Growth Mindset: From A Dark Basement To The Forefront Of The Industry with Jed Richard - Richard Group

Jed Richard shares his journey from the military to founding Richard Group, discussing the early financial challenges faced in the construction industry. He emphasizes the importance of consistency and keeping promises in entrepreneurship. Jed explores the balance of factors in construction projects and the significant role technology plays, particularly AI advancements and their ethical implications on jobs. He discusses the necessity of a technology code of conduct, effective data communication, and leadership development through technology. The episode highlights Richard Group's rebranding and future vision. Jed also offers advice on community engagement and self-improvement, concluding with reflections on AI's future in construction.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
She didn't realize that if some way that thatcustomer didn't wanna pay me exactly by the end
of the month for street 3 straight months, thatI would probably be in bankruptcy.
And, so that was the start of you're anentrepreneur.
You're a probably a really good builder,estimator, or whatever, but that means nothing.
Right?

(00:20):
Having cash on hand, cash is king.
You guys hear this.
I'm sure you've heard it from
Oh, yeah.
Numerous entrepreneurs.
That was the fright of a year going through acash turmoil process and saying, I'm I'm gonna
hoard cash as much as I can as I grow, and waitfor the rainy day for some really great things
to happen within the company and build up ourbalance sheet and build up our bonding.

(00:44):
And And it's happened because we've gone from,you know, $1,000,000 to $500,000,000 in bonding
in a very, very short in 8 years in publiccontract.
Have you ever wondered how Have

(01:04):
you ever wondered how successful architecture,engineering, and construction companies scale
their business?
Or have you ever wanted guidance on how to getmore growth, wealth, and freedom from your AEC
company?
Well, then you are in luck.
Hi.
I'm Will Forat.
And I'm Justin Nagel, and we're your podcasthosts.
We interview successful AEC business leaders tolearn how they use people, process, and
technology to scale their businesses.
So sit back and get ready to learn from theindustry's best.

(01:27):
This is
building scale.
Hey, listeners.
It's Will here.
Our mission is to help the AEC industry protectitself by making technology easy.
If you've ever listened to our show, then youknow that the 3 pillars of scaling a business
are people, process, and technology.

(01:48):
So if you suspect technology is your weak link,then book a call with us to see where we can
help maximize your company's IT cybersecuritystrategy.
Just go to building scale dot net slash help.
Today's guest is Jed Richard, founder and CEOof Richard, a company he's transformed into a

(02:09):
leader in the construction innovation andinfrastructure solutions.
Jed is a former US Army Ranger and seasoned USDepartment of State Building Division veteran.
He established Richard in 2014, to build andsolve the world's greatest challenges.
And over that last 10 years, he's developed aunique general contracting model emphasizing

(02:29):
rapid execution, innovation, and collaboration.
Jed's efforts have not only scaled Richardacross 16 states with a workforce force over a
100, but he's also earned the company tons ofprestigious recognition.
Richard's landed on the cranes Chicago's Fast50 for 3 consecutive years, Achieve Inc's 2024

(02:49):
Best Workplaces for Construction in Illinois.
And Jed was honored with, the Entrepreneur ofthe Year Award for the Midwest, which he's
going to nationals in a couple weeks here.
So, big deal.
That's just a testament to his leadership andthe company's outstanding culture.
With Richard's commitment to excellence and apeople centered approach, Jed has set a new

(03:10):
benchmark in construction, balancingexceptional growth with work workplace culture
and drives innovation and purpose driven work.
And with all that said, Jed, welcome to theshow.
Welcome.
That's a mouthful, Justin.
That's fantastic.
Thank you for the introduction.
Very gracious.
It's awesome to be on building scale with youguys.
I think this has been, a conversation we'vewe're supposed to have maybe 30 times or so.

(03:35):
We have to cancel it multiple times.
We wanted to scale a little bit more before wehad the conversation, have this cool little
podcast room of ours, but, thank you so much.
You guys have a great podcast.
Happy to be on this.
Yeah.
No.
We, we loved your story.
When we first talked 2 years ago, it wasalready amazing, and it has only gotten more

(03:57):
amazing in that time.
New brand, all kinds of new stuff, building outmore team, building out more just, jobs and
stuff.
So, before we dive deep into to today, tell usa little bit of the backstory.
Obviously, I gave a a quick synopsis of that,but, like, how how did it start?
Where where did you start?
Yeah.
So I think it started in my house in Cheshire,Connecticut.

(04:19):
So I grew up in a family of dirt diggers.
My grandfather, so grandpa Richard, ownsSuburban Excavators in town.
They were the 2nd biggest construction companyin this small farm town, Cheshire, Connecticut.
The first is Lane Construction.
You might know those guys.
They're a top 20 builder in the United States.
And my dad or my grandfather had 5 sons.

(04:43):
My father started his own excavation businessaway from his dad, and so did the 4 other
uncles.
So they learned really quickly.
Yeah.
I think you
they learned really quickly that they can'twork together, as a family, and they wanna be
their own their own man and go off and try tosolve things.
So, imagine essentially 6 companies trying tofight for the same piece of business in a

(05:05):
25,000, person town.
So 5 years old like
a comedy.
It it's huge well, the comedy gets betterbecause I grew up in my great grandparents'
house.
My my dad and my mom, as they started thisbusiness, they had $43,000 to buy this house.
It was about 1200 square feet.

(05:27):
And for the next, for the next 15 years of mylife, the room right next door to my bedroom
was our office.
So imagine dirt digger, excavators, truckdrivers, you name it, funneling through our
tiny little kitchen into the house next to ourbedroom as I'm 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you know, as I'm

(05:49):
grown adolescence, getting woken up at, like, 6AM on Saturday because they're digging and
pouring concrete and doing all this stuff onthe weekend.
So I grew up in a house of chaos with spoilspits in my backyard.
It was 3 acres.
There was a dump trucker and an excavator.
There was, for erosion and soil control and allthe hay bales and swift stuff.

(06:12):
That was you know, there's a greenhouse in mybackyard that had that.
So, I grew up in the business.
I from the subcontractor side, seeing whatreally smart blue collar folks were doing, and,
I think it kinda started there.
And, you know, seeing everything underground soI was an athlete, 2 sport athlete, and being a

(06:36):
short lived 2 sport athlete when I went tocollege, hockey and baseball.
So, my family let me go towards thoseaspirations.
But when I wasn't playing that in the summer,you know, we were in landscape cruise or I was
putting pavers down or I was on the roller.
I remember one time OSHA showed up.
I was, like, 7 years old on a roller with ahard hat on.

