Adam Gibson 0:00
There's an, there's a an old room that we used to call a storage room, storage room, and it's now the sleeping quarters. And we've had, you know, parked rooms that have now become, you know, a space for us to where there's no sense of lights and there's no, you know, there's all these conversations you people have of what goes on. So that's been a very interesting conversation, and everyone laughs about it, because they still go, you sleep in the DC. It's like, yeah, we do because we're 24/7 you
Eric Bell 0:40
Adam, welcome back to the Baxtel data center Podcast. Today, we have a guest. Our guest is Adam Gibson, the VP of global data center development at Megaport. He's based in Australia, and has an ambition of visiting over 1000 data centers over his career. He's also known as jet ski racing, chocolate shell Chocolate, chocolate milk drinking data, sir, loving dude. Welcome to the podcast. Adam,
Adam Gibson 1:11
no. Thank you, Eric. It's, it's fun to be here, yeah.
Eric Bell 1:15
And it's, it's early there. I mean, it's only one, 140 in the afternoon here and in Australia. What time is
Adam Gibson 1:23
it? It's just just before 6am so, yeah, 5am Friday morning. Feeling great.
Eric Bell 1:31
Thanks. Thanks for getting up a little bit early for us. But I understand that you don't, you don't, you don't need as much sleep as everyone else.
Adam Gibson 1:39
Um, I've got some sort of robotic features. I think it would be that I'm used to, you know, sometimes powered napping, which some people as, you know, siesta, or, you know, three or four hours on a Sunday afternoon. That's sometimes my normal sleep pattern. So, yeah, I'm quite accustomed to bed by one and up by four. So it's a normal life in the DC space, as they say. You know, datacenters don't sleep, so neither do you.
Eric Bell 2:06
That's, yeah, that's right, that that is very true. You're 24/7, do you have, do you have a generator backup for you, in case, you know, for it.
Adam Gibson 2:17
So I think it's the chocolate milk is my, is my fuel to keep me running all hours, day and night, and there's always a supply of chocolate milk. It's, I don't drink alcohol, and it's, that's my go to to keep me, keep me sane, for sure.
Eric Bell 2:32
Nice, yeah, well, I, you know, I think that alcohol drinking is a little bit going out of fashion. I don't know if I should say this in this data center crowd, because, you know, at socials, we we like to drink, although, you know, with, I don't know if you've heard of Adam Huberman lab, he had an episode a year or two ago in alcohol and just the detrimental effects, and I think it's really catching on in the in the tech industry. But
Adam Gibson 3:03
I think with the amount of events and the whole premise of, you know, going out for a quick lunch, and, yeah, we know the sales team, you know, obviously have a fair amount of them for customer engagement, things like that. You know, it's almost like, yeah, when you have a quick meeting with the team, you have a cup of coffee, and then you have another cup of coffee, and you've had seven cups of coffee. You know, one day can get a little bit too much. So I wouldn't be surprised that the alcohol consumption is reduced. It'll never it'll never disappear completely. Everyone enjoys a everyone enjoys some sort of alcoholic beverage. But I think that the you know, the amount of exercise we're doing these days, of traveling and engaging with customers is more powerful and has been before, due to the world changing over the last sort of five years, as resulted to more social activity, which is great, because human interaction has always been, and always will be, a Successful business for commercial conversations at least. And General, you know, chit chat of ensuring that when you have have a facial expressions face to face, and you know the general world that goes on when you're outside, you know of your own four walls can help the conversation and bring more. So I think that there will be times of you know, I only have one, or, yeah, I'm on the sparkling water or something like that instead. And I've seen a few people now starting to drink mocktails, which is quite cool, because you've got the whole the fun and the conversation started. I still get the fancy umbrella, but I can still drive myself home, so it's good to see.
Eric Bell 4:43
Yeah, you know, maybe I should try that. I used to drink beer at conferences so that I could kind of control what I was drinking. I know the portion control better. It's not poured heavy or light. But a couple years ago, I had a concussion, or at least a series of concussions, so I. I still have alcohol. Everyone smile, but I've really removed it from my diet for the most part. So maybe I should try out those mocktails
Adam Gibson 5:07
I can suggest, if you're at ptc next year, we'll go to the tropics bar, which is, everyone knows the tropics bar. It's a pinnacle place when you're hanging out at PTC. I know digital Realty and others have had, you know, parties there they do a Virgin Pina Colada, and it's the best pina colada I've ever had. So I take a photo every year. I go there and dream about it all year. So, yeah, I recommend go the tropics for that. It's fantastic,
Eric Bell 5:36
yep. Yeah, awesome, yeah. And then talking about Megaport, what can you describe for the audience? What? What does Megaport do? You know, what's what? I guess, what services you you guys offer.
