Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Bricks, Bytes & the Media Gap in Construction
56 Plays17 days ago
Construction is one of the largest industries in the world, yet the way we talk about it has not evolved at the same pace as the technology reshaping it.
In this episode, we turn the microphones around on Owen and Martin, the founders of Bricks & Bytes. Owen is a quantity surveyor by background and Martin a structural engineer, both having run their own construction businesses before building one of the most recognised media platforms in construction tech. They share why they started the podcast, what they saw missing in the industry conversation, and how their experience on real projects shapes the way they approach media.
We get into why many construction events feel disconnected from project reality, the tension between niche tech audiences and boots-on-the-ground professionals, and whether AI and robotics are moving toward real adoption or just another hype cycle.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Banter
00:00:00
Speaker
there was There was not a huge amount of think like thinking, as as we always do these things. like i think I personally work off like get something done, get the process to and the system to get it done, and then like start to tweak, like, okay, let's be a little bit more strategic here. How can we think about this? ah You are a very good in this, I have to say. Yeah, can compliment you on the camera.
00:00:19
Speaker
I appreciate that. It's not your leg, I can't reach. No. No.
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to the Offsite Podcast. I'm Jason Lansini, joined once again by Carlos Cavallo. And today we have got a bit of a different episode.
Media Challenges in Construction
00:00:42
Speaker
It's adjacent maybe to the the detailed running of of projects that we'd normally talk about.
00:00:48
Speaker
And maybe to frame the problem, i'd say we've had a view internally that construction has a sort of media problem. And most of what is it gets written or shared in podcasts about technology and construction is either from a vendor trying to sell something with some alternative technology.
00:01:07
Speaker
ah motive or people that have like maybe never been that connected to the running of construction projects and and a little bit removed. Owen and Martin started Bricks and Bytes three and a bit years ago. Started thinking about it four years ago. Yeah, four years ago and they've expanded from one podcast to a bunch of different shows, high-profile guests, newsletters. a bunch of And I guess today what we're doing is maybe turning the microphone around for the first joint External podcast interview of owner Martin from from bricks and bytes To understand maybe how and why you've built what you've built sorry a history.
Construction Media and Audience Engagement
00:01:47
Speaker
I'm sure guys Thank you very much for taking the time really appreciate it. Yeah, by the way, you said construction has a media problem. You're about to experience what?
00:01:59
Speaker
It's interesting actually when you phrase this question is is there really a problem? I think that, hey, this isn't a you interview me, by the way. Just to be clear. This is like a judo match. No, i I think there is. What do you think? I think there is. I think i think construction is very pragmatic. yeah yeah And that's why there hasn't been much of media in construction.
00:02:23
Speaker
And yeah, that's that's my short answer. I think if you look if you zoom out as well, there's like a lot of people that will talk about labor shortages, shortage of people going into the industry, going to other places. And I think part of, it's one part of the whole story, but part of what draws people to enter an industry is things like the media surrounding that thing. Especially now. Yeah, and so i think it's ah I think it's actually a bigger, it is a problem and it's like, you're probablylying yeah. Nice. I think if you look at anything from websites to LinkedIn profile pictures to content that goes out to construction newsletters, it is lo-fi and old school. And I think that's why no one's really
00:03:02
Speaker
gone big in the media space in this industry, even though the industry is bigger than most. So outside of like the B1M and a few podcasts, it dies there. Even B1M, there's an argument there that like, whilst he focuses on construction, it's very, very mass, broad appeal. It's like engineering. It's not like- You're not learning as an engineer. Yeah, yeah it's more to cater to like the the like Joe Bloggs of the world, you know, that anyone can pick that up and watch it. Whereas we're a little bit more niche. No shade to Joe Bloggs from Valfabedi or whatever. Even if you look in the websites of startups, for example, I sometimes do not understand what what the
The Bricks and Bytes Journey
00:03:38
Speaker
startup is about. oh That's a whole other, that's a whole other problem. But I think it's like, I'm sure we'll get into this, but one of the reasons why I think we've done all right with Bricks and Bites is that- You're do well. You're gonna correct me. I saw you in the corner of my eye thought, let me go from well to all right.
00:03:55
Speaker
You'll tell me all. Is because the timing has been well and there's sort of like the last four years that we got into it, there seems to be a bit more of a storm brewing around like the funding that's going into technology, which is which has been our strong focus. And also,
00:04:08
Speaker
like as the younger generation comes through, like you said, Jason, it's like attracting that younger generation to the industry. So the timing feels pretty good. Obviously you guys are doing your podcast as well and there's various other people doing it. So um i think now now the time is now. Let's see where this can go over the next few years.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, maybe like zooming back to the start, you know, when you were talking about it three, four years ago, you're both running your own businesses and design and quantity surveying. What was the conversation? What was the problem? What was the what was the vision that you guys talked about that like spurred the the action to to start something?
00:04:47
Speaker
Let me take it. you Yeah. I'll tell the story. um I'll fact check. Sorry. Yes, so Martin and I both had construction businesses. Martin's a structural engineer by background. I'm a quantity surveyor.
00:05:00
Speaker
And um we met at a networking event. And we were both, like, I'd say of a younger generation at the time. This is like five four or five years or so ago with businesses. And we used to listen to a lot
Podcast Evolution and Strategic Focus
00:05:11
Speaker
podcasts. And we used to send each other, like, podcasts to listen to. not about construction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Four years ago.
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, generic like the the popular ones, Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan, Ole Man, Lex Friedman, All In. All In wasn't there actually yet. No? No. Okay. um And so, yeah, we're just very interested in that in that landscape and how that was evolving and becoming popular.
00:05:33
Speaker
And we also had our businesses and obviously it's a technological revolution. Those bit those podcasts are quite focused on technology as part of what they do. And like that was like super exciting. And we're working in businesses, construction industry, which is like little bit stale, or stagnant. And you mentioned technology and and reaction is often like it doesn't help us get our job done any quicker. And um then we were very curious about where that landscape is heading. And so we said we spoke to each other and said, why don't we start podcast?