(06:59):
My my my elementary school on a Saturday.
I'm, like, like, trying to hide off the roller.
I'm like, this might be a bad, situation.
But, you know, when you see everythingunderground, and I I mean, building box
culverts and utilities.
When I was a kid, I was always enthralled with,like, what is the vertical nature of look like?
And, you know, I so I transitioned.

(07:20):
I went to a boarding school.
I went to West Point, became an army officer,fought and served in Afghanistan a bunch of
times.
And when I decided that I wanted to go back inthe building, I did go back to my parents'
company for about 2 minutes and said, you knowwhat?
I I wanna be a builder.
Turned my resume to one of the largest buildersin the country, and I was working for them 2

(07:43):
weeks later.
I was fortunate enough to work for theirfederal department.
So not only was I building commercial typebuildings, but I was learning how to build
these sophisticated structures for our warfighters around the world at the highest stage
and the highest level at, you know, 29 yearsold.
And that kind of started the process of me,become becoming a builder and then having

(08:10):
thoughts about starting my own company.
Oh, at 29, having those type of opportunities,jeez.
I mean It's better than getting
shot at in Afghanistan after, 3 tours.
So I think Thank you
for that advice.
Thank you.
I feel
it's very important.
No.
I know.
In I so the company was Walsh Group, WalshConstruction, Archer Western Contractors.

(08:35):
I had 2 or 3 mentors at that company that thatthat taught me a lot from preconstruction and
value engineering of really unique structures,to operating out in the field.
I had the chance to be on, like, the 2012actually, it wasn't yeah.
Ended up being 12 2012 United States Army Corpsof Engineers project, large project of the

(08:56):
year.
It was a $212,000,000 design build job atWright Patterson Air Force Base, which is
fascinating.
And then, you know, I was fortunate enough tohelp start.
I wrote the business plan.
You know, at the time, when I was that wasabout 32, maybe 33 years old at the time.
Walsh had been in Canada and the United Statesonly, and I authored this plan for them to go

(09:20):
global, building embassies and classifiedconstruction programs, you know, around the
world, protecting our war fighters and, youknow, our our our quiet service members, all
over the place.
So Matt and Dan Walsh, the owners of thecompany, said yes to that plan with their sons,
Danny junior, and Sean, and we were off andrunning, you know, and it allowed us to we won

(09:46):
our first embassy job that we ever been on,which had a ton of learning and postmortem
exercises tied to it.
But we
won a $178,000,000 new US Embassy in Oslo,Norway.
So I was there for a little bit withpreconstruction teams and, you know, really
figuring out how to partner with internationallarge business players.

(10:09):
And, so I had a lot of great opportunities atWalsh.
I was out in the field a bunch.
I estimated a bunch.
And, you know, eventually, I went to go workfor another company called Pernix.
Pernix bought KBR's federal building andcommercial building company, BENK Buildings,

(10:30):
which is a a big national player right now.
And, so I was in about 28 to 29 differentcountries building embassies, competing on
embassies.
And, you know, at a certain point, the driverof me wanting to create my own company wasn't
necessarily that I thought I could beat themout in profitability.
It ended up being about culture.

(10:51):
It ended up being about, you know, what I wasmissing from the military, you know, 5 years 4
or 5 years at West Point, 5 years in military.
So 10 years of my pretty formative twenties,and now I'm my early thirties.
And I just felt that the biggestdifferentiator, and I say it today, is, you
know, world class people, right, that arebuilding those buildings and creating those

(11:15):
teams.
So that was the precipice about me wanting tostart my own thing in 2014 at the end of the
year.
And, you know, October 2023, 2020 of 2, 24, itwas just our 10 year anniversary, and we could
talk about that back in time.
But that's how we got to, you know, being in afarmhouse in Cheshire, Connecticut, working for

(11:36):
my parents' company, then going working for acouple world class building companies, both
domestically and then internationally, and thensaying, hey.
There's you know, I have this veteran status.
I could be a veteran builder, and there'ssomething out there, to really help people
that, you know, I'd fought alongside, forseveral years, especially in Afghanistan.

(12:00):
And there's these VA hospitals that I wasn'tnecessarily tied into and hadn't had never
walked inside of except from hearing storiesfrom my 2 grandfathers that served in World War
2 and them saying, hey.
There's you know, I go to get my VA serviceand, you know, end of life with both of my
grandparents, both my grandfathers that servedand seeing them, you know, passing away, at

(12:21):
those facilities and being like, man, there'ssomething really honorable if I'm able to start
learning how to build, those types ofstructures, through this program.
And that's really what started the whole thingin my basement in Northfield, Illinois.
And, a big piece of what got us to where we'reat today.
I imagine so starting in 2014, imagine you didnot get a 100 +1000000 dollar job as your first

(12:49):
job.
So how did you actually start?
Because, you know, either still prove it thereare still prove it moments before you can do
jobs like that.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, so that was the the big job throughWalsh that I built, that embassy job, and you
you learn how to do that.
But, I mean, let's just talk my own business.

(13:12):
So you're the question you're asking me is howdo you get to there?
Well, you know and I think one of the thingsyou guys wanna be discussed is a lot of lessons
learned in in scalability and those things.
So, you know, I try to separate those 2 becausethere's entrepreneurially entrepreneurial
lessons learned.
There's the things that are really focused onself and my mind and vision and strategy and

(13:33):
moving forward.
And then there's lessons learned witheverything else that's way more important than
me, which is my team, our resources, thefinancial resources, and wherewithal that we
have.
Right?
Our partnerships and our subcontractors that wehave.
But I will tell you, it was dark in thatdungeon in the basement for a while.
I remember, I remember going to a a bigprominent bank that said they had a small

(14:01):
business program.
And I went to the main banker in my town, and Iremember as I wanted to start up the company a
few months before I I I left my last job.
And I said, hey.
I'm gonna start general contracting company,and I need to I need bank accounts, savings
accounts.
You know, I'm gonna be need a something calleda line of credit, you know, things that you're

(14:23):
not necessarily thinking about when you'reoperating and working for others.
And they're like, Jed, this is gonna be noproblem.
Come see me when you leave.
We do this, and we'll get you all set up.
And, so 3 months later, I leave.
I separate.
I don't have a w two income.
I'm a 10.99 on my own.
The banker leaves that bank.
I walk in there.
I'm like, oh my goodness.
I'm starting my own construction company.

