 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome to our new podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Stado-Cutaya, founder and CEO of JSA. Along with my co-host, Mr. Evan Christel, top B2B social media influencer. Great to be here and welcome to this second episode of Data Movers, where we sit down with the movers and shakers in today's telco and data center environment, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of this new normal. How are you guys doing? You know, it's been an exciting, crazy 2020. I mean, this is the first time that I just want the year to close and to start a new one. Normally, I like to take advantage of every day, but this is an interesting year. And you have to kind of create interesting new ways of celebrating the holidays together, right? Thanksgiving around the corner. Yeah, that's a great point. So Thanksgiving is coming up as we drop this episode. What to do, that's the big conundrum is how to celebrate Thanksgiving, if at all. I personally, we've canceled the big family Thanksgiving very sadly, and we're just gonna go way up to a cabin, Airbnb up in the mountains in New Hampshire with our little core pod and celebrate there. But it really is a challenge. And I think it's something that every person, every family is now facing across the country. What are your thoughts? How are you gonna manage through this holiday? Well, I'm a big fan of Zoom and other similar platforms where you can get more collaboration and videos of folks talking. And so we have had a Zoom Halloween where everyone got together and wore costumes. And so we'll do some type of Thanksgiving where we'll get together and celebrate, which it works for our family because we're on the West Coast right now and a lot of our family East Coast. So in a way, it extends our Thanksgiving table. So we can actually see all of our relatives and be efficient about it. So I don't know. Well, we're just gonna have to make do and muddle through it like we have everything else this year. But I look forward to, you know, seeing family at least over Zoom. But before we get to that, let's get on with data movers and our next guest. Yes, I am very, very excited about our next guest. As you know, here at Data Movers, you like to really dive into the background stories, queer highs and lows and get our guests unique perspectives on the future of our industry. And so when we were creating Data Movers, we really were thinking a lot about this particular guest in mind, Mr. Phillip Marangella, he is the CMO of Edge Connects. Phillip, welcome to Data Movers. Thank you, Jenny. Good to be on. Thanks for having me for one of your early episodes and good to meet you, Evan, as well. Welcome to the show. I noticed you're calling in from Virginia, the data center capital of the universe. Everything keep keeping the internet humming down there. I was actually checking out your bio and it says you have over 20 years of experience in the industry, including all the way back to Nortel. Some of us remember who Nortel is. So how old do you feel? That's my first question. Well, I don't know where you're going with that. Realizing I'm pretty old, right? And yeah, you're bringing back some mixed memories there in terms of Nortel and other places that I've worked in the past. But been in this space a long time in terms of telecom and from satellite to the likes of Nortel to MCI and Verizon and then been in the data center for space for a little over 10 years. And yep, I'm an Ashburn, a little data center market that could. So yeah, thanks. You can tell from the hairline that I've been around a while. And so going, let's start from an eight-year-old Phillip Marangella, what did you want to be back then? Oh gosh, I don't, you know, that's a good question. I actually think I moved around a lot as a kid. And I actually think when I was eight, I was actually living in Australia. And my parents decided to, they weren't military. People always asked me that. They just, they were kids of military. So maybe it was in their blood and they moved around a lot. So I think it was in Australia. And look, my first word was car. So I wanted to be a race car driver, right? So I was everything cars, you know, I had every matchbox and I just knew all like everything. So yeah, that was definitely a race car driver. And you know, that's how I ended up in the data center industry. Well, we still have the need for speed in the data center world. So it's a perfect segue. But you have a very storied career. You were at Verizon, I mentioned Nortel, you went to Equinix and now Edge Connects. So what was that like going, you know, between these different cultures and companies? Yeah, well, you know, it was interesting coming. Well, first off to your point, coming from like the network space in Verizon. You know, when I first joined Equinix, you know, the data center was about the facility, right? And, you know, how strong and robust or big and sophisticated it was. But looking at it from a network perspective, this is where we came in with the interconnection aspect, right? And yes, you know, interconnection had existed. But what that enabled, right? And to specifically focus on kind of communities of interest in the ecosystems, whether it's financial connecting to networks, networks to networks, cloud to network and so forth. And that's what we really tried to kind of focus on and build at Equinix, right? And look at what it's become today, right? It's an absolute behemoth. And it's just a fantastic company and a bellwether for the data center industry. You know, I had an opportunity to join Edge Connects. I love the model. This was about five years ago. You know, different model focused just on service provider companies, so content, cloud, network and so forth and giving them exactly what they wanted, where they wanted, when they wanted, right? So rather than making them kind of come to us, we would go where they wanted to go. And that was, you know, hence the name Edge Connects was bringing their content, bringing their data, bringing their networks closer to their end users and build the data center in the kind of best location between the service provider and the end user, right? And that's what drove the Edge, right? And this was, you know, we did it way before it was cool because now everybody's talking about the Edge. And, you know, so we've continued to build