00:06:02
Speaker
I think it was conversational, like why don't we speak with people who are in the construction and technology focused and then see what's out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the way to do this was through the podcast.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. No, he's actually right. Tell me you're the engineer. i've never interviewed I've never interviewed a married couple, but I'm getting strong vibes. Is this how people hear us? Is this how people hear us? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, to Martin's point. And we're very interested in the future of construction technology would disrupt our businesses. Yeah. And part of the way that we would find out is by talking to people much smarter than us. And obviously this was like a post-COVID world. everything was going online. It's very easy to jump on a remote recording with someone who lives in US, Australia, wherever it might be, and record for an hour. I think if we had decided to do this two years earlier, three years earlier, and the thing to do was to bring fly people into your studio, it would just never have happened because the cost of doing
Engaging Audience and Content Strategy
00:06:56
Speaker
that. We were having a conversation, Carlos, in the lift. Online wasn't so popular as well.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, and just doing it in person, like the logistics and time out of your day and cost of hiring, but I just it doesn't add up. So it went very remote. And then um and the video call would have felt a bit alien. yeah Yes, yes, yes. Like why? yeah i think that's like area area and time 2019, 20 onwards, the podcasting has been booming. and So we got lots of inspiration. but I think for me,
00:07:24
Speaker
I've heard a lot of times in my work that, oh, we've been doing this for the last 25 years, 30 years, and that's how things are done. And that's like, you know, as a young person, you just can't get an answer like that. Yeah. Oh, that's how we're doing this. It just, it doesn't exist, at least for me. So that was like a point of curiosity. a Why should we be looking at something more modern and why there's not much of, um,
00:07:50
Speaker
innovation happening around us there is there was but not around us within what we we're doing yeah plus it's exciting right like you look at the tech industry and you think these people are building great businesses and having successful outcomes and like then there's construction and this stuff doesn't really happen and no one's from the outside it looks like no one's telling the stories of the you know you uh someone will want to interview tui for example that was going to happen before bricks and bytes but no one's interviewing the the set of people that are trying to build there in the next five to ten years and speaking to those folks there just wasn't the startups yeah yeah and i think yeah to the point there was like there was a little bit of us like trying to find a resource for our like even our businesses at the time like constituent and martin doing structural engineering of like when you go on google and try and find out a little bit about what's going on in the technology world in construction there wasn't much out there so part of thinking at the time was like the website don't tell you anything It conf confused you more. So part of the part of the thinking back then was like around, can we create that resource? And then that started with a podcast, which we got whiteballed out and we were thinking of names. And Martin, you actually came up with a name. It was, didn't you? Yeah, you said Bricks and Bites. It's like, that sounds kind of cool. Like bricks, physical world, Bites, technological cool world.
00:09:04
Speaker
And then we rang up our friend Brian, who we knew. Yeah, it was the first one. Yeah, was the first episode. I think we actually recorded the first episode twice because the first recording... Overthinking. Yeah, overthinking. I remember going for a walk before we recording and it's like consuming me, this nervousness of like going to put myself finally out there. Because it's recorded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also you get that feeling that millions are going to hear your first episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should look at view card on the first episode. Your mom would forgive you. Yeah, exactly. Like with most of the things that you need to do it and do it again and do it again and do it again. It's muscle, isn't it? 100%, yeah. You mentioned before that you had been observing bunch of these other podcasts. I'm interested in what you took inspiration from you thought about what the right format and the content that would actually be appealing to this industry.
00:09:58
Speaker
um what Where did you take inspiration from? And that maybe has that shifted over time as well?
Balancing Niche and Broad Appeal
00:10:04
Speaker
actually don't think we really, so we just said let's speak to people smarter than us and find out about their businesses, what they're building and how they're doing it.
00:10:11
Speaker
And I think that was as simple as that really. My answer is that I love copying things and just doing it adjusting them to my context, whatever I'm doing, and just copy, paste, make it better, adjust to the context. yeah and ah So I didn't think about it much. It was just this kind of behavior there. yeah and yeah adjusting to I think recent Bricks, Backs and Bites adjustment is kind of very and favorable and kind of people enjoy watching, listening to two, maybe not two of us, but Dustin and Patrick more.
00:10:45
Speaker
more and More intentional, like our thinking around that as well. But honestly, the Bricks and Bites podcast was just like a matter of let's get it done and see how it goes for a while, then adjust accordingly. But I think we're still at this point where ah we are just putting episodes out without real kind of um strategy behind those episodes. like There's obviously some thinking behind it, but it's more like, okay, this could be an interesting conversation. Let's have the conversation. We're not like too, I don't think the right word is picky, but we're not too, I can't describe. Maybe before, there's like a million questions want to ask off the back of that, but zooming out a little bit, if you think about where you want to take it what's and what the,
00:11:31
Speaker
If you're in your mind's eye, forecast what good or great would look like over the coming years um in terms of the type of content and who you're reaching. It doesn't have to be like money or whatever, but how how do you think about what what good looks like and and where do you guys want to take things?
00:11:47
Speaker
Greatest media business in construction. That's good. That's
Media Monetization and Audience Growth
00:11:51
Speaker
great. In construction. I think it's doable. It's doable. I mean, this there's this thing that people need to remember that producing media costs money.
00:11:59
Speaker
And so you need to you need to really be thinking early. And where I think our business background kind of benefits us is that we think like you you need to be thinking about your monetization early on. yeah and how you can achieve that. like Don't get me wrong, we've invested quite a lot of our own capital into getting to where it is now, but our focus over the last, I would say even 18 months, of the conversations we've been having with people trying to figure out like what's a product that we could develop, which people might like, maybe the product is media, maybe is' something else that we need to go. You need to be really focused on like the monetization. So there is this kind of balance of like not,
00:12:33
Speaker
not going too crazy on the media because you're just increasing your cost all the time and um like the monetization doesn't keep up because you just go bankrupt. So we've been on this kind of like steady climb of like, okay, we've monetized a little bit, let's reinvest a little bit back into like the growth of the media and then keep going from there. But I do think the more that you do that, hopefully there'll be some kind of exponential growth outcome where like I don't know you look at podcasts like acquired FM and the amount that they charge for sponsorship I don't know that exists within that EC industry but that's where our thinking has been going we need to find something that's like a little bit more scalable to be able to then really reinvest back into the growth and then at that point like Martin says hopefully have built the biggest EC global media brand I mean, there needs to be a business case because otherwise it's a smoke and mirrors. It's interesting because ah you know you might you might have this conversation with another person. They say, well, the first thing to do might be to build a big audience and then there's lots of ways to maybe monetize the audience. I don't know if it... Yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
and if it's different because of the vertical nature of the audience? Yes, exactly. So I think we were we are also been thinking thinking and focusing more recently to make it the content more broader.
00:13:43
Speaker
yeah So not that we we don't want to be focused on the construction technology or solutions in the construction technology, but how to convey these ideas to people who are on-site, working in construction, and not necessarily are interested in scheduling to the software kind of level, right?