(14:45):
I walk in.
I'm like, alright.
And then that line of credit that you'retalking about, they're like, oh, man.
We got a problem here.
I'm like and this is literally the conversationyou sit across the table with me with bankers.
I'm like, yeah.
It laid on me.
What's the problem?
I could get fight through anything.
I'm ready to do this, ready to run through abrick wall.
And they're like, where's you don't have w twoincome.

(15:06):
You separated yourself.
You don't have 3 years of past income to have,you know, to have leverage in against this this
debt you're about to take on.
Like, what are you talking about?
They're like, yeah.
I can't give you a line of credit.
I was like, oh, wow.
Like, that's, you know, cash line of credit,not having bonding capability at the time,

(15:28):
knowing I wanna start bidding on federal andand municipal jobs that require 100% bonding.
I was like, this is nuts.
So, the dollar amount to starting the companyis $60,488.
That was the initial cap.
That's very specific.
That that's the dot that is the amount.

(15:48):
I remember numbers very well.
And I took, of that $60,488, I took $57,000,put it in a savings account, and they counted
it as collateral against every dollar that Icould have in my line of credit.
For example, if I took $20,000 out of thatsavings account, my line of credit dropped by
20,000 right away.
So I basically sold back my own line of credit.

(16:09):
It was a it was fake.
Right?
So that's where we were.
That's where we were.
I was lucky enough to meet a a phenomenalbonding agent, Peter Forker.
So I will give a shout out to Arthur jGallagher.
It's been a it's been a really great company,to partner with us, but our surety broker,

(16:33):
Peter Forker, been around the business for 50years.
He had heard of me.
He'd known my resume.
He had known about our company.
And he's like, you know what?
Regardless of what you have, I'm gonna get youinvolved with with Travelers, which is one of
the best sureties in the world.
I'm gonna get you involved with Travelers, andwe'll give you, you know, a $1,000,000 single

(16:55):
project.
So that was the start.
He gave me a $1,000,000.
It took me a year and a half to win our firstjob.
I did everything in the world inside andoutside of construction while running the
business to actually have enough money to makemortgage payments, which I hid from my family.
My my wife, she didn't know how much she didn'tknow that we got down to $17,000 left in my

(17:18):
bank account to make this thing happen.
She didn't know I took out $235,000 creditcards, so 2 separate credit cards, at 0%
interest in 2,000 early 2015.
She did not know that they were both maxed out.
Right?
It's $60,488.
I took $50,000 put in this 57,000 put in thisline of credit.

(17:43):
She didn't realize that I had 70,000 in debt ontop of that in these two cards on my first
small local job.
She didn't realize that if some way that thatcustomer didn't wanna pay me exactly by the end
of the month for street 3 straight months, thatI would probably be in bankruptcy.
And, so that was the start of you're anentrepreneur.

(18:07):
You're a probably a really good builder,estimator, or whatever, but that means nothing.
Right?
Having cash on hand, cash is king.
You guys hear this.
I'm sure you've heard it from Oh, yeah.
Numerous entrepreneurs.
That was the fright of a year going through acash turmoil process and saying, I'm I'm gonna
hoard cash as much as I can as I grow, and waitfor the rainy day for some really great things

(18:31):
to happen within the company, and build up ourbalance sheet and build up our bonding.
And it's happened because we've gone from, youknow, $1,000,000 to $500,000,000 in bonding in
a very, very short in 8 years in publiccontracting.
And, there's been a ton of lessons learnedalong the way about how to scale that,

(18:52):
appropriately.
But that's like one of the entrepreneurialthings of saying you ask me, how do I get to
that first win?
I guess a little story on that is, which you'llappreciate, is first job that we ever won was
probably the the least hard that I've worked onan estimate ever.
I remember the first estimate that I everworked on as Richard Group, we lost a we turned

(19:15):
in a $516,000 bid.
We lost by $6,000 because of a mistake of oneof our competitors.
But I worked on that thing for about 35 daysstraight, 15 hours a week making every call to
subcontractors and self perform and estimatingthe job.
And, that happened.

(19:36):
We fell 2nd place, 6 times before we won a job.
It was a $4,284,000,304,000,000 $284,321 job.
We won by $2,100,000.
So imagine that.
So we've got all these cash Wow.

(19:58):
In year 1, and I am 37% low on my first bidwith Travelers, with my surety agent.
Now imagine.
I remember making that call after we picked upthe phone and said, oh my gosh.
They read this public bid out loud, and we arejust screaming low.

(20:19):
And Peter, which has been a really hugeproponent of of my mental, savviness through
this whole thing and keep me off the ledge, waslike, do you believe in what you just
estimated?
And I said yes after 3 days of reconfirmingeverything.
He's like, most important thing is, can youmake money on the job?
And he's like, can you service the customer andand and make it successful?

(20:42):
Will you gain a reputation from it that willthat will let you guys push forward?
I said yes to all those things.
And long story short, we took the job, madeplenty of money, had, you know, a million of
change orders on the job without asking forextra time.
Right?
And that's one of our you're gonna ask me if,like, what what what's our flywheel and what

(21:03):
what really makes us move and run.
And, I will tell you early on, it was speed andsimplicity in going and building jobs, as high
quality and safe as possible, as humanly fastas possible in light speed.
And that's what we did.
So we saved 3 months on that job, 101 RFIs,over $1,000,000 in changes, and we didn't

(21:25):
change period performance.
And the customer, I said, listen.
I'll keep it at same schedule.
I'll show you what we could do.
And I think that really got us on the map withour initial customer customer originally.
Wow.
How do you take that unbelievable mindset andand and drive that to your team?
Right?
Obviously, at in the moment we're you're livingit right but like 10 years later, 8 years

(21:47):
later, hey, like that that idea that mindsetneeds to still be there because that's your
differentiate right like culture being so hugeis is certainly to you pointed out like how do
you drive that feeling home?
Yeah.
So and, Justin, well, I'll talk to you about,the attributes that we look at and test in our

(22:08):
people because I think that's really importantbecause our people are really our secret sauce.
But I think the great differentiator in anybusiness, this is really the secret sauce, and
it's so simple, is that you have toconsistently win in everything that you say you
were going to do.
Your word is your bond, and you have toconsistently win in everything that you say you

