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Construction in 2024: The Highs, Lows, and Lessons Learned
110 Plays2 months ago
As this week's episode is the final one of the year, Jason, Carlos and Sam take a look back at 2024 and have a conversation about:
1. The most impactful construction and contech stories of the year.
2. Their predictions for what will happen in 2025.
Finally, the trio take part in a traditional quiz to end the year off!
Follow Carlos on Linkedin | Follow Jason on Linkedin | Check out Aphex
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:10
Speaker
ah Going into 2024, what was the global construction market valued at? Was it A, $4.3 trillion, B, $15.4 trillion, C, $10.8 trillion, or D, $7.2 trillion? I'm going to go D.
00:00:28
Speaker
B for me. ah The only way I could win now is to be right when you're wrong, so I go C. The answer was B, 15.4. ah ah Yes. China, I think we discussed this on the episode. China makes money. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we've given this stat before, actually. Yeah, and I was i was seeing if you'd remembered. ah China's industry accounts to $4.8 trillion dollars of that 15.4, which is making up almost a third by itself, which is mind boggling.
Yearly Recap and 2025 Predictions
00:01:07
Speaker
Welcome back to the offsite podcast, everybody. Final episode of 2024. Thank fuck. Did we all say no, it's been a good year. Again, I'm Jason Lancy, joined with Carlos Cavallo and guest host with the most, Sam Hanish. Welcome back. Thank you. Thanks for having me back. Right. Oh, so we've got something different we're going to do. We're going to start to look back at the year and we are going to make some predictions. And then apparently there's some form of quiz at the end just for some ah lighthearted entertainment. But yeah, we're going to look back at some of the biggest things that happened in the year.
00:01:48
Speaker
And then we are going to make some ah wild but educated predictions for 2025 so we can then look back in at how right or wrong we were. ah How's everyone's week been? Carlos, you're in you're in London. Sam, you're in you're in Brisbane. It's been a good week. I was going to ask you how you're ice skating um when there was an incident, wasn't there?
00:02:11
Speaker
There was an incident, but there was someone that I won't describe in the same way I did to you earlier. Purposely skating in front of people, doing a little skid and skating away. I think I tried to kick him at one point. I so ah yeah yeah i won't repeat any of the language I use when I normally describe that story, but no. It was good fun though. Somerset House, Ice Rink, Dishoom Curry, nice classic. So romantic. So romantic. Yeah.
00:02:40
Speaker
That's good. And yours is tomorrow, right? Yeah. Company, company Christmas event. Uh, we didn't go with a romantic ice skating and dinner combo. Um, over at Oz, we're going, we're going boat trip and barbecue. I heard the yeah UK team got new black hoodies. So I wonder what we're getting tomorrow. It's probably going to be yeah it's pretty good. Ken togs, some black togs. Yeah. Apex togs.
00:03:07
Speaker
That's not bad. ah have your guy You'll get a free subscription to Aphex for the next year. Yeah. The price is going up. So that's worth a bit more. and yeah yeah That's it.
00:03:22
Speaker
ah let's ah Let's dive straight into it. so i guess Looking back at the year, there's definitely a lot that has happened in construction, contact around the world. We've talked in weeks ah throughout the year about some like big changes, mergers, acquisitions, some things ah going bankrupt, some things starting up, a lot of funding in the technology space. so ah So yeah, I guess let's start off the bat.
Industry Challenges and Controversies
00:03:54
Speaker
We're going to go round the horn with the first topic on the list is the most impactful construction news of the year. So a super broad topic could relate from anything from a project news ah to maybe something software related or technology related. What's the biggest thing that shaped construction yeah in your mind in the last year? Who wants to go first? I'm going to just call out Carlos first, I think. eyes ab Yeah, there was a couple. The bad thing about this section is everything that I could think of was quite negative. So it's not exactly a Christmassy because there was obviously the ISG, huge story here. It's been a positive spin on that. I was actually with ah an ops director for Mace last night and
00:04:42
Speaker
They've got, we've just picked up a shitload of work. Is that what the, that's the positive. no but they've They've not, they've not just picked up the work, but they're retaining the stuff as well. So it's a nice win-win because there's people that really need jobs, securing full-time employment and obviously may get the retention of like information and experience on those projects for continuity. So yeah, that's really nice. I think that's bad news for the shareholders of ISG, but everyone else is winning, which is good.