00:14:02
Speaker
and yeah So that's that's been the' something that we've been thinking about. yeah There is this problem with fragmentation in the AEC industry. You produce content for people who are interested in like technology and construction, but then the people on site are never going listen to that. Maybe the people the architects are not going to listen to that. so part of our thinking, and um we have not figured this out yet, is like, how do you create content that sort of democratizes like the entry level to that content whereby architects, engineering, people in construction, all the way from like the boardroom to the people on site are interested?
00:14:34
Speaker
Maybe it doesn't exist. Yeah, but it doesn't dumb it down like the B1M might do. No shade to B1M. That's the second. I didn't say that. That was someone else. But the sweet spot's really hard, right? Yeah. You want a large audience, but it needs to be relevant enough that you keep listening every week. So without having 10 podcasts.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's also important to think about the monetization because at the moment, like our audience is people who are building technology and people that are like buying technology. If you go too broad, suddenly your audience like um starts to dilute. and Yeah, like because people who are are sort of of focused, they wouldn't be interested in generic. Yeah. so And the pitch for sponsorship then gets harder.
00:15:12
Speaker
Exactly. like You're then going from like sponsorship of like niche construction solutions to monday.com or something like that, like ah a broad. And then they their their their way they pay is like maybe not as good as like someone like a small technology smaller technology company might pay because it's like a broader audience.
00:15:29
Speaker
So there is all that. There's that to kind of work out. Just Microsoft Excel. You'll be fine. Well, that would be WhatsApp. Come on. I think that's an avenue in creation of very good quality interviews with the with people who build this industry from very basics. okay So we've done an interview with Goldbeck maybe like this year. So it's a great story of how traditional, even family business, has been growing for 50, 60 years now. Yes. and
00:16:02
Speaker
Yes, so these there are so many stories um in this world that have has not been told yet of people who who have very large businesses and now they are also and getting into this journey of technology, how technology is going to impact their yeah the way they do their own business. yeah those These are billion billion dollar businesses, so we would like to explore this more and extract this.
00:16:27
Speaker
That's maybe our B1M moment. yeah but And don't get me wrong, that is extremely difficult to get those people on. like We were talking yesterday about, I can't remember the guy's name, but like Werf. Werf.
00:16:38
Speaker
Werf. Screws. Can we get him? He's a 19-year-old guy. I don't see why not. 19? 90. 90. 9-0, German guy. But we did have Ortwin, who was like 86 years old, never really done an interview before, yes and came on and was like speaking in German to us in the room about how he'd started from like a small metal working shop all the way through to this like mega multi-billion dollar company. He's still there like every single day in the office. Still walks to his home from the office. 11 o'clock, yeah, his wife prepares his lunch, and he walks from the office to the house, has his lunch, comes back to the office. So like those stories to Martin's point and even to your point, Kyle, it's about like media becoming interested in this industry.
00:17:18
Speaker
Hopefully these people that have done these like weird, weird and wonderful businesses that are not like in the mainstream, but have a great story behind them and want to come out and, speak to Rick's advice. Yeah, we need to get them until they are here on this on this world because I think the moment the CEOs are getting getting the jobs, it becomes, there's a lot of filtering.
Storytelling and Guest Selection
00:17:39
Speaker
So you can't get the essence of how it really becomes what And back on the point of how broad you can go, when you get to that caliber of person, anyone can relate. to the story and the the conversation. yeah It's a human story, right? and It's not too far away. It's a combination of something like technical and but broadly relating and also human, I think. is yeah So I think there is, to your point to your question, Jason, i think there is this kind of balance between like satisfying the niche audience and also going a bit broad. And maybe there's like you look at certain publications like um
00:18:10
Speaker
uh industry dive for example who have like um publication which targets construction waste i think and like a few other industries so it's like a big business but they're also like very focused on individual verticals and able to monetize that audience well but also the broader audience so you can see it on the surface yeah yeah yeah it's something to emulate me One thing that we've talked about when we do these conversations, when we're thinking about who and what topics is we just try to remember who do we picture listening and who we trying to talk to and deliver some value to. don't know if that's something is the way you think about the types of guests and topics. Who are you picturing is the audience as you kind of like think through content and questions and topics and start to interview someone. I don't think we rely on our judgment. We talk to people who are smarter and then we think we discuss who we should speak with, which subject should we explore, what's interesting right now or what's happening, what other people see.
00:19:15
Speaker
So yeah, I think that would be my answer to that. I'd say this this is ah like ah maybe a little bit of a mix. Like we have done a lot on the go to market, which we always get really good feedback from from people, like speaking to people who have built, scaled and sold businesses and also people from like sales teams. um And then also like what people who who the sales teams selling to, like the innovation managers and like speaking to them and them their execs and seeing what their opinions are. So that that's like an interesting in audience to like build some content around.
00:19:45
Speaker
the The issue maybe with that is just the size of that audience. It's not huge. yep Having said that, if you was just like, right, we're going to spend a year and going go 100% on these people, maybe something interesting could come out of that.
00:19:56
Speaker
But I don't think that's the way that we will go with it. um On the flip side, you can do more like, what's weird, someone messaged me yesterday, it was like, you should do, we've been thinking about this for a while, how you could actually execute this, but there's a lot of gossip in the industry. yeah And people like, and we go to stuff, and people come up to us, and they're like, have you heard about this? And we're like, Oh, like a few times. And then they have a slightly different... These are sometimes stories you can... You cannot put on a podcast. you Yeah, 100%. Yeah. But like with the with the the new the news segment... Especially recently with the kind of AI banning here, banning there. Oh, yeah. We can... we can Oh, we can't actually. No, okay.
00:20:35
Speaker
But like the newsy stuff is like, there's not really a fault behind the target market there. it's like... anyone interested in industry should kind of be interested in the news and what's going on. That's just like a common thing. um So that comes to ah the podcast we're doing with Dustin and Patrick, which is Bricks, Bucks and Bites, which is just like, we pick two or three things that happened in a week and speak about it. And the engagement level on that is like compared to like Bricks and Bites typically, the engagement level, while the viewership is not like insane, the engagement is just like so different because people like tune in, they ask questions live, people message us after, people come out to those events it's like, oh, speaking about this, it's so cool. People are love that short on this. Whereas the other podcast doesn't have that impact. But it provides value as well to more segmented participation
Podcast Impact and Community Building
00:21:21
Speaker
participants, right? so Do you think you're pulling more like founder type tech side who are generally more engaged than typical engineer? Do you think that's sort driving engagement?