that out and grow and have a global platform now that's been very successful. Yeah, you can say very successful. I mean, you guys are on a tier, Randy Brockman, of course, CEO and the rest of your management team, unbelievable. You just were acquired by EQT, making all sorts of headlines. And I know you have recently oversaw the entire public relations marketing efforts of that big acquisition of EQT. What's that feeling like? Or any inside scoop or indigestion that you might be feeling from that? Yeah, look, I don't, it's, I'm very grateful, right? You talked about Thanksgiving before, you know, going back to that, I'll just say, I'm sure there's a lot of people that happy that they can't travel for Thanksgiving. You hear all the horror stories and around the family dinners and so forth. So it might be, you know, beneficial for the continuity of some family relationships if they, if you have to stay at home. So, but again, very thankful for the success we have had and continue to have, particularly during COVID, right? When so many people have struggled and suffered and so forth. And I think the data center industry overall has proven itself beyond resilient and is essential to enable what we're doing today, right? Whether it's working from home, studying from home, gaming, streaming, everything, right? Our homes are the new edge, as we like to say. And without the data centers that are helping all these services kind of deliver, you know, quality solutions to end users, you know, we wouldn't be as in the position we are in today. And so I think it's a lot of those trends and those requirements that are driving our business and our success as an industry overall. And then obviously edge connects has been, you know, profiled and showcased in terms of what we do and it's a testament to be acquired by EQT, which is based out of Europe, Swedish Infrastructure Fund. And so that will only allow us to help us continue our growth and build upon our strategy to continue growing internationally and supporting our customers around the world. Fabulous, you mentioned gaming as a side note. I've taken up gaming again after about a 35 year, hey, Adis, so as far as I could tell, everyone is playing video games now, including grown men like myself. Yeah, I assume you've seen that huge spike in traffic and requirements coming as well. Yeah, I mean, hats off to you, Evan, because I'm intimidated. I watched my son, he's playing Fortnite and whatever this shooting games and all that stuff. I can't do that, if it's not a simple joystick, it's not Pac-Man or Caterpillar, so I'm telling you how old I am. I can't do it, I'm just intimidated. But definitely, right? And he's thankful for, hey dad, thanks for the high speed internet that allows him to game, right? And everything, I often talk about this theme of re-architecting the internet because at the edge, everybody's consuming and creating vast volumes of data and doing all these things. And it's traditionally always been this kind of download centric, you need directional kind of traffic flows, right? And what we see now is that, and you throw in things like TikTok, all this stuff's happening at the edge, going back to the core or going to the other edges. And so this is the role that we help in terms of alleviating the bottlenecks and the traffic flows for the internet so that it can function. So you can have these gaming while somebody else is streaming Netflix and I'm on a Zoom call and all simultaneously without any interruptions or the death spiral of rebuffering or whatever it may be. But tell us, speaking of Zoom, you're obviously working from home, you have a distributed team, how's that all going? Yeah, I mean, look, my team was always distributed and some of them were already working at home whether they're in the UK or elsewhere and we were always flexible. So we didn't really miss a beat, speaking for myself and my team. You have to adapt, you have to try to over-communicate because you just don't have the impromptu in-person meetings at work. But I was a road warrior to start with. I was always traveling, I would see Jamie, whether it's in Hawaii at PTC or some other event. And so I was traveling a ton. So I'll be honest with you, it took a little while to get used to it, but I'm actually happy not getting on that plane every other week and flying, and I'm a big dude, so I'm not cramped in premium economy as they like to call it, which is still very small for me. But so I'm enjoying working from home to be honest and getting more family time and kind of work-life balance. Yeah, premium economy, that's what I call COVID light. So I don't miss that either. So tell us just, do you have any funny or embarrassing Zoom moments that you can share with the audience? Nothing like you've heard of recently, let's be clear. That'd be horrific. But I do remember I had to do a panel and I thought I was joining a preparation call for the panel, which was gonna happen at a later date, and it was one that was taking place in Europe. So it was extremely early, our time, on a holiday weekend, right? So waking up 15 minutes before rolling into that and realizing, no, this is the panel. So I had to go on Tark for a little bit and just say, my video's not working, let me check and properly get dressed and fortunately I didn't have to comb my hair, but it, yeah, and I don't even know what I said. So I just didn't watch it and just prayed that I didn't put my foot in it. Well, I'll tell you, working on Zoom, distributed workforces, of course, the bandwidth needs with gaming and others. Tell us your thoughts on how COVID might continue to impact the industry as we push forward. So good question. I mean, look, they just came out and said, they got a vaccine that fingers crossed, it was 90% effective. So hopefully that plays out and we can get back to whatever normal that is. But that said, right? I think many of the trends we were already seeing were driving tremendous demand and growth in the data center space. I think what COVID did is just accelerated and exacerbated the digital transformation that many enterprises were already planning to undertake. And the migration to cloud is just rapidly growing and some of these, but you already had other technologies, right? Industrial Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, all these things were driving the need and demand for more network, more