0:00

Blockchain, NFTs, AI. What

0:03

does this mean for you and me? I'm

0:05

Sherelle Dorsey, host of the TED Tech Podcast,

0:08

where we bring you the latest innovations and

0:10

biggest ideas in tech. Tech

0:12

is evolving fast and it affects our lives,

0:14

from the metaverse to the watches on our wrists.

0:17

You'll learn why people in AI make good business

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and a lot more. Join TED Tech on

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Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or

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wherever you listen.

0:32

A quick note before we begin, this episode

0:34

contains references to sexual assault. Please

0:37

listen with care. So

0:47

back in 1988, when you started the company

0:49

with that first $88,000 contract, did you imagine

0:53

that you'd eventually be building a giant warehouse

0:55

full of computers?

0:56

For me, really, I just wanted to make it

0:58

maybe five to seven years and not be a complete

1:00

embarrassment. I never in my

1:02

wildest dreams

1:04

believed I'd be doing what I'm doing. And

1:06

that's why this is so

1:08

important, because as I tell the folks at Google

1:11

all the time, you're changing lives

1:13

and giving hope to people who really, you know,

1:15

they have hope they'll do okay.

1:18

But to actually get into this scope

1:21

of work to where people of

1:23

color really don't get in is

1:27

life changing for all of us.

1:33

This is Where the Internet Lives, a show about

1:35

the unseen world of data centers. I'm

1:37

Stephanie Wong, and I'm your guide to the people

1:39

and places that make up the internet. This

1:42

season, we're exploring how data centers change

1:44

the world around them in surprising and transformative

1:46

ways.

1:52

My name is Charles David Moody Jr.,

1:54

and I am the founder and CEO

1:56

of C.D. Moody Construction Company.

1:58

we detailed

2:01

the size and scope of modern data centers.

2:03

Although the outside of a data center is a relatively

2:06

simple design, the insights are incredibly

2:08

sophisticated. We're talking miles

2:10

of cables moving power and data, networks

2:13

of pipes funneling water to cool rows of

2:15

computers, and tons of concrete

2:17

and steel to house it all. It even

2:19

impresses a construction veteran like Dave Moody.

2:22

Sites are huge. The

2:24

buildings aren't elaborate or anything

2:26

like that, but the

2:29

guts is just unbelievable.

2:31

And I feel like I did when I walked on

2:33

my first nuclear power plant site.

2:35

I had never seen anything that big,

2:39

that fast. And

2:41

so when I walk on a data center site, it

2:43

reminds me of when I was a

2:46

young architect.

2:50

For Moody Construction, data centers

2:52

are just the latest in a long line of big

2:54

projects they've tackled over the last three

2:56

decades in business.

2:57

We've worked on the Mercedes-Benz stadium,

3:01

Ray Charles Performing Arts at Morehouse, the

3:03

Atlanta History Center, International

3:05

Terminal, Phillips Arena, I mean, just

3:08

all kind of great projects over the last 34

3:11

and a half years.

3:12

Each one energizes Dave and

3:14

encourages his team to go bigger and do

3:16

better. He loves seeing a bare plot

3:18

turn into a building, and the craftsmanship

3:21

excites him just as much as it did when he was

3:23

a kid.

3:24

Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, ironworkers.

3:27

I mean, to see craftspeople

3:30

do what they do is just

3:32

so phenomenal. It just fit me. I

3:35

really love also the teamwork

3:37

of construction and being out in

3:39

the weather, the cold, the heat, the

3:41

snow. The only thing I never was

3:44

really crazy about was the port of jobs, but you

3:46

know, you get used to it.

3:51

Dave grew up in Chicago in the 1960s

3:54

with his mom, dad, and two brothers at the height

3:56

of the civil rights movement. Black founders

3:58

in any industry were

3:59

rare at the time, they certainly

4:02

weren't very visible to him. I

4:04

grew up in a time where what I saw

4:06

on TV was leave it to Beaver, Father

4:08

Knows Best. If I saw

4:10

anybody black on TV, they were

4:12

normally servants, slaves,

4:15

poor, or

4:17

they weren't business people. They

4:19

weren't super successful. I grew

4:21

up watching the Civil Rights era,

4:23

people getting lynched, killed. My

4:26

dad's from Louisiana, when we would go to Baton

4:28

Rouge.