00:21:30
Speaker
So you're assuming that the founders are more ah engaged than people working in a startup, like engineers and all that? My, yeah, the cohort of engineers and QSs that I know from when i was the industry, most of them don't care about. Oh, no, no, no, not in traditional businesses. Very little. And startups and tech.
00:21:50
Speaker
Compared to, like, us. Yeah. Yeah. No, so I don't think we cater to these people, actually, to those in in the traditional businesses. But then you say that. you you You will not know if you cater to these people until you have a conversation thats with someone at this company, and they're like, oh like, one of the reasons...
00:22:09
Speaker
part of the reason we were able do this Goldberg documentary, because when we met Fabian, who was the the who he heads up their technology team, he they were he was like, oh, so many people in Goldberg listen to you. yeah And like, they were like almost internal champions. Goldberg is not typical general contractor. They have 500 people who look at technology. 120 software engineers working in a general contractor. yeah How many contractors do you guys know?
00:22:35
Speaker
Probably zero. There's no. Yeah, but to to the point, like um you don't know that these people really listen so like until someone tells you you're like oh ah what i wish you told me this like it's just good mut for us to know so they kind of lay like um the the typical quantifier is not going to be like reaching out maybe they listen but they're not going to reach out to him oh that was really cool they just kind of like lay low and yeah yeah it's like it's like this industry is also like a lot of people will be on say linkedin but they never comment or interact they observe and and and just post their accreditation or their Yeah.
Technology and Industry Trends
00:23:04
Speaker
job. Or they're folks on the ah Acon consigli deal, yeah. there
00:23:09
Speaker
But yeah, we we see it like ah in when we're recruiting in a bunch of roles in our team, we get a lot of applications from people from industry, either like our customers or users or broader, because they're tech curious. And ah part of what got me to message you a while back is is ah a decent percentage of those folks will say they listen to your podcast. that that ah And you put you probably don't know they do, and they'll be in different countries around the world. But I think there's like a cohort inside of the podcast the traditional contractor who are who are, let's say, tech curious, if that's the right way to say it. Silently tech curious. I would say we were also these this type of people. But you will not convince me to start coding and try to get interested in coding you know my my own solutions. that I'm just incapable of that.
00:23:56
Speaker
i don't know about you, but so we wouldn't go in like five years before, we wouldn't be going and, okay, so what can we do in construction technology to and of figure figure things out? yeah so But these people are doing doing actually that, going into startups and trying to and figure things out, not in the traditional businesses, but how can technology advance what they do day to day as engineers or quantum surveyors.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, and to the earlier point about media, there's more awareness about technology. It will be more and more. More exciting. like maybe Maybe we make it look...
00:24:30
Speaker
more appealing to people so then they feel like, oh, you know what, maybe can little tech. Yeah, you're helping our recruitment pipelines. Yeah, yeah. Because we are not like super technical in a sense of technology. I can't code. I will never be able to code. Yeah, you've covered that. Yeah.
00:24:47
Speaker
Can you? What, code? yeah Give us a laptop. I've dabbled with it before, i'm not going lie. But now you have vibe code. That probably I could do as well.
00:24:58
Speaker
but So maybe like switching gears a little bit, um and you were talking about Bricks, Bucks and Bytes versus Bricks and Bytes and the different formats and you've got newsletters and and other things. And and it was maybe a little bit what I was a little was alluding to when I was asking about maybe some inspiration of other podcasts because it feels like a Bricks, Bucks and Bytes is taking kind of like inspiration from an all-in, for example, talking about current events rather than sort of yeah less trump contemporaneous. Yeah, no, no, sorry, at Definitely less trouble. not to go political. That is actually one thing. But like, yeah you know, is it is the thinking there like, ah I'd imagine the like current events driven thing drives more repeat listens. How do you think about the different formats and and how how you work through what the right mix is? So I think that for this, I think life is fluid, okay? It's not the constant, so it changes and things around like UK, there' there was a budget, there was like lots of things happening around that.
Business Viability and Content Strategy
00:25:53
Speaker
People want to know what other people have to say about that, and yeah relevant people in the industry. So I think that's the way moving forward on those. But back to the point, like what do we look for, i think you asked it earlier, what do we look for in when we talk to startups, for example?
00:26:10
Speaker
like to me has always been, okay, what they are doing, what's what's the business case, how is it really helping the broader ecosystem? And I'm trying to guess in my head, is it is it going to be a viable model? Would it? Would I buy it? Oh, 100%. Because I buy software, and as always, as a business small business owner, is a calculation, okay, does it doesn't make sense to buy it or not? This is very simple. It's very egoistic actually on my side to look into like why is this, would I use it?
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah. yeah There's a lot of people like in industry, you could be in a project bubble for like five years easy. And I think the staying current is really hard because even if you're on a project, you're not looking at tech all the time. No.
00:26:55
Speaker
because You're probably on a set of tools that were right five years ago. Unless you're doing the one only one thing in the project, like yeah i don know scheduling for example, perhaps. right So I guess you're only looking at scheduling. But if you are a project manager, you're looking at like so many different construction stages and I guess you're using different tools subject to what are you like building, constructing and But still within that bubble for that long. So I think having something where you can actually feel like you're staying current and understanding the wider world. Because if you're on a construction project, you go, I'm going to this, I'm going to Digital Construction Week. The project manager will be like, are you not got anything to do today? That's not like acceptable to most unless you're like in the innovation team. yeah So like, I do think there's a a big space where you're like keeping that, like you said, around the gossip and and the the topics that are related to the budget.
00:27:44
Speaker
and getting that context or spin that's related to the industry. Yeah, I agree. It's like, how do you keep one foot in whilst not over committing yourself and pissing off your boss if you've got a tight deadline to achieve on your project? yeah I think, jason Jason, to answer your question, um there was There was not a huge amount of thinking, like thinking as as we always do these things. like i think I personally work off like get something done, get the process to and the system to get it done, and then like start to tweak, like, okay, let's be a bit more strategic here. How can we think about this? ah You are very good in this, I have to say. Yeah, compliment you on the camera.
00:28:20
Speaker
I appreciate it. It's not your leg, can't reach. No. No.
00:28:26
Speaker
All these heart things.
Podcasting Dynamics and Guest Engagement
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Processing and and and all that. Yeah. ah So so would like ah are the premise you have um definitely two interesting people on the podcast. We are like facilitating it. Patrick and Dustin, outspoken people, got very well um like informed opinions on things. yeah They don't just come up with stuff without any rationale behind it, which is which is like super important.
