Uber For Building: Why Transparency Wins

If you want to understand the future of construction, look at your phone. In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick explain why the next major shift in AEC will mirror the moment Uber replaced the taxi. Not because of sci-fi tech, but because of something simpler: total transparency.

Today’s owners operate in a black box. Schedules slip, change orders land without context, and updates lag behind reality. KP and Nick argue that the construction company that embraces real-time visibility will dominate the next decade.

From jobsite cameras and drone data to cultural shifts inside design and engineering teams, this episode lays out what it takes to build the first truly transparent construction firm and why owners will reward it.

Highlights

1) The Uber analogy

•  Real-time tracking vs radio silence
•  Why transparency became a competitive weapon
•  How expectations changed overnight once riders saw the truth

2) Transparency on the jobsite

• Daily visibility instead of weekly reporting
• Drone imagery, progress photos, and time-stamped reality
• Owners checking job status as easily as tracking a car

3) Culture as the real blocker

•  The fear of showing mistakes in real time
•  Old school habits inside design and engineering teams
•  Why new firms may adopt transparency faster than incumbents

4) Incentives and stress

•  Why most GCs do not actually want surprise change orders
•  How hiding small issues snowballs into major delays
•  Transparency as the ultimate stress reliever for teams

5) The technology already exists

• Reality capture, project management, AI context layers
• Why this is a full stack shift, not a point solution
• The first GC to commit wins disproportionate market share

If you believe construction is overdue for its Uber moment, this episode shows why transparency wins and how the industry gets there.

Ready to go deeper on modern AEC leadership and operations?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Vendor Lock-In Stalls Innovation
• 2:00 Robots In Multifamily And Risk
• 6:00 Designing Buildings For Robots
• 10:30 AI Factories And Partnerships
• 15:30 The Uber Analogy For Construction
• 19:30 What Real Transparency Looks Like
• 24:00 Culture Change Beats New Tools
• 28:00 Owners, Designers, And Live Visibility
• 33:00 Full-Stack Transparency As Advantage
• 38:00 Field Reality, Change Orders, Stress
• 42:30 AI As Context For The Jobsite
• 47:00 Why Transparency Reduces Burnout

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Alright, Nick.

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

I'm reading the subject here. Stop trying to make small talk with me. I'm just trying to I'm just I'm trying to get to the heart of the matter today. Did you go to Vegas this week? I did not. Did you? Yeah. I was at OpTech.

SPEAKER_03: 0:19

So the apartment people. Who's that?

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

We like those people.

SPEAKER_03: 0:24

That's tough, man. Like, um, they want to be so innovative. They really do. But they have such vendor lock-in with you know the real pages and the yardies, and it's just like, you know, I don't know. That lock-in is is brutal, right? If you really want, if even if you have the right attitude to innovate, kind of like in the AC industry, right? When you're locked into Autodesk and Procore and Bentley and all these things, they're um they're good companies from a stability and all those things, right? But you you kind of have that vendor lock-in, and you try to do anything outside of that vendor lock-in, and it's really tough.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

What what side are you speaking for here? Are you are you saying from the startup standpoint?

SPEAKER_03: 1:09

It's like no, I'm saying from the customer standpoint, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12

Like I was, you know, like who's the customer?

SPEAKER_03: 1:15

Yeah, like you know, it's like, oh, we're gonna wait for Autodesk to do AI because I have no way of interrogating my Autodesk data without them, right? Well, yeah, or ERP or real page or anything. So if you want to do any kind of like, hey, let's run some experiments, it's pretty, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

But I was I was on a panel called Rise of the Robots, and um I saw that, and my one of my questions was how why why was that at OpTech? Because particularly so OpTech is a multifamily tech focused company, so like 99% of the solutions that you're buying as a multifamily developer and operator, it's it's software. So I was curious what angle they were coming at that with.

SPEAKER_03: 1:59

Yeah, so there were there were like three or four vendors there. There was one that was like robotic dogs that do security, so they patrol your property at night. Uh, there was one that like cleaned, like vacuumed and stuff, right? So, I mean, but I think the the curveball I kind of threw at them was they're very focused on this like property management robots. Yeah, and I was like, well, you understand your tenants are gonna have robots. Like you're gonna charge a security deposit like you do for like large dogs, like you know, how are you factoring in that your tenants, your residents, are gonna have humanoids? I don't know if you remember those hovercraft that were very popular that the kids were all on for a minute.

SPEAKER_02: 2:41

Skateboard things, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:42

The skateboard of all things, right?

SPEAKER_02: 2:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:45

Um, those started catching on fire, and you know, our friend Mono, his apartment complex burned down. Remember?

SPEAKER_00: 2:52

I do, yeah. I do.

SPEAKER_03: 2:53

Yeah, it was a hoverboard that caught on fire.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

I did not know that was a hoverboard that caught on fire. I remember when his apartment caught on fire.