Adam Gibson 5:49
So no network as a service is probably the, you know, if you want to look at a and we've got so many acronyms in, you know, industry, Nas, as people call it, Megaport is essentially a on demand Software Defined solution. So if you ever your data center operator, your end customer, you want to connect to the cloud. So the theories, the Googles, the Amazons of the world directly, you want to connect between DC to DC. You on some, you know, internet on demand in a not just local, you know, residential services, but high quality with, you know, a lot of burst capacity and things like that. You have to work with a partner if you can't build your own. And it's quite challenging to do that. And we've seen people over the years build their own, and then, you know, just go look. The infrastructure is difficult. The buy rates are challenging. The product sets are hard. You partner with people. A lot of people build their own DCS in broom calls or little rooms over the years and decide it's too expensive. So we'll go with a big provider. And there's a multitude, there's 8000 plus DCS around the world. So you can pick which one you want to go into, but or put it in the cloud, that's something that's that's really relevant. But once you put it in the cloud, you know, how do you connect to it? So when you look at all of the that that application, the network configurations you sort of want to get, find someone who can do that. And Megaport is the a global leader in that, in that service, where you can literally go from Australia to the US, and you're not paying for the underlying network, and you've got the resiliency and on your time and on on your dime. So you can choose a, you know, I want for an hour, you know, I need to budget in. How's it look like? And it's all costed and and processed out. So Megaport is a global network service provider delivering in the connection to close to 1000 DCS. There is a multitude of cloud on ramps and other service providers, software partners along the way. And there's the buzzword of the or quarter of the year is AI, you know, getting AI connect to AI infrastructure and platforms, you know, all over the place, because we know that they're they're starting to grow, but they're not all in your back door, like go in your backyard, as the like some of the DCS are. So how do you get access to them? And, you know, choosing a network provider has global access. That's how it works. And megaports definitely one of them. So
Eric Bell 8:23
as I understand it, it's like you get one. You know, if mega ports in a data center, say an Equinix data center, you get a port, you go to cross connect to Megaport, and then from that port, at Megaport, you can go anywhere else Megaport is located, yeah. So DCS, right,
Adam Gibson 8:39
absolutely correct. So that access port gives you an enablement to the platform itself. And if you want to enable to become an on ramp, if you want to connect to another facility anywhere in the world, if you want to connect to another provider with IX, which is a peering platform, if you simply want to connect to just an internet service. You can do all that via the access port of a Megaport, yeah, accessibility and the platform itself.
Eric Bell 9:08
Would you say that most of the, you know, I'm curious, right? I would think that one, one of the key drivers for people wanting to connect would be, you know, cloud connections. You know, connect to AWS, connect to, you know, Google, Azure, you know, services like that, is that? Is that one of the primary drivers, or is it just kind of point to point connections between that, this Equinix, you know, DC and Sydney, and another one up in Singapore, for example.
Adam Gibson 9:36
So the the original premise, there's something I spoke to Bevan about and Maddie Simpson, two very much Pinnacle people in the industry of and obviously to Megaport itself. There was a need in the market. How do I get to a cloud directly in a cost effective way, without having to go from. From a location where the clouds not in and route different traffic networks and have different providers. So one of the original questions was, how do we get to cloud Megaport solved that problem over 10 years ago now with its on ramp abilities and capabilities, that's sort of its bread and but as its base foundations of what created the Megaport business and its portfolio of access to DCs and its product set of network infrastructure from there is evolved in time, as you can imagine, where there's been a more cloud providers, B other services that are needed to complete the set of when you were in a DC and you've got a rack in my post yesterday, I mentioned data bank den five and den two, they're two sites, but we've enabled den two, which is extension of Denver five, and we did oId for in Chicago. Now, customers in those two locations can connect to each other or connect to regions of cloud and things like that. That's a core product of what Megaport supports.
Eric Bell 11:09
Okay, yeah, this makes sense. And then so kind of tying in your goal to visit 1000 sites. How many are you up to?
