00:05:21 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:05:21] S2: It's a it's a goodie. I've been speaking to Yoel Roth, who's the head of trust and safety at Match Group, but you may know him best from his Twitter, where he had a similar role at the time that Elon Musk took over the company. And how do I put this politely? Rather shook up its trust and safety regime. And he had a bit of a public fallout with Elon Musk at that time. We spoke about whether AI can help you find love, because, of course, he's at Match Group, but also why tech bosses in general are taking a step back from online safety. But, anyway, let's get back to today's episode and what you're waking up to. As fascinating as it, a few years ago, I think many people had not heard of a data center. And if they had, I'm not sure they'd have had a particular opinion on them. But when you look at the speed at which they're growing, the amount of electricity, the amount of water that they use, it's fueling a huge public backlash around the world, and particularly where you are. [00:06:22] S1: That's right. So I'll give you one example. So as I said, I I did a kind of a deep dive last week for the paper. And I talked to some, you know, kind of regular folks in Texas. I talked to a lady in the town called Red Oak, Texas, which is kind of like a bedroom community outside Dallas. [00:06:38] S2: Oh, what's community? Sorry. [00:06:40] S1: Bedroom community. Basically, like [00:06:42] S2: What's that? [00:06:42] S1: How would I describe it? You know, it's like, you know, a few train line stops out of a a major city where people [00:06:48] S2: Like a suburb.
00:06:48 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:06:48] S2: Like a suburb. [00:06:49] S1: Yeah. Sure. But they're usually quite quiet. They usually have the more space, but people often still work in the big city. Yeah. There's 20,000 people, small place, and the town is encircled now by seven different data centers that are either already operating or being built. [00:07:06] S2: And really, really, really big ones. Right? [00:07:07] S1: Really big ones. Right? And it's kind of been seized upon by Gina Hinojosa, the woman who just was elected the new governor, Democrat, as an example of just like, you know, because a lot of the way these these data center projects have been pushed through is that you have an alliance between big tech, big, you know, big tech billionaires. Elon Musk obviously has most of his businesses that are now in Texas. He's very close with the now outgoing governor, Greg Abbott. And then all of a sudden, you know, 300 acres of farmland just gets snapped up by... Not by Google, for example, but by some corporate shell. So there's usually like two or three levels removed from the actual company or it's like not a company you've heard of, all of sudden they buy it. And then there's some public hearings. The thing gets pushed through and before you know it, this farmland or ranchland is turning into a giant construction site. [00:08:03] S2: And why do they care?
00:08:03 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:08:03] S2: And why do they care? [00:08:05] S1: Well, part of it is, you know, people move to these places because they are what they are. You know, it's farmland. It's ranch land. It's rural. It's quiet, whatever. And then all of a sudden, they have this giant, you know, industrial warehouse plunked down in the middle of their land. And also, you mentioned water, which I think has basically become this really interesting thing that everybody's freaked out about, and especially in places like Texas, are already prone to drought, already have very little water. I think it is indicative of how poor a job the tech industry has done at kind of bringing people along. It's been a pretty reckless and careless, you know, kind of massive build out, do it as fast as possible, ask questions later, bring people along later. And I think that's what people have really started to reject. At the same time, it's like, okay, what is it in that data center? It's like an army of digital workers that may hack your bank account, may make it harder for your kid to get a job. You're like, what am I getting out of this? Like, where's the good part? And I think that altogether is what's really seen, you know, this huge backlash against data centers. I think there's something like 40 plus propositions or measures on the ballots across various different states. At least 30 were approved to either ban or severely limit data center development in various different jurisdictions. Like, it's been a real moment.
00:09:33 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:09:33] S2: So it's a a combination of not liking the looks or perhaps a a bit of nimbyism there. Mhmm. Fears about the actual technology and what it means, fears around AI, but also the impact on utilities, whether that's water, but also the cost of power. [00:09:49] S1: Exactly. And then I guess the last piece is what you talked about. It's big tech imposing this upon us. The tech oligarchy. There's like a cultural backlash happening as well of like, don't worry little people. We're doing this for your own good. Don't worry your pretty little heads about what it's doing to your community or to your water, to your land, or to whatever. This is gonna be good for you. And we're just gonna impose this upon you. But I just think there is that that alliance that was very public with all the tech leaders at the inauguration two years ago, a raid behind Donald Trump as he was sworn in. I think people have also reacted to that. [00:10:27] S2: And Donald Trump, from the start of this presidency, has really got behind the building of data centers. Was that very famous moment where he stood in the White House with Sam Altman, who announced Stargate with Larry Ellison and Damascusan of SoftBank. And it was this, we're putting hundreds of millions of dollars into data centers in The US to allow us to advance AI. And it's like the population has said no.
00:10:27 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:10:27] S2: And Donald Trump, from the start of this presidency, has really got behind the building of data centers. Was that very famous moment where he stood in the White House with Sam Altman, who announced Stargate with Larry Ellison and Damascusan of SoftBank. And it was this, we're putting hundreds of millions of dollars into data centers in The US to allow us to advance AI. And it's like the population has said no. [00:10:52] S1: And I think that's happening with all of these ballot measures to ban or limit data centers. I mean, they were all just, like, mostly just passed and with... Not with a small margin. It was like, we do not want this. And I think when you step back, if you look at the anthropic s one that they filed last week to prepare for the IPO, the biggest risk in their 95 pages of risk factors was access to compute, I e, data centers. [00:11:21] S2: In terms of slowing down the development of AI. [00:11:23] S1: Yeah. They're like, because we need [00:11:25] S2: to save the front of industry for killing people. [00:11:27] S1: Right. But if you just look at kind of what they, as a company, see as the biggest risk to them doing well and to continuing to grow and delivering on all their promises, it is data centers. [00:11:38] S2: They're planning to spend almost $900,000,000,000. [00:11:42] S1: That's right. [00:11:42] S2: So just to be very clear then, what does that mean for the build out of data centers in The US now after the midterms?
00:11:42 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson, Yoel Roth
[00:11:42] S2: So just to be very clear then, what does that mean for the build out of data centers in The US now after the midterms? [00:11:48] S1: Obviously, we don't know. It's, you know, it's the morning after the election. But I think it's really interesting that it is, like... I think the industry is gonna have to change how it does things to bring people along because right now, people are not being brought along. They don't want it. [00:12:02] S2: Do you know what Elon Musk's answer [00:12:03] S3: is? I'm [00:12:05] S2: sure you can guess. He wrote on X. Data centers in space look pretty appealing right now. [00:12:11] S1: Yeah. And, you know, some people are like, oh, no. This is terrible for AI, like Dan Ives, friend of the pod. He... His... He reckons that, you know, 10% of data centers are not... Will not happen now. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less. Who knows? Right? We'll see. And speaking of that, you know, I was talking about Texas earlier. It became one of the most expensive political races in the history of midterm elections in America. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured in by Elon Musk, the world's richest man and, of course, resident of Texas. And it didn't work. He lost. So we're gonna talk about that and what that all means right after this.