 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome everybody to our new podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Skado-Kataya, CEO and founder of JSA. And along with my co-host, happy to be social influencer, Evan Pristow. Hey everyone and welcome to Data Movers where we sit down with the most influential men and women of today's leading telecom and data center world, delivering the requirements of this new normal. Jamie, how are you doing? Doing well, Evan, you know, living the fabulous social life here. I was reading some of the headlines before the show and I see that Stripe raised $600 million in series H funding and its valuation of $95 billion makes it the biggest private unicorn in the history of the world. What do you make of all these numbers? Silicon Valley, baby. It's insane, it's insane. And I guess Stripe now has actually pushed ahead of Elon Musk's SpaceX, which was valued at 74 billion in February, which was at that time the most valuable US based tech startup. I mean, it's insane times. I mean, what used to be, you know, millions, now we're talking billions. I mean, it's insane world, right? Yeah, I'm always somewhat dubious of these valuations, but payments and banking and e-commerce is just such a huge part of our lives now, particularly in the pandemic. And these numbers kind of make sense to me when you consider the global scale of the banking and finance and payments industry. I mean, if I look at PayPal, I started my own business seven years ago on PayPal. If I didn't have PayPal, I wouldn't have been able to really launch what I do. So, you know, payments is really fundamental now to everything we do. So, you know, good luck to them. Yeah, and helping every mom and pop shop who had to go digital during the pandemic. So many great cases of those pivots for their business models where they had to learn how to build a website and take transactions online. But also with, you know, Stripe, we use it here at GSA. We, you know, the clients use it no matter how national or global they may be. So, yeah, it's a good business model. Definitely, you know, one of those businesses I wish I had thought of. Well, speaking of ideas and innovation and action, we have a great guest today, I think. Yes, yes. I want to say he is one of the true needle movers in our industry. Really excited of our guest today. Please welcome leading industry journalist, Jao Marquez Iima. Jao, welcome to Data Movers. And I thank you for having me. So, Jao, welcome. I've really been following you for years on social media. It's really nice to finally make this human-to-human connection here on the podcast. I guess my first question is, you dub yourself a mediapreneur. Explain to us what that is. And I see journalism is also on your profile. Are you a last breed of sort of real journalists out there in this new media landscape? Well, I'd like to think so. I mean, on the first question, so the mediapreneur, I think that's just more, I mean, as a journalist, we say we hate jargon and things like this, but I kind of like the word when I saw it for the first time. So it's not my words. I don't know where it came from, but I just liked it. It's the mixture between media and entrepreneurship. And taking into account my past, I have created a few publications. So I kind of get my toes into the entrepreneurship within the media space. So therefore, I need a typo now. As a journalist, I mean, I hope so. I've been doing this for about, what now, six, seven years in the data center space for the past five years, more or less. So it's been well, I mean, there's a lot of stories there in the real world, as we call it sometimes when it comes to journalism. So the politics and even jihadists and everything. And then you have the tech side of things. So with IoT and data centers, which has been my big focus in my journalism career to be fair. And you've had the opportunity over the years to really interview some of the top movers and shakers in our industry. Are there any interviews that stick out top of mind as most memorable? I mean, I've got loads. The best ones is when you actually learn something from these people. I mean, there's the CEO of Sina Electric, Jean Pascal Tricoire, who is really good when it comes to climate and sustainability. And he also teaches how to take care of a company with more, I think, than 200,000 employees. There being someone talking about that is something quite striving. There was, of course, Steve Smith, who at the time was the CEO of Equinix. There was Bill Stein, the CEO of Tissue Realty, John Concoran, CEO of Global Switch, who I learned a lot about financials. So that was very good. It was more like a lesson slash interview than so much of an interview. So that was really good. I mean, I had my Justin Trudeau moment. So when you're quite the kind of this book, what kind of computing? I have that with the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, who I have in brief, that he didn't really know anything about Tissue, doesn't he? In the end, I had to kind of transform the interview as I was speaking to him, because he knew more than I thought he did. I mean, there's John Curian as well. So the bravest Thomas Curian, the CEO of Google. So that was a very good life lesson on how to come from a humble background. And then they would grow to the top. So that was very good. Manuel Dedenes, CEO of Sixtero, which has now been IPO'd through one of those facts, and