00:00 Speaker A
You mentioned earlier that 25% of planned projects never come to fruition. Part of the reason for that is, at least in some cases, because of local backlash against some of these, and that’s what’s happening here. How do you plan to address and attack this problem?
00:20 Speaker B
Well, first of all, I think this is a very legitimate issue in any community. You absolutely have the right to have those discussions about what you want in your community, and you should participate. Well, I used to run AWS, and when I left it was a 100 billion a year business. And we built a lot of infrastructure. So we have a lot of experience here that embodies that. And I think what’s really, really important is that it has to be a member of the local community who is really interested and invested. I think we need to approach it with honesty and transparency, but you know, a lot of these things seem to be hidden behind a veil or something. We want people to know what we want to do. Well, we hope the community gets excited about it. And there are a lot of employment benefits, a lot of tax benefits, a lot of economic benefits for many of these communities. By the way, some people may choose that that’s not the direction they want to go, and that’s fine, but given all of these benefits, and considering partnering with us as a truly engaged and invested member of the local community, we believe that many communities would really welcome partnering with us.
01:31 Speaker A
Well, it sounds like we’re working on that power part with our partnership with Vistra. We know that some of the local opposition has to do with concerns about water use, pollution and scarcity. Well, I know you’re just getting started, but how do you start thinking about these issues and how are you going to address them?
01:54 Speaker B
Yes, water is very important. We’ve put a lot of effort into water at AWS. And I’ve personally been a real champion of the pledge to become water aggressive within a few years at AWS. So I’m bringing the same idea here. And I think we need to differentiate between old data center designs and modern data center designs built by people who really care. And I think, uh, there are modern data center designs that use dramatically less water than people think. And when you compare it to, say, a golf course, and you look at the number of homes equivalent to water that’s out there, it’s actually much lower than people think. Well, there are many new cooling technologies that use much less water, and there are many ways to recycle water. In other words, you don’t just use it once and then wash it off. So I think this is just one example. All of the broader concerns about the environment and sustainability are real to me and need to be addressed. And we want to strive to be part of a broader community that is trying to take these issues seriously.