00:05:09
Speaker
yeah Yeah, um I think he said something like within the first month, they hired 100 full time employees from. yeah ah Quite a decent effort. um yeah But the biggest, I'd still say and I think it's just because it grinds my gears a bit, which is the HS2 finishing at Birmingham.
00:05:28
Speaker
So for context ahead, he what who hasn't been reading the news for the last year, HS2 was about connecting the sort of main cities or hubs within the UK. ah The main ones being London, Birmingham, Manchester. The cost spiralled into like, I think it was nearing 150 billion as the estimate to complete. And they ultimately cancelled everything north of Birmingham So all it is now is it's 15 minutes faster to go from London to Birmingham for what is still 60 billion pounds or something like that. A very frustrating bit of news, especially as they had started enabling works north of Birmingham. An odd decision because
00:06:11
Speaker
You're going to have to do it at some point and it's not going to be cheaper later. And the whole idea that we're connecting the North and the South is completely destroyed. So I think they can just kick in the can down the road. Obviously huge impact to industry because it would have employed a hell of a lot of people. But in the last but month or two, we've seen some news stories around consortiums of contractors.
00:06:32
Speaker
And I think the mayor of Manchester getting together and trying to come up with a cost-efficient way to re-kickstart some sort of connection between Birmingham and Manchester. So hopefully there's a light in the end of the tunnel not to put a pan in there.
00:06:48
Speaker
Is it one of those things, though, that it's it'll happen? It's just the it's a matter of when and the funding will come. They're just going to finish it short. I think it has to at some
Global Construction Developments
00:06:57
Speaker
point. And Manchester seems to be growing pretty quickly. There are major schemes going on there now. So at some point, they've got to have a decent connection between the two. I think it's just purely a budgetary thing from government um rather than ah we don't need this.
00:07:11
Speaker
connecting HS2, connecting London and somewhere slightly further north, as opposed to the north. Sam, what what was on what was on your radar? For me, when it was like most impactful, I'm always thinking about big projects and just, I think the NEON project and how ah it's been on the cards for a while and under development, but I think there's always these grand schemes, but it seemed to be entering more into some level of reality. And just, I guess there was a lot of news that came out about it. I think it's great. Like we're at this point now where these projects can exist and there's interested parties. I think we're sort of stretching now. It's like a level of investment. There's the technical ability to build these things, but now it's just a matter of
00:07:59
Speaker
time, money investment. So I think it's pretty incredible when you see these projects that are happening in, you know, a part of the world that neither of us are from. um But it's it's happening to what degree, you know, it's been culled down a lot. But Well, a few a few hours before we recorded this on, we're recording this Thursday 12th of December, ah the Kingdom just announced after opening the Riyadh Metro last week, I think it was last week, they just an announced and another 20 billion euro extension ah to the Riyadh Metro, including a seventh line. um So the the ambition ah kind of,
00:08:40
Speaker
or at least the stated ambition knows no bound at yeah at the moment. And did they just win the 20, they picked up the World Cup, didn't they? 2034 World Cup has just been formally announced, which includes that the stadium that's suspended at the top of the line, which we've been discussing a few months back. Yeah, they've got 10 years to build the line to include the stadium.
00:09:08
Speaker
I think, well, we'll get to, we're going to do predictions in a sec, but I'm interested to see what people's predictions are after that go forward.
AI and Future Technological Impacts
00:09:14
Speaker
Do you not think there's something great about like having these sorts of projects out there where you can sort of push the technical capability of what you can do in engineering? There's really, there's a limit to what we can do in places where you've got the red term like you do in the halls in the UK. So when you look at it, it looks like straight out of a sci-fi. So for me, I don't know, it's pretty impressive.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, you got to take head off to people that have the the ambition and drive to do something unique and different, 100%. Yeah, awesome. To circle to myself, i had well I had one, but then I thought it was like kind of obvious, but but maybe not obvious. But I think the most impactful news for me was the and ah spate of announcements from the hyperscalers, AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud of investments ah in power generation related to data centers.
