Bobyard's $35M AI Claims, Oracle's $523B Backlog, Larry Ellison's Debt Mastery, Parallax Worlds $4.9M Robot Testing, ChatGPT vs Construction Reality

Can You Really Bid a Construction Project in Minutes? One Founder Says Yes, a Contractor Says It's "Completely Inaccurate"

In this episode of Bricks, Bucks & Bytes, Martin, Patric, and Dustin tear into the latest construction tech funding news, Oracle's jaw-dropping earnings, and set up what might be the most heated debate in AEC tech this year.

What's covered:

• Bobyard's $35M Series A for AI-powered takeoffs—and why Dustin thinks their marketing claims miss the mark on how pre-construction actually works

• Oracle's $523 billion revenue backlog (yes, that's more than the GDP of Norway, Austria, and Vietnam combined)

• How Larry Ellison became the master of debt financing and why the AI bubble might not be bursting yet

• Tanmay Agarwal from Parallax Worlds joins to explain their $4.9M raise and how they stress-test robots in hyper-realistic digital twins before they hit factory floors

• The battle lines drawn: Mike Powers and Luigi La Corte face off in a heated teaser for Tuesday's debate on whether ChatGPT and Gemini have actually "solved" construction estimating

The quote:

"Estimating, quantity takeoff is not the most time consuming aspect of pre-construction. For any person that's ever been a part of pre-construction, that spans years. You do not spend years doing quantity takeoff." — Dustin

Plus, next week is the final episode of 2025—and there might be costumes involved.

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Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:31 Introduction and Overview of Topics 

04:24 Bobyard's Series A Funding and Impact on Construction 

07:18 Debate on Trade-Specific Models vs. General Models 

10:21 Challenges in Construction Estimation 

13:22 The Role of Pricing in Construction Estimation 

16:08 Oracle's Financial Performance and Its Implications 

19:03 Future of AI in Construction 

31:44 The Role of AI in Financial Models 

32:41 Data Centers and the Future of AI 

33:53 Understanding Oracle's Business Model 

35:22 Debt Financing and Its Implications 

37:19 Market Dynamics in Dubai's Real Estate 

39:58 The German Economy and Construction Trends 

41:19 Current State of the US Construction Market 

49:33 Advancements in Robotics and AI Testing 

1:00:33 Intersection of Hardware and Software in Robotics 

1:01:15 Construction Robotics and Digital Twins 

1:02:37 The Value of Simulation in Construction Tech 

1:03:31 Data Integration from On-Site Solutions 

1:04:10 Closing Thoughts and Future Directions 

1:07:39 Debate on AI in Construction 

1:12:24 Open Source and Benchmarking in Construction Tech