Have you heard the news? Well, you probably haven’t, because those data centers popping up everywhere are loud as fuck. You know, those data centers that offer more computing power than our species will ever need 10,000 times over and definitely aren’t being built at breakneck speed for reasons we’ll all pretend not to think about.
You know what else those data centers offer?
Copper wire.
An absolute treasure trove of it.
The last time we checked over here at Net Worthless, copper is pretty important to a data center. It helps move power, manage heat, and, most importantly, appreciates beautifully when transported to a salvage yard in the trunk of a 2007 Nissan Altima.
Did you know that a conventional data center can contain anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 tons of copper?
Even better, hyperscale data centers can use as much as 50,000 tons.
At roughly $6 per pound, a single ton of copper is worth around $13,000.
Long gone are the days of crawling through the walls of abandoned houses looking for a few hundred bucks worth of scrap. That’s boomer investing.
Modern Wealth Creation Requires Vision
All you have to do is sign the petition saying data centers are the future, wait 18 to 36 months for construction to finish, get a job there, spend several months learning the layout, and begin implementing your exit strategy one spool at a time.
And since you’ve spent the last decade bragging that your band’s latest album only cost $2,000 to record, patience should already be one of your strengths.
Think about it. You get paid to stand around pretending to understand server infrastructure while gradually converting infrastructure into liquidity. That’s vertical integration.
Avoiding suspicion will be the hardest part. Fifty thousand tons of copper doesn’t disappear overnight. You’re going to need approximately 10 times as many trips per ton to the salvage yard and at least three different stories about why you suddenly have so much copper.
Still, there is something undeniably satisfying about stealing from a facility whose entire purpose seems to be figuring out which products people can’t live without so somebody can raise the price by 14 percent.
The cops, and the shareholders who own the cops, may object to your wealth-building strategy, so you’ll have to cover your tracks.*
Fortunately, we’re living in the future.
If confronted by facial recognition software, simply wear a fake mustache. Nobody has ever tested this, but it feels right. And if that fails, wear two fake mustaches.
So now that you’re rich, are you going to share the wealth with the band?
Or are you going to change your name to Dax, move to Austin, launch an AI startup, and spend every podcast appearance explaining how disruption is misunderstood?
* DISCLAIMER: MetalSucks does not encourage or endorse criminal behavior in any way shape or form. For those unable to tell this entire piece, this is satire.