(22:32):
are gonna do.
I don't care what that is in talking to youremployees or customers or subcontractors or
future joint venture partners.
When you say you're gonna do those 3 things ina quarter and you could report back to them and
say, I exceeded all of those standards, thatallows people to have confidence in you.
Right?
Because words words without deeds, wordswithout things that that don't happen, become

(22:59):
silent.
Right?
And and I think that's something that I've ifthere's a superpower that I think I have in
motivating people, it's keeping your word asyour bond, treating everybody in the path the
right way.
But when you say you're going to do somethingfor a customer, a subcontractor, if you say
that you're gonna hire me as a generalcontractor because we are gonna build that job

(23:22):
5 or 10% faster, You better do it.
And, that consistency, I think, has always beenthere.
And that consistency is the ability to say noin opportunities where you can't do those
things.
Right?
Because certain customers you know, one of thehardest things for an entrepreneur, budding
general contracting company, and this iswhether you're $150,000,000 company or

(23:46):
$150,000,000,000 company.
You're gonna have customers that are gonnathrow things at you, and you gotta decide
whether or not you could follow through withtheir demands.
Right?
And, really, you gotta kinda understand thetype of company you want to be as well.
Right?
There's there's there's there's 2 realcompanies that are out there in any industry.

(24:07):
You're gonna be a low cost provider of goodsand services.
Right?
You're gonna be a low price company every dayof the week.
You know what you're getting, and you could gothere and rely on that same price, and they're
never in a price gouge.
You got it.
Right?
Public entity, low bid, open open rip and readjobs, that's that's that's fantastic way to go.

(24:29):
Right?
But you're always trying to figure out how tocut cost, not just in subcontractors, but
you're also trying to do it with your team.
Right?
There's general contractors, something calledgeneral conditions.
That's the only thing you're really the expertof is how to manage those general conditions.
And as I grow the business, I realized maybeabout 5 years ago, well, you know, federal

(24:51):
general contracting is phenomenal.
Something I've done really my wholeprofessional life outside of the military.
I realized that what we really wanted to be isa best value provider to our customers.
Right?
So and those people are our perfect customers.
And when I get a perfect customer and they fitour criteria, I know that all of my people

(25:15):
could go and sit down at the table with them,and they could say, hey.
Is what you need in your RFP, or this is yourvision statement for what you want in that
commercial building or whatever it is.
I know we could do x, y, and z in our keyperformance indicators and leading indicators
of success and all the analytics that we'vebeen keeping for 10 years.

(25:36):
And I know that every time that we do that jobyou know, Richard Group's not gonna be perfect
every time.
We're gonna have to fight through somedifficulties, but we're gonna be able to sell
those challenges quick.
But 90% of the time, we're gonna be better thanevery other general contractor doing that same
job for you.
And I could tell you that with certainty.
So it's backed by analytics and data, and it'sbacked by being able to say no to a lot of

(25:59):
customers that are saying, hey.
You could go take 2, 3% off this job.
Right?
Bid it and build it.
Right?
And people are like, oh my gosh.
I need the work.
I need to do this.
And those are the jobs where people crash,where there's not a partnership, where there's,
you know, developers or commercial folks thatget with you, and they just need you to be that

(26:19):
low guy on that one job.
Right?
That's not necessarily the position we want tobe.
We wanna be somewhat cost efficient.
Right?
But we wanna be able to build that buildingfaster and simpler than anybody else, have an
easier story through it, making a world classexperience through the process, through our
flywheel, through something called our trilogy,which kinda relates to, you know, people

(26:44):
education technology like you guys think about.
And, you know, so that's that's why we've beensuccessful with the people that we have because
we're really aligned in the vision strategy andthe values of of how we wanna talk to customers
and what we could say we're gonna doconsistently every step.
So you totally reminded me of something, signthat I saw a long time ago, but it attributes

(27:10):
in a lot of different ways in business.
You want speed, quality, and price, but you canonly pick 2.
Right?
If you've if you want speed, if you want greatspeed and, good price, you're not gonna get
good quality.
If you don't, if you want good quality and goodprice, you're not gonna get the speed.

(27:34):
If you have good quality and good speed, you'renot gonna get a low price.
Right?
Yeah.
So, exactly what you're talking about.
Right?
You cannot there's always gonna be one of thosethat's going to quote unquote suffer.
Yeah.
And it's just what do you value?

(27:54):
So I love how you talked about that.
Yeah.
I think a company because I think, well, acompany has to decide what is their superpower
and and push that superpower forward with theircustomer and work on that.
And then, you know, when you're havinginadequacies or, you know, say, you're super
high quality in price and speed, you're like,jeez.

(28:14):
If that's something that's gonna enhanceenhance your portfolio and enhance what your
customer needs to get there's so many mega jobsout there.
Think think about construction that as we'removing along is this technological golden age
is happening.
And I I I really, you know, start talkingtechnology and get into it.

(28:36):
I just came back.
I took a course, on-site at Harvard with 83other CEOs from 35 different countries talking
about the advancements in AI and the ethicalnature of it.
And now now I'm sitting I'm in 8 weeks at MITright now doing the same thing, the
advancements of the AI.
And how do c suite level leaders bring that ininto a company?

(29:00):
You gotta pick what you could be good at andwhat's realistic.
Data is the thing that tells customers.
That's what I don't like about going and givingpitches to to to customers.
I actually ask customers.
I'm like, tell us the data and analytics thatyou want because these jobs are becoming so big

(29:21):
that their customers getting into thesebuildings and occupying them, the numbers are
becoming so massive that this commoditcommoditization of of construction, The cost of
it's so small.
Right?
Go say, hey.
I'm gonna go save you 2 months and $8,000,000on your price, but it's gonna go save them 2,

(29:43):
$300,000,000 in product per week.
Think think about that.
Yeah.
Think about what they want.
So so building with speed, building withsimplicity while not minimizing quality or
safety is the game.
And when you think about it from a costperspective, it's getting as much stuff into
their building as possible for that lowestprice, but it's adding the value of the

(30:08):
durability of that structure.
Right?
And the maintenance and the operability oftheir systems and the technology because it's
becoming so vast and so grand.
There's I, you know, I never seen so many1,000,000,000 of dollars of jobs going on at
the same time, these mega data centers and megamanufacturing plants and chip plants.