Adam Gibson 11:20
I have to check the exact number. I had a look the other day, and we were close to 190 something. So I'm just shy of 200 so I'm that means I'm a fifth of the way through. I know that I'm, uh, it'd be next week or week after I visit a couple more. So that should hit my around my 200 mark, I would say, so, not bad. 1000 sites in my in my career is the goal. I think I've still got another 10 plus years to go. I'd say probably, probably a little bit more, maybe 2025, years, the way I the way I like to work. So no problems in doing that. I just got to ensure that, you know, they're all, you know, I mean, all DCS are unique. So that doesn't matter if it's the one next door to another one or it's, you know, a different content altogether, but I'm excited to see them all
Eric Bell 12:10
it. Maybe we should make a little thermometer. You know how when nonprofits try to raise money, we can have like, a little thermometer for you to kind of track your progress as you go.
Adam Gibson 12:20
I was talking to a developer mate of mine. He said, Yeah, he'd like to go to a little wEric Bellsite where I can attach links to where they are and where in the world is, AG, today and what DC is in today, sort of thing. And that was, it was a running joke. I see there's quite a few guys in the industry I message and I run into and they're like, So where have you been? What said sight Have you seen? And good to see you today. It's, it's enjoyable. And there's always a conversation that's, you know, I live on the plane. And whilst some of that might be true, it's also, you know, we're getting business out of it. We're getting enablement. And again, the conversation of, you know, would you rather an email or a meeting, face to face, or at least a video call that the the engagement of a DC. And whilst there are virtual DC tours to walk through a DC and have a conversation about it, and touch and feel it, it's a there's nothing quite like it, because these, you know, the teams have built it, and these are not cheap infrastructure to buy and have a long life being an owner operator of facilities over the years myself, you can appreciate what it taught, what it takes to build one so going through them, you understand the, you know, the life cycles and the fun and games. I think that's a part of why I like to travel and and people appreciate that, that I've flown, you know, from Australia, it's a beautiful part of the world, and I love living here, but it's a hike to get to certain places. And, yeah, they appreciate that, so they like to to do the best tour they can, and, and, and showcase that. So that's a part of reason why I do it as well. I love what I do. DCs are all I know, and I enjoy that, but also means that I want to support that with, you know, I masons and Nomad futurists and all the great industry people that support in their own little projects. To keep this decision going, because it's it's hard to get in, but it's also challenging to keep some of the people we've got a much like some of the countries we're seeing now. We've got a large rate of people that have been around for 1015, years and have come in late in the game. So they're looking to retire the next 567, years. And the way the DCS are growing, you know, the mega megawatts that are, yeah, being populated or demand driven due to customers and products like AI and high performance computing and crypto and cloud and all the buzz words that go around, we're seeing that they're not going to stop. So how does someone who likes to build 100 megawatt site cool that 100 megawatt site and have teams? To support the mechanical, electrical that's that's a challenge, and that's something that, you know, I like to support and push for. So going to these sites and promoting them is one thing, you know, getting the business out of it, and we're seeing a significant return that people go, Look, we're going to hold and not build because we're struggling to find staff or funding. You know, it's changed over the years. So we'll keep we'll keep the customers, and keep pushing for more and more and more. But they need that network and and they want to know what life's all about. So it's a fun time to be in this industry, for sure. Yeah,
Eric Bell 15:36
in the US, we're probably, as you know, we're there's in many different places like Singapore and Amsterdam and else in Ireland as well, running out of power. There's been a lot of big developments, and we're running out of power in many different spots. And so not only do we have, like, an employment, you know, finding enough technicians and engineers to run the facilities, but you know, finding the power to be able to build, you know, to right side to build it.