00:10:07
Speaker
um This kind of links a little bit to predictions, but I think that is going to unlock a wave of nuclear project investment um going forward. I think it's going to be a, the the AI thing is going to drive a whole energy thing that is going to be a dominant theme for the construction industry over the the coming years. You just killed my prediction section.
00:10:34
Speaker
That's it. Gotta get in early. I didn't want to wait till then. I've got an underrated, I've got an underrated bit of news just cause I thought that one might be taken from someone, but I don't know if anyone- You're gonna take someone else's. Yeah, I'll do all the good ones.
00:10:49
Speaker
but i don't I don't know if anyone's been following the like story and the conversation about Javier Millay and what ah has happened in Argentina ah where they effectively attempted to and appear successfully crushed like hyperinflation in in the country. And as part of that, where ah when taking power, they slashed the public's work budget by 93%. The National Highways Directorate, as in like the government highways department that is in charge of building ah infrastructure, the budget was reduced by 75%. And overall infrastructure spending in the country decreased by 74%.
00:11:27
Speaker
And there's a lot of conversations happening around the world about how that's a model for for the future for a lot of countries. And holding up what's happened there is like this amazing gold standard. And I wonder whether that starts to normalize what is some pretty drastic difference of approach in terms of investing in all government budgets, but but including infrastructure. Are they hoping it goes private? Or they just like, ah, we don't need clothes.
00:11:55
Speaker
I think the first we were like, we don't have the money. And then after they got past that, we don't have the money bit. Then it's like, well, yeah, maybe there's someone who will build the road. Yeah. You'll just be toll roading. You'll be driving around. You'll be driving around. China walks in. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. We're like every road's a toll road.
00:12:14
Speaker
it's um It's a bit early, isn't it, to make a call whether it's success because, yeah, it's dr like drop the inflation down. But like, what's the knock on effective stopping investment in these things? ah Yeah, it's it's like if you own a house, you think if you if you for a year ago, I'm not going to invest in magic at all. You're like, this is great. This is fucking awesome. owe So much money to that for four years in a row. It's like I don't have a house anymore. But ah yeah, so I think you does I know. Did you see when he he got a little miniature statue of himself with a chainsaw and he gave it to the yeah Italian prime minister? No, I didn't. Have you seen this photo of him and he's got a chainsaw? This guy's like South American Trump. He's like, it's nuts. It's so funny.
00:13:00
Speaker
But i yeah, I just, I wonder whether I don't, I don't think anyone's going to do to that amount, but I wonder whether that normalizes the behavior or conversation in countries. The result of that cutting and pausing meant a total shit show in terms of arguments with contractors. They owe contractors in the country $400 million dollars currently because of projects that they just straight up stopped and didn't pay them for. That sounds like one, one project we'd fuck up here in Australia. thought two This is the guy that um he seeks counsel from his dogs that he cloned, right? Okay, let's just slide a quick Allegedly in for that. No, no, no, it's like it's really well documented that he he actually thinks he can talk to his two Mastiff dogs. but I just want anyone listening when it comes to litigation that I said Allegedly and Carlos is the one that is. I'm gonna back that statement all day long.
00:13:56
Speaker
um but Well, we're coming back to you, Carlos. So the next question or the next prediction, no, next question or in the year. So let's ah let's reflect on the most impactful ah construction technology news ah in the year from your perspective.
00:14:17
Speaker
I was going to talk about Document Crunch where I realized I'll come across like a huge fanboy. um I think the conversation we had around the market that or the category that we're in is quite significant. Obviously, say it's the category that we we know extremely well being in it. but There's been a lot of investment in products in a similar space. There's been a lot of investment from the big software houses like Autodesk and Procore within that sort of delivery team, construction team planning space and field applications. So it's exciting time in terms of its validation for a category and its validation that there's legs in terms of the whole sort of concept behind delivery team led ownership of a plan.