SPEAKER_03: 3:00

Wow, yeah. So think about that. Like now you're gonna have all these humanoids that people are buying secondhand off eBay that are made in China. Nothing wrong with everything that's made in China, not making a political statement or anything, but you know, cheaply made and then probably used. And some kid in student housing is like, hey, I bought this robot, plugs it into charge, goes to class, and comes back and your building's on fire. Um, and there it was pretty interesting. I got a lot of questions about it because nobody had really thought about that, which I was pretty fascinated by.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

The humanoid humanoid for the home topic has become like super in vogue in the last month. I don't know if you've seen you've seen that, but there's two companies. One one is called um or the human their humanoid is called Neo. They put out a launch video and it's like a$500 a month subscription to get this humanoid for the home that does your laundry and it you know finds your find finds your keys for you, um, tells you where your cayenne pepper is. I've watched the launch video like 10 times, if you can't tell. Um and the other one is yeah, go ahead. Uh Unitree, Unitree has one too. Yeah. I think so it feels like we're at this inflection point. So yeah, I I think that that piece makes sense to me. And I would expect the multifamily industry to be like super reactive, you know, a year to a year or two from now when people actually start having them. And then and then the the big I think to your point, the big one of the big one of the the big objectives they always uh I've I've seen the multifamily industry um try to focus on is is privacy and security. So I would imagine like um you know humanoid walking in the halls, like uh, you know, taking photos. Um, you know, that's I mean, I think that that's like a very obvious one, but um, yeah, the privacy and security, like who's who's letting the who's letting humanoids in the door if you're they're delivering, you know, delivering food. We've seen that one come up a couple of times. I mean, that comes up with gig economy workers all the time.

SPEAKER_03: 5:04

So yeah. Yeah, and we've we've gotten a call in in a couple of times from owners saying, like, hey, our architect hasn't even considered that humanoid robots might be working in our hospital side by side. They haven't figured they didn't design for it. And you know, when you're if you're designing, I mean, like if you're designing a building right now, a commercial building, and you're not considering that robots are gonna be in this space, whether it's humanoid or rovers or whatever, you're you're failing as a designer, right? Like you're not these are it's it's you can argue, is it three years, five years, ten years? Well, it's I'll tell you it's but it's within the life cycle of the building, right?

SPEAKER_00: 5:48

What an interesting thought though that you have to design with that in mind now. Five years ago, that wasn't true.

SPEAKER_03: 5:55

Well, I was having I was having a conversation with the hospital, and they and they said, Well, we think the humanoids will just be on the same elevators as the humans. I'm like, Do you think that's okay? Right, Nick? Would you would you want to go up 20 floors by yourself with a humanoid standing right next to you? I don't know if everything I think that'd be awesome, but that's just a lot of people that's kind of freaky, right? Like, so there's this transitional period. I was I was talking about like when like Bluetooth headsets first came out, the Jabra, and it was like this big thing on one ear, which was just weird to me because it like lacked symmetry. And I was I just thought people that walked around with those Bluetooth headsets were weirdos. It's like, oh never. But then by the time the airpod came out, I'm like, oh, this is nice, right? Like, it's just there's a break-in period for us near mortals, right? That we may not be comfortable existing in the same space as a humanoid, and so we're having this debate like, do you actually have a cargo elevator for the humanoids and other robots and um segregate them from the humans? Um, you know, how do you think about stuff like that? That was really interesting. And then I had um our friends at Schneider Electric, the executives there invited me to their innovation summit. I bitch will never guess what the big topic of discussion was.

SPEAKER_00: 7:12

Couldn't be data centers.

SPEAKER_03: 7:14

Uh had nothing to do with AI factories. You know, that's what they call them now. They're AI factories.

SPEAKER_00: 7:20

AI factories.

SPEAKER_03: 7:21

They're AI factories. Yeah. No, NVIDIA. Yeah, NVIDIA crushed their earnings yesterday, and that's all he talked about on the call was AI factories. It's not data centers. We don't make data centers, they're AI factories now.

SPEAKER_00: 7:33

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Jensen.

SPEAKER_03: 7:36

So it's pretty cool. Uh Rev from NVIDIA um gave a talk and said hello to him. Of course, you know, our all of our executive friends at um met a bunch of the AEC CEOs that were there. And um Zach Brown from McLaren came by, which was kind of cool since it's Formula One Week. Formula One week.

SPEAKER_00: 7:58

So oh, Formula One week in Vegas.

SPEAKER_03: 8:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's this week and so so all the Formula One people were kind of hanging around the hanging around the place. So that was kind of fun. But uh yeah, I mean it was all about AI data centers, AI factories, um, and evolution. But I mean, I actually learned I learned a lot. You know, it's so hard to keep up with this stuff, right? It's just like near impossible. And so um, and you can only listen to so many podcasts and learn anything. But uh it was nice to kind of have the big picture and some detailed dives on what what's happening in the in the AI factory space.

SPEAKER_00: 8:38

Any out of left field surprises in terms of what what Schneider was focused on?

