October 24, 2026 — 5:00am

Nobody plays the role of mythological tech founder quite like NextDC boss Craig Scroggie.

A relentless gym regime gives Scroggie the look of a ripped Mike Cannon-Brookes. Add in his strict uniform of identical black jeans and shirts and the impression veers between tech titan and ageing nightclub bouncer.

NextDC chief executive Craig Scroggie has had a tough week after the company’s shares plunged in response to a massive earnings downgrade. Louie Douvis

Scroggie is the sort of leader who has also conjured up AI clones of his senior executives so he can have queries answered late at night, according to an AFR profile this year.

But the data centre guru does not have the kudos of having founded the data centre operator – as Cannon-Brookes has with Atlassian – nor the riches that go with it just yet.

Luckily, the AI boom has turned the boring backwater of data centres into one of the hottest tech stories in town.

As Scroggie told investors and analysts this week: “We’ve never…