00:15:02
Speaker
and coordinating activities
Annual Quiz and Industry Insights
00:15:04
Speaker
on a daily basis. So yeah, I thought that was the most exciting news, not just because we're we're sort of in it, but it is a shift in traditional construction jobs and how they used to operate where the planner owned the plan. And and that's how it worked. And everyone was governed by that plan. i'm I'm interested that you started by saying I'm not going to talk about document college, but like you obviously wanted to talk about it. hey Yeah.
00:15:29
Speaker
by saying. there's There's literally no decent tools for QISes. I'm not gonna say how awesome I am so I'll just talk about how good the second thing ah was on the list. So yeah, document crunch at our own category. Okay, cool.
00:15:42
Speaker
ah toothing card is chris sam it has to be the milestone feature up update we dropped in no it was i would say I think what' I was sort of trying to round it down into one thing and I didn't want to chew into what I like future predictions. so I think what i'm saying I've been saying is that external to construction, if it was for a few years now, there's been huge advancements in things like like drone technology for one instance and um AI for another, but not specifically to those, but just other facets that weren't specifically tailored for construction, like construction wasn't what they were.
00:16:24
Speaker
develop for So for instance, the capacity now for 3D modeling and from like doing drone scans and then taking that data to create digital twins is um that technology was advanced for other reasons, but all these things are now sort of drifting towards construction. So I think what's been really interesting to see is there's so many more players that are bringing this sort of established tech and tweaking it more specifically for construction niche and needs.
00:16:51
Speaker
which is Which is awesome. Like really people are seeing what was been in that McKinsey report for years about how far behind the innovation is construction and all these other industries. And there's so much of this tech sitting out there is just taking the people to sort of you bring it across and tailor it. Um, like there was something I was trying to find it before this, but, um, I don't know if it's like a 40.
00:17:13
Speaker
product or it's like a camera you walk around site and it's creating this like point cloud imagery of what you're seeing. And I know there's ones where people take around buildings, but the level of detail in like two years, how that's increased is incredible.
00:17:29
Speaker
I remember looking at that, getting it done on our sites. And you know, it's quite a fame. Now, you know, this thing's like clear, you can read writing and just that, which has come across from other industry um and now is providing results in construction is incredible to see.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah, the the we went really deep on the like ah the advancements in the Gaussian splatting ah stuff with the ability to like take like this video and just get this like fully immersive ah environment is pretty impressive. It's also like super performant ah in terms of um like being able to use it and see the the output on a device.
00:18:11
Speaker
So I think I'm probably just going to riff off the back of what both of you have said. I think it is ah definitely clear that after a number of years of maybe two years of ah somewhat of like a technology, not recession, but fairly quiet in the world of investment in software companies, that that's like ripping back in a big way. um And the volume just keeps getting, appearances just keep getting turned up.
00:18:37
Speaker
around the world. And this year, there's been a ton in construction technology. ah We've talked about them on the the podcast, Carlos' favorite, ah Document Encouraged Planarra recently, Visibuild from Australia raised last week, another, I think, 6 million Aussie. And so I think that that's going to mean that next year, ah it's going to be it's going to get like kind of noisy again. I think there'll be a lot of like overlapping pitches and the space gets kind of like messy. But a lot of those companies are going to spend a lot of that money and deploy a lot of that money over the coming year. And I think once you you know you get through that, it starts to look like some of the the winners will really ah emerge and some of the others might, I don't know, fall away or or need to regroup or whatever. But I think, yeah, we're probably in for kind of like a a messiest year and in terms of like positioning competition. It'll be quite like hot. And then and then we'll see what happens after that.
