THE CONTROL ROOM

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Tony Grayson, former Commanding Officer of the USS Providence . Some people think I am making this stuff up! :) There is an old saying in the Navy: "A fed sailor is a happy sailor." On a submarine, that gets taken to the extreme. When you’re underwater for months, have no internet, and haven’t seen the sun in weeks, food stops being just fuel. It becomes your entertainment, your c

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Before I led hyperscale data center strategies, I commanded nuclear submarines. Here is a 60-second glimpse into the discipline, tight quarters, and 24/7 mission focus that defined my daily life as a U.S. Navy Commander. This environment is where I learned that operational excellence isn't optional. The 'office' of a nuclear submariner: Inside the high-tech control room where oper

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Biology vs. Strategy:  The $600B spending gap isn't just about hardware; it is about the ancient evolutionary wiring driving our leadership decisions. The biggest argument against a bubble is that "everyone is doubling down." History and psychology tell us that is exactly when we should be most worried. Where I Land: Having spent years commanding nuclear submarines and later build

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander The Universal Dock:  Separating the 30-year Shell from the 3-year Cell. This is not a shipping container; it is volumetric, industrialized construction designed for rapid technology swaps. The golden era of the 15-year hyperscale lease is evolving into something far more volatile. We have moved from 10–15-year, single-tenant halls to 3–5-year, hardware-driven deployments. The leas

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander A former Navy Submarine Commander analyzes the operational excellence of U.S. Navy flight deck operations. Watch F/A-18 Super Hornets demonstrate high-performance teamwork. Tony Grayson shows a high-angle view of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) as it transits the ocean, its flight deck crowded with a full complement of aircraft, including numerous F/A-18 Super Hornets and several

Strategic Inertia: Logic blinds the bees to the exit, while "chaotic" agility sets the flies free. Place six bees and six flies in a glass jar. Turn the jar upside down and point the bottom toward a light source. What happens next is a harsh lesson in the dangers of rigid intelligence. This parable, often associated with theorists like Karl Weick  and originally described by physicist Gordon Siu , illustrates a breakdown in leadership strategy . The bees will exhaust themselv

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Visualizing the $500M Bridge Strategy:  This rendering illustrates Northstar's "Design for the Swap" approach. The site utilizes gas generation for immediate 2026 revenue (left) while having pre-engineered the civil, security, and thermal infrastructure for seamless SMR integration once the technology matures in the 2030s (right). The SMR Data Center Market Correction Was Inevitab

Thanksgiving on the bridge. Cold, grey, and miles from home—the reality of standing the watch while the world celebrates. I stumbled across this photo of myself recently, taken during a Thanksgiving underway years ago. When I look at it, I don't just see the cold weather gear or the grey sky. I remember the feeling of that specific silence—the kind you only experience when you are thousands of miles away from the people you love on a day set aside for being with them. That di

The moment the story breaks, cognitive dissonance occurs when our self-image as a 'servant leader' clashes with our selfish actions. Scroll through your LinkedIn feed right now. You will see an endless parade of posts about "Servant Leadership," "Radical Candor," and "Empathy." We curate these digital avatars to look like benevolent sages, immune to ego, and to put the team before self. And on our worst days, we actually believe it. But science tells a different story. You ar

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander The $7.5 Billion Mirage:  The Kemper Project looked like a breakthrough during construction. It ended as a demolition site. This is what happens when timelines take priority over thermodynamics. I’ve been called a pessimist lately. I look at the current surge of AI infrastructure investment (specifically the $100 billion data center announcements ), and I don’t just see progress;

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Context in action. I brought this group of executives to the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) to demonstrate what leadership looks like when the stakes are real. You can't simulate this environment in a conference room. Frameworks don't fail in theory. They fail in context. I don't read leadership books anymore. Not because I know everything. Because I've learned enough

The human element inside the steel tube. Me (center) and my wardroom in the control room of the USS PROVIDENCE. Moments of camaraderie like this are essential to maintaining the "Happiness Factor" during long deployments. I spent 21 years on submarines and finished as Commanding Officer of USS PROVIDENCE (SSN-719) . Here’s what life is really like inside the steel tube. I often talk about it on LinkedIn , and if you Google "daily life on a submarine," you usually find recruit

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander We thought we were ready. Six months of nuclear power school  taught us the fundamentals: thermodynamics, reactor physics, and electrical systems. Then we went to the prototype , where we stood watch on an actual operating naval reactor. We walked through the casualty procedures dozens of times. Loss of coolant. Steam line rupture. Electrical failures. We knew every step, every va

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Proof of Concept:  The US Navy's first all-nuclear task force— USS Enterprise , USS Long Beach , and USS Bainbridge —during Operation Sea Orbit in 1964. The fleet circumnavigated the globe without refueling, proving the reliability of nuclear power decades ago. The crew on the flight deck spells out Einstein's mass-energy equivalence formula (E=MC2). A Reality Check on Small Modul

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander The headlines celebrate rapid growth, but the physics suggest a ceiling. Is the current AI boom driven by sustainable demand or a circular 'vendor financing trap' that ignores infrastructure obsolescence? In my years managing physical infrastructure at Oracle , building AWS's global design and engineering practice , and running operations at Meta , I've seen technology cycles come

By Tony Grayson Former Oracle SVP & Infrastructure Leader (AWS, Meta) Figure 1:  Market skepticism in real-time. This Financial Times chart tracks the "Oracle OpenAI Deal" aftermath, showing a loss of over $60 billion in market value relative to pre-deal levels—a clear signal that investors are questioning the sustainability of the AI infrastructure bubble. The most revealing moment in any gold rush isn't when the first nugget is found; it's when the pick-axe salesman starts

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander The face of a single point of failure: The official status page confirms the Cloudflare Outage November 2025 , where a configuration error triggered a 'Global Network experiencing issues' alert that cascaded across the internet. The Cloudflare Outage November 2025  was the moment half the internet went dark. On that Tuesday, the most telling detail wasn’t that X , ChatGPT , Shopif

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander The Hendrick Motorsports Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 navigating the road course at Le Mans in June 2023. This car became a visible symbol of engineering resilience and strategic adaptation under extreme constraints. In June 2023, a 3,600-pound NASCAR Camaro showed up at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The racing world said it couldn't be done. Hendrick Motorsports built it anyway. If

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander The "pinnacle moment" described in the article: Receiving the Stockdale Award from Admiral John Richardson in 2016. Standing here, at the height of my naval career, I had to decide whether to stay comfortable or take the risk to start over. I made one of the hardest decisions of my life standing in a parking lot in Groton, CT. I’d just completed submarine command and received the 2015

By Tony Grayson   Tech Executive (ex-SVP Oracle, AWS, Meta) & Former Nuclear Submarine Commander Most leadership lessons come from boardrooms. Mine started in a nuclear classroom. Some lessons get under your skin—literally.  The Six-Factor Formula serves as a permanent reminder that in reactors and leadership, every variable matters. In Orlando, sitting in a classroom at Nuclear Power School , an instructor wrote a complex equation on the board: k = η · ε · p · f · P F · P T