(30:28):
Right?
And it's it's fascinating.
I I could only dream that I wish I wish we were10 years further down the plane.
Right?
I've got 500 to do in a whole year while somepeople got, you know, 5,000,000,000 to do in a
year and could do one of those jobs.
So you have to what what is now and what youyou keep on you keep on having to evolve your

(30:54):
your perfect customer strategy to evolve intothe long term plan of who and what you want
your organization to be.
Right?
5 years ago, it was being low price.
How do I win a federal government job that's a85% of the time, a low price job?
There's there's a lot of novel things you coulddo to drive down price still make money and

(31:16):
win.
And now it's world class Fortune 505,000companies that are going to solve all these
global challenges, and they're looking at verysophisticated builders to go in and partner
with.
Because putting up the building and putting up7 of the same type of building, it doesn't

(31:36):
matter just doing one anymore.
There's so much truth telling into theirproduct and what it's gonna do for the world
that they want you to do for $500,000,000buildings across the country.
And it's the consistency of knowing that youcould go to any of those locations and being
that partner to your commercial customers iswhere I think that secret sauce is.

(31:57):
And I think, you know, when I I I I talkedabout AI, this partnership between humans and
robots is going to really evolve quickly, andit's gonna be much faster than typical, c suite
level leaders in the AEC industry are lookingat.
I think they're thinking about it as the it'sthe shiny keys in the room, but are they really

(32:20):
doing something about it to implement it inyour company and be ahead of the moral and
moral and ethical implications for for what itdoes to your people?
So I think that's something that that has to bethought of as well.
Well,
tech is moving unbelievably fast.
Literally, yesterday, I spoke to somebody thathas a drone company that like this is

(32:41):
happening.
Like the idea of drone delivery, drone safety,drone, like in both construction and other
capabilities.
It's like it is here.
It is just waiting for approval in regards tolike FAA space.
Like that's that is it.
Like that is the last step is the somebody inCongress signing some stuff.
Like that's where we're at.
So when you think of that and then you take AIwhere it's moving, you know, faster than

(33:06):
unbelievable.
We thought the Internet was fast and, like,that's like a joke comparatively.
Where do you like, obviously, you're going andyou're you're looking into this.
Where do you see the future?
What does the future look like 5, 10 years fromnow?
Yeah.
I I I'm glad you asked that.
A couple of things.
Did you see yesterday the robot came out andits face shape and its it had muscularity and

(33:28):
vascularity and had all the had all the veinsgoing into this?
And it was moving so dexterously.
It was, like, unbelievable, the the movementsand the realism to that thing.
And then 2 weeks ago, when Elon put out his newbus and all the robots that came on that were
serving drinks at his party and dancing withpeople.

(33:52):
It's it's really scary for typically knuckledragging construction people at every level.
We've been so technologically behind the last30 years.
The last 30 years of building, a buildinghasn't grown any more efficiently really than
in from 1972 or 1982.

(34:14):
There are so many moral and ethicalimplications for people.
You're talking faith based implications.
You're talking people that are seeingevolution.
You know, it's you think about the books thatwe read when we were in school about these, you
know, especially in Chicago and these meatpacking plants.
Right?
You got 1,000 of people working in all thesehorrible decrepit, you know, conditions.

(34:38):
And then eventually, 50, 60 years later, you'vegot you've got robotics.
You know, you've got automation taking care ofthat same sort of process.
So people people are scared in a people arecurious and scared at the same time.
And I think a little bit of the laugh off aboutAI is that it's not you know, it's gonna

(34:58):
happen, but I don't have to worry about the wayI do my work.
I think it's gonna be the first time, and it'sgonna come, you know, by listening to all these
Harvard and MIT professors.
By 2,029, you're gonna have to make a realchoice about what type of work you do.
The companies that you work for are gonna bereally good about putting you at the right seat

(35:21):
on the bus.
They're gonna have to take these smart reallysmart people that have done fantastic work.
It might have been 10, 20 years in the samecompany.
And looking at retraining them to hopefullypartner with AI and robotics because it is just
so vastly more efficient than the human brain.
And when you're gonna start seeing computersand robots that could actually feel a bit of

(35:46):
empathy, right, because you're putting, like,neurotransmitters from our brain and it's
replicating those things.
Right?
It's it's we're getting the scary stuff forreally good people and for humanity.
So I'm glad you asked the question because 2weeks ago, it's not it's been 3 weeks ago.
We do a junior leader summit every year.

(36:09):
2 years ago, took them to Jackson Hole, and weasked some really important questions about
Richard Building Model, which is ourproprietary project management software in
house and how agile it is and where it's gonnatake us in the future.
And we rafted down the Snake River.
We hiked up to the peak of right next to, youknow, the Grand Teton.

(36:33):
This year, we just got back, and the wholething was what I asked the 14 people that went
on the trip, and we went to Zion National Park,and we stopped every mile gorgeous.
We stopped every mile of the trip and had a 15,20 minute discussion, and we ramped it up.
And the first question was, is AI and itsautomation and robots good for Richard Group's

(36:59):
future?
Just left it at at at that.
We walked the mile.
People talked for that first question, and wegot done with the 1st mile.
So we're, what, probably 5,000 feet up.
We started 3,000 feet.
And I would tell you it was 77.
7, it's positive, and 7 is negative.

(37:22):
And there were you had people at both end ofthe spectrum, really hard lefts and really hard
rights, and then you had the centralist, kindalike political span.
And you start to unwind.
And just like anything that's new.
Right?
If you think about introducing anything new andnovel.
Right?
Change is hard.

(37:42):
I was yeah.
At West Point, I I was in leadership andmanagement.
That was my major.
It was the first management major at WestPoint.
And you learn that in change, in good inherentchange through the organization, sometimes it
takes 2 to 4 years.
And that's little change.
You start looking at change that happened 5years ago in software and technology and that

(38:03):
some of these technologists are putting outthere, it can't do at 1 100th or 1 thousandth
of what these softwares are putting out in a ina day right now.
And that's a real challenge that it's so bigand the AI robotics that monster is so big and
so scary and staring at kids in the face comingout of college as new project engineers.

(38:27):
And then think about your workforce.
These people have been there 30 years, andthey're, you know, 55 to 60 year old
superintendents that you've just taught themover the last 6 years how you how to use Excel
and how to use Microsoft products in thosesuites.
Right?
And, oh, by the way, look at how to use p 6software and go look at cost and resource
loading and look at leading lagging measures ofa critical path.