00:28:55
Speaker
And it's like, what well, if you get four people like that on a podcast, what can happen? um But there are some nice strategic things behind that, and one, every week we try and do like one, two, three call-ins from people that have just raised funding, because that helps you really understand like what are the trends, where's the money going, how are these people thinking, is there something interesting there? um and And it's also a community piece as well, like part of the media landscape and how you evolve a business is, like like your communication with your audience and one way to do that is the is the community piece which we haven't figured out yet but this is like our way of kind of starting to test that and tap into that um and then also also network effect right the more people yeah relevant people they have their networks and and kind of self-reinforces
00:29:42
Speaker
You mentioned Patrick and Dustin coming into some of the episodes and Bricks, Box and Bites. How did you think about that? did you meet them? And how did that evolve? I'll tell you the story of Patrick because it's like something I hold on to because it's like, I don't know if fate is the right word, but it's just... It is.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah, maybe it's fate. It was kind of meant to be so. um We'd known Patrick for, like, because he used to, post he posted a lot on LinkedIn, and and like was always posting interesting and very dense and like good content, yeah which, I mean, there's a whole argument whether that's the most effective growth strategy in the world. I don't think it is. I think better to post shit content, and then people start like, what but would shit content out there. My shit posts perform way better than anything that's informed. But is it a controversial, or?
00:30:27
Speaker
no no, I mean, like, um they're very, like. ah Patrick's post, for example, very data heavy. Yeah, you have to be smart to understand it, really, I think. yeah So anyway, we used to just like interact on LinkedIn.
00:30:40
Speaker
um And then I went to Digital Construction Week. And this is really strange because I saw someone who I thought was Patrick. And I was like, oh is and it way it wasn't Patrick. Anyway, and Patrick done his panel there. yeah And he started talking. And then he was standing outside the event. And like i'd I'd never actually really spoke to him before. And I just went up to him was like, Hey Patrick, like um can we get you on Bricks and Bites? was like, okay, send me a message. I'm just waiting for a taxi. And then was like, okay, cool. And then like we went our separate ways. must have done it this way. Yeah, he was very tall. but we we are And then I sent him message. And like you know you meet people like,
00:31:15
Speaker
that that's like an almost dismissive way for them to say like, I'm not interested, yeah send me a message, like you think, they're never gonna respond to me. Anyway, he didn't respond. And I was like, okay fine. And then a a few months, I think a few months went by and he he messaged, no, he was like liking some of the posts that putting out and I just met him again and was like, hey, can we follow up on this? You've you've been pseudo interacting with each other. And he was like, yes, but I have a proposal for you. was like, okay, let's jump on a call. So jumped on a call and he was like, I want it. He didn't listen to the not exact words that he used, but he was like,
00:31:54
Speaker
how much, it was something like, can we create the longest podcast or whatever that Bricks and Bytes has ever done? Like, how long can we go for? What time can you give? And i was like I don't three, four hours. And then we were both like, maybe that's a bit too long. So we went for two hours and it ended up being like the longest podcast. He wanted to do like the longest, most in-depth podcast we've ever done. we recorded like for one hour, 45 minutes. That was challenging because he's very smart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got to keep up. And then we released that podcast. I think it's still probably the number one listened to on Bricks and Bytes, which is kind of strange, but...
00:32:22
Speaker
Well, it has a compounding effect because it's been long as well. Yeah. And then and then like he just really enjoyed the experience. And then we were part of those discussions developed and he said, why don't we do a weekly podcast together? And we started doing one where we'd pick a piece of funding news for the week.
00:32:37
Speaker
That was like the early days of Bricks, Bucks and Bites. Yeah. and dive into it. And it was literally just me and Martin trying to like educate ourselves on venture capital world. Cause he would ask all the questions that he would speak and he was like, guys, can we try and make this more balanced? We're like, yeah, all right. And next week we were called and we just keep asking him all the questions and he'd just be talking. And then, um, and then.
00:32:57
Speaker
Cause yeah, he brings a very thoughtful perspective and and a lot of experience. And then, uh, Dustin's obviously like, uh, another, a man in the arena trying to build something as well. So how did you, how did that evolve? Okay, so there was three of us and this was like back end of last year probably. and when i need a fourth person just to make it a little bit more um diverse and get some different things. Different continents as well, geographically more. Spread the obligation to have the quick take and the as it spread the load.
00:33:26
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. and And just refresh people from our from ourselves a bit as well. And we covered, we spoke about Dustin's startup, Edify, on that podcast with Patrick. and They just raised a series, I think they went seed series A really quick, like it was like six million and 12 million or something. And then we covered it. I'd never really heard about them. And then I met Dustin on on a call following that. And we just had a chat.
00:33:53
Speaker
And like things developed from there. We then then reached out to him. We'd done these like super series things where we had like fourunders four hours. Founders series. Yeah, Founders series where we've done like really deep dives with people. It was like a content format we were trying to test um to see it if it was good for people. i was like, okay. and Anyway, we I reached out to him and said, can we do one of these with you? We're going to be in Boston last November.
00:34:15
Speaker
Yeah, this was last November. We were going be in Boston. He was like, Yeah, why the hell not, let's do it. So we sat down with them him and his co-founder Mike of Edify for like four hours, um shot that, released it, they liked it.
00:34:27
Speaker
And then, I feel like a mumbling jumbling the story a little bit, but we fast forward a little bit to the back end of last year after we'd recorded this episode. You didn't lie, so I'm not saying. We were trying to think of the fourth person to join us. We had a few names and I messaged Dustin and was just like,
00:34:45
Speaker
do you know anyone that might be suitable? Here's the criteria. They've got to be like, like like opinionated and da, da, da, da. And he just messaged back and said, I've been thinking about doing something for a while.
00:34:56
Speaker
Shall we give it a go? Let's meet tomorrow, whatever it was. And we met and i told him this is what we're trying to do. He's like, this sounds good. And then he was like, I'll try for a few months. If it goes well, we'll continue.
00:35:08
Speaker
And then I don't know, I suppose I've been recording now for like six, seven months with him. So I guess he likes it. Yeah, it's definitely an interesting evolution of the like the content and the mix. And and I think of like having someone in the arena, someone on the front, it's like a it seems like a good mix. Yeah, it's good to get his... I suppose we do have a lot of founders and people building businesses that listen, right? So to hear someone who's been there, like Dustin, he's proven too. And doesn't much of a filter as well.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah. He really says things as as they are. And he's I think, based on my understanding, he's very correct in things. He's not making shit up. Yeah, it's interesting you could ask either of those two, like, probably a question on any subject that exists and they'll answer it, like, relatively convincingly well, which is a weird skill.