SPEAKER_03: 8:45

Um, I think the they're very focused on partnerships, right? So there's what what what people are kind of saying with these AI factories, there's so many players involved. If you have a vendor mentality, you're not gonna get very far. Because by the time you envision the project and you start executing on it, things might have changed a lot. And so there, you know, what's the difference between a partner and a vendor? A vendor high things are highly defined and highly commoditized, right? Probably a lot, a lot less flexibility, right? And I think the difference was like with you know, their narrative was partners because you envision something today, by the time you build it, the situation could be very different. So you really have to have partners that are really working, you know. We partnering, you know, that word gets thrown around so much, right? Um, but that was kind of the idea is that if we're gonna continue to do the things we're doing in AI, um, the AI factories really take people with open mind, flexibility, constant learners, right? You can't, I mean, you can't show up to a job and say, well, the last three data centers I did, we did it this way. It's like that's actually irrelevant. Like it's actually irrelevant. Tell me what you know today and where you think things are going. So that I thought it was, I mean, it was it was a lot of fun, actually. You know, um, you know, um my friend, you know, they Amr and the guys there are just so um gracious. They let me in all the rooms I don't belong in. So I got to talk to a lot of folks. It was it was fun. I'm surprised they give you backstage passes there.

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

That doesn't make any sense to me.

SPEAKER_03: 10:20

But I know just just good on them. Makes no sense at all. So uh but anyway, no, that was pretty cool. But um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:31

So, what do you want to talk about today? I've got I've got one topic. I've got one topic. Finally, you're letting me get there. The top the topic is your latest Substack post. It's called Why the Design and Construction Industry Needs an Uberfication Moment. Okay, that's the that's that's the working subject we got here. Actually, a pretty long article for you. That was the my first observation. You're usually um someone who operates with a lot of brevity, and I was reading this, I'm like, wow, this is uh this is this is longer than most for KP. This is like you know, a little bit more well well researched, well-rounded than I typically see from you.

SPEAKER_03: 11:11

So I was traveling this week. I was traveling this week. I had a lot of a lone time.

SPEAKER_00: 11:16

All right, so let's dig in. So set the stage. What is this piece about? I have a bunch of follow-up questions on it, but yeah, give give everyone a glimpse into the analogy and and the frame for Uber for the AUC industry.

SPEAKER_03: 11:30

Yeah, I think if you look at the existing construct of taxi cats, right? I mean, if you look at Ubers now, it's not like it's that much cheaper. It's not really a price comparative to taxis. In fact, in New York, a lot of times I'll jump into a taxi. But I think if you look at what we bought with taxis, was not a lot of transparency. We didn't know when they would show up. Uh, we didn't know what we were getting in terms of the driver and what the experience was gonna be. We didn't really know how long it was gonna take us to get there. And if it was a new city, we didn't know if they were gonna take us around the block four times and we wouldn't know any better. Right. And then we didn't know what, so we didn't know when we were gonna get there, and uh, we didn't know how much it was gonna cost. Sounds a lot like building a building. When are we gonna start? How are we gonna get there? What's this experience gonna be like? I can pretty much guess I'm not gonna be there on time and on budget, right? So that was what kind of um, of course, I was in Vegas when I was writing this because there's Ubers and Formula One weekend, you know, it's just a lot of activity. I was like, hey, you know, if you think back about like some of the first principles around Uber when they built their app, it was all about the experience. And the experience was I'm gonna be trained, I'm not gonna say I'm on my way, right? I remember back in the day when I would call a taxicab company and then no one would show up. And I'm like, hey, where are they? Like, oh, he's on his on his way, let me radio them. And the reality is they didn't know where they were because they were radioing them, they didn't have a GPS and stuff. And so uh so it really resonated with me. That's probably why I got a little bit you know, longer with it was uh I went down that rabbit hole, like, wow, this really this analogy really works. And so um, so I think that's the idea, right? So the idea of having transparency um in Uber's case in real time, of what's happening, like what are people doing? You know, what you know what you know, maybe I need to report back if this engineer's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00: 13:33

Yeah, I think the mechanics of how of what made Uber such a disruptive tool for people to use, I think are actually pretty analogous. Um, and so your point on transparency, let's like dig into actually what that looks like on a on a you know for Uber and then on a on a job site. So for Uber, you know the you know the price of the vehicle, you know the price of the ride before you get in, you know the driver, you know the driver's rating, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 14:05

I either work uh their rating, i.e. their work history and customer satisfaction.

SPEAKER_00: 14:11

Yep, right? Yep, yep, yep. The um you know how long it's gonna take for you to to receive the the car and then and then get to the get to the end destination. You know, I mean uh basically every piece of the equation you you know, right? And I think your analogy to like, okay, compare that um compared just to the taxi industry before we make the leap to construction, there was this period of time, you know, with with taxis where you had like zero visibility into any of it, like at like literally zero across the board in all those examples, unless you've taken the ride before and it's a film familiar location, right? Like if you're taking taxis in New York City, that would be the exception if you live in New York, right? But if I'm going to New York City for the first time and I'm going to Brooklyn and I'm, you know, um Upper East Side, I don't know, I don't know the best route to get there. Right. I mean, they could totally take advantage of me and like I don't know what the price should be. So you're operating fully on this, like you're you're operating on trust. And I think that is the that was the core variable that you know you had to have as a rider to get in the vehicles, like you had to trust they weren't gonna take advantage of you. And when Uber arrived, that was no longer true. It was completely trustless. Yeah. So pulling that thread to the construction industry, the visibility and the transparency on a current current day project, what percent would you give it?

