because we are a small private company, but we have the expertise, and we have the execution history of installing multiple megawatts. We've installed 12MW in Port of Stockton.
The SunPower sales force had issues with that. These new sales forces we've acquired are TPO-friendly sales forces. They were already there. Those companies became big and famous because they saw the TPO thing before we did. They were already there. Now we're working together.
Speaker #4: Those companies became big and famous. They were already there because they saw the TPO thing before we did, and they were already there. Now we're working together.
Gus Richard: Okay. Got it. Just on Cobalt, I just want to make sure I'm clear. It sounded like you do almost utility scale, industrial-size installations. You mentioned data centers. I'm just wondering sort of how do I think about the markets you address, C&I, industrial, utility scale, and kind of how big a system to install at this point?
Speaker #5: Hey, got it. And then just on COBOL, I just want to make sure I'm clear. It sounded like you do most utility-scale, industrial-size installations.
Speaker #5: You mentioned data centers, and I'm just wondering, sort of, how do I think about the markets you address—residential, industrial, utility-scale—and kind of how big a system is installed at this point?
T.J. Rodgers: Go ahead.
Speaker #4: Go ahead. Sure. Well, we've been limited because we are a small private company. But we have the expertise, and we have the execution history of installing multiple megawatts.
John Berger: Sure. Well, we've been limited because we are a small private company, but we have the expertise, and we have the execution history of installing multiple megawatts. We've installed 12MW in Port of Stockton.
Speaker #4: We've installed 12 megawatts in Port—installed or installing, right—of Stockton. Now, just finished up a 1.4 megawatt project at Santa Clara University. That was three phases at a superstructure.
T.J. Rodgers: We're installing right now, just finished up a 1.4MW project in Santa Clara University. That was three phases. That was superstructure, carport. We're just finishing up the Los Altos Golf and Country Club. That's got ground mount. It's got a carport structure. And it's also got on the main clubhouse. So we have the expertise to install systems with complicated voltage requirements, step-up, step-down, switch gears, modifications. And we do all that in-house. So we have the in-house expertise and the technical expertise to do it. We just haven't had the market capitalization to grow that across the country. And now with a publicly traded company behind us, we can achieve excellence and execution at scale. Got it. Thanks so much. That's it for me. And for me, we're in Silicon Valley right now, and I'm a Silicon Valley guy.
We're installing right now, just finished up a 1.4MW project in Santa Clara University. That was three phases. That was superstructure, carport. We're just finishing up the Los Altos Golf and Country Club. That's got ground mount. It's got a carport structure. And it's also got on the main clubhouse. So we have the expertise to install systems with complicated voltage requirements, step-up, step-down, switch gears, modifications. And we do all that in-house. So we have the in-house expertise and the technical expertise to do it. We just haven't had the market capitalization to grow that across the country. And now with a publicly traded company behind us, we can achieve excellence and execution at scale.
Speaker #4: Carport. We're just finishing up the Los Altos Golf and Country Club, and that's got ground mount, and it's got a carport structure. And it's also got on the main clubhouse.
Speaker #4: So, we have the expertise to install systems with complicated voltage requirements—step-up, step-down, switchgears, modifications—and we do all that in-house. So we have the in-house expertise and the technical expertise to do it.
Speaker #4: We just haven't had the market capitalization to grow that across the country. And now, with the publicly traded company behind us, we can achieve excellence in execution at scale.
Gus Richard: Got it. Thanks so much. That's it for me.
Speaker #5: Got it. Thanks so much.
Speaker #5: That's it for me. And
T.J. Rodgers: And for me, we're in Silicon Valley right now, and I'm a Silicon Valley guy.
Speaker #4: For me, we're in Silicon Valley right now. And I'm a Silicon Valley guy. And one of the things I've missed a lot with this sort of standard solar mindset is that it's becoming commoditized.
T.J. Rodgers: One of the things I've missed a lot with the sort of standard solar mindset is that it's becoming commoditized. Like I said, could be aluminum siding. All of a sudden, engineering matters again. Scale matters again. The plans you have to submit, guess what? The plans I submit in Austin, Texas, to put 5kW on your house are pro forma. As a matter of fact, many of the planning commissions actually now have online, and you can even do one-day planning. In Palo Alto, California, if you want to put in 1MW of solar, you're dealing with the city of Palo Alto. A formidable task, I'll just tell you. That means you have capability that is beyond what you had before, and you can study it and understand it. Marketing. I just watched their marketing. I'm going to start sending groups.
