Following through in Cleveland: A GeekWire trip report, plus data center ‘theater’ and the SpaceX IPO
GeekWire
GeekWire
4.8 • 127 Ratings
🗓️ 13 June 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In February, Seattle angel investor Charles Fitzgerald warned the region not to become the next Cleveland, prompting Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to join the podcast and make the case for his city's comeback. This week we close the loop: Fitzgerald and GeekWire co-founder John Cook call in from an abandoned Westinghouse factory in Cleveland, where days of meeting entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine left them struck by a city hustling and aligned around jobs in ways Seattle no longer is.
Back home, we dig into Seattle's unanimous one-year moratorium on new large data centers, which Fitzgerald calls political theater, and he explains why he's sitting out the SpaceX IPO.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I mean, this is a former light bulb factory for Westinghouse that they are trying to, I mean, it's incredible, isn't it? |
| 0:12.7 | I think we picked a good Cleveland spot for this. |
| 0:16.4 | There's a rest in peace, Jerry Springer on here. |
| 0:21.1 | There's like Bart Simpson. |
| 0:23.8 | Uh-oh, we got someone pulling up here. |
| 0:26.4 | Uh-oh. |
| 0:26.8 | Is that a cop? |
| 0:28.2 | Is that a cop? |
| 0:29.1 | You two look totally harmless. |
| 0:30.7 | Well, we might have to handle this situation. |
| 0:32.6 | Let's go out there and handle this, right, Charles? |
| 0:34.7 | Keep recording. |
| 0:36.1 | He's eyeing something on the car. Yeah, let us. Keep recording, Charles? Keep recording. He's dying something on the car. |
| 0:39.1 | Yeah, let us. |
| 0:40.2 | Keep recording, John. |
| 0:41.2 | Keep going. |
| 0:42.7 | Yeah, let's go. |
| 0:44.7 | Hi there. |
| 0:45.2 | How are you? |
| 0:46.7 | We are here with Brad Lighthead as the owner of the facility. |
| 0:51.6 | And we are guests of his. |
| 0:55.2 | And we're recording, we're journalists actually from Seattle that have been covering |
... |
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