Welcome to Sunday Edition. If you have a sweet tooth and a lot of time on your hands, this story about an entrepreneur who wanted to scale up his artisanal marshmallow business is great.
Today's topic:
But first: Warehouses were the first to take over America. Now it's a data center.
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Shipping this week
data center boom
America's largest warehouse owner is getting into the data center game.
Prologis, the $100 billion real estate giant, has hired a new global head of data centers and could invest more than $25 billion in the sector over the next few years.
Prologis had previously led a boom in warehouse investments as e-commerce became more popular during the pandemic. Now, the company is making a big bet with Blackstone on data centers.
“There's insatiable demand,” Prologis' CEO said during a recent earnings call. “You can easily see projects 10, 15, 20 years in the future.”
Rising interest in AI is further fueling the data center boom. Big tech companies and venture capitalists are pouring billions of dollars into generative AI efforts based on their potential to reshape our virtual reality.
The building boom reflects the physical infrastructure needed to make that virtual world a reality. And it has very real-world implications. Data centers are being built across rural America, impacting local communities and straining utilities. That's the story we'll be following over the next few months.
Bitcoin is not going anywhere
It's been an eventful week for Bitcoin. First, the digital currency hit an all-time high of nearly $69,000, but the price quickly fell again.
Bitcoin experienced sudden and exciting price increases (and decreases) in 2013, 2017, and 2021, to name a few. Cryptocurrency's recent boom proves that its chaotic roller coaster nature is a feature, not a bug. And it's been here forever.
what is happening with bitcoin.
Fear the VC of 'The Walking Dead'
The number of VCs participating in U.S. deals peaked at 18,504 companies in 2021 and fell to 9,966 last year, according to PitchBook. Unlike other businesses, venture companies do not suddenly go out of business. Some become zombies and wreak havoc on startup founders.
Some founders said they needed to check if the company they were interviewing was still in business. BI looked at his PitchBook data to identify the least active VC firms.
See which companies are inactive.
Sam Altman's Expanding Empire
Altman, like Elon Musk, is more than just running a business. He's selling a worldview. It is a world where private corporations and billionaires can solve humanity's problems.
Achieving such a dream would require more money than has been committed to any undertaking in history. But as a network of startups prepares for the rise of artificial general intelligence, Altman is working on it.
Inside Altman's vast investment network.
Also read:
This week's quote:
“It's called being embedded in the enemy. It's an age-old military tactic.”
Jeff Peticolas, a Michigan man, protests against the expansion of a Chinese electric car parts manufacturer into his hometown.
More from this week's top reads
Insider Today Team: Matt Turner, deputy editor, lives in New York. Jordan Parker Erb is an editor based in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, associate editor and anchor based in New York. Lisa Ryan, editor-in-chief, lives in New York.
