Sean Holzknecht – I Love Data Centers Podcast Episode 8
This week on the I Love Data Centers podcast we have A High Density Data Center Colocation Story with Sean Holzknecht. Sean is the co-founder and CEO of Colovore, a high density colocation provider in Santa Clara, CA. Some rich content is in store for you as we explore how Sean migrated from a small town in Alaska to San Francisco where he happened to land a front row seat to the colossal boom and bust that occurred from 1998-2002. Our story here is a bit unique as it focuses on the infrastructure providers that were responsible for supporting the growth during this era and how they were affected by the $Billions to Bankruptcy phenomenon.
Coming from engineering roots, Sean’s perspective is unique through all this. The lessons learned helped spawn his current data center venture Colovore, and we get to hear the complete journey Sean and his partner followed to grow the company from inception to success.
Episode 8 – High Density Data Center Colocation
Episode 8 Show Notes
- Where are you right now? 4:01
- What is Colovore? 4:10
- Sean’s background 4:26
- How did you get started in technology? 8:59
- When did you start working for Pacific Bell and what was that experience like? 11:15
- How were you able to move up from Com Tech to a management position and what was that like? 14:54
- Why were so many people unwilling to take that position? 17:04
- Transitioning into the data center industry during the dot com boom 18:16
- Applying experience to production colocation reproduction 23:50
- What was it like working in the Bay Area at that time? 26:23
- Observing the construction process on facilities 27:10
- How did the sites operate? 29:16
- What happened when the market tanked? 34:28
- What did you learn after all of this? 37:38
- What companies were and were not affected? 40:27
- At what point did you see customers begin to return? 43:26
- Merging with Evocative 51:42
- Recovering from the 5 year recession 54:10
- What does it take to upgrade an older data center to where it can compete with the modern ones? 01:00:39
- What will happen to old facilities that are unable to keep up? 01:05:41
- How Colovore got started 01:07:28
- Why Sean chose the name “Colovore” 01:11:32
- How did you and Peter get your company off the ground? 01:16:00
- How did you get Les Pelio involved? 01:19:11
- How did you get Digital Realty involved? 01:23:43
- What types of customers are you going after? 01:27:43
- What cooling mechanisms do you use? 01:36:12
- What advice would you give to someone who is relatively new to the industry? 1:41:39
- How to reach Sean and learn more about Colovore 01:46:52
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