00:19:36
Speaker
Verizon has just made two predictions. So let's go to predictions. So 2025, Carlos, what's what's your big prediction? What's the thing that you want to be measured against um come the end of next year? Well, I did have a few notes around this data center boom and the that the s this the the small nuclear reactors that they're planning to build. There's a big gap in between this massive Verizon data centers, but they're not going to be ready for but a bunch of years. so Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they deal with that energy demand. Yeah, just due to the the volume that they're required to keep going. 2025, it'll be interesting to see what happens in the US. So they're talking a lot about sort of inward investment spending within the US. So you would expect to see a bunch of major infrastructure schemes coming out of that because it's a good way to pump up the economy and yeah promote American jobs and everything that comes with it. And it'll also be interesting
00:20:35
Speaker
what is the actual prediction i feel yeah i know What is the actual prediction? I feel like just saying what would be interesting. You've got to make you gonna put a prediction on the line that's like, this is this is something ah contrarian, something ah bold, and that can you can be measured against.
00:20:52
Speaker
And then, um and ridiculed for. I haven't really quantified anything back to a number, but I think i think the energy consumption, there the spend related to producing energy for data centers will outgrow the actual spend on data centers. Ooh, okay. There we go. Yeah, for sure. right but I think that's, surely that's true. i said Nice one, mate. Thanks. Um, no, no, I wasn't big. That sounded like I was being like, that was the best star casting that was good i no that was a that was actually good. you You, that was a, yeah. No, that was good. That's either like, I just, I guess I categorize it in the, in the space of like, yeah, of court like that's either definitely going to happen and, uh, or it's like totally out there and it's never happening. But yeah, I don't know. Sam prediction might hit us.
00:21:46
Speaker
Uh, I think 2025 will be the year that we like and scale a large number of jobs will get replaced by AI functions and it'll be heavy in the news. So it won't be at the moment. I think it's like they're talking about it. And I think next year it's going to happen. It's going to happen quick. And they'll start this whole conversation around the ethics around it. I'm not putting any numbers around it. That's the prediction.
00:22:14
Speaker
yeah customer support. That's the, that's the, that's the hot tip. No. Yeah. I think, uh, well, I had a prediction that was around the power generation nuclear thing, but Sam's kind of put a ah decent one out there. So I'm going to ah flip mine on the fly and I'll almost go, uh, counter Sam.
00:22:32
Speaker
I reckon 2025 is going, there's a good chance that it's going to be the year that the development in AI models underwhelms predictions. So I think well i think it will, the the velocity will slow and I'll kind of hit this alleged wall that they that everyone's talking about in model advancement. But I think it will be a year of still working through the current functionality that could make a huge impact if we integrate it into applications. I think even if you stopped advancement today, there's a heap of stuff that could could totally change what people do on a day-to-day basis, but I think it's the year that like model advancement slows. A zag. A little zag there.
00:23:15
Speaker
my yeah Ah, we'll see. That'll probably age like a fucking banana, that will. You gotta put some numbers on it, mate. It'll be the year that we're talking about. We hit this wall. The wall's coming. We hit the wall in terms of in terms of underlying model advancement.
00:23:35
Speaker
I know. So behind the scenes in every one of these episodes over the last two years, there's been someone toiling away in the in the bowels like shoveling coal into the the machine ah with us with the steam whistle. And that's producer Olu.
00:23:54
Speaker
And producer Olu comes out of the bowels of the machine once a year to run the Christmas quiz. So welcome our first of all, congratulations and thank you to producer Olu. And welcome mate. And please take us away in the Christmas. right No problem. I'm actually quite interested by what you said about the ah reduction in AI potential AI modeling.
00:24:22
Speaker
because Google just announced that they've just released their own quantum chip. And I'm wondering if that in itself will be a catalyst for better AI models going forward. he tell my predict He told me my prediction sucks a lot immediately. during i doing It didn't even last the fucking episode. It was like, what was it, 15 decillion times quicker than the lot the next quickest? does Yeah, it'll do in, I think, a couple of minutes what the world's number one supercomputer will take like a million, like, yeah.
00:24:55
Speaker
It was like 17 septillion, 17 septillion years or something, I think it was. Yes, exactly. This is like 25 zeros. I think it's like 17 with 25 zeros or something. Awesome. So yeah, this is a little quiz ah that I put together. Last year we did something very similar, but we focused on the podcast episodes themselves. This time, instead of looking inwards, we're looking outwards.