(38:51):
Those were things that took years to get to getpeople to learn.
And now we're asking them to talk to chatbotsand going on open AI platforms, whatever they
are, and create things within seconds.
That's a it's it's so exciting, and it's soproblematic at the same time.

(39:14):
So we go in up.
We're going the 2nd mile.
The next question is, are you okay with me asCEO thinking about inserting AI and robotics
into our company?
And if not, please let me know.
We get to that.
Now we're at, like, 65 100 feet.
And I said, what's the real problem here?
And one of the project engineers this is thereal conversation.

(39:35):
1 project engineers, he's leading a $65,000,000job of ours in Boston area.
He goes, do you know I've been taking all ofour submittals?
So we're just talking about things.
Because this guy is super amped.
He actually was wearing the glasses that hadthe the AI prompter inside of it.
I forgot.
I think there might have been like Ray Bans.
Meta?

(39:55):
Oh.
They they
they're like Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But they weren't the I think they're all havingtheir same thing, but some sort of meta source.
He's like, hey, Meta.
Like like and he's asking this thing questions.
And he looked at all the other young men andwomen that were up on that hill.
He goes, do you know?
Because they were so some of them were soagainst it.
He's like, do you know I've been putting in allof our submittals in the Chat GPT, and I've

(40:20):
been asking Chat GPT based off of variousprompts of us and from the perspective of I'm a
quality control manager at chat gpt, and I wantyou to check the submittal against every
submittal that you see on the web that dealswith the core of engineers.
And will you fix and make corrections and redlines on it?
It's like, do you know I could do that in,like, 3 minutes and do things that I on one

(40:42):
submittal used to take me, like, 2 weeks?
So now all the scared people that are like,well, it's a moral and consideration.
I'm Christian.
There's god aspects that I'm worried about,which are we have to unpack as well.
Right?
But then they're like, oh my gosh.
It can make my job that much easier.
And you start getting those conversations.

(41:05):
So then the conversation of productivity andmoral and ethical considerations starts to
collide.
And we go on the next mile, and I say, thinkabout this.
Think about if if we have a technology code ofconduct in this company, and I ask all of you,
what are the guardrails that you would the 7that you don't don't want this anywhere near,

(41:30):
Richard, if I were to ask you about theseguardrails and what they are, I wanna know at
7,000 feet.
So again, we got 7,000 feet.
They're huffing and puffing.
You could see they've been talking.
There's couple couple people getting a littleheated up there, and they start talking about
these things.
We get to that spot.
I'm like, alright.
Let's start talking about the guardrails.

(41:50):
So we started with a 26 year corps of engineercommander.
We talked to a 28 year old juniorsuperintendent.
The things that they were considering.
Hey.
I one of the considerations a majorconsideration that every company CEO should be
thinking about, Is my job safe if we introducethis technology into the company at a very

(42:14):
simplistic level?
Think about that question.
Think about somebody that's been so beenquality control manager or superintendent for 8
years, and they've been busting their buttgoing to every single job, and they've been
great for their customers.
And then realizing that there's gonna be asoftware, AI, or something that they could

(42:35):
either think of as partnering with it orthinking about that's my enemy.
And that could possibly do a job better than Ican and explain to the customer how that things
get built gets built or our subcontractors somuch more efficiently and eloquently as me,
will that kill me off?
Because that's what they were thinking.

(42:56):
And I'll tell you the same person that saidsubmittals, I could get them in 3 minutes.
One of the things I asked them to be I said,listen.
Open up your mind.
This is an amnesty box conversation.
If you're doing something so good, I want youto share it.
You're like, oh, man.
I have to worry about my job.
I don't have to worry about my my own my ownteammates catching up to me.

(43:18):
And that allowed this one guy to go and say,I'm doing this on Chat GPT.
And they're like, I'm okay.
But it was like a secret sauce thing I've beendoing the last 3 months because he was worried
about everybody catching up and knowing how todo that.
I said, that's not where at where we're at.
We're a team and we're gonna grow technology inhere.
We gotta treat robots and AI, generative AI.

(43:40):
We have to start teaching it and training it tohave the cultural same.
There might be really good technically, andthey'll help them be culturally aligned with
who we are moving this thing forward.
I will tell you once we got to mile and we did12 miles that day, we didn't do any discussions
the last 2 miles because we got we we werereally having a hard time getting getting to

(44:01):
the peak.
But we got to 14 and o.
14, yes, 0, no, and came up with a strict onepager guideline of this is this these are the
guardrails.
We got the same team.
We said, oh, here's another thing that we saidbecause this this this is important.
When you do something new in a company, youneed to have a steering committee, and you need

(44:22):
to have a resource for other people in thecompany that haven't been able to work it out
like we did over a course of 3 days to go andsit with a panel and group of people at the
company and work out what their concerns are.
Concern isn't a the concern isn't an issue.
It's not a problem.
It's not bad.
Right?
When we look at things in these micro failuresthat people have in a company, it's not a bad

(44:48):
thing.
I want us to fail small to lean forward muchfaster.
But there's gonna be a lot of differentquestions because the generative AI is gonna
advance even further.
Elon's robots are gonna get better and betterand better.
It's it's it's coming whether we like it ornot.
Politically, governance is gonna trail that somuch slower.

(45:09):
Right?
Like us saying, right, our government sayingyou could do this or you can't do that.
We can't that bureaucracy can't think as fastas what technologists are doing in this
industry.
So not only does our little steering committeein our company need to do something about it,
we need to have this global community ofconstruction engineering and architect leaders

(45:32):
that could come together and say, this is themoral imperative.
This is the moral high ground.
This is the moral right of what we could dowith these robots.
It's coming whether we like it or not, butlet's be aligned in what those guardrails are
so that not everybody's off the reservation.
Right?
We gotta hone in on this.
So those are just a a few thoughts of, youknow, your original question, and it kinda led

(45:56):
to what we were doing with the technology.
Oh, man.
I'm so glad we asked this question.
Yeah.
Thank you for, like, putting like, I am so gladthat you had considerable thought and actual,
really, an outing, you know, around this,because this is this is a question that is very
hard for the built world.

(46:18):
I think that they don't really know how toanswer this, and I don't think there is a right
answer yet.
So I had written down something on mywhiteboard 2 almost 3 years ago.
I want I I just want you to listen to this.
Yeah.
In the world of AI, knowledge is free andsoftware is nearly free.

