Founder's Story - Data Center Investor: "I Turned $40M Into $140M Before Anyone Noticed" | Ep. 452 with Anita Verma-Lallian

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Daniel opens the episode by framing Anita’s work through one of the biggest investment themes of the moment: AI infrastructure. While many people focus on AI apps, models, and software companies, Anita is focused on the physical layer underneath all of it: land, power, and the shell required to support data centers. She explains that without land and power, the best AI models in the world cannot actually scale. Anita then breaks down how billion-dollar entrepreneurs think differently. She says they look for patterns and position themselves ahead of where everyone else is going. Instead of entering when the headlines are already crowded and margins are compressed, she prefers the uncomfortable third layer: the place where almost no one is looking yet, but where future growth is likely to come. The conversation also explores Anita’s move into film through Camelback Productions. Even though real estate and Hollywood appear completely different, Anita sees both as forms of creation: building something from nothing, assembling the right team, creating lasting value, and shaping how people experience the world. She shares what she has learned about film risk, distribution, scripts, directors, cast, production, post-production, and the future of short-form and social-first storytelling. Key Discussion PointsAnita explains why the best investors are often early to uncomfortable opportunities, entering before the headlines arrive and before margins become compressed. She breaks down why land is a powerful asset, especially when it is purchased strategically in the path of growth or near infrastructure that future development will need. The episode explores why AI infrastructure depends on land, power, and data center approvals, and why sites that can support data centers are becoming harder to find. Anita shares the investment lesson from buying a property for $40 million, entitling it over roughly two and a half years, and selling it for about $140 million, while learning how to survive the emotional roller coaster of major deals. She explains how due diligence and gut instinct helped her avoid a land deal with fissures and environmental issues that later made the property undevelopable. Anita discusses her pivot into Hollywood and film production, including why people thought she was crazy, what she learned about film economics, and why she believes storytelling can shape culture. TakeawaysThe biggest opportunities are often found before the market agrees with you. Anita prefers investing where few people are looking yet, even though that layer is less proven and more uncomfortable. AI is not just a software story. Anita’s view is that AI depends on physical infrastructure: land, power, shells, data centers, approvals, and the ability to actually support future compute demand. Land is valuable when it is bought with foresight. Anita looks at where growth is moving, where infrastructure exists, where power is available, and where future demand may arrive before others see it. Big wins require emotional resilience. Anita’s first data center project involved major uncertainty, delays, and deals falling apart and coming back together, but it taught her how to stay persistent through volatility. Due diligence protects conviction. Anita explains that instinct matters, but it has to be paired with research, environmental review, and the discipline to walk away when the facts do not support the deal. Film and real estate both require building something from nothing. Anita sees both worlds as a process of finding the right opportunity, assembling the right team, managing risk, and creating something with lasting impact. Closing ThoughtsAnita Verma’s Founder’s Story episode is about seeing the invisible layer beneath the obvious opportunity. While most people chase headlines around AI, Anita is looking at the land, power, approvals, and infrastructure that make AI possible in the first place. Her story shows how wealth is often created by studying patterns before they become popular, moving fast when rare opportunities appear, and staying resilient through the uncertainty that comes with major deals. At the same time, her work in film reflects a different but connected ambition: to build stories, culture, and impact through Camelback Productions. Whether in real estate or cinema, Anita’s edge is the same — finding the future before everyone else gets there.Today's Sponsor: Turn live shopping into a real business with Whatnot, where sellers build relationships, move inventory in real time, and reach buyers across collectibles, electronics, luxury, beauty, and more. Search Whatnot in the App Store and start selling today.Stop losing deals in spreadsheets and switch to Pipedrive, the AI-powered sales CRM built by salespeople for salespeople. Get an exclusive 30 days free with no credit card at https://www.pipedrive.com/foundersWhen you need a legal hand, visit LegalZoom. Go to https://www.LegalZoom.com to get started. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We bought a piece of property for $40 million and then sold it for about $140. $1.5 billion portfolio. Over a billion in transactions. $51 million deal next to Bill Gates Smart City. Anita Vermalalli and doesn't build AI. She owns the land it can't exist without. So if you can't get the land, you can't really build AI. The amount of sites that can actually get approval for data centers is really shrinking. I think the statistic is 40% of all data center projects are getting shut down.

What's an investment lesson that completely changed how you look at wealth? One that I think really has had the biggest impact on me is a... What's different about the way that billion-dollar entrepreneurs see opportunities compared to everyone else? That's a great question. I think billion-dollar entrepreneurs look for patterns. and they try to position themselves ahead of where everybody else is. The way that I look at investing, I think there's three different layers. The first layer is people invest at a level where everybody's already investing. We're competing with other investors.