One of the things I've missed a lot with the sort of standard solar mindset is that it's becoming commoditized. Like I said, could be aluminum siding. All of a sudden, engineering matters again. Scale matters again. The plans you have to submit, guess what? The plans I submit in Austin, Texas, to put 5kW on your house are pro forma. As a matter of fact, many of the planning commissions actually now have online, and you can even do one-day planning. In Palo Alto, California, if you want to put in 1MW of solar, you're dealing with the city of Palo Alto. A formidable task, I'll just tell you. That means you have capability that is beyond what you had before, and you can study it and understand it. Marketing. I just watched their marketing. I'm going to start sending groups.
Speaker #4: Like I said, could be aluminum siding. And all of a sudden, engineering matters again. Scale matters again. The plans, you have to guess what?
Speaker #4: The plans I submit in Austin, Texas, to put 5 kilowatts on your house are pro forma. As a matter of fact, many of the planning commissions actually now have online, and you can even do one-day planning.
Speaker #4: In Palo Alto, California, if you want to put in a megawatt of solar, you're dealing with the City of Palo Alto—a formidable task, I'll just tell you.
Speaker #4: And that means you have capability that is beyond what you had before. And you can study it and understand it. Marketing. I just watched their marketing.
Speaker #4: And I'm going to start sending groups. I've got young marketing guys in Salt Lake. I'm going to start sending groups of three or four to them.
T.J. Rodgers: I've got young marketing guys in Salt Lake. I'm going to start sending groups of three or four of them to the marketing guy. Turns out during the summer, he used to do movies down in Southern California at USC to make money. And he knows how to do movies. He knows how to do ads. And his group is the size of one guy. We're going to learn from that. And they're going to learn from us. We're going to have a lot more panels flowing. So when we negotiate the price of the panels, we're going to be looking like a volume company, not like a company that is local and modest in volume. The answer is I don't know the synergy set, but I study and watch things, and I'm not jerking around either side. And I'll optimize as I see what's the best way to go.
T.J. Rodgers: I've got young marketing guys in Salt Lake. I'm going to start sending groups of three or four of them to the marketing guy. Turns out during the summer, he used to do movies down in Southern California at USC to make money. And he knows how to do movies. He knows how to do ads. And his group is the size of one guy. We're going to learn from that. And they're going to learn from us. We're going to have a lot more panels flowing. So when we negotiate the price of the panels, we're going to be looking like a volume company, not like a company that is local and modest in volume. The answer is I don't know the synergy set, but I study and watch things, and I'm not jerking around either side. And I'll optimize as I see what's the best way to go.
Speaker #4: Do the marketing guy. It turns out during the summer, he used to do movies down in Southern California, at USC, to make money. And he knows how to do movies.
Speaker #4: He knows how to do ads. And in his group, it's the size of one guy. We're going to learn from that, and they're going to learn from us.
Speaker #4: We're going to have a lot more panels flowing. So, when we negotiate the price of the panels, we're going to be looking like a volume company.
Speaker #4: Not like a company that is local and modest in volume. The answer is: I don't know the synergy set. But I study and watch things.
Speaker #4: And I'm not jerking around either side. And I'll optimize as I see what's the best way to go.
Speaker #6: Yes? I think that's left the line. We do have a couple of quick ones from the online audience. I'll start off with one quick one from me.
T.J. Rodgers: Gus? I think Gus left the line. We do have a couple of quick ones from the online audience. I'll start off with one quick one from me, asking about our conference schedule for Q1, just so everyone's aware. We will be at the Jefferies Power Utilities and Clean Energy Conference in March, the first week of March in New York City. On 11 March in New York City, we will be attending the Cantor Technology and Industrials Conference. Then on 12 March, we will be involved in the virtual Canaccord Genuity Sustainability Summit. In addition, we'll be doing some NDRs and fireside chats. So please reach out if you have any questions about scheduling. One quick question from the line. You've discussed new homes progress, which will be material to growth in 2027 and forward. Can you discuss the progress on rebuilding that pipeline today? Okay.
Siobhan Hickie: Gus? I think Gus left the line. We do have a couple of quick ones from the online audience. I'll start off with one quick one from me, asking about our conference schedule for Q1, just so everyone's aware. We will be at the Jefferies Power Utilities and Clean Energy Conference in March, the first week of March in New York City. On 11 March in New York City, we will be attending the Cantor Technology and Industrials Conference. Then on 12 March, we will be involved in the virtual Canaccord Genuity Sustainability Summit. In addition, we'll be doing some NDRs and fireside chats. So please reach out if you have any questions about scheduling. One quick question from the line. You've discussed new homes progress, which will be material to growth in 2027 and forward. Can you discuss the progress on rebuilding that pipeline today?
Speaker #6: Asking about our conference schedule for Q1. Just so everyone's aware, we will be at the Jefferies Power, Utilities and Clean Energy Conference in March, the first week of March in New York City.
Speaker #6: On March 11th in New York City, we will be attending the Cantor Technology and Industrials Conference. Then on March 12th, we will be involved in the virtual Canaccord Sustainability Summit.