(46:39):
We'll be limited by our ability to ask theright questions, our time and capacity to
consume knowledge, and our ability to apply it.
What do you think of that?
I'm gonna ask you this, and maybe it's gonna goup in your whiteboard, and then you gotta ask
yourself the next question.
What if I were to tell you, because this isfact and I shouldn't say it's fact, but this is
predictability from MIT and Harvard and all thetechnologists I've talked to.

(47:03):
By 2029, virtually every content moving forwardon the world wide web is going to be created by
generative AI, by chatbots, by robots.
They are not going to have human form.
Almost all of the major content in white papersor anything else is gonna be coming from the

(47:25):
amalgamation of the thoughts of all thesewonderful thinkers and innovators combined.
That's what they believe.
That's the supernova of the web and when it'sgonna happen.
That's when CHaChEBT is not just chat 100.0.
This is this is that collide.
So where it's being gen where it's actuallybeing generated.

(47:47):
So there's still a human aspect behind it.
Look, English is the new cool.
Used to be a very, there was a lot of peoplethat did not like English class.
English is now the new cool.
Okay.
Just speaking in terms of classes.
K?
And I'm a math guy too, by the way.
So, you know, data is the actual key to what isvaluable.

(48:17):
How that data gets interpreted is literallycontext.
Okay.
So you can have a white paper and you ask itone question to write something about it or to
interpret those results or whatnot.
And all you have to do is change 1 or 2 wordsand the context changes.
So I would argue you are getting to the pointfaster.

(48:40):
Right?
And if because I if I'm the creator that'shelping behind the generative AI that's
creating the white paper, if I don't like whatit says, I could quickly rewrite it faster than
if I actually typed it out rewriting.
So I can get to an end result way faster in thecontext of what I'm trying to actually

(49:03):
communicate.
If anything, I would argue this is going toteach us to communicate better.
Because communication in the built world isokay at best.
Okay?
Because to human is to And if we remove some ofthe errors in communication, all we're doing is

(49:25):
we are now the editors of our communication.
Right?
And we're
going, that's what I wanted to say.
Wouldn't it cause less problems in the worldthat we live in?
I'm glad that we're having this debate and thisconversation because it deals a lot with this.
I I am worried about my young project engineersbecause, right, I'm just the construction guy.

(49:45):
I'm worried about my young project engineerslearning how to think deeply and how to how to
grow and educate themselves and learn fromthese prompts.
Because what you're talking about is a prompt.
Right?
In the in the large you're talking LLM.
You're talking large language models.

(50:08):
And what I'm concerned about I'm not sayingthere's there's a lot of opportunity in this
concern.
Mhmm.
I'm concerned about project engineers and youngpeople coming out of college where they're just
learning more and more how to prompt uponprompt upon prompt.
Remember when we learn something before the TI82 calculator, when we had professor

(50:31):
83.
Yep.
We had TI 80 1.
Yep.
80 82, 83.
There's 79 before that.
I mean, they're all different variations,right, of this thing growing out.
Remember taking whiteboards or chalkboards andactually doing the work?
I worry about the efficiency of prompting andpeople having and humans having the real

(50:52):
chance, things and thought processes and howpeople learn, how they teach themselves, how
they coach, teach, and mentor, and how theybecome leaders.
If you have so much information at the click ofa button.
Right?
How many times do you sit at a dinner withfriends and somebody says, well, you hear a
story and they say something and you you're,like, fact checking them right on the spot.

(51:14):
You pull out your iPhone you pull out youriPhone and you say, no.
That song, you know, Ice Ice Baby was actually1986, dude.
It wasn't the and it wasn't on CD first, and itwasn't 1989.
So you're wrong.
You know?
And it's like, That was kinda funny.
I'm so worried about people not being able towork out in their head.

(51:37):
There is something awesome about that next stepof, hey.
I've learned all these technical skills.
I've got my toolkit filled to do my job and runthe robots and run the generative AI.
I'm so concerned about them working out theprocess of how they want to think because of
companies that are just profit and driven,which is you have to have profit center first,

(52:03):
that they don't wanna invest in that becausethe technology is already sitting behind the
screen.
They don't wanna What you're talking
about is critical thinking.
Yeah.
You're talking about
what you're But that post but that post is thequestion of, like like, right now, like, how
you're building out a team.
Right?
Like, just as in general.
Right?
So say you have new, say new CFO or new VP ofops or new these things.

(52:24):
Like, how are you then seeing those leaders,like, you know, because you're putting leaders
together to help the the team underneath themgrow.
How do you how do you see that?
How do you build the team currently?
Like, what's that look like now?
And is that is your future thinking of, youknow, 2029 or or beyond affecting then that
decision making process?

(52:44):
Justin, I like the way you asked that question.
I would say because we are in a technologicalgolden age in construction.
I would like people depending on their currentskill set as we're moving into this to somewhat
silo themselves into their current capacity andlook at all that data in the jobs and roles

(53:07):
they have to fill.
The part where you're gonna have massivefrustrations if you have a 30 year CFO or vice
president of operations in a room, and you havea 24 year old that knows how to prompt smoother
more efficiently, thinking that they've got theexperience factor on top of that.

(53:28):
That's so that's so so with data, right, withdata and knowledge, right, how knowledge is
power.
Knowledge is power.
We grew up before computers.
Knowledge is power.
This is knowledge.
Now you have knowledge
without applicability.
You
have knowledge without even thinking abouthaving to have knowledge.
You could pull it up in front.
You're gonna be able to pull it up on glassesthat are 3 d as you're talking to somebody.

(53:50):
There's there's a concern that I have with theAI leadership and human leadership, poise in
our younger generation that after COVID wouldlike that $15,000 raise for every little deed
that they've done right over the course oftheir 6 months.

(54:12):
That they wanna be a PE and go for a PD to APMto a project manager in 2 weeks when it used to
take 2 decades.
And I'm not saying listen.
I'm I'm saying this in the healthiest waybecause I'm talking to you like I talk to my
project engineers.
I tell my project engineers every day you'rethe smartest project engineers that ever step

(54:33):
face into a construction business.
But it doesn't mean that you have theexperience to lead the people that have come
from before you.
Right?
But you've got this really awesome technologytool to help you tell truth and to help you
align data.
Think about this.
In my own company, one of the things I said atthe beginning, and this is before Chegg PGT

(54:56):
came out.
1 of our 3 wildly important goals or maincompany goals going into the year, and this all
got disrupted, was having Richard Group moveinto one single source of truth in all of the
technology that we own.
Because the company ran in, like, 68 differentspreadsheets that were dynamic and fantastic
and, you know, no code and, like, all thisstuff that's happening.