00:35:52
Speaker
Going back to, like, the different formats and and where this, like, goes over time, you talked about, like, community. um How do you think about the next evolutions of that? do you think about events? do you think about...
00:36:06
Speaker
like physical, physically getting people to together. Yes, we can. You want go to announce something? Well, excuse Okay. go First off, fundamentally, construction is an in-person business. Yeah.
00:36:20
Speaker
And we've let, like, okay, it's obvious, right? Yeah. it's a physical job with yeah we're building things. So that it will only be a matter of time before we do some form of event. um Maybe we're at the end of 2025 now, so maybe 2026. Like it's very- For sure 2026. Yeah, okay, well, there we go. There we go.
00:36:39
Speaker
It's one of those things like quite fear provoking. Totally. But we have done a lot. The first recording was also fear provoking. But yeah, no one knows if no one listens to your podcast.
00:36:51
Speaker
but know's True. one's that's up's you at bed i guess that just like oh they we do yeah It's the hosting a party it's the hosting a party fear you have that You have this constant deep down fear that you're something and no one turns up. But but also, you ah hosting the first party is not, you don't host party for 500 people as a first party, yeah You start small and you go... I don't know, I don't know.
00:37:15
Speaker
was speaking to someone the other day, was like, whatever way you look it, you're to have it till you make it, so just go as big as you can. was like... That's true, that's true. Because I said to them, was like, I have no... Don't fire festival it or anything like that. I'll take all the money and cancel it. How much can you give us? An in-person event could be a few people at a bar or the O2. No, I would say bigger. I would like... 200. Personally, 200 people plus. Location is always tricky for us because we have a very strong community in North America.
00:37:43
Speaker
And London, you you're based in London. you like I'm based in Germany, but close enough. Whereabouts? South of Frankfurt, so Alsbach. the The construction tech industry like industry within London seems to be, what i find of the US is like, it is more of a community. Like people speak to each other, they know each other, they all kind of like jump between companies. Maybe that's part of the reason it happens. Whereas in London, nature everyone works in their kind of like yeah silos. Startup, construction tech. Yeah, I've only really recently learned that you're based in London. And Drone Deploy have an office there as well. Drone Deploy, yeah, we're right next to each other. Yeah. so So location is one thing we're thinking about. And also theme. Like, what theme do you go for? Software, you have Digital Construction Week. Do we need to go do we need to go more hard? Because we, like, it's not the same, but we've we've thrown we've thrown on a couple of events that are a couple of hundred people, and it's... it's
00:38:34
Speaker
it's It's pretty scary to do. And we did like panels and we've had some like like keynote speakers. As Aphex? Yeah. One of them we did jointly with Nodes and Links. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:48
Speaker
It's a lot of work. yes It's a lot of work and it's it's pretty fear-provoking. So would you go bigger or would you? Well, there's a problem at the moment with civil and civil engineering that everyone's going north. all depends on energy is north of Birmingham and mostly Scotland. So yeah, back to location problems. We try to do socials now in London. There's no one left. Yeah, we go probably more frequently and smaller than rather than bigger because it's a lot of work and you kind of only touch the people that are in, say, central London or something or if we do one in Australia or wherever. And like five handpicked decent, how do you people is better than like 20 that you don't really talk to. But what is it all about? Is about relationships, I guess, and building, right?
00:39:31
Speaker
For us, yeah. yeah So the like the like underlying math is. He switched back on us again. Yeah, I know. He's not good at it. That's psychology. I think like our whole business is built on ah genuine help and trying to solve problems for for projects. And so part of that is like the product and everything that we we do there. But part of it is just like building giving teams a space where they can interact and talk to other teams that might be having similar problems and kind of build this like, let's say facilitator of community rather than the owner of the community. so um Because people get stuck on projects for many years, they never stick their head up, they never talk to anyone else on an adjacent project. So like the thing that we try to do is within the network of people that are like our customers or whatever, you try to find ways for them to talk to each other.
00:40:21
Speaker
And if we help facilitate, that's great. It's some, let's say, brand aura thing, but it's it's mostly about trust building. Similar thing like Suffolk does, really, with Suffolk, with Boost Program.
00:40:36
Speaker
But also we went to, after that, we went this last month, I think, we went to... Agenta. Yeah, Agenta. Agentathon, they call it. DataGrid in New York.
00:40:50
Speaker
And i think it was a brilliant cap periodian concept because they was really good they got in contractors, companies that they work with or they work for, and they showed them, helped them understand how they can build agents.
00:41:05
Speaker
yeah within and within a day, yeah within their businesses. So it's a great workshop. So I found that- Genius from a product marketing perspective. People were using the product, feeling like they've achieved something. So then when they say to them, would you buy a subscription? They're like, hell yeah, I'm going to buy a subscription because like I've done it. It's easy.
00:41:22
Speaker
like It's a little bit- For us, it's completely different, I think. Yeah. Before I circle back to that, like it almost relates to you interviewed Dev from Nplan a while ago and he talked about that concept of add the egg. Exactly that. Totally, yeah. So it's like, yeah, get people to build something and then they own it and it's theirs. and Yeah, because if you give people out the box, there's no ownership there, right? But if you there if you say to them, just add the egg, like do a little bit, which makes it then feel like it's your baby, the whole dynamic changes. There must be some real psychology behind that. I don't know exactly why, but it does have a big impact.
00:41:53
Speaker
So back to you, Martin. You're not going to judo this back to me. Yeah. What is, what is, what is the, what is community? host community work for, bri how do you think about community for for Bricks and Bytes? And then circle says i know you think about it so then circle around to announcing this event.
00:42:09
Speaker
That's Owen's job, is that the answer? That's Owen's job. We can embargo the episode until you announce it, if you like. Nah, like there's nothing to announce right now. We have been thinking heavily about it, but we just haven't nailed the concept yet. There's a few things. It to happen next year. Yeah, I think it has to happen.
00:42:24
Speaker
It's just a matter of what, really, and can something together. Look, we did the ones with nodes and links because it just, you not only spread your, it's not about spreading risk, but it's like, it's, it yeah, it takes a lot of effort to get the first thing going. So. to Two cohorts of strong relationships. two three cohorts, yeah. Maybe we do. We'd be happy to. yeah Yeah, yeah, maybe this is the announcement.
