When discussing the ongoing revitalization efforts in Detroit, it’s hard to miss the name Dan Gilbert. The founder of Quicken Loans, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and a Detroit native himself, Gilbert’s investment firms have funded dozens of tech startups in the city and turned its defunct old buildings into shiny new workspaces that look like Silicon Valley transplants.

Until last year, what Detroit lacked in this daunting task to become a tech hub was access to affordable, high-speed broadband, the kind that Google Fiber was famously bringing to other cities around the country. So, rather than pray for Google to arrive or incumbent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to spontaneously change their pricing and services, Gilbert invested in two Quicken Loans employees who were crazy enough to suggest building a fiber network themselves.

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