00:25:20
Speaker
within the context of the podcast to the construction industry, as well as construction tech as well. So you've got 13 questions. ah They're all multiple choice. You each get a point for every correct answer. And yeah, we'll tally up and see who gets bragging rights for this year. How do we answer the same question because it's coming out on Friday the 13th? Yes. OK, you were, but we'll go with that. Go with it. Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
i'm just going to cut that section out so no oh
00:25:55
Speaker
so How do we answer that? I'll give you a little bit of time to deliberate and then you can tell me your answers. I'll make a note of them. After every question, I will list what the correct answer was. Try to give a little bit of trivia if I have some about yeah that question. Steven Ferrari, lovely. Cool. if yeah If we're already let's ah let's get going. ah So yeah, the first question is on a somber note, we've obviously talked a lot about ISG and the insolvency that happened in the UK.
00:26:24
Speaker
ah but on a wider scale, over the course of the year, how many insolvencies have been declared ah in the UK? Is it A, 5,891, B, 973, C, 2,645, or D, 4,690? The answer to the first question is never A or D, and B seems... It's always safe, I guess. Too low, so it's gonna be C, yeah. Safe.
00:26:53
Speaker
And what do you believe, Sam? D. That's a big one. Sam is the only one to get that question correct. It is in fact D, 4,690. So you didn't prep the first section, but you did your research, Sam, did you? That's it. is just Sam loves a quiz. that was That was the message I got back when I asked if he wanted to do this. so How do you, where did you get this? It's never A or D on the first question. Where does that come from? It's not, it's the psychology of, uh, it's never the biggest number. It's none of the smallest. Do you know? That's ridiculous. So 4,690.
00:27:32
Speaker
I'll give you, I'll give you the, I'll give you the trivia bit though. Um, so just on the Friday, the 13th thing, uh, 4,690 divided by 365. I mean, that's about 13 firms a day bankrupt in the UK. What's this, what's defined as a firm though? Is that like this like me, me as a contract, me as a contractor, like as you know, single person. That's that couldn't be true.
00:27:58
Speaker
That's ridiculous. Yeah, it is quite a lot. Apparently that's a 53 percent increase over the last five years. And it still seems like ah just a absolute boatload of of them. Right. Yeah. um And the construction industry is the worst hit for this type of thing, accounting for 17.4 percent of the UK's insolvencies. Carl, so I don't know how much of this is because of like the, you know, like when they brought in like IR35 and all like the individual contractors had to go back on the books or whatever, the amount of winding up of like individual one person companies. I reckon that's like a ah lot of this is just one person. Yeah, it's really difficult to be inside IR35. So yeah, you're probably right there where there's a load of people going full time and yeah, stacking up the company. Hopefully that is one of the reasons
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah, fingers crossed for that. ah Question two, ah we all love concrete on the podcast, ah as we've talked about it numerous times. ah But on average, over the course of the year, how much concrete is poured in the UK? Is it A, 800 million tonnes? B, 2 billion tonnes? C, 90 million tonnes? Or D, 38 million tonnes? What does it say?
00:29:17
Speaker
I mean it's A or C, but could be B. All right, we'll go A cause these are crazy over there. Okay. What do you reckon? Surely no one's going to go 2 billion. I'm going D. I reckon he's double. I reckon he's doubled down on the days to try and visualize it. How many times it's like a cubic meter of standard concrete. Hold on. Come on. You're a fucking quantity survey.
00:29:44
Speaker
i can't i'd rather know how many cu reasons how many two billion two billion timess is like That's a lot of concrete um i go know i assume give your that that They're all ah they're all a lot of concrete. Yes Like you're at 300 like 300 million cube of concrete I'm going to go C because it won't be D again. Carlos is indeed correct. ah It is C ninety on average 90 million tonnes gets poured in the UK every year.