Adam Gibson 16:00
It's also interesting that it's the power piece, but it's also the network infrastructure being the power network infrastructure around it. We're seeing that there's been a restriction in certain parts of the world where they go, you know, you've been taking what we'll call 11 KV, or residential incoming power, and then there's shutting that down, saying, Look, people still need to live. We still need to build homes for the next, you know, 10 to 15 to 25 years or 40 years. And you're, you know, grabbing all of that for one building to support cloud you should take to the next level up the high voltage and things like that, which is great, because that means you can still deliver power to homes. But also means that when you go larger, it's a it's a bigger number. Instead of being a 1020, 30 megawatt data center, or data center that you've which we've seen over the last decade or two, it's now 100 there's a I was it in Khan the other week for data cloud, and ran into Jared, ApplEric Belly. And Jared is a very smart cookie. When you ask for intelligent people, you know, he's working on projects. And there was one, I think it was like an 800 megawatt site. There's a quinbrook in Australia. They're looking to build close to another 800 megawatt site in where I live, in Queensland. So, you know, these sites are gone 10, 2050, fold from what they have been previously. Because, you know, they can get more power because they're going up, you know, closer to the high voltage, or the generation, or they're generating their own but just means that, you know, the power allocations disappear a lot quicker because of that fact. So, you know, it's, it's not a bad problem to have, in some ways, because we've now looking at, and there's been a lot of conversation, a lot of topic, and gets very political, but about nuclear, you know that conversations come up, and it's becoming more and more relevant from from the DC aspect, just because we are very large consumers of power, and that's not going to stop, but also it's a way to ensure that we can keep the green initiatives and things like that with reducing of coal burning in that area, and that's I'm all supportive of sustainability and green initiatives. I love solar and wind and hydro. But also there's the recycling aspect, which is something that we're we're worrying about, in my mind, and conversation I have in in in circles as a consultant as well, where they go. How do we recycle certain components? And again, you look at the industry, you know, 10 years ago, where lead acid batteries, or car batteries, as people would know, you know, we wouldn't need car and things like that. They're heavily recyclable. There's a good portion, I think it. Don't know the exact number, but I'll say yes, plus 70% is recyclable. Where the lithium ion batteries that are becoming more common, and there's a better price point, or at the same price point, they have a little bit longer lifestyle, which is great. So the life cycle is five to 10 years in some areas, if it's cooled and protected and things like that, compared to a three to five or three to seven from a lead acid perspective, which is better, but there's less recyclable parts in them. So how's the wastage go and things like that. So we're coming to a interesting time where power is very important, but it's the harnessing of that power, managing of the power, and the, you know, the exit strategy of that of that power, because people want more of it. So you built on, it's a megawatt today, they want 10 megawatts tomorrow. What happens at one megawatt device? Can you replace it? Can you recycle it? Can you reuse it? Can you ship it to a third world country and they can support it? And that's Yeah, I know that meta heavily, and Google have done the same thing now, where they're supporting underprivileged countries to leverage. Some of their old infrastructure. It's perfectly viable and works well, and it's already been written off from a, you know, a taxation accounting perspective, and it's done the job for for the for the business itself, but it's, you know, it's just going to sit in a shell somewhere where it's going to get disassembled and not going to get reused. So you must use it in a in another area of the world where it can help them massively. And I think that's very, very exciting times for for people that you know haven't had the benefits of what we've had in in very lucky countries, where you're in the US, and I'm in Australia, where we've had that, that evolution of, you know, cars to you know that all the the revolutions over the years from industry, like the Industrial Revolution and the electrical revolution now. And someone was saying, you know, the technology revolution, we're seeing it. But some countries, you know, skip one or two, which is unfortunate,
Eric Bell 20:58
right? Yeah. And I know Australia was one of the early adopters of battery storage for your grid, and at Baxtel, we've had more and more utilities and solar companies and wind companies, renewable companies reaching out to us for our data sets. What they want to do is understand where datacenters are located and where they're going, right because they want to build in that area or be able to service them. And, you know, I'm drinking from the fire hose, learning from that energy and electrical industry, but I think that what I'm learning is that many, there are many solar projects now that are coming with storage. It's almost like because one of the problems with renewable renewable power is the fact that it's intermittent. It only you know powers when the sun shining or the winds blowing, but if you colocate with batteries, it helps to elongate that that time you might not have 24/7, power with it, but you kind of elongated over when, when people are at home at eight or nine or 10 at night, when they need it, and their air conditions are running and that sort of thing. So I found that interesting.