And at that point, the headlines are there. Everyone's talking about it. So your margins are more compressed. And then there's a second layer where you have less people looking. People are starting to kind of go in that direction. And then the third layer is the place where nobody's at. You're kind of the first one there. And that's the layer that I like to be in.

It's more uncomfortable. It's not proven yet. But I think that's sort of where a lot of people that are making the billion-dollar decisions are comfortable being, is having that conviction that the growth will come or the opportunity will come. An example of this is SpaceX. Anyone who invested in SpaceX five or 10 years ago, is seeing, you know, kind of seeing the rewards now, people that are investing in SpaceX now, once it's IPOed, the margins are not going to be as high as the people that invested early on.

So I think it's just having that foresight to know that this is going to grow into something big. So when you've heard about it publicly, it's pretty much too late. I have to laugh at SpaceX because I've seen the funniest skits around people. They're pretending to tell themselves, like, I'm going to invest in SpaceX. and they're like, don't invest in SpaceX, like if they could tell themselves, you know, a few months ago. How do people get access, though, to this information before it's become public? Like, how would five, ten years ago would I have even known to invest in SpaceX? That's a good question.

I think it's, you know, you have to go through to your network. I think you have to kind of identify an area that you're interested in. So in the example of SpaceX, it's tech. So you talk to people that are in that sector and see what the, different technologies are, what the different companies are, and just sort of research and see where you see things going and see who's involved in that. Now, that's if you want to invest in a company. If you want to start your own company or be an entrepreneur, I think it's a little different. You look for trends. You try to solve for problems that are going to arise in the future.

One example is when I started my company, we started buying land and we weren't focused on areas that were existing growth and development was happening. We were maybe five or ten miles away from that because that's where the next wave of growth was going to hit. So we were able to position ourselves there, and we were able to buy land at a much cheaper value. And then there was appreciation that happened over the years. So I think it's a matter of getting there before everyone else.

My wife has always loved buying land. I used to laugh. She was like, I'm buying this land. I'm like, why are you buying land? And then I hear, you know, I remember Bill Gates was buying all of a sudden, all this land. And I'm thinking, why are people buying land? What is the value of land? What do you see as the value of land now that you've obviously struck gold in this AI boom? I think what I love about land is it's a very tangible asset. A lot of companies, stocks can go to zero. Real estate is a real asset that's always going to have value. if you are strategic about how you buy land, if you're buying in a growing area where, you know,

like Phoenix, for instance, it's been one of the fastest growing cities for years. And if you're very strategic about the locations you're buying in the path of growth, I think that's what I think makes a lot of sense. When you are looking at AI infrastructure, it's a completely different scenario. You're looking at where is the infrastructure? Where's the power? And that's really what everyone's following right now is where can you get land with power. So that's what my focus has been is trying to get ahead of everybody else and find land that has power.

So everyone's focused on AI making apps, the companies that are making AI, you're looking at the infrastructure or the places where the centers will be. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think if you look at AI and sort of look at the different layers of it, the first of the first. the first, the bottom most layer is the land, the power and the shell. And after that, you stack everything on top of it. And that's when you have the actual applications and the models. So if you can't get the land, you can't really build AI. You can have the best models. But if you don't have the infrastructure, you can't do much. And I think right now, with data centers becoming as controversial as they

are the amount of sites that can actually get approval for data centers is really shrinking. I think the statistic is 40% of all data center projects are getting shut down. The governor of New York has issued a moratorium on new data center projects. And so I think the supply of land that makes sense to develop data centers on is really, really starting to shrink. So the value is going to even go, I imagine it would even go up. For sure. Because if it's only a small finite amount. of land. Right. How do you separate temporary hype versus real trends? Yeah, that's a great question. I think

with AI, there's a lot of hype. There's a lot of news every day. It's, you know, in the news, there's a lot of different headlines. I think for me, it's really looking at what will AI need in the future to survive on. And I think that always comes back to the infrastructure. Right now, if you look at AI, about 15% of the population is using it. So we're still in the early innings of it. As time goes on and as adoption increases, we're just going to, the demand for the compute just going to skyrocket. What's an investment lesson that completely changed how you look at wealth? An investment lesson. Hmm. I think there's been a few. One that I think really has had the biggest impact on me is a project that it was actually our very first data center project that we did.