talking about opportunities and equality within underrepresented layers of society, especially in these cases, the Latin American layer of the US. Bill Barney, who's probably the best person to go to for stuff related to Asia. And then, I mean, there's a lot more people like Curian name, but one that I really like always makes me laugh. Someone called Nicola Hayes. So she's a consultant in the UK, but every time we do an interview, I mean, it's just a laugh. I mean, the last time we did an interview was in Morocco, in Marrakesh. And we just had like a laugh that we couldn't do anything for ages, but it was really fun. But you learn a lot with her. I mean, her research is really good. And you really get some really good insights. And at the same time, you have so much fun just doing it. There's probably like a longer answer than you wanted, but there's a lot, a lot of names. I mean, there's so many more names I could name. Oh, and I love them all. And Nicola is, she's a dear friend. And I'm glad you ended with her. Yes, I remember Marrakesh very well. It was, yeah, we just laughed. We couldn't finish the interview. It was really, it was hilarious. Well, that's quite a who's who of folks that you've interviewed. So who's on your bucket list, whether our industry or not? Who are you wanting to interview next? And tell us about your approach or your pitch to interview them. I think, I mean, there's a lot of people. I could go with the standard and say, like, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates. I mean, those would be very nice to sit down with. I think now everything is going on and all the changes that we've had, maybe Kamala Harris. I mean, they are coming up to the 100 days in office. So a lot has been done. A lot is going to be done. I mean, coming, I can't really say coming out of COVID, but getting through COVID now, there's all the issues with race, equality, economy, jobs, and of course tech and digital play a massive role in that. We know what's been left behind was probably not the best legacy in terms of digital and sustainability as well. So I think it'd be very interesting to sit down with her and go through all those topics of equality, both gender, race, sustainability, which is probably the biggest topic at the moment as well for even more important than COVID in the long term. And yeah, just discuss the politics and what they are doing and how they're going to support the valley. And the creation of other valleys even across the U.S. and being the U.S. I mean, how are you guys going to support other countries, especially for a part of the world as well to also develop digital. I think that's, I'm so glad you mentioned that because there's a fabric, you know, I think we can get lost in data center and telecom to not see how much we penetrate and sustain and support other industries and how politics plays a role in the tech space of course and really global economy. So with that said, are there any industry trends that you're following particularly close right now considering we're in this pivotal time? Yeah, absolutely. But just adding to your last points, there's actually one thing that I've always really tried to bring into my reporting. And again, I'm going to use the expression real world which is bringing the politics and I mean the real world case scenarios and use cases of how our industry impacts the rest and how the rest impacts us as well. Because I mean a lot of it comes from outside and although regulation might have been missing a little bit over the last couple of decades, regulators are now coming into the industry and things are shaking up a little bit, which is quite interesting. Which comes then to the trends that I'm following. Regulation not being so much one of them even though things are changing like I said but I think the biggest one probably is really around climate and sustainability. Everyone has to be sustainable and I mean there is a good thing to be anyway. I would not even like to almost call it the trend. I like to call it more you have to do it. There isn't like a choice and not to be part of this trend. I think on the financial side it's quite interesting that our industry has been done through just new developments and M&A, which you have had a lot over the last five, six years. I mean we had some huge multi-billion dollar transactions. But now we are running out of people to buy or brands to buy, which is very interesting. Which means the market is changing and there's so much money out there. I mean investors have more money than they have places to spend it at. Which is really interesting because you're gonna see a lot of organic things popping up everywhere and the pressure of a lot of companies. And I mean let's face it, data centers are one of the most profitable assets at the moment. I think it's growing at about 21% every year. If you look at all the charts, I mean compared to any other industry, any other verticals, let's again, the real world verticals, data centers are outperforming everything. And I think this is gonna carry on for at least another 10, 20 years. So that's quite safe. I think then you have things like the hyperscale is as well, just keeping expanding so there's a standard trend. Let's call it like that. But now it's interesting that they're moving into more and developed markets. So Southeast Asia, you're starting to see them dipping their toes into Africa, which is very interesting. I mean, there's