data centers, more connectivity and all that kind of stuff. And it just accelerated in whether or not this vaccine proves the savior and we can kind of get back to our normal lives. I think you're gonna see a lot more people continue to work from home because you're still remaining productive, right? And the savings from having and the headache of trying to go to work, I don't know if we're gonna have events like we used to do, Jamie. To be honest, man, that was a lot of travel, a lot of headaches and so forth. And people are quickly adapting. And I think, so even if there is a vaccine and COVID goes away, I think we've kind of changed forever and many respects of how we work, how we interact and how we go about our business. I don't know what you're seeing and you and Evan, but certainly for us, this is kind of gonna continue and many respects the way it is. Yeah, thanks for throwing out that PTC Hawaii reference that usually happens in January. That was a nice little reflection on an event that who knows when we'll come back. For folks on video, they make quite a glimpse of a lot of bracelets you're wearing. Is that like a lot of hats, Philip? What's the significance of that? Look, like I said, I travel a lot and it was just, I got one for each family member and it just reminds me of them when I'm on the road and whatever, I think it's kind of cool or whatever. I got these in Costa Rica, they're called Purevita bracelets. So they're cool, so I don't know. I love that. Yeah, well, you know, it is, it's the new closeness of family, one of the silver linings around COVID. You want your family near you, you have the ability to have, at least those you're quarantining with near you. All right, so, did we talk about it? Any thoughts on how the election or non-election, I don't know, it's somewhat election. How is that impacting our industry and our future good, bad, otherwise? Do we want to talk about this? Yeah, I mean, look, I live, I'm outside of DC, so I'm in the, I have the hurricane or whatever. So, and I was actually in DC this weekend. So you're asking the effect of a new administration potentially on the data center space. I don't necessarily see, from a data center perspective, much difference, right? I think for maybe some of our customers, some of the privacy issues around Facebook and Google and that data privacy and so forth will come into play and what that impact might have around who owns the data and your right to your information. You already see it in Europe, right? Where it's far more regulated and so forth. And that's drive with GDPR for us. You see a lot of data center operators building in each and every country because they have to keep the data local within those borders and so forth. So certainly from a data sovereignty perspective, from a sustainability perspective is another area, right? Where, again, particularly in Europe, there are more vocal around being green and so forth, but we as an industry, we're a member of the infrastructure masons, which constitutes many, the builders of the digital age. So many of the big companies, Google or Microsoft and Apple and all these guys, and we're very good at self-regulating, right? And trying to be green, trying to be efficient because there's economic benefits and it's the right thing to do, right? And so they've put out stringent goals by 2030 to be carbon neutral or carbon negative even, right? And so we're trying to work with them ourselves as many in the industry should be extremely green as possible. But again, trying to work with the government agencies and figuring out how to be green will be another important, I think, regardless of the administration and goal and effort within the industry. Great points. Now let's go from the serious to the trivial. Let's do some fun facts. So tell me what comes to mind, right off the top of your head. So plenty of room for embarrassment. Apple or Android? Apple. Okay, what's your greatest achievement? I'd say my family, my kids. Good answer. Speaking of Thanksgiving, if you could watch one movie on repeat 24 hours straight, what would it be? Oh, shoot. I don't know. Maybe since with the passing of Sean Connery, I could do it, you know, at James. You know, I think they always showed at James Bond. Oh, good one. Yeah, yeah. That's a good option. And if you could have dinner with one person dead or alive through history, who would that person be? Well, one would, well, one would be, not to be staffed, but one would be my dad and passed away about two years ago. And that would be, that would be cool one more time with him. But the traditional answer, I guess, somebody like, I thought it would be really cool, like a Leonardo da Vinci, right? One of these like amazing Renaissance guys that are just smart with everything from science to politics to philosophy and just, just those guys just blow my mind. Like, you know, the Ben Franklin's, those kind of guys that are just, you know, brilliant across all the spectrums and just tap into their little brain for lunchtime would be pretty cool. Oh, great, great choice. At first I thought you said Leonardo da Caprio, and I was a bit concerned by your answer. But no, Leonardo da Vinci would be a good one. Translation might be a little bit of an issue. But in all seriousness, thanks so much for joining us, Phillip. We really look forward to watching your success and, you know, you and your team's mission is really important, particularly in this time as we're glued to screens at home and really broadband and digital is literally like become a life and death and a reality for us all. So thanks so much and good luck with holidays. Yeah, awesome. Thanks for having me and yeah, have a happy Thanksgiving. Happy holidays. Appreciate it. Yeah, happy holidays and thank you so much for your time. And I could not imagine dealing with COVID without the internet. So thank you for all you do. So important. I'm talking about renaissance now. We're just having a small role, so, but appreciate it. Listeners today, if you enjoyed our Data Movers podcast, as I did, be sure to check out jsa.net slash podcasts for upcoming Data Movers episodes releasing every other week on Wednesdays as well as other DSA podcast episodes there. And follow us and engage with us on Jay Scotto and Evan Kirstel. We actually will engage and retweet you. So we look forward to your feedback. And as always, happy networking.