Speaker #6: In addition, we'll be doing some NDRs and fireside chats. So please reach out if you have any questions about scheduling. One quick question from the line.
Speaker #6: You've discussed new homes—progress which will be material to growth in 2027 and forward. Can you discuss the progress on rebuilding that pipeline today?
Speaker #4: Okay, so I had too many guests today to fit here. I'm on, so we have the VP of that division here. This is the three-year plan, quarterly plan I showed you.
T.J. Rodgers: Okay.
T.J. Rodgers: So I had too many guests today. Is the VP here? Come on up. So we have the VP of that division here. This is the three-year plan, quarterly plan I showed you. And New Homes is here in blue. So if you look at New Homes, they're one of our grab that and pull it in. It's one of our problems right now because it used to be big. The blue bar was big. Shrinking down is going to be minimum in Q1. And then build back up. And that was because when Old SunPower went bankrupt, all of the corporations were gone within one quarter. They all canceled their contracts, and that was it. And we started rebuilding. So what's your plan? You got to get in, right? So today, we are set up for 2026 to regain share.
So I had too many guests today. Is the VP here? Come on up. So we have the VP of that division here. This is the three-year plan, quarterly plan I showed you. And New Homes is here in blue. So if you look at New Homes, they're one of our grab that and pull it in. It's one of our problems right now because it used to be big. The blue bar was big. Shrinking down is going to be minimum in Q1. And then build back up. And that was because when Old SunPower went bankrupt, all of the corporations were gone within one quarter. They all canceled their contracts, and that was it. And we started rebuilding. So what's your plan? You got to get in, right?
Speaker #4: And new homes is here in blue. So if you look at new homes, they're one of our—grab that and pull it in. It's one of our problems right now because it used to be big.
Speaker #4: The blue bar was big, shrinking down. It's going to be minimum in Q1, and then build back up. And that was because when Old SunPower went bankrupt, all of the corporations were gone within one quarter.
Speaker #4: They all canceled their contracts. And that was it. And we started rebuilding. So, what's your plan? You got to get in, right? So today, we are set up for 2026 to regain share.
Camilla Zuckero Zuckero: So today, we are set up for 2026 to regain share.
Speaker #4: We're going from about $45 million in our bookings, which converts at about a 97% rate, to going to about $110 million in 2026. This gets us back to the 2022-23 average rate of about $125 million a year.
T.J. Rodgers: We're going from about $45 million in our bookings, which converts at about 97% rate, to going to about $110 million in 2026. This gets us back to the 2022, 2023 average rate of about $125 million a year. In addition to that, we are also partnering with additional dealers who are engaged in units working with other companies. We are accelerating in new homes. We are also accelerating in multifamily, which Cobalt is going to add to that portfolio, including our C&I space. The new home business is feeling very confident about what we're going to deliver in 2026, establishing a very clear fillet, another layer on top of our total SunPower revenue in a proper U fashion. Can I add just a little bit of color to that? Yes.
We're going from about $45 million in our bookings, which converts at about 97% rate, to going to about $110 million in 2026. This gets us back to the 2022, 2023 average rate of about $125 million a year. In addition to that, we are also partnering with additional dealers who are engaged in units working with other companies. We are accelerating in new homes. We are also accelerating in multifamily, which Cobalt is going to add to that portfolio, including our C&I space. The new home business is feeling very confident about what we're going to deliver in 2026, establishing a very clear fillet, another layer on top of our total SunPower revenue in a proper U fashion.
Speaker #4: And in addition to that, we are also partnering with additional dealers who are engaged in human working with other companies. So we are accelerating in new homes.
Speaker #4: We are also accelerating in multifamily, which Cobalt is going to add to that portfolio, including our CNI space. So the new home business is feeling very confident about what we're going to deliver in '26.
Speaker #4: Establishing a very clear fillet and other layer on top of our total SunPower revenue and the property.
Speaker #4: passion.
John Berger: Can I add just a little bit of color to that?
Speaker #3: Can I add just a little bit of color to
Speaker #3: So, as Kapil said, our plan is over $110 million in bookings this year, up from $40-plus million last year in 2025. Remember, there's a five- to six-quarter lag between bookings and revenue in new homes.
Camilla Zuckero Zuckero: Yes.
T.J. Rodgers: So as Kamila said, our plan is over $110 million in bookings this year, up from $40-plus million last year in 2025. Remember, there's a five- to six-quarter lag between bookings and revenue in new homes. So the numbers you see us booking right now are going to be reflective in very strong revenue growth in 2027. On top of that, our pipeline, our opportunity pipeline has grown nicely as we continue to expand our sales organization in new homes. And we're feeling more and more comfortable as the quarters go on of our ability to meet and beat that $110 million. Finally, you may want to ask yourself, what was your all-time best numbers in new homes back when the old SunPower was around? And I believe Kamila's in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 million quarters.