SPEAKER_03: 15:46

It's uh like 10% transparency. And and I think so. There's two fat there's two variables, right? There's the transparency, but then when? Like, when do I get it? Right. I get lots of transparency after things have already happened. I don't get a lot of transparency into things before, like you don't get an opportunity. It was so funny. I was walking back uh in the airport, just happened to be on the moving sidewalk with a guy, and he was like having a very aggressive conversation, and he mentioned a general contractor that we all know, and he was just like, those assholes just sent me another invoice, and I don't know what it's for, and they're getting on to me about paying it. I just thought it was just wild, like the coincidence of it all, right? So this guy's standing next to me. So I think there's a little bit like, you know, um, I have to trust you and you're gonna send me bills, and you know, but it's more like after the fact than ahead of the fact, ahead of what happens. So I think there's two things. One is the level of transparency, and then two is the uh the timing of it all.

SPEAKER_00: 16:52

So, okay, so let's say let's say your 10% number is is correct. Let's say we're 10% visible and transparent into exactly what's happening on a construction project at a given time. If a contractor today adopted a really forward-thinking, transparent approach to technology, and they used every like the best best in class tools across all workflows and uh and and components of the value chain. So they used, you know, um project management that invited the owner and all their subcontractors into the software, if they used real-time um reality capture, uh if they were taking drone imagery every day and uploading images, if they were um, if they had like you know, communication dialed in terms of ch change orders and and and you know, the just the right practices, submitting those as soon as soon as possible when um you know when an error when an error occurs, what could that take you to if you were like absolutely best in class in terms of rolling out every piece of technology out there to like is it 50%? Is it is it 40? Yeah, I mean how many rideshare companies are there? It's two two, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 18:05

You'd be one of two. You'd be one of two. Three three three with Waymo, but yeah. Okay, three. Um no, I I really I mean, because no the other thing I was observing on the way to the airport, I called an Uber and it said one minute away. He ended up being a minute late. It was really bothersome to me. I don't like it, it's just like you don't want to be like the the standard changes, right? I'm like, you know, I mean, you know I can be a little bit of an asshole, but like it was just like, oh my god, it said one minute and now it's two minutes. He's twice as late.

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

Like, like in rect, like, yeah, stepping back, like the most ridiculous, most ridiculous, right, you know, point of frustration ever. Like five years ago or ten years ago. I mean, what an insane thing to think. Right, exactly. So, but yeah, and I hear you. I've been in there, I've been there too. I get it.

SPEAKER_03: 19:00

Yeah, and so think about that standard, right? Like, that's the bar now. And so think about it being a construction company, and it's like, oh, we were a day late. If only, right? If only now that the customers that got used to your service like a man, you're a day late, right? Um, you'd be like, okay, well, normally everyone's like 30 days late, right? Um, the the idea that, oh, you never had to touch your contingency fee, you never had to continue touch your contingency budget. I mean, I I think it's fairly safe. You'd be one of three companies doing all the construction.

SPEAKER_00: 19:38

So another way to ask my question, what um if if we're coming from 10% in terms of in terms of the average construction process transparency for the for the owner, you're the owner. And I'm it, I'm a GC. Um, so yeah, I'm a I'm a GC or I'm your your owner's rep, and I'm in charge of of making sure that the project is as transparent as possible because that's what the owner is looking for. And I just thought it was a smart thing to do. Like I want to win business and I'm gonna sell on transparency. How far can you get it? Can you can you be a hundred percent transparent on a project today? Is it possible to do that? I mean, I mean from a technical perspective or a uh willingness. Purely from like yeah, purely from a technical standpoint.

SPEAKER_03: 20:25

Um, I don't know that it is because it requires um the people that work for you to be 100% transparent and have the system is in place, but I think you could get close. I think you can get close. You can't, I mean, you could definitely get to 60% or 70%, right? Um, because I think sometimes you know employees have stuff in their head, they're like, oh, I'll write it down later, I'll fill out that report later. You know, it's just there's it's just the nature, it's not built into their natural order. Um, you know, unlike the Uber driver today clicks the button, clicks the app, and it's like all it's just they don't have to do anything, right? Um, so I don't I don't think our this the teams at an individual level are equipped to provide that type of transparency. It's also interesting, too, if you think about it. Um there's this interesting dynamic. You know, when I used to own an engineering company, and um one of the challenges we had is the the my partner, it was a small firm, and we grew to like 50 people, right? When he started, it was two people. He never had people fill out timesheets or do any of the like the administrative work. So getting the existing people to change was massive. New people came in, like, no, you fill out your timesheets. This is the job, this is how this is your job, right? This is how you do it. Nobody ever pushed back. It was the existing people that had to go through the change of doing it. So if you think about it, now you do have apps and taxis like Curb and other stuff, right? To make to try to deliver that kind of experience. But I would say is that the drivers at Uber were new, they didn't know any better. Oh, this is this is what the job is. Like I signed up for the Uber app and I use the Uber app, and this is how I this is how things were done, right? Whereas even if you would have gone to a taxi cab driver and said, hey, you need to download this app, like, what do you mean I need to download an app? What are you talking about? Are you gonna track where I'm going? Are you already okay? I'm not gonna let you track where I'm going. So I think there could be a similar aspect in this industry, is it might be hard to change your people into feeling comfortable providing a level of transparency around their day, around their work, because you're asking them to do something they've they've never done before. So it might take a new type of it might take it, it might require like honesty, like a new type of construction company.