4:30

I didn't understand until much later in life because

4:32

my parents didn't want us afraid to travel,

4:35

but we would leave Chicago at a certain

4:37

time so we could hit certain places

4:40

down south to get gas.

4:42

My parents rotated driving for like 15, 16 hours.

4:47

I was in college before I actually knew you could

4:49

spend the night

4:51

when you traveled because that's just

4:53

something we never did going to Louisiana.

4:56

In spite of these very real threats, Dave's

4:58

parents encouraged him and his brothers to pursue what

5:00

they wanted, and they led by example.

5:03

His father was the first black army officer

5:05

to lead integrated troops in Panama in the 1950s. His

5:08

grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Belize

5:11

with a sixth grade education in 1901. At 17

5:14

he enrolled in school again, finished college,

5:16

then raised eight children in Baton Rouge.

5:19

Every one of them went on to earn advanced degrees.

5:22

Dave might not have seen many black role models on TV,

5:25

but he had them in his family, and that

5:27

gave him the confidence to act on his passion.

5:34

When did you start becoming interested in the

5:36

built environment and architecture?

5:37

I always liked building

5:40

things, so I actually thought I was

5:42

going to be a draftsman because I had never heard

5:44

or met a black architect. In

5:46

fact, I really didn't know what an architect was, but

5:49

back in those days, a

5:51

draft people did actually all the drawings

5:53

and the architect kind of did the sketches,

5:55

but drafts people produced the documents.

5:58

So one of my neighbors who was a black man was a black man. older would show me

6:01

little, little drawings and stuff

6:03

like that. And I said,

6:06

man, you know, I play with Lego building blocks

6:08

of Rector sex, make model airplanes.

6:10

You got to remember this is before the internet and all

6:12

that stuff, you either played outside, so you had

6:14

to be creative. But I always

6:16

liked building things.

6:19

In high school, that all changed.

6:21

Dave met a black architect for the first

6:23

time. He became my mentor, but

6:26

he came along in the late forties.

6:29

And that's when you went to architecture

6:31

school, you still learn masonry, carpentry

6:33

and stuff like that. I want to be a master

6:36

builder. I wanted to design and build.

6:38

Dave initially went to Morehouse College,

6:40

a historically black college in Atlanta. They

6:43

didn't have an architectural program, so he

6:45

studied psychology. After graduating

6:47

from Morehouse, he went to Howard University,

6:49

another HBCU in Washington, DC,

6:52

where he earned his degree in architecture. After

6:54

school, he landed a job with a large engineering

6:56

and construction firm where he worked as an architect

6:59

on a nuclear power plant. And even

7:01

though he was grateful to have a job in the field,

7:04

he realized something was missing.

7:05

But what was interesting, this again

7:08

is before desktop computers and stuff where

7:10

we just had, we drew all day. You just

7:12

sit there and drew and what happened? They,

7:15

my dad always says, son, wherever they want you

7:17

to go, you go. And they say, Hey,

7:19

we need an architect to go to a nuclear power plant

7:22

job site to do some work. So I

7:24

raised my hand and I went to that

7:26

job site and I fell in love with

7:28

construction. I said, you know what? I

7:30

might be an average architect,

7:33

but I could be a great builder. This fits

7:35

me. Noise, the action. So

7:38

I haven't picked up a pencil since 1981. I

7:41

shifted over to construction

7:43

and that's where I've been for the rest

7:45

of my life.

7:50

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Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

8:19

So you have this realization

8:22

about how much you love construction, and

8:25

then you eventually formed your own construction company.

8:27

You started with a single $88,000 contract, right?

8:31

What was it like taking the leap and starting your

8:33

own company? I was scared to death. I was

8:36

scared, but you know, my wife and I laugh.

8:39

We were so broke. We

8:41

couldn't help but go up, you know, so, uh,

8:44

but we were scared. I mean, seriously, I, you

8:47

know, the,

8:47

I was never a project manager

8:50

at a high level of vice president or so. I

8:52

didn't even know what I didn't know.

8:55

I just had a desire or drive

8:57

to be good, to

8:59

be honest, to work hard. I thought

9:01

about my grandfather coming from Bayleese,

9:03

my grandmother to sharecropper. And

9:06

I just, you know,

9:08

I thought about all those who came before me.

9:10

Because again, I grew up in the sixties. I

9:12

mean, people were killed for me to

9:14

do to even have an opportunity.