a billion people in Africa and almost no data centers at all. I mean, New York has way more data centers than the entire, the African continent. And New York is what? 20 million people versus one billion. So that kind of puts things in perspective. So we are very far behind on a global scale as with that way. So there's a lot of opportunity, which then, I mean, the last trend I'm always watching and I really like. And you've seen that with my work I've done for you guys as well. It's the explosion of some market. So data centers coming into new markets be it Spain and Europe, Italy, or be it India, in Asia Pacific, being South Africa, Nigeria. It's really fun to see those markets growing and investors really paying attention to them. Yeah, so it's the most exciting time to be a tech journalist, probably in the history of tech journalism, certainly a tech geek like myself is really fascinated by all the emerging tech out there from electric vehicles to supersonic transport, to a hyperloop, space travel. I mean, you name it, there's something really cool and innovative happening. So what are you most excited about in terms of emerging technologies? I mean, there's quite a lot. On a consumer level, I think screenless displays is quite an interesting one. But this is on my consumer capitalist side of things. So I think that would be quite a cool thing to have, not to have like this big LCD in your living room and just the black box when it's not on. And you can just project things or anything hologram wise, visual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality. So the screenless display thing, I think that's going to be quite interesting. For the industry, I think there's two probably big things, which is Griffin. And I actually had the opportunity to interview a constant team, Novoselov, if I'm pronouncing it right, he's a Russian-British physicist and he actually won the Nobel Prize in 2010 with his partner, Andrei Gim, come pronounce these things properly. But I mean, it's really interesting because Griffin basically allows you to, in terms of communications will be faster without the communications data, data transfers to be faster than they are now. It reduces the covering footprint as well because they consume less and you use less material than you will do with normal materials, I guess. For example, one of the things that he told me is that if you wanted to replace all the phone screens on the planet with Griffin, you only need 60 kilos of it. I mean, that's 60 kilos versus I don't know, I don't even know how many tones we use of plastic and glass to build our phone screens. In the data center space, it's going to be very interesting to see how people use it for heat management and thermal management. And there's a study in Sweden that has actually found that you can reduce heat management with heat consumption, I think with the individual processor or the server, by 25%, which is a lot, because as we know, I mean, that's one of the biggest deals in the data center space. And then as well, there's this new thing that they're looking at, which is lithium-graphing, which if they get it right, it will basically replace most of the battery and generators in the data center space, which would then free up a lot of floor space, which means more money and more space to put servers to make more money. And actually speaking of space, I think that one is going to be really disruptive in the next 50 plus years. If they really get it right and it gets commercialized properly, it's DNA storage. So I found about DNA storage at a Microsoft conference a few years ago, I think it was 2017 or something. And this scientist, he came to the stage and she started talking about it. And as she was talking about it, most people just start living. And I was like, this is actually quite interesting. I mean, I didn't understand half of it because you became very technical because you can think of those like verbally scientists, like when they go down, they go down and you're like, all right, I don't understand. Now you need to translate this to something else. But it's basically, you can put a lot of data in a small smear and that smear will be enough to replace, well, actually that smear, if you put enough together about the size of two dices, so about the size of your thumb, that could replace the data center with 200,000 square feet. So I mean, there will be very, very disruptive to the industry. There's a few challenges with DNA storage, like retrieving the data sometimes, but they are getting through those stages and there's different levels of development that they've gone through, which includes storing and restoring, I think the British encyclopedia or something like that. So there's all those nice things that data scientists do, I think getting through it. So I think of the next 10 years, you'll see something being commercialized and then of course, they'll have to have market education. The pricing needs to come down. I mean, it'll be very disruptive if it really picks up. It doesn't mean that maybe everything will go into it, but if a lot of things go into it, that'll be very interesting. Because I think there's a stat that says that by 2030, we are only going to be able to store 3% or 5% of the data that we produce on this planet. And by 2040, it's only 0.5%, which means we can't store anything. And I mean, people are looking in storage in space and everything, but they're just too expensive. I