SPEAKER_00: 22:45

Well, that's kind of where I yeah, that that's when I read the piece, that's where my mind went. It was the only the only way to affect the sort of change you're you're seeking, unless you're comfortable with a very gradual approach over time, which could occur, but like we're talking on the orders of like, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years. I think we could get we could get there. But the ultimate forcing function is competition. So construction company A is not transparent, they're operating with traditional methods. They're just they're operating in opacity in a in a black box and just kind of telling you how it goes, like it, like it is today. Construction company B, GCB, is the transparent construction company. They're they're operating every every technology out there that promotes visibility into what is happening and and communicating as early as often as they possibly could to their to their owner. Um, they've implemented reality capture, they've implemented the best project management tools. They have like some sort, they've figured out the communication equation with their subs. The subs feel great about it because they know exactly what's going on schedule-wise. They're not they're never surprised. Of course, road bumps still happen, but like culturally, they're building their company around this idea of transparency. I I actually see that as like a viable way to build a construction company today. I mean, is that a reasonable thing? Like, do you think that that could could occur? Can that company compete with company?

SPEAKER_03: 24:20

Yeah, I 100% think so, because I think um one, I think you might actually it's you know, I'm I'm not saying it's lying, but hiding stuff and not being, you know, some of it's just a natural order of like things move quickly, we don't have enough information, you know, we're operating off limited information. But I don't think most employees really want to like be non-responsive, you know, let things get to a bad place. You know, I had a my first business partner used to have a saying, like, bad news is not like wine, it doesn't get better with age, and used to really um really promote this idea of like this radical, what they call now radical candor or whatever, right? Radical transparency. He was just like, you know, if if you if you keep if if you keep stuff to yourself, you're just gonna be a stress ball all the time, right? It weighs on you. So you're better off the minute you know something's not working, go tell your boss. Just go tell him, like, hey, I'm too uh got behind, I accidentally deleted this code, like whatever it is, like it's all very solvable. Um, but I think it takes it's it's as much. I mean, I think you and I probably agree. Like, I mean, does the technology exist to operate this way? Yeah, I think so. Right? I think so.

SPEAKER_00: 25:36

You'd have to you'd have to stitch stitch stuff together. Like you'd have to, yeah, you'd have to have a very technology-enabled approach. You'd have to have software engineers on the team, right?

SPEAKER_03: 25:47

But it it exists, right? We're not gonna have to go invent anything.

SPEAKER_00: 25:50

It can be done, it can be done.

SPEAKER_03: 25:52

Yeah, so then it's really a cultural thing of letting people know, like, hey, um, the you know, the client has access to the job site cameras and real-time data, and you know, you you're rewarded, you're rewarded for transparency, and you're kind of reprimanded for for if you hide stuff, right? And that things that there's incentive alignment around that. Now, it also takes the owner or the developer to sign up for this. Like, would you rather have bad news fast and be able to make decisions and you can't like beat us up over it? Or would you rather have bad news layer and you're locked in and the decision's been made for you? Because the owners might be just as bad, right? I mean, culturally, right? It might so it might not just be that you need a new type of GC, you might need a new owner.

SPEAKER_00: 26:46

How do you think apply this a bit to design and engineers? Like we're talking, you know, I'm I'm talking about the most transparent GC in the world, but what is what does that mean? Like, like how could how can design design and engineer firms support this idea? Can they do the same thing? Like, can they have the same impact if they do that?

SPEAKER_03: 27:08

Yeah, so about about 12 years ago, as I was doing some um advisory work for a very large architecture firm, um, like a global, a global one. And um they came to me and they said, Hey, we're working with this tech company. They want our team as they're drawing in Revit to leave screen sharing open because they want to be able to like you know, put their head in on what they're doing. And if they're going down a design path that they're like, oh, don't do that. They want to be able to like message them and say, like, hey, I saw what you're working on. That's not actually how we want things to be designed in our it was a workplace thing. And so the client asked, like, hey, I want my facilities team to be able to real time watch your people drawing. Which on one hand, it's like, are they sitting around and gonna watch people draw? Like, no, like, no, they're gonna pop in whenever, right? But at least uh you'll get feedback from us in a more timely manner than our are, you know, every other week design review meetings, where maybe you've gone down a rabbit hole that isn't the right thing, right? This architecture firm said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. We will we would never do that. Uh, it's not appropriate, it creates liability. I mean, there's all kinds of reasons, right? And um, so I asked the CEO, I was like, well, what would happen? Take all these liabilities and all this stuff away, right? Isn't this what it you know we talk about being collaborative with our customers, our clients? Isn't this like ultimately just great collaboration? And he was like, No, like I don't want to be criticized by the owner for maybe mistakes we make along the way. I I don't want them to see how the sausage is made, right?

unknown: 29:00

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 29:02

It's like the create, it's like the classic creative response where it's like I don't want anyone infringing on my creative process or or even being able to view it. That's a pretty I mean yeah, uh that's a pretty common thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, is that you think they you think the owner was asking from a place of just transparency? Is that like where they were coming from? Yeah, just want to know what's happening.