9:17

Dave's perspective and persistence paid

9:19

off

9:20

four years on the size of the projects

9:22

kept growing. He kept hiring

9:24

and Moody construction, won a small business award

9:26

from the Atlanta chamber of commerce. Dave

9:29

was even invited to the white house to receive

9:31

a national award from president H.W.

9:33

Bush. Everything was going right

9:35

until it wasn't. 1991 man, we get the, we're

9:39

the first black

9:41

business to win a small business

9:43

person of the year from the Atlanta chamber

9:45

of commerce. I met the white house

9:48

winning the national award a few months later.

9:50

I mean, we are rolling.

9:52

I remember crying getting tears

9:54

when I won that award from the Atlanta chamber

9:57

of commerce is the first black to win

9:59

that. Because I went, wow, I

10:02

really do belong. You

10:04

know, I can do this. And

10:07

a couple months later, I said I'm at the White House

10:09

with President Bush 1. It

10:11

was a group of minority contractors.

10:14

I mean, and businesses, it was all different

10:16

kind of businesses. And I was one of

10:18

the winners and went to the White House.

10:21

And everything's cruising. I'm thinking life's going

10:24

good. He even entered conversations

10:26

with a very well-known pro athlete who wanted

10:28

to invest in his company. He signed a

10:30

picture that read, to David, to

10:32

the success of our construction company.

10:34

And at the last minute, I turned down

10:37

his investment. And

10:39

his agent went, you're the money, his financial

10:42

guy said, why did you turn it down? I

10:44

said, because I need to know what I could do on my

10:46

own.

10:47

But in reality, my life was getting ready

10:49

to make a turn.

10:53

That turn was a steep one. It happened

10:56

when his wife found out someone close to her had

10:58

been sexually abused as a child. The

11:00

news triggered Dave in a way he didn't

11:02

expect.

11:03

And I just blurted it out. It happened

11:05

to me.

11:06

And I was not ready to blur

11:09

it out. I had planned on dying

11:11

with my secret. And

11:13

at first I thought everything was OK.

11:15

But not long after that, the panic

11:18

attack started. The first one hit

11:20

Dave while he was driving. And I actually

11:22

think I'm having a heart attack. I think I'm dying.

11:25

I called 911. I'm on the side of

11:27

the road. They hooked me up. And

11:29

they go, sir, you're fine. So I go to my doctor

11:33

and

11:34

he goes, Dave, you know, you're probably under stress. You're

11:36

business four years old. You're a young father

11:38

and all that. Just take these pills.

11:40

The final straw came a few months

11:42

later during a business trip. What

11:45

started as a panic attack turned into

11:47

a full on breakdown in his hotel room.

11:49

I just got uncontrollable muscle tremors.

11:52

Couldn't stop crying. The shakes. I

11:56

mean, I had fallen apart. That morning

11:58

I said to people, I can't. can't stay for

12:00

the meeting. And that was the longest

12:02

five hour drive from St. Simon Island,

12:05

Georgia, back to Atlanta.

12:07

The pills were not what he needed. He

12:10

knew something deeper had to change. He

12:12

started with therapy, but only focused

12:14

on his panic attacks, not the underlying

12:16

trauma from childhood.

12:18

I would just power it through, but in reality

12:20

I was just wearing down again to in 2020,

12:23

I felt myself getting ready to have another breakdown,

12:25

but I understood the signs. And

12:27

I went and found me a trauma therapist who

12:30

finally did cognitive behavioral therapy. And

12:33

for the first time in my life,

12:35

I'm actually running my business to where

12:38

I'm not wrestling with anxiety

12:40

and trauma. Your

12:44

leadership inside the company is inextricably

12:47

tied to addressing this trauma that you

12:50

had. How has your personal

12:52

trauma impacted the way that you approach

12:54

your career?

12:55

I think one of the things it really did

12:57

for me, I have incredible

13:00

empathy for people and I'm very transparent.

13:03

We can turn trauma into trial. There's

13:06

so many people who are stuck and don't

13:08

have hope. And I try

13:10

and give people hope to never give up.

13:13

After Dave faced his trauma head on with

13:15

intensive counseling and cognitive behavioral

13:17

therapy, he was eventually free to

13:19

live his life as a healed person, not

13:22

just a survivor.

