Bring Your Own Power: PJM's Warning to Data Centers | QCI Show, Ep 36

PJM Interconnection (the grid operator serving 67 million people across 13 states) went to market to buy power for 2028 and couldn't buy enough. So it did something no grid operator in America has done before: it told data centers in writing that if they don't bring their own power supply, it reserves the right to unplug them. Greg Gomer and Chase Garbarino unpack what that single sentence does to commercial real estate underwriting, why powered land just split into two different asset classes, and what a 6.5-gigawatt buildout is actually buying El Paso, Texas. Plus: how a 24-year-old's $45 billion AI fund got margin-called out of existence in 24 hours, and why eBay just wrote a Massachusetts couple a check for $55.7 million. What you'll learn Why PJM's "bring your own power" letter is a repricing event, not a policy announcement The difference between firm land and interruptible land What one gigawatt actually costs and produces: ~$10B of investment, ~4,000 construction jobs, ~300 permanent jobs, and enough power for ~750,000 homes How Meta and BlackRock structured a $14B data center so the capex stays off Meta's balance sheet — and why Blue Owl's $27B Hyperion deal proves it's now a repeatable playbook Why a $500,000 check to a school district isn't a community benefit agreement, and what one with teeth would actually contain The QCI scorecard applied to El Paso and why the November 3 city council election is the real verdict How a correct thesis and 4x leverage still equals a margin call Why the FIFA World Cup was the largest building-technology pilot ever run, and what edge compute in a stadium teaches you about a tower Why US office net absorption just posted its strongest quarter in seven years and why "the recovery" is a K curve, not a line TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 — Cold open 00:55 — Anchor: PJM tells data centers to bring their own power 02:26 — Infrastructure as a political football 06:54 — What "bring your own power" does to cap rates 09:08 — Firm vs. interruptible: powered land splits in two 09:58 — Bringing your own power at the household level 11:02 — The QCI tension: system efficiency vs. city compute 12:57 — Who's talking their book on open source 14:16 — Quantum Review: El Paso, Texas 16:24 — What one gigawatt actually buys 18:19 — The BlackRock deal and the off-balance-sheet playbook 19:50 — The civic fight: tax breaks, special use permits, "vote them out" 22:05 — The QCI scorecard for El Paso 24:44 — Why $500K to a school isn't a community benefit 27:24 — What a community benefit agreement with teeth looks like 28:43 — Why November 3 is the real verdict 29:34 — Quick Hits 29:58 — Situational Awareness: $45B, 4,439%, margin-called 33:22 — Right thesis, wrong structure 37:39 — Travis Kalanick's Atoms raises $1.7B 38:29 — The proptech TAM problem: your market is not the AUM 44:06 — The World Cup as the biggest building-tech pilot ever run 46:11 — Controlling the vertical stack, from arrival to seat 48:29 — Inside the Meta–BlackRock deal structure 50:23 — DoorDash Air gets FAA Part 135 certification 51:36 — Office absorption rips: "I got this one wrong" 54:36 — One More Thing: eBay's $55.7M cyberstalking settlement 58:20 — Wrap Hosts: Greg Gomer: Co-founder & Chief Customer Officer, HqO Chase Garbarino: Co-founder & CEO, HqO More from the Quantum City Initiative The future of cities begins now → https://www.hqo.com/the-future-of-cities-begins-now/   Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-quantum-city-show/id1830288682   Produced in partnership with OBEY Creative, building podcast-driven content engines for B2B founders.  Learn more at https://obeycreative.com/ Let's Go!