Adam Gibson 22:12
And we're also seeing that it it harnesses and tries to flatten the curve. And that's something that you know, when you look at solar as a prime example, is that that wonderful bell curve where, you know, from 4am in some parts of the world, you might get a trickle, or you might not, depending on if the sun's not up yet. But, you know, say, by 7am it's starting to rise, and by 11 or 12, you're that sort of Pinnacle where you're getting maximum amount of, you know, power coming in, then it starts to again, go back down to nothingness, where, if you can harness that battery technology, we go, look, we're getting more that we can, you know, can consume, but we'll bring that to that bell code, get stretched out a little bit more. You can harness that power for exactly, as you said, you know when, when people get home and they turn the air conditioning on in the afternoon, it's been a hot day. You know that power spike is the the inverse, and that's interesting world that we live in, is that we're using the mother nature's resources, but we can't capture it, 24/7, because it doesn't necessarily exist yet. Hydro something that definitely, you know, you look at Hoover Dam and other places like that, and they're they're doing that. And there's many different, you know, dams around the world, where you can get a hydro power plant, and it works quite well and things like that over years. But again, that only has its limitations. You can't you can't put more water in because it affects flooding further down, things like that. So that's your constant, which is nice, and it's just a challenge to get the additional power that people want and and need to live. But again, as some people say, it's first world problem,
Unknown Speaker 23:45
right? Yep, yeah, for sure.
Eric Bell 23:48
All right. So curious. Going back to your your the number of sites you visited, you know, how many datacenter headquarters Have you visited? You probably don't track that. Um,
Adam Gibson 24:02
I haven't. It's a good metric. I can definitely pull up. Um, I mean, there's, there's quite a few around, and there's some very pretty headquarters that have come into, that I've walked into, that's something that I enjoy well. And funny enough, there's a, there's one in, in your neck of the woods, cologic, where I've been in their headquarters, but they're actually in Denver itself, but they don't actually have a DC in Denver, which is, which is more interesting. And I said I've had that in a couple of experiences where their office is in Dallas and they have a DC in Dallas. So you gotta, yeah, sometimes go where the people are. Sometimes I much prefer going with DC is, but I've been to quite a few, and some have spectacular views, and some have quite a, quite an exciting time. And make you want to, make you want to jump ship and work for them. So, but yeah, it'd be probably 50 plus for sure,
Eric Bell 24:53
right? Yeah, I used to work at core site in their headquarter here in Denver, and at the time when I first started working for. Of them. They did not have a data center in Denver, but they since bought, you know, when I was there, they bought a small colocation firm, a coloc confluent, which was in 910, 15th Street, the telecom hotel, so it has a lot of that interconnection density, and now they're finally building a much larger den three facility. You should, I don't know if you've talked to them about that, but you should hook that up with Megaport.
Adam Gibson 25:26
Yeah. Look, I've, there's so many sites coming through, and we've had this conversation almost every month on my on my senior management conversations and meetings of you know, can we start looking at sites yet? And I'm like, we don't have time to look at sites. People are wanting, you know, more and more capacity from a network perspective, because there's more and more you know it or colocation capacity being sold. So I'm going where the revenue and opportunities are before I even drop into new sites of just because it's exciting to do. So it's a great time to be this DC life of that. And I'm seeing more sites than I have ever done before, and definitely excited to see more. So I'll reach out to the core site guys, and one will share you mentioned critical sites and carrier hotels, and it's something that very, very exciting I've done the 60 Hudson in New York. You know, there's a big carry hotel here in Australia as well. They are and Singapore has got a lot of them, just because they've had an issue or a shortage of power for quite a while. So they've now become very much interconnected hubs in particular. So, you know, they're very unique, where they're more of a fiber than then colocation, and then you've got people like njfx, which are less DC, more subsea, where they've got multiple subsea links coming in, things like that, where, you know, are they a carrier Hotel? Are they DC? Are they subsea? You know, your CLS cable landing station, you know, they're a mixture of all three, which is a very unique proposition, sure, and that's something that, you know, it's become more more important that they're all, they've all got their benefit and, you know, need in the market. So
Eric Bell 27:19
since you've seen so many, and you're probably in the top 10 or five in terms of the number of sites you've seen, I would imagine, who knows who keeps score in these things. But do you have any data center war stories or data center stories that might be unique, unique things you've seen experienced just on a tour? Yeah,
Adam Gibson 27:41
it's, it's quite, quite funny. I've being a, being a technician from, you know, way back that was a how I got in. I was a network and server engineer building BGP and cloud servers with, you know, Linux four and things like that. So, and I've spoke about that previously. You get to when you start working in a DC as an operations person, as a technician, you know, sometimes it's you do a late shift, and it's much more beneficial to sleep in the DC than travel to and fro, from home and things like that. And the DCS have showers, and they've got, you know, a nicer a canteen, but an area where you can put your food in the fridge and got a microwave and things like that, so you can be sustainable. And now the joys of Uber Eats and stuff like that, you can still get a better meal than than whatever's in the vending machine. So I've probably had, out of the last awkward, last 20 DCS I've visited and toured, which is probably the last quarter or two. Most of them, I've had a conversation with them. Of, do you have a hammock or or some sort of swag, or, you know, sleeping bag of sorts, in the DC? And they're like, yep, we certainly do. So it's, it's quite funny where, you know, when you've spent enough years in the industry as a data center operator in that, in that data center space where you've had to do something for a customer, it's two o'clock in the morning, you start again in at 8am whilst there might be a workplace health and safety issue around that. Yeah, we've all slept in the DC and there's, you know, quite funny stories that we have and go, Look, I've slept in this, this corridor, or, you know, there's an, there's a an old room that we used to call a storage room, storage room, and it's now the sleeping quarters. And we've had, you know, parts rooms that have now become, you know, a space for us to where there's no sense of lights and there's no you know, there's all these conversations you people have of what goes on. So that's been a very interesting conversation, and everyone laughs about it because this I go, you sleep in a DC. It's like, yeah, we do because we're 24/7 so that's sort of the funny parts of the world. It did the the inside of jokes and inside of stories. When you when you've been there, you can laugh about it.