We bought a piece of property for $40 million and then we entitled it for about two and a half years and sold it for about 140 at that point. And I think what really changed my philosophy was just the amount of time it took and also just sort of the emotional roller coaster that we were on with everything that had to happen. It would like the deal would fall apart one day, then it would come back together, then it would fall apart again. And so just really learning how to ride that roller coaster and just keep, you know, being persistent and, you know, just marching forward and just being resilient. I think that really shaped my investment strategy. And so now when I'm looking at other projects, I always think back to

that and just, you know, remember all the different challenges and how I was on this roller coaster every single day. And it, you know, so it's, it makes you comfortable with that lifestyle. This reminds me of a story I heard when I was younger. Yeah. About a person who bought land and Walmart decided to build on their land. Okay. So I guess, and so that got me thinking like, wow, one day I want to have the land that Walmart builds on, but I guess it's really the data center now. Right now. Right now. It's the new Walmart, right? For sure. What is a time where you maybe either made an investment or we're going to, but it collapsed. Yeah, I think a time, let's see, there was, there's been a few times where I've almost bought

properties and then there was just something that was telling me not to buy them. And, you know, one site that I was very close to buying, it was a very large site. And there were some issues with water and the due diligence was just coming up with like some environmental issues. And initially I thought they would be things that we could kind of work through. There were like these fissures in the ground. And so we decided to pass on it. And years later, those fissures actually ended up expanding. And they became pretty wide where that land was completely undevelopable. And so that was a site that I think, you know, we were very close to buying. I was kind of like, you know, maybe these fissures are not that big of a deal. I was, you know,

not sure, but we ended up not. So I think, you know, just also trusting your gut a little did and really doing your due diligence and making sure you don't overlook anything is so important. What do you do to find the land that you think? Because it sounds like you can predict the future essentially with your gut instincts and stuff that it's, what you're doing is basically predicting the future. Right. Trying to. Yeah. Trying to predict the future. Every time you win, people look back and say you did predict the future. But how do you find this land? What do you, when you find something, what excites you so much that you want to get started?

Yeah. I think one part of it is I look at so many sites every day. People are sending me sites all day long. And I think when you look at hundreds of sites or thousands of sites, you can, you just develop, you know, sort of this sense and intuition of like what makes for a good site. And so when the right one comes along, you just know, because you've looked at so many projects that weren't the right ones. You know, just a few months ago, there was a site that was brought to us that has existing grid power for a data center. And so I know how rare that is.

And so we had to move incredibly quickly. And so we were able to, like, you know, get control of it because we were able to move so fast. So I think it's, you know, we get sites through our network. you know, also like we will, a lot of times, like, we'll reach out to landowners directly and try to buy sites. So there's a big variety of ways that sites come to us. But I think it's really having looked at so many things and have been doing it for years and recognizing patterns that, that help me, you know, when the right thing comes along, I just know. You're like the human chatuity of land buying. Sure. the AI of land buying for AI. So hopefully the robots will look back and say thank you. Hopefully. I'm giving them life. You are because I heard Google just announced something where they're going to allow robots. It's some new technology that basically allows robots to think

and to even hold and grasp items, which is a big problem with robots a couple days ago. So what do you think is going to happen when we have robots everywhere? And would you put a robot in your home? Yeah, I think, you know, I've been to factories like manufacturing facilities that are being run by robots. And initially it was, you know, a little different and a little scary. You weren't sure if they would do things right. But I do think as technology improves and as robots get more efficient and they're more tried and tested, I do think I would be very comfortable with it. I actually look forward to the day that robots could, you know, like do dishes and things around my house. You can never have a robot stylist to replace the human, right?

You can never. That would be very difficult. You can't do that. No. Did people think you're crazy when you said, I'm going to go from this boom to this thing that could potentially, some would say is dying, aka Hollywood production? Yeah. And so your question is, would people predict that? People think you were crazy when you told them, like, I'm going to go from this thing that's for sure thing to a thing that this for sure thing is killing this thing over here.

Yeah. Yeah, people thought I was very crazy. I think pretty much everyone who I told thought it was crazy. I think, you know, for me, I've always loved Hollywood and movies and storytelling. And the idea that I could have a role in shaping culture or influencing how people think of something. something that I just love that idea. And although Hollywood and real estate on the surface seem very different and they are very different, I think fundamentally it's a lot of the same principles. It's you're basically creating something out of nothing and you're trying to create something of

value that's going to be lasting and that's going to have a good impact, whether it's building homes or data centers or making really good movies. I think it's a little bit of the same philosophy. And I think it's, you know, aligning yourself with the right people, building the right teams that can help you and just, you know, finding the right partnership. So I think there are similarities between real estate and Hollywood. But what's happening in both industries is very different. You are right. One industry is, you know, just starting to take off. And it's, you know, sort of like this revolutionary investment opportunity in Hollywood. It's trying to figure out what's going to happen next. So.