13:23

And that allowed him to seize on new opportunities.

13:25

Like when Google came looking for companies led by

13:28

people of color for data center construction.

13:30

Google was out recruiting and trying to find

13:32

folks. And then they came and interviewed us, pulling

13:35

back the curtain, peeling the onion, you know, and

13:38

they found out we were real. And we

13:40

stopped chasing other workers. One

13:42

thing I knew if they said, yes, we

13:44

had to be ready. And

13:47

I've always been a survivor mode. And

13:50

to finally get to a point where

13:52

a company like Google said, hey, we're

13:54

gonna give some people of color a real opportunity

13:57

to see how the sausage is made. It

14:00

made me say, you know what, I want to keep doing

14:02

this because I want to train that

14:04

next generation of people of color

14:06

and construction to really

14:09

get

14:10

behind curtains and see how it's

14:13

really done. And I've been able to really

14:15

recruit some good folks because they're excited,

14:17

especially that younger generation,

14:20

to get into data centers. I mean, that's

14:23

like

14:23

exciting to them. So it's

14:26

just great. It's awesome. Getting

14:29

a chance to work on a data center has been huge

14:31

for Moody Construction, especially in the construction

14:33

industry, where Black people make up only 5% of

14:36

the workforce. Moody Construction

14:38

has worked on some very large projects, but

14:40

working on a data center has been one of the biggest

14:43

yet.

14:49

So have you been inside a completed data

14:52

center?

14:52

Yes, I have. And it's the most amazing thing, but

14:54

I have an NDA, so I can't tell you what it looked like on

14:56

the inside. This

14:59

is what I'll tell you. It is incredible

15:02

to see the equipment you

15:04

see. So when you put something

15:07

in Google, that's why you get to respond

15:09

so fast. So to see

15:12

what it takes to run

15:14

the Google operating systems,

15:18

you understand it now when you go inside

15:20

a data center.

15:21

Dave hopes that he can make real change

15:23

in the field for people who look like him. Moody

15:25

Construction regularly hires new talent

15:27

from historically Black colleges and universities

15:30

for mission-critical roles.

15:31

So this is an incredible opportunity

15:34

now for knowledge. And that means

15:36

a lot to me to be able to

15:38

give people a chance to gain an incredible

15:41

knowledge that, as my dad used

15:43

to always say, people

15:45

can take your car and take your house, they can

15:47

take certain things from you, but they can't

15:49

take your knowledge. So that is what

15:52

I'm really excited about, the knowledge.

16:00

Knowledge of the work and knowledge of self.

16:03

That's how Dave and his family survived and

16:05

thrived during some of the most traumatic moments.

16:08

It pushed his grandfather to start a new life

16:10

in the US and for his father and siblings

16:13

to succeed in their careers at a time when

16:15

everything was set up for them to fail. It

16:18

pushed his maternal grandmother's family to uproot

16:20

their lives as sharecroppers down south and

16:23

move north to Chicago during the Great Migration.

16:26

And it pushed Dave to tattoo the guiding

16:28

words, turn trauma into triumph

16:30

on his forearm.

16:33

I mean, we want to become one

16:36

of the go-to data center builders

16:38

over time. And one of the things I've learned

16:41

over the last few years how self-care

16:43

and performance go hand in hand. And

16:47

we really have to take care of ourselves

16:49

to really excel at

16:52

the level that we're all made to be. I

16:55

really believe we're all created to be incredible.

16:57

But there's just certain things through

17:00

our lives that hinder

17:02

us from going to that next

17:03

level. Dave

17:07

Moody is the founder and CEO

17:09

of CD Moody Construction Company. If

17:11

you want to learn more about Google's supplier diversity

17:14

program, click through the link in the show notes.

17:16

And you can also watch a short documentary film about

17:18

Dave and his journey. You can find the link in our notes

17:21

or find it on the Google Data Center's YouTube channel. Where

17:23

the Internet Lives is produced by PostScript Media

17:26

and collaboration with Google. Our theme song came from

17:28

Echo Finch. Original music from Epidemic

17:31

Sounds, Blue Dot Sessions, and Echo Finch.

17:33

You can subscribe to the show on Google Podcasts,

17:35

Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere

17:37

else you access your shows. And please give

17:39

us a rating if you like the series. I'm Stephanie Wong.

17:41

Thank you for listening.