Eric Bell 30:05
Yeah, I think you can open a smart hand stick and have them roll out a cot like
Unknown Speaker 30:10
that. That'd be great. I'd
Adam Gibson 30:12
love to get some of these DCS to actually have branded sheets for us and things like that. That'd be next level, like that, branded T shirts and your hats and stickers and water bottles, etc. But have you thought about getting a branded sleeping bag? They probably don't can donut support it, but I wouldn't mind taking a, you know, switch or Iron Mountain or Equinix or digital Realty, you know, sheets to cuddle into. You know, be pretty sure. I mean,
Eric Bell 30:38
how many are there datacenters that you've toured or seen or heard of that actually have sleeping rooms, because I think it sounds like they've done it, almost on a makeshift level, but it seems to me, in a colocation environment where you have many different companies coming in, and I know, you know, way back in the day, I used to do some installs in datacenters, and I think it'd be often your maintenance is at night and or sometimes when stuff goes wrong, it's at night and, or you're fixing it at night and you might be tired and you're waiting for another park to come in, or whatever, and and getting a couple hour nap might be a good thing. And so it didn't occur to me until this time into this conversation. But I mean, you know, it seems like, you know, just have carving out one room where you have a couple beds that that someone can can use for the night. I think that would make
Adam Gibson 31:26
sense. Yeah, I think it's we're now in the the industry that we're in, we're now become much like a utility, and in certain aspects, I even think we're like emergency services, you know, we're like fire or ambulance or or police, where, you know, the technicians are on call, 24/7 for an incident and to mitigate that issue, whether it just be with loss of power or, you know, even a simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple thing, which I've spoke about to people for of a car catching on fire, fireworks, a bush fire. You know that that smoke can come in through ventilation and disrupt the fire. Fire systems themselves, that simple component tree you know, can can affect a DC. Now, lucky enough, we're getting less and less of that those problems because the DCS are becoming more aware of them. But you know, having, like, the emergency services, having cots where they can sleep and things like that, is not a bad idea. I know there's a few DCS I've seen where they have, like incubator sort of pods, or like quiet rooms and stuff like that, where they're they're comfy enough and sort of small enough that you can do it. The issue you face in DCs is the the fan noise and the infrastructure. It's, it's not a whilst it might be white noise, it's still quite loud. And there's been facilities where ear protection must be warm. It's simply, you know, that high computing is, yeah, quite, quite a, an effective, you know, problem, or noise, noise issue. So, yeah, I think some of that is the way to, you know, fix that, to be pods, for sure, but I think some of them are now doing that in more headquarters, or, you know, outside the DC where they sort of go, you know, we've got a much better play for you to come to if you are doing those nice shifts. But unfortunately, if you are in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest, or, you know, in the UAE, or, you know, somewhere like up in the Nordics, where it's snowing and there's one or two DCS around, there's no headquarters. So, you know, maybe you have to find a room, and I haven't seen designs that have a sleeping quarters, but it's probably not a bad
Eric Bell 33:49
idea, right, right? I think in some large colocation areas that I think that would make sense, alright? Well, I think it's time to do top picks, or your top pick, you know. So is there something that you use or could recommend to people, and that's something that's everyday, but something that people might not know about, that you that you enjoy or use or find as a useful tool,
Adam Gibson 34:15
something I found and I thought about this, there's a couple of sort of things that you can do when you're traveling. I try and not take check in luggage or try and do carry on. And I've now mastered, in my opinion, the rolling of clothing, so you roll it in, so it fits in a in a carry on. And try and do carry on where you can as much as possible. I can do just shy of three weeks with that, and that's enough, because when you do long haul flights, 14 plus hours, sometimes you have a layover, and that can really affect your luggage, if it can disappear and things like that. So try and yeah, do carry on as much as possible. I think that. And many people ask where I'm from my funny accent to some or the, you know, the, you