John Berger: So as Kamila said, our plan is over $110 million in bookings this year, up from $40-plus million last year in 2025. Remember, there's a five- to six-quarter lag between bookings and revenue in new homes. So the numbers you see us booking right now are going to be reflective in very strong revenue growth in 2027. On top of that, our pipeline, our opportunity pipeline has grown nicely as we continue to expand our sales organization in new homes. And we're feeling more and more comfortable as the quarters go on of our ability to meet and beat that $110 million. Finally, you may want to ask yourself, what was your all-time best numbers in new homes back when the old SunPower was around? And I believe Kamila's in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 million quarters.
Speaker #3: So the numbers you see us booking right now are going to be reflected in very strong revenue growth in 2027. On top of that, our opportunity pipeline has grown nicely, as we continue to expand our sales organization in new homes.
Speaker #3: And we're feeling more and more comfortable as the quarters go on, of our ability to meet and beat that $110 million. Finally, you may want to ask yourself, what were your all-time best numbers in new homes back when the old SunPower was around?
Speaker #3: And I believe Kapil was in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 million quarters.
Speaker #3: So if you want Yeah, about 60. to think about what the upper end, what you could accomplish once you rebuild your new home organization, think in terms of 50 to 60 million dollar quarters, as opposed to the 10 million dollar quarters we did this year in the 25 million dollar quarters we're currently on track for, 30 million dollar quarters.
T.J. Rodgers: So if you want to think about what the upper end, what you could accomplish once you rebuild your new home organization, think in terms of $50 to 60 million quarters as opposed to the $10 million quarters we did this year and the $25 million quarters we're currently on track for, $30 million quarters we're on track for in 2027. As long as we got the camera on the front. Will, what is the theory behind your new company in the finance world? Well, so the opportunities to bring margin across the value chain include being able to install very rapidly, installing the right equipment, and then financing in the proper way. So with the primary source of financing today is going to be power purchase agreements and leases.
T.J. Rodgers: So if you want to think about what the upper end, what you could accomplish once you rebuild your new home organization, think in terms of $50 to 60 million quarters as opposed to the $10 million quarters we did this year and the $25 million quarters we're currently on track for, $30 million quarters we're on track for in 2027.
Speaker #3: We're on track for in
Speaker #3: We're on track for in 2027. As long as we got the camera on the—
Gus Richard: As long as we got the camera on the front. Will, what is the theory behind your new company in the finance world?
Speaker #4: Well, what is the theory behind your new company in the finance world? Well, so the opportunities to bring margin across the value chain include being able to install very rapidly, installing the right equipment, and then financing in the proper way.
John Berger: Well, so the opportunities to bring margin across the value chain include being able to install very rapidly, installing the right equipment, and then financing in the proper way. So with the primary source of financing today is going to be power purchase agreements and leases.
Speaker #4: So, with the primary source of financing today, it's going to be power purchase agreements and leases. And this is because the income tax credit—the incentive tax credits for solar—are still available for going solar in that method for residential.
T.J. Rodgers: This is because the investment tax credit, the incentive tax credits for solar are still available for going solar in that method for residential. So we're bringing all of these things together with partnerships with companies like LightReach, a major partner of ours on the finance side, Enphase, and the other partnerships that TJ has already mentioned. Then incorporating rapid installation like with what we're working on with Same-Day Solar is going to make the process smooth and simple for the customer, even though on the back end, we're managing all these complex partnerships. Sorry about that. Is that it? That is it. That ends our call for today. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate your support.
This is because the investment tax credit, the incentive tax credits for solar are still available for going solar in that method for residential. So we're bringing all of these things together with partnerships with companies like LightReach, a major partner of ours on the finance side, Enphase, and the other partnerships that TJ has already mentioned. Then incorporating rapid installation like with what we're working on with Same-Day Solar is going to make the process smooth and simple for the customer, even though on the back end, we're managing all these complex partnerships.
Speaker #4: So we're bringing all of these things together with partnerships with companies like Lightreach—a major partner of ours on the finance side—Enphase, and the other partnerships that TJ's already mentioned.
Speaker #4: And then incorporating Rapid with what we're working on with installation, like same-day solar, is going to make the process smooth and simple for the customer, even though on the back end we're managing all these complex partnerships.
Gus Richard: Sorry about that.
Speaker #4: Sorry about that. Is that
T.J. Rodgers: Is that it?
Speaker #4: it? That is it.
Siobhan Hickie: That is it. That ends our call for today.
Speaker #1: That ends our call for today.
T.J. Rodgers: Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate your support.