00:42:45
Speaker
but I think also there's like the whole piece of like of events not cheap to put on right totally like the whole infrastructure around it it's not just what you see on the day but it's the organization and just the capacity and energy to want to f throw it and the stresses that come with that so a lot to think about yeah i needs i mean there needs to be a valid risen reason like what people will get out of this yeah and it needs to be very genuine and very value providing yeah and I think there's a trap ah if not then it will be the last one If if you're doing it from a perspective of like a neutral, like just an event organizer, there is the trap that you then run into like heavily heavily monetizing whilst forgetting about that the experience and quality of the event. Ticket sales then. Ticket sales, and and like are you just whos who can pay the biggest money for the biggest booth, and like you just go there and you're like walking through the event and then someone's shouting at you, like
00:43:35
Speaker
oh hey mate how's it going you're like no don't want to speak to right now and like you know it's all just software there that's like that's the thing with the event yeah go go finally that's the thing like the largest events in construction that's what they are about there's big tickets price and there's lots of people people still come and everyone has the same feedback oh it was like yeah they still go they still go it's the same people every year yeah and they just say that's exactly what maybe there's the business case They all say you pay whatever it is to go to this event. You see the same people. It's the panels are just different people. And it's just the same recycled content every year. So I don't want to. What can you 30 grand LinkedIn? Probably a lot more. 30 grand on LinkedIn? Yeah. The equivalent spend on LinkedIn, you're going reach far more people than the five actually important people at Digital Construction Week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rest the students and then everyone else that turns up. Yeah, I don't know. There's that saying that they would, when they talk about social media, where they would say the, that the user of social media is not the customer, it's like the product.
00:44:40
Speaker
um And I think that the same thing happens with big construction events where the customer is not the person attending the event, the customer is the the software company that's got a booth there and and the people attending the event are the product that they're selling to the software company. And i think it changes the whole dynamic of what people are building the events for. And that's why I like, you know, if you can if you can avoid the temptation when you're a software company or or you have no ulterior motive like you guys might, if you can avoid the temptation as us to hold an event and like try to sell your product, if you can avoid that temptation and just facilitate the conversation, it's all about the people attending the thing. not You're not trying to just like feed those people to the the hungry software vendor ecosystem who are the ones actually paying for the event. Mm-hmm.
00:45:29
Speaker
Do you know what's also funny when you speak, like you say the customer is the people with the booths, right? That's what you said. Yeah. The software vendors. If you speak to certain software vendors, they moan and groan about these events, but they still go to them all the time. Totally. You have no better idea. Two. That's where the customers are. Well, arguably not. Two, the people that really have got experience and thought about this and I've had similar conversations is no, we don't go to those events because they're not where our customer are. They know it's just going to be people that go to an event because they go to an event or because their boss said, oh, you should attend that event, not because they go in there. But that's very aware company that would say that. It's not the masses. It's not the model. It's not the business model. Yeah, I agree. Because cynically, we don't go to almost any events because that same person that's going to go to event is probably listening to your podcast or is on LinkedIn. That's the person we've probably saturated with the same message 600 times. And I don't need another channel to reach the head of innovation from some company or whatever. It's like I need to reach project manager X. So you are really after very selective type of personnel that you're looking for. Not everyone. Yeah. We think, well, for us, you don't a good job 10 years.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, for us, it's all about the people actually running the construction projects. It's not the fact that we're very selective on certain people that care about buying it, but just if you look at the pool of people at the event, there's only a few people that run projects or even deliver projects. yeah So that's again, this the selectiveness and fragmentation is relevant to spin the event in a way so that these people don't feel like they are sold to.
00:47:11
Speaker
But yeah there is a value creation around that. yeah And that's that's probably what we should do. Yeah, that's definitely the way to think about it. How you do that. we get commission I think just with an event, obviously the stakes are a lot higher, right? Because you've got to like... I think less people and more... If you're driving a free beer, you're fine. i just Espresso martinis. Everyone's going to be there.
00:47:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's TBC. Yeah. space Well, I think, and um you know, we kind of touched on a little bit before, um but I think, yeah, you guys have done ah ah a really tremendous job. I think it takes a certain person to want to build something from from scratch. And yeah, I think the the idea of having this independent, not brand affiliated or captured media,
00:47:58
Speaker
um company is is really valuable so yeah keep on keep keep chucking at it yeah it wouldn't be interesting i think when you buy us too much towards something yeah i think we did like a lot of work even like okay now i'm in this full time but before then there was a lot of hard work behind the scenes to get to this point so it was not just showing up on a book like literally so the podcast class is like five percent of the work yeah like the hour that you're recording is a small part I've said to our team internally, I said, like, you guys should listen to this episode. These guys do you guys do a lot of work behind the scenes. You're organizing you know interviews with a bunch of, like, you yeah you're accessing the right people to talk to
00:48:39
Speaker
And there's, like, an evolution in the in the way that you interview and and everything. But it's it's clear that you do a lot of work behind the scenes. What should we work on? Makeup next. I reckon do an in-person event. in first american I think video is also like something we're trying to put move into more, just especially with the advent of AI. and like Do you read stuff anymore?
00:49:03
Speaker
m I read stuff. yeah Sometimes. Sorry to the post-nism. Long form, rarely. Yeah, I just can't see. Like books or?
00:49:14
Speaker
I'm not a book reader. like long after I listen to a lot, but I don't. I mostly consume through listening to podcasts, like two hours a day, probably. Reading, it's very tricky because Yeah, I don't read actually articles much. written Yeah, I can't, I can't see, like even just blogs now, for example, like, it just, like nine, I say nine times out of 10, you're gonna stumble on one that's ever generated. And you can tell within the first, like, and my trust level is like very, very low here. So now my effort to want to go and actually read that is like,
00:49:48
Speaker
really, really, really. That's why the, that's why a media, that's why a media entity where you're getting the person like a Dustin or someone to say what they actually think. And, and and that's suddenly that is directly trustworthy yeah as opposed to some blog posts that just reconstituted rubbish that from some AI, like being able to have the person say what they think and have a perspective is i think a unique thing. So that's right. Five ways to market your business this year. Yeah, I know we're short on time and we didn't get to a bunch of other things. Anything else to that add? Anything you guys, any questions you didn't get to in here, Martin? This is your moment.
00:50:24
Speaker
What's your predictions for the future? What's 2026 predictions in construction tech? Who wants to go first? mine Oh, I'm probably asking them. You can answer one question in this goddamn interview. Predictions for 2026. Okay.