know, rolling in and in particular clothing I sort of go there that, you know, there's particular boots I wear which are Australian, owned and made here. And very, very large company, Aaron Williams, you know, when you're Australian, or, you know, people that they sort of go, you're definitely from Australia. But the whole point is the there are some beautiful parts of the world. I'm not going to deny that. And you and I were talking about, you know, Denver and Colorado itself, there's some beautiful mountains and beautiful places there. Talking to someone earlier, from very close in St George with the Zion and, you know, you've obviously got Egypt and Singapore, where they're all just beautiful parts of the world. There's no denying that Australia's Got a unique position where you can go beautiful beaches and rain forests, you know, literally within, you know, 100 kilometers, 60 miles apart from each other, which is just shy of an hour. So, you know, a lot of people talk and go, hey, we'd love to come down to Australia. And it's like, if you can manage the flight come down, there's, you know, beaches are different here, you know, you go to Hawaii, or you go to parts of Europe, and the beaches aren't the same, because the sand is different. You know, this is soft and it's golden. It's gorgeous to see. It's something that you can't appreciate until you get here. So that's something I would recommend. Is, you know, traveling to Australia, exploring the beaches in the sun and the uniqueness of Australia itself. It's wonderful.
Eric Bell 36:38
Australia is surrounded by beach, I would imagine, right? Because you're, you're a whole continent for the country we are. Yeah, I
Adam Gibson 36:44
mean, there's some, there's some parts that are, it's a lot of beach. There definitely is, and there's certain places where there's cliffs as well that complement the beach, and there's some parts that beaches don't get touched at all, just because it's very hard to get access to. So, yeah, we're very lucky country that you can experience the life of a hustling, bustling city. Population is quite low. I was in Europe last week, and the population of France and Italy, for small regions, is massive compared to what the size of the country and population of Australia is. But that's also because we're in the middle, in the heart of of Australia. It's, there's a red rock, Big Red Rock there, and, you know, called Uluru, or airs rock. But there's nothing there. There's, it's barren it, there's nothingness. It's much like Arizona. There's nothing there. But unfortunately for Arizona, there's, you know, Vegas and things like that. It's just sort of popped up over the last, you know, 50 odd years, where Australia doesn't have that. So it's a unique part of the world where, you know, I think that if you get the opportunity to come to Australia and explore it, definitely do. There's so much to see. And there's quite a few people that don't get out and see the rest of the world, because there's so much to see in Australia. So I think that's something that's unique in, in what I do to where I get to travel a lot and and see, you know, I was in Helsinki, where it was snowing, and it was beautiful sunny day a week before, and we're getting, we're in, I think we're in April, or something like that, or in May, where the snow should settle, but it's still there. You know, going to Denver in three different seasons, you know, in a week, it's, it's a you get, you'd be very fortunate. But you can explore, you know, so much more by just getting out and jumping on a plane. And you can do that. It's, you know, you plan it enough. It's relatively inexpensive. So, you know, I've got little Lego architectural places, and I speak to guys who enjoy Lego, and there's quite a few DCS that now build their facilities out of Lego as marketing stuff like that. And you know, when a very large toy manufacturer like that is building, you know, regions for Tokyo and Singapore and places like that, out of their own. You know, there's a reason why it's significant, because it's a great place to go to
Eric Bell 39:08
who, what companies are making Lego I can only imagine, like a Lego data center that would be really cool.
Adam Gibson 39:15
Yeah. So SBA edge, they did a little modular one there. I know that that's in the US. The guys from North Sea, they built a one for their opening that it'll built a DC out of Lego, and that was for their DC opening not too long ago out of Amsterdam. There's, there's a couple of others that I know that have done it as well, for their marketing at events and things like that. Yeah, everything has a as a uniqueness in marketing to be different. And yeah, Lego is definitely something that's cool,
Eric Bell 39:48
for sure, and I understand behind you those those frames are patents. Lego patents.
