Episode 023 - Rich Miller - Founder & Editor of DataCenterKnowledge.com and DataCenterFrontier.com

This week on the I Love Data Centers podcast: Founder & Editor of DataCenterKnowledge.com and DataCenterFrontier.com, I interview the one and only Rich Miller. If you’re in the data center industry, you’ve likely come across www.datacenterknowledge.com or www.datacenterfrontier.com. If you haven’t, well, you should go check both sites out ASAP and bookmark them! I have wanted to connect and talk shop with Rich for nearly a decade. Although we’ve talked a few times over the past few months about how we can partner together on the content side of our respective organizations, our conversation in this podcast covered new ground for me. Rich gives us insight into how he started as a journalist and the journey he has taken building both datacenterknowledge.com and datacenterfrontier.com while becoming one of the most well-known and respected authorities in the data center and cloud marketplace industries. Also enclosed is an enlightening conversation about the impact of alternative energy and crypto-mining operations within the data center industry. Show Notes: 1:12 Episode starts 2:06 Rich’s background in technology 8:55 What pushed Rich to be the entrepreneur he is today 13:15 The launch of Data Center Knowledge 15:25 How he acquired initial advertisers 23:18 How have you seen the market evolve over the past decade? 31:15 How will cryptocurrency and renewables affect the data center industry 35:32 Why a typical colocation facility would not be an ideal location for a crypto-miner 40:06 Why are crypto-mining operations being deployed in regions where power is expensive? 45:39 How have you seen the conversation around renewable energy evolve and what will it look like in the future? 54:28 Is the data center industry really the largest consumer of commercial energy? 57:37 How realistic is retrofitting generators in data centers to put them back on the power grid 1:07:00 Moving from Data Center Knowledge to Data Center Frontier 1:18:11 The future of Data Center Frontier 1:20:41 Do you have any thoughts, practices, etc. that people would find crazy? 1:22:16 What is something that you have learned over the past few months that has blown your mind? 1:27:51 What advice would you give to technology focused journalist coming into the industry today? 1:31:02 Advice for professions looking to migrate from the telecommunications industry into the data center industry?