00:50:40
Speaker
okay I think that we would have we will have a bunch of AI solutions, m which will become obvious that are that are not providing much value, or they are very easily replaceable.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah? But on the other hand, there will be solutions which will become super valuable, providing instant instant value for the customer and become great businesses. So I don't know i don't know if I'm... That's like, yeah, yeah that prediction is like the, what's the saying? Where it's like, ah ah you know as a company, you know 50% of your marketing is wasted money and 50% is good. You just don't know which is which. Yeah, yeah, yeah. $1,000. That's a great saying.
00:51:20
Speaker
Sorry, I didn't break in and it's any news here. That's what I thought. What about you, Arn? I think so on trend at the moment is robotics. and like And I think it was interesting, I'd heard about it before, but what really made me think this is this is where it's going is when we were at Boost a few weeks ago, they they do the they send out it's an accelerator for the built world and they get however many applications per year. Like I think this year they got over 200. And they said they don't, they don't there's no thematic behind, they don't say to people this year we're gonna focus on A, B, C, whatever.
00:51:55
Speaker
They just throw out to the market and people send out applications and they said it was like the first year they'd really seen a strong, strong uptick of robotics companies applying to be in the accelerator after AI.
00:52:07
Speaker
After AI boom, that's that's what happened. More and more robotics. More and more robotics companies, yeah. So, um wait, what were you trying to say? no which means Which means that, i don know which I don't know which point are you're making, but I've got a point on that, but sorry, go on.
00:52:24
Speaker
He's just throwing a card for us. Mine was a prediction redo. finished that one so Yeah, he was a redo. He is, yeah. And I think, like obviously, with the cost of making these is becoming a lot cheaper. there's like initiative There's major macroeconomic issues of labor shortages, which are putting pressure on robotics to come into the industry. I think it's going to be a very interesting year to see how it develops. However, I still think that construction site is like the least optimal place for any kind of robot to operate. So I'm really, really curious to see how it pans out realistically. Like it's exciting, there's lot of innovation, but is it all just with you without the site conditions? Is it all just like running before we walk kind of situation? I think i heard someone recently say that like ah until until recently all AI software companies and AI adjacent or, you know, like verticalized AI tools, they're all priced as though they're all going to win.
00:53:24
Speaker
And in reality, whether one of them wins or or maybe none of them win because it takes too long to get to the technology. So think that there's a, there's ah ah to your prediction to your somewhat prediction, yeah, yeah. I think there's ah there's ah there's ah there's definitely a like a ah reckoning or a repricing that happens. i think what mine's saying is like obviously you have the big the big five or whatever is like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic.
00:53:48
Speaker
and few others. um And they can flick a switch anytime and like suddenly so many solutions, AI solutions become redundant. I love this. Where value goes down. so If I can say. There was like when Gemini released the they the the free mode not model number three, whatever, maybe a week or two ago, there was a bunch of people saying, oh, but it cannot do correctly, blah, blah, blah. yeah It doesn't do it well, blah, blah, blah. I think I know the post you're talking about. They just released it like two days ago and you're saying that it doesn't do 100% your job. Man, it three months it will or six months it will for sure. yeah So...
00:54:30
Speaker
Carlos, prediction? From a tech point of view, there's very few tools that are actually mandated by schemes and client side. And I think we're going to see more of that being contractual requirements rather than contractors all picking their own stack and doing what they want. doing So you're talking more about constantly? Contract administrator and P6 are the only two real.
00:54:53
Speaker
So you've seen they're actually like putting conditions on contractors to use a certain software solution. yeah Who are we putting the conditions on? The clients, employees of client side of the project. o There's very stipulated products. Is that what you're working on right now? Specify us and get a free donut. Yeah, yeah. Free donut. Free donut, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. yeah Yeah. So I think we're going to see more of it because I think it's very chaotic. If you go through the the approval process, when you throw in AI, the complexity that sits with it, they don't want to be improving 20 different AI tools and ah on a high-speed two.
00:55:26
Speaker
They want to back one and and make sure everyone's at the same level. So everyone should start selling to the owners. That's a different board game, but yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting point, yeah.
00:55:37
Speaker
Me, I think um it's ah I'll do my best Dustin impersonation then to say something somewhat out there. I think there's a good chance that there's a wobble in the AI infrastructure spend next year and the fallout of that would be easy yet us an interest and pretty catastrophic. that So I think there's a lot of things stacked on top of that spend.
00:56:01
Speaker
mate There's a lot of people raising money on top of selling to that spend, I think. um Also, there's like arguments that that that has propped up the entire US construction industry over the last year or two. And so if if suddenly they realize that they don't need all these data at centers because the narrative hype is much more than the actual use value hype. then Also the energy side. I don't know how it's not more.
00:56:23
Speaker
I don't know how to qua qual quantify that. That's the thing. I so i have no clue on that. I wanted to ask you, as you guys run startup, what's your thoughts on the recent Acom purchase of... it took It took him three days to convince me that the number was right. I didn't believe the number was right. because i he kept sending me links He kept sending me links with different sources. yeah and i was like nah So the is right.
00:56:51
Speaker
is that Oh! Is it not? It's a big number for small revenue. Like, public revenue figures like two million, yeah? For the company. Is there any shift happening? That's nearly 200x multiple. Do you think they'll license it out?
00:57:05
Speaker
Or is it internal use? Because if if you' if they don't license it as internal, all of their top players will leave. Because why would you stay for options and shares in the future if you you're now an internal tool that they're not selling?
00:57:17
Speaker
You're removing the entire upside. No, no, that's going be internal, right? Does it? Within AECOM, you're saying, if you pay that much. How much was it? you You can cut this. I don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I just over i don't believe it. But if I'm wrong, i look, you know what you should do? You should do me a favor. In your next episode, ask Dustin and Patrick because I'd like to know their thoughts. Yeah, it's on the agenda. I i don't understand the logic of it ah at all. And there's i my suspicion is that there's something else.
00:57:46
Speaker
There's some other piece of information that yeah that we don't know. Just one zero too much. That or there's some other reason or initiative or something that makes sense.
00:57:57
Speaker
All right. Predictions. Done. Thank you very much. car to want Guys, thank you very much for taking time. Thanks for taking the effort to build to build this to build this thing and and definitely definitely keep keep going because I think it's's it's a much needed thing.
00:58:11
Speaker
Carl, want to read us out? Yeah, it feels very weird doing this in person. No, thank you very much, everyone, for tuning into today's show. If you did enjoy the episode, please think about liking the video or following us on your chosen podcast platform.
00:58:22
Speaker
We appreciate your support. We'll catch you next week. Bye-bye. Thanks, guys.