00:30:17
Speaker
In terms of cubic liters, I was struggling to get you the actual unit measurement, but that was complicated cubic liters. Yeah, these meters. I cubic. Well, I did cubic liters because of the fact that I wanted to tell you well that is that is thirty seven point five million cubic liters. I can translate to fifteen thousand Olympic sized swimming pools. And how many teaspoons is that?
00:30:48
Speaker
can you do that by wagons nine divided by nine cu good sweet moving on all Number three, we've spoken to a number of ah people in ah the kind of construction industry, both in the yeah UK and in Australia. How many tier two contractors do you think there are in Australia? Sounds like a fluid list. Yeah, super fluid list. You can measure this list in liters. I cubic liters. I'm going to go 37 though. Are you going to go? Building and infrastructure. They all seem too low.
00:31:22
Speaker
No, I can I, I'm going to see, I'm going to see, I'm going to see again. This, this might not be factually correct. What does Ollie think the number is? Yeah. Ollie thinks it's 37. Yeah. You have to get inside my mind then. If you say D I'm calling bullshit and we move on. So what are people's guesses? I'm going, I'm going to see again. I've just guessed C every time. Cause you'll be right eventually.
00:31:48
Speaker
ah Sam was the correct. uh one in this case uh i did an extensive search round and i couldn't get a you've got the most extensive chat gbt search you could possibly do it was your favorite it was your favorite actually it was perplexity jason and And I got 25 as the number. and How do they categorize tier 2? Not tier 1 and more than tier 3. They categorize tier 2 as contractors that start to specialize in specific areas of construction. That's nice, isn't it? that yeah Some of the top tier 2 contractors being Seymour White, Georgie, Wattback, Winslow and Deckmill.
00:32:37
Speaker
ah those that checks it a one That checks out. How much of Australia's total GDP is construction contribute? B. That's a quick answer, B. Jason, what do you think? Well, should we read out the answers? A is 36%, B is 23%, C is 10%, and D is 6% in a classic descending order. I'm going go to go C. Yeah, C it is. If you go C eventually, it'll be right. It'll be 10%.
00:33:08
Speaker
ah That is correct. C is ah the right answer at 10%. Construction contributes a gross added value of 150 billion Australian dollars to the economy. and And it's estimated that every million dollars of construction activity actually results in an additional 3 million dollars of activity in other industries.
00:33:30
Speaker
Just to underpin how vital like Newton boats and isnt flat To green TVs. Yeah, I assume there would be higher just because there's not really like a finance industry which normally dominates Most major now mark we got mining Yeah. ah Conversely in the UK, how much does the of the GDP disconstruction contribute? Is it A, 90%, B, 7%, C, 4% or D, 13%? D, 13%. The answer is actually B. Wait, Sam, that's fine.
00:34:05
Speaker
Sam said A. I was going to go down and shoot video.
Global Market Value Revisited
00:34:09
Speaker
um no not ah ah it It is in fact B. Oh, what? Yeah. the This number, the six to seven percent ah has stayed the same since 2013 with a gross added value of around 108.7 billion pounds. Smaller than us. The number seems smaller, but if you do the conversion, then yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
Different currencies and such. ah Going into 2024, what was the global construction market valued at? Was it A, $4.3 trillion, B, $15.4 trillion, C, $10.8 trillion, or D, $7.2 trillion? I'm going to go D.
00:34:50
Speaker
B for me. ah The only way I could win now is to be right when you're wrong. So I go C. The answer was B, 15.4. ah ah Yes. China, I think we discussed this on the episode. China... Yeah, I'm pretty sure we were given this stat before actually. Yeah. And I was i was seeing if you'd remembered. ah China's industry accounts to $4.8 trillion. dollars of that 15.4, which is making up almost a third by itself, which is mind-boggling. Which multinational contractor has won the most work in 2024? A, the China State Construction Engineering Corp. Is it B, Hock Teeth? Is it C, Larson and Torbro? Or is it D, Vinci? I'll go A, China State. I'll go Vinci. I'll go Larson and Torbro.
00:35:44
Speaker
the answer is in fact A ah with ah the China state construction engineer. Big comeback on the way. Big comeback coming. a Big comeback. Kick you, good thing. Kick.