mean, you all know everyone has $100 million to put in a storage facility in space. They might be hit by a meteor, then you lose your $100 million in all of the people's data. So I think we have to look at options within our earth confines. Very long answer. And then of course things like nanotechnology. I like that as well. You know, you just blew my mind by going, you know, outside to the hypers, you know, space data consolidation and management and storage to going nano too. Really, really crazy. It sounds like a new world. Like, you know, Tom Cruise is listening in, taking notes for his next sci-fi, you know, action movie. But you know, the truth is COVID has really accelerated an incredible rate, digital transformation and what sounded, you know, very space age talk, you know, just, you know, we wouldn't have these conversations even, you know, several years ago. But now, you know, with COVID, we've built some necessary infrastructure to really stay in pace for all the needs of the future. So with that, is there anything you may have used or experienced in the past year that you don't think you would have tried if it weren't for the pandemic? Well, in the biggest scheme of things, I would say working from home. Because I actually, I do like going to the office and being around other human beings and talking and just having a banter and going for a drink at the end of the day has all changed pretty much too. But, you know, on the technology front, nothing has really changed because I mean, if you're in the office, if you're at home or if you're in the field reporting on something, you kind of use the same things that you use now. So we did a lot of web in our links or Zoom calls as well. All the apps on your phone, we used to use them all anyway. Teams, email, everything was being used. The only thing that probably I started doing that I wasn't touching on yet was probably a podcast. So I started them, I think, towards the end of summer last year. So maybe there was a good thing coming out of the pandemic was forcing me into the podcast route. But other than that, I wouldn't say it has really changed my digital usage. But, I mean, our industry hasn't really well though. So there hasn't been really any shortages. There hasn't been any massive problems. And I think they've managed to cope very well. I mean, we know that in Europe, there's been some rationing of bandwidth, which is very interesting to see how governments stepping into that one with the operators to make sure everyone will have access to bandwidth and making sure the emergency service will be able to cope. So I think out of everything bad, there's always positives that comes out of it. And I think the pandemic really brought a really nice side of our industry, which is put everyone working together, competitive to this partner's communities to really keep getting the internet and the digital world going. And I mean, there's no stepping back. I think, in my personal opinion, this is not a stat that's in any way, in my personal opinion, I think we've sort of advanced 10 years in terms of digital adoption, maybe in the last 12 months. Great insights. We're part of this hyper-connected industry, this world on this call, but what do you enjoy doing to disconnect, to take a mental health break, to let go of all the devices and apps and really get away? I mean, out of lockdown, Jim. Because right now, we can't do any of that. We're still in lockdown in the UK, so it was about quite a few weeks to go. But yeah, I mean, usually just Jim just going out with friends. I mean, Lish is having a chat with someone face-to-face. And I think those things we value, those things a lot more now than we did before. Just being physically close to someone and having a conversation is completely different. It's the amount of times I... Not the amount of times I go out because I don't even go out that much anymore. But when I go out now, I actually struggle to speak to another human being face-to-face. He takes a few seconds for the brain to be like, oh, there's another person here. How do I talk to this person now? So this looks quite nice. But I mean, Jim, just being around friends, I know it sounds very cliche, but it's pretty much it. Netflix has become a big thing over the last 12 months. I don't think I'll be Netflixing as much once things open up. Yeah, I was hoping there'd be a bottle of Porto and a beach in Portugal in this answer. Somewhere, but Selevi will have to wait till next spring. Well, I am always working, though. That's the thing, because I mean, we might be in lockdowns and everything, but I'm always at my laptop. So even if I was somewhere, I wouldn't really be doing everything I was doing. I mean, Ash has been a lot of my lockdown in Paris and I mean, most of my day was spent in front of the laptop. So it was exactly the same thing as being in London apart from the weekend. The beauty of a laptop is you can transport it to the beach. So it's an amazing thing. But then the sun overheats it. I have done that. And you can't really see the screen. Oh, I'll give you some tips here on beach-friendly laptop computing. But Jamie, I think you have some more questions, too. Yeah, I'm excited about this next section because, again, data movers were unique and that we really want to see in here the backgrounds of our industry leaders. So this is a fun section called Rapid Fire. We're just, you know, respond with the first thing that