man did good. It did, right? This was a great weekend. Some things, Odyssey did good. Yeah. You know, it almost see. So what, I've heard movies are very, very hard to make money on. I don't really know how the economics work, but what did you find that maybe go when you really dove into it, you realize this isn't what I expected? Yeah. I mean, I think your perception of that of making movies in Hollywood is pretty right. It can be very difficult. I do think there's definitely things. things you can do to mitigate your risk and position yourself for success. I think, you know, finding really good scripts, finding good directors, finding good cast, and then also trying to find distribution ahead of time. Those are things you can, steps you can take to, you know,

sort of mitigate any sort of financial loss. But I think when I first started, I didn't understand a lot of those things. So we just, you know, made a few movies just, you know, right out the gate. And I think we learned some hard lessons. But now we, I think, have a much better understanding of how to do it. We have a very exciting movie that's premiering it, TIF called Prima Fachi with Cynthia Arrivo. And, you know, that was a great project. Like, most of the budget was pre-sold with, like, foreign territories were sold off. So I do think there are smart ways to invest in films as well. Was it a fun experience seeing it being made? Yeah. And then maybe meeting some. some people, actors, directors.

I don't know, I feel like when I was younger, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'd love to meet this actor or director of so-and-so. Was it, did it live up to your hype in terms of the excitement of being on set? Or when you're on set, is it kind of boring because post-production makes it more exciting? Yeah, I would say being on set is not my favorite thing. It's amazing meeting the, you know, stars. And there's so many things that happen behind the scenes. to make a movie. So I think seeing that whole process is amazing. Just even costume design, makeup

artists, like all the production crew, it's literally hundreds of people that are there every day to shoot, you know, like one little scene. So I think that part's exciting. But, you know, you're just watching them do the same take over and over. And then, you know, you're in long days. Everyone's, you know, kind of stressed trying to get the take perfect. So I can't say it's my favorite part, but it is a really cool experience. But I think, you know, post-production, seeing the whole movie come together, I think it's just such an amazing experience and that gives me so much satisfaction. And then actually having the world see it, that's an even better feeling because something that you helped put together is getting to be enjoyed by so many people and actually changing people

in the way that they think about something. If you need an extra, Yeah. I'm not, I don't have, I'm not SAG certified. So I don't even, I don't even need to get paid. Let me just walk on and buy. I don't need to say anything. We might have to use AI for for extras, but you can use my AI like this, but nobody will know who I am. So it's okay. There's obviously a change right now where people that weren't directors that create content are now making movies. Yep. Do you think this is going to be a big change in the industry or is it, going to stick to the same old like I direct a movie so I'm a director and I direct more movies. I think there's going to be a pretty big shift. I think you're going to see the rise of short films made specifically for social media. Even now you're seeing the vertical movies that are

being shot for Instagram and different platforms. I do think with the next generation, their intention spans are shorter. So I think you're going to see a lot more of that. And I think there will be a little bit of a shift with how movies are made in the future. When you're making a decision involving hundreds of millions of dollars, because this is, I mean, this is real stuff. This isn't like investing in $1,000. What does your decision making process actually look like? Yeah, I think a lot of people think that the big decisions, like the billion dollar decisions happen in those billion dollar moments. And I think people think making the decision is the hardest part, but usually I think the hardest part is the years that go

come before. It's the years that you spend learning about different markets, looking at different trends, doing all your due diligence, talking to different people, whether it's like attorneys, engineers, brokers, and really understanding the opportunity. And I think, you know, when that opportunity comes along. I think you know, I think you'll know right away, but I think it's really the years that lead up to that moment that are the most important. One day, I'm going to get to that level. I'm inspired one day. 20 years from now, what headline do you hope that people write about the decisions that you're making today? That's a tough question. I think I would want a few headlines. I think I would want infrastructure that I built for AI to be supporting AI development and helping.

And I think I would also want it to be done in a way that's responsible and that people are happy with and communities are happy with. And then I think the other headline I would want is around the films that I'm making and the impact that they've had on people and the joy they've brought to people. And I think those would be the two things that would give me a lot of satisfaction. That's amazing. When does the two movies come out? So Prima Fachi is premiering at TIF. It's the gala presentation. We're really excited. And then Runner is premiering on September 11th in New York. And so it'll be out that weekend. Well, thank you so much for joining. I'm so inspired. Getting to talk about land and opportunities, again, my Walmart, my Walmart is now the data center. So hopefully I can take what I learned. today from what you said, I'm going to find that piece of land somewhere. And I'm going to, I'm going to let you know that there was a data center that was placed on that land. It's going to change people's lives. But thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.