Every piece of technology inside Switch's data centers, the prospectus said, was designed by one man. Rob Roy, the founder, held more than 350 issued and pending patent claims on the cooling, power and building designs. His company ran giant campuses in Las Vegas and near Reno, plus one in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2017 Switch went public with a share structure that kept control with Roy.

Tier 5 in the Desert

Switch called its biggest sites Primes: The Core Campus in Las Vegas, The Citadel Campus near Reno and The Pyramid Campus in Grand Rapids. Together they had room for up to 4 million square feet and 415 megawatts of power. Switch said it built to its own Tier 5 Platinum standard, above the industry's top Tier IV rating. The bet was that companies would pay more for a safe, connected home for their servers.

Seventeen Dollars, Then a Buyout

Switch priced at $17 a share in October 2017, above its planned range of $14 to $16, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as SWCH. Roy's Class C shares carried 10 votes each, so the founder kept control. Demand for data center space kept growing as companies moved to the cloud. In 2022, funds tied to DigitalBridge and IFM Investors bought Switch for $34.25 a share in cash, and the stock left the exchange that December.

Cover: The Mines Today By Cables (Electric Driven). This Is The Power Room Of A Pennsylvania Coal Mine, Lewis Wickes Hine. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a power room full of switchgear (data center power).