Adam Gibson 39:54
Yeah, they are. It's something that as a kid I enjoyed building blocks and things like that. And before video games like Minecraft were around, I spent a lot of time building Lego, and I still collect Lego to this day. So, yeah, it was a gift from a friend where they said, Happy Birthday. And here's something that's unique, and I put proud on the wall because, you know, you It also reminds me of where you come from. You know, these were wooden patents from the 60s, you know, October 2419 61 is when the patent went out for LEGO to, you know, which is now a billion dollar organization, you know, based out of out of Denmark. And you know, has taken the world by storm, especially during the last couple of years, where people locked down and things like that. Lego was very much a huge business, and you can build a lot of things out of that. And the DC space is very much like that as well. It's, you're building blocks on blocks, on blocks, and you can design it however you want, as long as it's structurally sound and engineered, certified, you know, like it's the same thing. So very fortunate that, yeah, my hobbies and then what I can do either get me out of the out of the four walls of a DC, or I can build a DC with it. It's pretty cool,
Eric Bell 41:06
nice. I love it, all right, any I guess we should part here soon. Where can people find you more, more about you, or where can they communicate with you?
Adam Gibson 41:16
Yeah, follow me on LinkedIn. That's an easy one to do, so there'll be some sort of comment on point below, but there'll be some sort of comments that we can, we can talk about, but, yeah, reach out. Um, I spend a lot of time on on I don't have other social media. I don't have the FacEric Bellooks or Instagrams or anything like that. LinkedIn is my sort of world for because I talk about DCS. I'm at a fair amount of events all over the place, so it w PTC, sort of big ones in the US. Capacity Europe, capacity Asia. DC, DS, you know, throughout Europe and Asia Pacific. So I'm around now, don't hesitate to say hi and reach out. And I love it. I love a selfie. If you follow my my my post, I always post up a selfie and things like that. It's, it's what I do. I love, love talking about DC. So if you've got an hour to talk about a DC, or you want to suggest to come check out a tour of a side of that your own. I'm more than happy to do that and and thanks to you, Eric, for for what you do with your organization. Without, you know, trying to understand some of these sites, where they go? Hey, how do I get access to it? I just jump on your wEric Bellsite and view more information from that. So people like yourselves, who are passionate, but very much behind the scenes and exploring, we thank you to for your efforts and your passion in what you do as well. It's appreciated.
Eric Bell 42:37
Thank you, Adam. I appreciate it, and maybe we'll put a little tracker, a Jeep tracker, on our map. That'd be kind of fun.
Adam Gibson 42:47
We'd love to do it. I'm happy to support it. So yeah, thank you to Baxtel and what you guys do, it's great.
Speaker 2 42:53
All right, great. Thank you, Adam. Thank you appreciate it. I want to learn about you, and
Eric Bell 42:58
let's do it in a really brief capsule of approximately 60 seconds. So late nights or early mornings,
Adam Gibson 43:07
I've done both many, many times. I think late nights are probably better for me. New York or California. I'll probably say New York. I've got a lot of friends in New York, and they're a good time. I like to party and enjoy it. So yeah,
Eric Bell 43:18
sweet or salty? And I think I know the answer this one, oh, 100%
Adam Gibson 43:21
sweet every day of the week, cats or dogs. Sometimes I take the benefit and get a small dog. So I've got the mix between introvert or extrovert. Oh, I'm totally introverted. What are you talking about?
Eric Bell 43:31
Meeting or email.
Adam Gibson 43:33
I think a meeting is always beneficial, even if it's like a 10 minute one getting get done, because you can get a lot more out of it compared to backwards and forwards.
Eric Bell 43:42
Favorite food, beyond chocolate milk, a eight,
Adam Gibson 43:45
five, Japanese Steak. That's probably the ultimate favorite city. There's two places in the world that I'd love to live and that's Denver and in Amsterdam. Favorite sport, jet ski racing is a sport, surprisingly, but it's not commonly known. The
Eric Bell 44:05
smartest person you know Bevan
Adam Gibson 44:07
Slattery. He's an entrepreneur and a telco legend here in Australia, and built some really, really nifty products to support founder of Megaport, and done a lot of subsea stuff of life. He is one of the smartest cookies I'll ever meet.