00:35:58
Speaker
What is currently the most expensive active construction project in the world outside of Niyon? Is it A, the Chuo Shinkansen, which is a high-speed rail project in Japan? Is it B, the Zhong An new area, ah which is an economic city project in China? Is it C, the California high-speed rail going on in America? Or is it D, the King Abdullah economic city ah in Saudi Arabia? I'm going to go with B,
00:36:26
Speaker
the Zhong'an new area. I make sense if China is spending the most.
Top Projects and Financial Investments
00:36:33
Speaker
I'm going to go dig just to keep it interesting.
00:36:37
Speaker
I'm going to go with B just based on Jason's previous two answers being right. Oh, he's hot. He's hot. though He's got a hot hand. He's got a hot hand. You are all incorrect. It is California. C. Yes. It's like 150 billion, I think. Yeah. ah Yeah. The latest estimates at around 128 to $133 billion. dollars that was my second that was my that was my backup option but i thought you put a stinky big china one that i never heard in there
00:37:08
Speaker
with projectors and you just made it up yeah ah But yeah, the original price tag for that project was $33 billion. dollars So that's ah not a small increase. Moving on to technology. ah In the first half of 2024, how much money do you think was invested into the context space? Was it A, $2.1 billion? dollars B, $1.8 billion? C, $1.2 billion? Or D, $3.4 billion? I'll go C, 1.2 billion. Yeah, C. I'm going to go with A. Sam and Jason are correct. 1.2 billion is... ah and Hard hand, hard hand. Good guesses, guys. Oops, when I read that, about 20 minutes ago. One of the largest one one of the largest of ah rounds of funding was made by Hammertech, where they managed to raise $70 million dollars ah in Series B funding. which is ausie So we've spoken a lot about Procore, especially with Groundbreak happening a couple of weeks ago. How much do you think the kind of the companies currently value that?
00:38:17
Speaker
Is it A, $11.9 billion, dollars B, 15.3, C, 9.4, or D, 22.1? 22. I reckon 11.9. Okay, B. Jason is correct. It is 11.9. It helps when you looked that up two weeks ago. They experienced a 24% revenue increase as of Q3 this year, so they are not doing badly.
00:38:46
Speaker
We've spoken a lot about companies. That is definitely one of those companies. But how many products do you think they actually offer? Is it A, 93, B, 55, C, 77 or D, 84? Based on their website, say more than all of those.
00:39:08
Speaker
This is based off their website. I'm going to go A. I'll go D84 because I think it's a round number. You're all in fact incorrect. 77. It's 77. Can you guess the software by their tagline? Empower your team to map, measure, and manage their reality with survey grade accuracy. Is this A, Holo Builder, B, Trimble Site Vision, C, Propeller Aero, or D, Drone Deploy? Drone Deploy.
00:39:36
Speaker
I'll go propeller because of the survey grade reference. ah very tremled eye vision Jason's correct again. ah It is propeller error who we've spoken to earlier this year. And then for the final question, can you guess the software by the tagline helping projects prevent delays to stay on schedule? Is it a outbuild?
00:39:57
Speaker
B, Visaleen, C, Aphex, or D, Fieldwire. I'll go A, Outbuild. No, D, Fieldwire. I'll go Outbuild. I'll go with Jason.
00:40:09
Speaker
ah and yeah Sam is the only correct person who in this one. Was that the decision? but Was that the time break? Looking at the answers, ah it is looking like Jason just edges Sam out ah by two points. Oh, yeah. Sam just edged out Carlos, yeah. No, that didn't happen but at all. ah you You'll be wearing the dunce hat, but yes. Thank you very much for running that Ollie. Thank you very much for everyone that listened in the year. Carlos, do you want to read us out one last time for 2024? Absolutely. no Thank you very much everyone for tuning into not just today's show, um but every show over the course of this year. Please do you think about following us on your chosen podcast platform or liking the video that you're watching. and We really appreciate your support and we will see you at some point in January.
00:41:12
Speaker
slash February or March. Have a great Christmas. Thanks guys. Bye.