comes to mind. So let's talk Netflix. You mentioned it. What's the last series you watched on Netflix and do you recommend it? I definitely recommend it. I'd say whoever did it was probably quite high when they did it. It's Aliens World or Aliens World or something like that. It's basically, it's this thing where they created like a sci-fi doco film. I think it's the British one as well. And they look into how life works on Earth and then imagined life in exoplanets. I mean, this has nothing to do with data sensors. So it's nothing to do with it. It's really interesting because some of the creatures that they came up with, like the arms and the eyes and the way they defeat themselves and the predators. And I mean, even to reproduction, you're like, God, I mean, it's, you're like, the human brain has no limits. It's, I don't know. You just, it's not like your normal watching. It's not like behind her eyes or of widgets or something like that. But it is interesting. It gets you out there and gets your thinking going and be like, yeah, we probably are well on planet Earth. We don't need to go anywhere else. I'm a big sci-fi gal. So I might get a series like that. So what are three words that other people use to describe you? Let's go for the good one. I mean, I'll say probably ambitious. I'm always thinking more. I mean, even the media took another thing, kind of shows that. Reliable, I'm very reliable and loyal. And I do really appreciate that with people as well. I'll probably just say hardworking. I mean, you see another even go through the beach with my lap hope. Make sure you get some. And, you know what? I absolutely agree with those three words, knowing you as well as we do here at JSA. You are absolutely reliable, hardworking, ambitious, but, you know, good hearted too. Just anyway, if you could go one place in the world right now, if there were no travel restrictions, where would it be? I mean, because right now it's hard not to think of travel restrictions. So with that, I would probably say Israel, just for the facts that are fully open and the vaccination program is going well. It's going very well there. So, I mean, you got everything open, nightclubs, beaches. Everything is open. The gyms are open, restrictions are being eased every day. So it's almost like normal life in a very messy world. If things were a bit more normal and easy, then probably go to like Vanatu or something, like those islands there, like north of New Zealand, just get away from everything for a while. All right, best restaurants that you've ever been to and you're a global traveler. So, I'm interested in this one. Yeah, I mean, so I'm really bad with names though. That's the problem. I can memorize places in my head with maps, but I can't memorize the names. And there's quite a few. I'll probably say, because I really like deserts, I'm a big desert person. It's one in Berlin, and I don't really know the name, but I think it's more like a brow, chin, hushbox, to flat something like that. I mean, I can look for the name and you can put it on this. Well, it's like a link here. I mean, my German is not the best. It's in between like the Brandenburg gates and the checkpoint, Charlie. And it's in a small square. And then basically, you go in, they meet you between a charcuterie and a restaurant. So you get the meat from where they also sell it to outside. And I mean, you get your normal like roots and sausages and everything and meat and all this stuff, but they also have like a huge variety of beer. And there's one, I think, Imperial, which I haven't found anywhere else. It's really good to stout. And the ice cream, it's homemade, meat, beer and ice cream. That's my favorite. So I can't wait to go Berlin again. And last question, what is the favorite app on your phone? What do you use most often? I think it is a huge one that I always use, but I think a new one that I've come across recently, it's Pocket, because I think as a journalist, it's actually quite a useful one to have. So basically, wherever you go on your phone, like any Chrome pages or Apple pages, Google News, Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, whatever, you can save those articles into this app and then go back to them later. So it's a nice aggregate. It's a very easy thing to aggregate the news that you don't have time to read. And then you actually can build a profile there for yourself as well and share some news that you really feel like, oh, this will be good for my audience. And you can share some of them. So you have the private site. Yeah, downloading it now, that's a great tip. All three of us are like, yes, yes, yes. So thank you so much for joining us, Zhao. It's such an honor and so fun to just catch up and learn about what makes you tick as you are certainly helping our industry really learn and grow with your coverage. So we appreciate you. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. And I mean, thank you to the industry as well because a lot of people have had the patience to teach a lot of things to me. So it's always a good thing. And guys, if you enjoyed today's Data Movers podcast, hope you did. Be sure to check out more, jsa.net slash podcast. Every other week on Wednesday morning, we release a new episode. Yeah, and be sure to follow us on Twitter. My favorite media platform, the JSCADA with Evan Kerstel, where we can continue the conversation. Absolutely, and as always guys, happy networking. Thank you.