SPEAKER_03: 29:29

They just want to know what's happening. They also they're they're one of the top technology companies. They also felt like um maybe the requirements changed a good bit a lot, like you know, they just wanted to know what was going on, and their facility, you know, their this is this is their office workplace solutions group, and they were concerned that they just if something came up along the way, like, oh, it turns out X, Y, and Z, um, that I can collaborate with you. I don't have to wait for three weeks. Back to you, right? And um, and I think there is something to be said, you know, when you are sending deliverables to an end customer, you you go through a cycle of, you know, because the other argument would be like, well, just send them updates every every day. At the end of every day, you send them an updated file, right? Well, the problem was that the belief was that that creates a lot of overhead because we're never gonna send a client a file that hasn't been QA'd, that hasn't been reviewed. So that's like an overhead to do that uh pretty often. So I think they were just, I mean, I don't think they were trying to like, you know, and I think a lot of times the first thing people do, if I want to provide, you know, if I say, hey Nick, I'm gonna sit behind you as you work all day, the immediate, I think, human reaction is, oh, you're trying to see if I'm productive.

SPEAKER_00: 30:49

And I do, I think you're trying to micromanage me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 30:52

Right. I don't think these clients were trying to micromanage. I think they were really just saying, like, well, because you know, their point is being a tech company, they live in a world of you know, GitHub where you do have a lot of like real-time transparency of what people can do.

SPEAKER_00: 31:08

Feedback loops are super, super tight. Code is immediately visible. It's you know, it's not a mainly stand-ups, you know. Yeah, it's not an art, it's not an artifact that um requires weeks of turnaround time. You can view it in real time at yeah, at any time. Yeah, yeah, that's that's very very true. It's like a cultural thing. Yep. I thought I thought one of the most interesting parts of the piece to me, so I'll read this this quote. So the construction industry doesn't need flying cars or robot builders, it needs the same transparency revolution that transform that transformed transportation. The technology already exists. What's required is a fundamental reimagining of how information flows through construction projects. Real-time project visibility would allow all stakeholders to see what's happening on site, not just what's reported in weekly meetings. Drone footage, progress photographs, timestamped and geotagged, and digital progress tracking could provide an ongoing visual record of work completed. Clients and project managers could check on their projects as easily as they check on an Uber's driver's approach, Uber driver's approach. Opening an app and seeing current status just simply at a glance. I think that paints a pretty good picture of what could be possible if someone actually embraced wanting to be transparent in their operations.

unknown: 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:32

The other thing that stood out for me is the first line though. Um the construction industry doesn't need flying cars or robot builders. We've talked, we I mean, we talk a lot about robotics, we've we invest a lot in in robotics and more futuristic stuff. But like maybe maybe to start the the Maslow the Maslow hierarchy of needs is a commitment to transparency.

SPEAKER_02: 32:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 32:54

No, and think about that. Without transparency, I mean, how are you gonna deploy robots without transparency, right? I mean, if if robots are gonna operate in real time, um, there has to be a flow of there has to be a consistent kind of flow of information and motion controls, right? Uh robots aren't gonna interpret what you meant. Right? What did you say, right? Um, so no, I think it's um I just think some, you know, we we um I think lately I've been really focusing on what the theory of change could look like without getting into the weeds, right? I think one of the things that we tend to do, you know, you and I talk to so many startups every week, and all of them seem to believe they have the answer, right? If everyone just ran their entire project on Procore, everything would be perfect. And it's like, that is actually not even true, right? Like, because it's not really as much a technology problem as it is kind of a an actual cultural point of view problem, than anything else. I mean, I think as as consumers, we could have sat here and said, like, I don't want to get into a taxi unless I have full transparency and we would have gotten nowhere. And so, even owners, even owners that think that they might be able to demand this will probably not get it. Not unless someone shows up to offer it up. And even then, sometimes they they might be suspicious. I mean, think you ever take Ubers like early on when it was like a shared, like everything was Uber X? Yeah, I remember the first ride I got on. Um, I was the first one in and I was the last stop out, which it wasn't super clear about that. I was like, I was like, what am I like? I was the first one in this car and I'm the last one getting out, like you know, and it was a little frustrating, right? Because I'm like, um, these four other people showed up in this car, and I gotta wait for these people to get it's like being the last stop on the bus route, right? Um so but and and just the idea of like jumping in a car with a stranger, right? That's that that that trope has been talked about plenty of times, right? But but I do think um it took a minute, right? And then people got comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_00: 35:13

Yeah, eventually they came out with Uber pool, right? You know, car a specific carpool service, and then Uber X was you know, you're going solo in the car. Uber pool got really good at I did this a lot when I lived in Chicago. Um, I didn't there was no trains on in the side of the city where I lived, so would take Uber pool to work to and from, and they got good at telling you what what stop you were along, you know, along the carpool track. Yeah, like you realized that that was lacking the transparency basically. Yeah, there's no reason why why they they were still routing it in the same way. There's no reason they couldn't tell you, they just didn't have the software updated, but yeah, that that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03: 35:50

