Digital Realty Trust, Inc.

Data Center Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)Founded 2004- HQ today: Austin, Texas

Founders

Who Founded Digital Realty?

GI Partners · Founded 2004 · HQ today: Austin, Texas

Who founded Digital Realty?

Digital Realty was founded by GI Partners in 2004. It is now led by Andrew P. Power.

Founders: GI Partners
Founded: 2004
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
Number of founders: 1
Current CEO: Andrew P. Power (since 2022)

Where was Digital Realty founded?: Digital Realty was founded in Austin, Texas in 2004.
When was Digital Realty founded?: Digital Realty was founded in 2004.
Who started Digital Realty?: Digital Realty was founded by GI Partners.
How old is Digital Realty?: Digital Realty is 22 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

After the dot-com crash, telecom and internet companies left behind specialized buildings with heavy power feeds and dense fiber. GI Partners, a private equity firm led by Rick Magnuson and backed by CalPERS, bought a portfolio of these properties at distressed prices from 2001 onward, betting that internet demand would come back. In 2004 it packaged them into Digital Realty and listed the company on the NYSE as one of the first REITs focused on data centers.

GI Partners

Co-founder 2004

Background

GI Partners is a Menlo Park-based private equity firm founded by Rick Magnuson, with CalPERS as an early anchor investor. It specialized in buying undervalued real estate and infrastructure, which led it to the stranded data-center buildings left by the dot-com crash.

Role at Digital Realty Trust, Inc.

Digital Realty was not started by engineers. It was assembled by GI Partners, which from 2001 bought specialized telecom and data-center buildings from distressed owners after the dot-com bust. Traditional real estate investors avoided these windowless, heavily wired properties, but GI Partners bet that internet traffic would recover and need them. In 2004 it combined the portfolio into Digital Realty Trust and took it public on the NYSE, with Magnuson as chairman and Michael Foust as CEO. GI Partners later sold down its stake as the REIT grew into an independent public company. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).

Digital Realty Trust, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Andrew P. Power

Chief Executive Officer

2022 – Present

Power joined Digital Realty as CFO in 2015 after a career in real estate investment banking, and later served as President and CFO. As CEO he delivered double-digit Core FFO per share growth in 2025 and guided to another double-digit year in 2026.

A. William Stein

Former Chief Executive Officer

2014 – 2022

Stein is widely credited with transforming Digital Realty from a primarily North American real estate operator into a truly dominant, ubiquitous global technology infrastructure leader. His leadership and aggressive acquisition strategy increased the company's global market share, scale, and overall shareholder value, firmly establishing the foundational network architecture that currently supports much of the modern global digital economy.

Michael F. Foust

Founding Chief Executive Officer

2004 – 2014

As the founding CEO, he built the company from a private equity carve-out into one of the absolute largest publicly traded Data Center REITs in the world before his abrupt departure in 2014.

Keep researching Digital Realty

Who Founded Digital Realty? FAQ

Who founded Digital Realty Trust in 2004?

Digital Realty was created in 2004 by private equity firm GI Partners, led by Rick Magnuson, which had bought data-center properties after the dot-com crash.

What was GI Partners' original investment thesis behind Digital Realty?

After the 2000-2001 dot-com and telecom bust, many specialized buildings were sold at distressed prices. GI Partners bet that internet demand would recover and assembled them into a single data-center REIT.

What was Richard Magnuson's role in the creation of Digital Realty?

Rick Magnuson founded GI Partners and served as Digital Realty's first chairman, overseeing the property acquisitions and the 2004 IPO.

How did CalPERS support the founding and capitalization of Digital Realty?

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) was the primary institutional limited partner backing GI Partners Fund I, providing the foundational equity capital required to acquire the distressed data center properties that formed Digital Realty.

When did GI Partners fully exit its investment in Digital Realty?

GI Partners sold down its holdings through offerings in the years after the 2004 IPO, leaving Digital Realty a fully independent public REIT.

What early data center innovations did the founders pioneer?

The founders pioneered the 'Turn-Key Datacenter' (later Turn-Key Flex) concept, providing enterprise and tech tenants with pre-built, fully powered, and cooled data halls with N+1 redundancy, eliminating the need for companies to construct their own facilities.

Where were Digital Realty's original 21 properties located?

The early portfolio included major carrier hotels such as 350 East Cermak in Chicago, along with data-center properties in other US metros and Europe.

How did the founders' timing during the 2001 to 2004 tech recovery create Digital Realty's competitive moat?

By acquiring critical carrier hotels and subsea landing facilities at a fraction of replacement cost during the market trough, the founders locked in irreplaceable urban fiber crossroads that formed the core of today's global internet routing infrastructure.

Who founded Digital Realty?

It was founded by Michael Foust and Richard Magnuson (the founder of GI Partners). Foust served as the original CEO, completely pioneering the concept that highly specialized, hyper-cooled technology buildings could be managed as a massive corporate real estate portfolio.

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Who founded Digital Realty?

Founding Story

GI Partners

Background

Role at Digital Realty Trust, Inc.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Keep researching Digital Realty

Who Founded Digital Realty? FAQ

Who founded Digital Realty Trust in 2004?

What was GI Partners' original investment thesis behind Digital Realty?

What was Richard Magnuson's role in the creation of Digital Realty?

How did CalPERS support the founding and capitalization of Digital Realty?

When did GI Partners fully exit its investment in Digital Realty?

What early data center innovations did the founders pioneer?

Where were Digital Realty's original 21 properties located?

How did the founders' timing during the 2001 to 2004 tech recovery create Digital Realty's competitive moat?

Who founded Digital Realty?

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