Gavin Baker said AI data centers are probably the best thing that has ever happened to working-class Americans, casting the boom as a rare economic win for electricians, plumbers and HVAC techs. He said the buildout is reviving small towns and that the college degree is becoming "significantly NPV negative" as young people can step straight into jobs that pay "ungodly amounts of money."
Baker made the case on The A16z Show and then sharpened it on X, where he wrote on Saturday that any politician opposed to data centers is unqualified to hold public office. By Sunday, he was back with a caveat that he said had become clearer over the past 18 months: there were reasonable concerns about energy use and water consumption, but "well-structured" projects had already addressed them.
The push matters because Baker is not talking as a cheerleader on the sidelines. He is the managing partner and chief investment officer at Atreides Management, which has invested in data center-related companies such as Crusoe. That gives his defense of the industry extra weight at a moment when AI data centers are still a political target in the US over electricity demand and water use.
Still, Baker's argument is more sweeping than the evidence he offered. He pointed to one data center electrician who said he skipped an undergraduate degree and now makes $40 an hour, but he did not quantify how many blue-collar jobs the industry has created or how much local income has followed. He also said tech is "getting much better" at handling the environmental concerns, yet those concerns have not disappeared; he simply argued that better-designed projects can address them.
He went even further in defending the industry online, saying there is an "organized, CCP-funded campaign" against data centers that gets "laundered through TikTok." X has said it found a 200,000-strong Chinese bot farm, some of which were posting about data centers, and a researcher told Business Insider that many of those bots had no followers or engagement. Baker's answer to critics was blunt: the industry should speak for itself, because "the only group that can tell the AI industry's truth is the AI industry," and, as he put it, they need to start telling the truth.
That is the shape of Baker's bet. He is arguing that AI infrastructure is not just tolerable, but overwhelmingly good for America — and especially for workers without degrees. Whether that message changes the politics around data centers is the open question now, because the people making and defending the buildout are still trying to convince the public that the jobs are real, the benefits are broad and the costs are manageable.