Isn't it funny? Isn't it funny though every once in a while when you order an Uber and uh maybe it's at a at an event or something? You know, my little experience this week was like one minute, right? But the fact that I was tracking it is wild, right? Like, well, late. Um, but think about how many times you've been like maybe at a concert or something, and it says five minutes away, and then the time keeps going up and up, and you're like, what is happening, right? Um, and I always think about that, you know, and sometimes they're not great at it, um, and you feel like they're lying to you, right? You feel like, oh, they told me it was gonna be four minutes, now it's 12 minutes, um, and you get frustrated. So I look, I think it it's gonna take it's a massive opportunity for someone to take on. But I think I think we both might be right in terms of like, you know, it probably is a new firm, a new type of, you know, a new type of GC. But but I think the other thing is like it's this this ongoing thing, you know. I got another deck sent me today, like, hey, we're gonna, here's the 10 problems that are wrong in the construction industry, and our software is gonna solve all of it. Um, and I don't I don't think that's the case, right?

SPEAKER_00: 37:06

Yeah, it's uh my response, my response to that is it's a full stack effort to solve this problem. Like it can't be, there's no point solution, it can't just be reality capture, it can't just be the software, it can't just be um a communication, you know, uh just a dialed-in communic communication app. Um can't just be a scheduling tool, scheduling optimization. It's got it's gotta be everything. And so someone's gotta put all those pieces together and and and run with that full stack um for firm in mind. I think that's the only way that that you can actually um get to full 100% transparency. I I really I for what it's worth, I really believe like I believe every construction company would benefit from this. It would it would make it would make their operations better, it'd make their clients happier. Um I think it's going to happen because I think it's gonna like someone's gonna do this. Like someone will be the most transparent construction firm in the world and just start winning a lot of business because that's what owners want. Yeah. And so if if the competitive function is what forces everyone else, you know, basically pulls the industry forward, I think that's a great outcome. And I think like if you talk to most most contractors, if you talk to other stakeholders in the industry, I think they I think everyone wants a a more a a more clear, a more transparent, a more visible work environment for for you know um for for every single stakeholder that they're interacting with. I think like that is a that is a consensus opinion. And I think what's been lacking is the incentive structure and the cultural alignment to to make it happen. So let the competition do it.

SPEAKER_03: 38:53

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting, you know, back gosh, almost 20 years now. Um, I had a company when we were leveraging Ben to do constructability review, right? So it was like, if you can't build it in the computer, you can't build it in the field, was the business, right? That we built up and sold. And um, it was really interesting because we actually rated the drawings, the architecture drawings, engineering drawings. Like we actually gave them a feedback loop of saying, hey, here's how you could have improved your drawings uh through our system. Um and I would talk to a lot of general contractors because I had some general contractors call me up and say, hey, look, because we're mostly hired by owners, like before we put it out to bid, run this through your system, right? And then we started getting calls from general contractors. And I would say, like, why do you want to know the issues? Are you trying to like low bid and make it up in change orders? And uh some of them, some of them work, not all of them, but I had several of them come like, no, like, do you think you think we enjoy delivering change orders? Like, do you know how hard it is, how what a negative experience that is? And and it was funny, like one of them explained it to me. He's like, it's not that we want change orders, it is a it's a snowball effect from someone in the field maybe misses something, then they go to their trade boss or their you know supervisor and say, Hey, this is gonna take me 10 days longer because of X. That person wraps up that variance, that trade does and bundles up and gives it to the sub. And the sub bundles it up and gives it to the GC, and the GC bundles it up and gives it to the owner and says, Hey, I need more money, right? And that's just like a long cycle, but to the GC, they're like, you know, we don't really benefit that much from this stuff. Yeah, you know, margins, you know, we make money on it, right? But it's just not worth it, it's not worth the trouble. And I and I because I always kind of had a mindset like, I mean, these contractors, man, they make so much money off change orders. You know, back when I was an engineer, I was like, oh, they make those money on change orders. They they love it, they're loving all the change orders, right? And I had several CEOs come to be like, no, that's not the case. That's actually not the case. There are some contractors that operate that way. It's just that we don't have, you know, now in reflection, right? They didn't have transparency down to the person in the field that ran into an issue, right? And then by the time it gets sat on for a couple of days and kicked around for a couple of days, and then those couple of days turn into a couple of weeks, it turns into an it turns into a real issue, right? So I think as much as it, you know, to your point, like would an existing GC do this, it may not be about the GC wanting to do it to provide it to their end customer. It might be that can the GC push this transparency model down to the worker in the field that will double the kids down real time transparency.

SPEAKER_00: 42:02

Yeah, I mean, I think that that to me fits in the in the cultural category again, right? Where it's like you're you're joining this this firm to build the most transparent construction company. And the first rule of Fight Club is you report your change orders.

SPEAKER_03: 42:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:20

Like every second that goes by that we see where we see a mistake and don't call it out, like that's that's failure. And I think that's just like a cultural thing.

