A West Texas frac company turned out to be one of the best-positioned energy players of the AI era. Luke Saladyga explains how that happened, why power got scarce so fast, and why the steadiest jobs of the next decade might be ones nobody told you to want. Chapters: 00:00:00 Welcome back on Star Wars Day 00:02:13 The perfect storm: how power got scarce 00:09:10 From Oracle to VoltaGrid: frack fields to AI power 00:10:21 Moving 25 to 40 megawatts in under 24 hours 00:12:38 The hard part: load transients in milliseconds 00:20:24 Why Luke joined, and betting before the contracts 00:24:00 8.3 gigawatts contracted, and why competition matters 00:30:09 How Oracle burned the ships 00:36:14 Will the grid catch up? The swing-set problem 00:46:01 Is this a bubble? Why turbine makers stay cautious 00:54:04 Communication and energy: the engine of every advance 00:56:20 Behind the meter, explained simply 00:58:50 Take-or-pay contracts and the coming efficiency push 01:03:38 Labor: the real constraint and the aging-talent crisis 01:11:18 The markers of who adapts well 01:28:37 Mike Rowe, welders, and the trades PR battle 01:31:19 Georgia&#x27;s free trade tuition and a welder who blew his mind 01:35:23 Where to follow Luke, and the one takeaway: embrace the chaos References and Links: Luke Saladyga LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saladyga/ VoltaGrid: https://voltagrid.com Jim Gao (Phaidra): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgao/ Texas SB6 — load-transient / large-load interconnection bill Thank you for visiting our channel, be sure to Like, Comment, and Subscribe! For more information, go to https://www.QTSDataCenters.com Learn More about QTS Data Centers on the QTS YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/users/qtsdatacenters Think you have a great topic for a podcast or would like to schedule an interview with Dave? Send in your requests to podcast@qtsdatacenters.com

Ep. 253 - Luke Saladyga: The Power Ran Out. Here’s Who’s Racing to Build More.

The QTS Experience

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The QTS Experience

## Transcript

Luke Saladyga, welcome back! Thank you. Happy Star Wars Day. Happy Star Wars Day! Yeah, we're recording this on Star Wars Day. You're one of the first people that have come back that knew the old set, and now you're on the new set. It's really cool. I'm glad you could make it work. Well, I appreciate you making the time for me. So, I don't know if we're gonna get as provocative as we did in Houston a few weeks ago at dinner, which was fun.

If it was the Dave McCall experience and I wasn't corporate, probably just Katie bar the door and let that go. Maybe some of it will hit the outtakes, but I'm glad you're back. One of the things that I wrote down here was last time we talked, you had Oracle, there were a lot of things you guys were focused on, and you had articulated some of the challenges,

that as you were on that mission and purpose, what needed to be developed in the industry. And one of the things you talked about, and I'm sure we'll get to it throughout the conversation, was the stage gates of power and other things. So, from then till now, a lot's changed. That's an understatement.

So, what pulled you from, like, just to make it personal for a moment, you're jamming, you were working with a group of people, you were really enthusiastic. Believe it or not, on, it's one of, I've got about four podcasts in the last 18 months. Yours, Jim Gow with Phaedra, there are a couple others that were the most talked about. Now, granted, they're mostly engineers, but not just data center engineers.

Went back, went back, went back to the shorts, to the podcast, but especially on Spotify and Apple. We saw, like, hundreds more downloads of that conversation. So, I am expecting more nerding out here. What pulled you over to that side of the equation? Well, I think if you think about what's happened in the last year in our industry, nobody really could have predicted what was going to happen, right?

When we sat down, you know, really at the beginning of last year, you know, it was kind of the start of kind of a very distinct change where power, you know, shortages were starting to crop up. Where, you know, the hyperscalers used to be able to go and pick from a menu in every state and get as much as they wanted, right? It was an all-you-can-eat buffet. You know, I look at Vegas and the all-you-can-eat buffets have dried up there, too. And so... Which breaks my heart, by the way. Jeez.

I mean, for a lot of people, I think it was the only redeeming factor in, you know... Well, and it's the same thing in the industry, right? If you think about, you know, how power and really the data center, you know, evolution has changed over the past, you know, 10 or 15 years, this is kind of a culmination of, you know, several different things happening all simultaneously. If you've seen the movie, you know... Oh, I'm trying to think. Where... Perfect storm, right?

Where everything just kind of aligns ...

Ep. 253 - Luke Saladyga: The Power Ran Out. Here’s Who’s Racing to Build More.

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Ep. 253 - Luke Saladyga: The Power Ran Out. Here’s Who’s Racing to Build More.

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.