SPEAKER_03: 42:29

Yeah, it's it's kind of funny actually. Um so back in the day when you shared CAD files with other firms, you had to have them sign a waiver before you would send before you'd FTP them your CAD files, you'd have them sign a waiver. You'd fax over a waiver to them, they'd sign it and send it back, and then you release the file. Um, and then the millennials came along and they would just share files. And the leadership would say, You can't just share files. And the millennial culture said, But aren't I just had a meeting where we said we're collaborating, that we're partners on this project. I didn't know I'm supposed to withhold information from my partner. Like they, they, and it wasn't like they weren't being smart at it. We're just like, I don't understand. On one hand, we just came out of a meeting and we all like kumbaya, we're working together, you know. Hey, love to work with you. And then we go back to our desks and we're not supposed to share information. And and it was a big problem for a minute with um, especially as BIM got more adopted. Um, there were a lot of people that kind of natively grew up in this idea. It's like it's the difference between like Google Docs and Word, right? Google Docs, you get to see what everybody's doing. I kind of hate that. I like having my version and sending you my version, your version too, Nick. You go do your changes and send it back to me, right?

SPEAKER_00: 43:51

Um back to the architect example, like someone sitting over you in a Google Doc while you're writing is like absolutely intimidating. Hate hate that feeling. Produce work, type monkey. Aren't you typing faster? Yeah. Um, yeah, I think that that uh I don't know. I I'm bull I'm bullish on this thing coming together. I think it's possible to I mean the the millennial versus um you know process dynamic. I also think like it's a technology thing. Yeah, you we grew up in a in a world where sharing files was super easy and it's how you got things done and it's how you communicated it it because technologically it was easy, no fax machines, straight via email. All you're doing is dropping a file and an email file, right? And an email folder. And like I think I think that technology is always the enabler to you know to to to move to like a higher order of of doing work. And I think that I think we're here. Like I do think we're here as an industry. And so like the question is what is that first things that that pulls us that pulls us forward? And actually, I saw something in your piece along these along these lines. So you said Uber's displacement of traditional taxis wasn't primarily about smartphones or venture capital or superior logistics algorithms. And I I wanted to, I guess, push back on one thing because what enabled Uber initially to actually exist was the GPS in the in a smartphone. Like eventually, all the other you know, transparency items that we've called out were why Uber won over traditional taxis. But but Uber's existence and the fact that it could compete with traditional taxis was due to this like yeah, we were all carrying around smartphones for the first time ever with a GPS in them. And so that the car look could the car could feasibly locate you. Um, any is there do you think do you think there's anything out there that pulls us forward in the same way, you know, when we think about projects?

SPEAKER_03: 45:59

I think uh I mean I think AI is part of that equation, right? Because I I think I think the reason why AI is part of that equation um is because so much of communicating information, there's a there's an overhead, right? If I'm a drywaller and I run into an issue, I may not know how that how that streams up into the critical path of the project or the budget or anything else. And I'm also, I mean, I just may not be like skilled, equipped, and informed to be able to communicate that. So if the drywaller says, hey, I call, I'm I can't come in today, you know, my dog's sick, and so I'm gonna miss a day, that drywaller may not know what that impact is to the project, right? So I think where AI will help people is these unplanned events that happen on construction projects, which are like every day, right? How is that unplanned event translated with context to the other person? So I think that's where AI could have it's the context, right? You know, to the person that calls in sick, like hey, I came, I'm gonna have to make up my work tomorrow. What's the big deal? Turns out the big deal, man, is that like the electrician was coming in right behind you, and now I have to call them off. And I'm calling them off for a day, they're gonna go work on another project, and they're not gonna be back for two weeks, dude. But how does the guy know like how does this person know that?

SPEAKER_00: 47:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's real, it's hard to do. The other, the other dynamic that's different with our analogy here is there's a lot of people involved in standing up a standing up a building, maybe more so than hauling hauling a single individual around town.

SPEAKER_03: 47:54

Yeah, yeah, it's it's the one-to-many relationship, right? It's a bit it's it's not this one-to-one thing, right? Yeah, makes our equation a little bit more difficult, but I think we can solve it. Yeah, I will I will say last note is I think there's something about truth and transparency that's really a stress reliever, right? I think there's enough going on, right? But if if you're kind of put into an environment where you can't tell people what's exactly going on, and you have to carry that kind of carry that water, so to speak, that's tough. And I mean this industry is tough enough, right? There's enough external forces that drive projects off schedule and everything else. So I'd like to see more of this thinking just for the sake of the people that work in our industry.

SPEAKER_00: 48:44

Transparency as a stress reliever.

SPEAKER_03: 48:47

Yeah, it's real. It's it's better that than you know, not being up, not being comfortable going to your boss telling them you're not gonna make the morning deadline and spending an all-nighter in the office and killing yourself over it.

SPEAKER_00: 49:02

Yeah, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_03: 49:03

Yep. All right, it was a good talk.

SPEAKER_00: 49:06

Is that all we got today?

SPEAKER_03: 49:07

That's all we got today. You want to talk about anything else?

SPEAKER_00: 49:10

Let's let's cap, let's, let's cap it there. We'll save the good stuff for next week.

SPEAKER_03: 49:14

Okay. All right, man. It's good seeing you. Good see ya. All right.