(55:20):
And then and then Chat, Sheet, Pitino, OpenAIcame out.
And then you're like you're like, you're like,oh my gosh.
I just worked 4 months on building that out inAzure in a dataset in a data table on the back
end, and I could have done this in, like, 3.2seconds.
Right?
So I guess what we're talking about is westill, at the end of the day, have to build a

(55:44):
perfect building for our customer.
And it's so exciting, technologically, what'shappening.
What I think we all need to sit back as c suitelevel people in construction companies and even
more so in the smartest of engineers that arecoming to us is figuring out what your long
term plan is, what you wanna be in your life 3to 5 years.

(56:08):
Right?
PE doesn't need to go tell me I Jed, I wanna gorun one of your groups 1 more $3,000,000,000
and run that $1,000,000,000 group.
I want them to start thinking, okay.
A project engineer takes 3 I wanna be a projectengineer, and it's gonna take those 3 years.
We gotta tell them that's the pact.
If you're a little bit better, maybe it takes 2and a half years.
If you're a little slower, it's 4 and o, by theway.

(56:30):
The best project manager doesn't mean you werenot the worst project engineers.
Different trades and different tasks that wehave to align you on.
But the most important thing, guys, is when wesit you in the front of a customer, and the
customer looks at you and asks you the toughestquestions that you could solve those challenges
as clearly and simply as possible and as fastas possible.

(56:52):
And getting those people aligned with thistechnology leadership, because it's gonna be
technology leadership and manual manual justgood old what management leadership has been in
in the past.
Because there is gonna be a knowledge andexperience gap of all the youngsters having it
at the palm of their fist right away.

(57:15):
Right now, I'm gonna get you that answer,mister CEO.
Or I I I asked Chatcheapiti to do this, andbecause I was able to do this faster than
somebody who's been in the business 20 years,I'm therefore better.
The world is still gonna work in the peoplethat work underneath you think you're
technologically great, that you treat usfantastic.

(57:37):
Right?
And that you got vision and strategy and moveus forward.
So they still have to align, and they're stillgonna have the younger generation has to have
this grace with the upper generation that's hadthat experience but haven't used the technology
in the past.
And forging those two models together, I thinkwe are gonna have a faster building eventually

(57:58):
out in the field.
Right?
Because we're teaching our 55, 60, 65 year oldsuperintendents that haven't seen it to use it
and partner with it, and have those projectengineers help those guys enhance how they talk
to subcontractors, how they look at means andmethods out the job, how they inspect the work.

(58:18):
Right?
Because we're gonna eventually have goggles on,and they're gonna it's gonna scan, and they're
gonna pick it's gonna pick up every fall up inan interstitial space of all the MEP systems.
We don't even have to know it ourselves.
It's gonna know it for us.
But what happens when the battery's off?
Weapons when the power goes off?
What happens?
Right?
Yep.
It happens.
And so that's where good leadership comes intoplay and tempers the expectations of our

(58:45):
technologists that are project engineersalongside it.
And I do think it's gonna come to a really goodsolution.
I do think we're gonna start putting upbuildings 20, 30% faster than we ever have
before for all the advanced manufacturing androbotics that I'm also getting into that we
could talk about outside of the actual job siteitself.
So that's the those are my thoughts on it.

(59:09):
It's the balance.
Right?
It's balance of, you know, great people thathave experience to do things that have been
there with then the tool set the advanced toolset of tech.
Right?
I mean, you have, like, you can't just take theperson that can do the thing in 3 minutes that
took somebody, you know, 5 years ago, 4 weeksto do because, like, that doesn't like, that's

(59:30):
the the tools are so different.
So that makes some sense.
I I wanna ask one more question before we getto our last question.
So, Richard Group or Richard has come to a newbrand.
Right?
You've rebranded and Colleen and her team, havebeen awesome and everybody else that worked on
it, it looks great.
But why now?
Why why was now the right time to change, notnot change who you are certainly, but show the

(59:55):
world a different, a different point of view.
Yeah.
And Colleen Richardson is phenomenal.
I'm so proud that I was able to bring her, overto this team, and she did a great rebrand in
commercial.
She's partnered with the Blackhawks.
We've we've been a sponsor now for a coupleyears with Chicago Blackhawks, and we've
expanded that to, you know, our our San Diegooffice, and we're partnering with local

(01:00:17):
universities there.
You know, we've got a lot of athletes in thisathletic component.
Things are a a big part of, where we're gonnabe in the future.
But I will tell you this.
When I was in the basement in October 2014 atmy house, and I appreciate my veteran status,
my veteran background, I never ever ever wantto think of that designation as a handout,

(01:00:41):
destination.
It's still so in my basement thinking about thegrowth, my company was writing the original
business plan.
It wasn't used my veteran business status.
It was not the destination to sit as a smallbusiness general contractor doing federal
contracts because of this veteran smallbusiness designation.
I and and it's not it's not a brag or too proudor whatever.

(01:01:09):
I I wanted to build this company because of theculture I wanted to bring to it.
Instead of staying in the military, you know,I've to to lead a platoon of 40 people and, you
know, be an executive officer of 300 people, bebe on the operations staff of a 2,000 person

(01:01:29):
organization, I enjoyed I enjoyed leading andlistening and solving the challenges of more
and more people.
Right?
And just so happens that more and more peopleleads to more and more revenue typically in a
company.
So I wanted this to be a general contractor.
The original thought was to be a a$1,000,000,000 company in 25 years.

(01:01:52):
And now it's be a $10,000,000,000 company in 20years.
You know, it's not we're we're gonna do it muchfaster.
So Richard in his first 10 years was learninghow to be a general contractor, being really
successful at it for certain customers, mainlyfederal business customers.
And, our mission, you know, build with purpose,live with passion is our tagline.

(01:02:20):
You know, we're purpose builders.
We aren't what you've what you've recognized inbringing so many talented, talented individuals
in the way we test people and, you know, seeingthe attributes that we test, and it it's a it's
a lot of work to come work for this company,which is awesome.
It's a gauntlet, right, of great gratitude andgreatness.

(01:02:40):
And greatness is, IQ and EQ testing.
We have all these wonderful people that haveserviced so many great customers that they care
about.
So as long as they are building to solve theworld's greatest challenges.
Our perfect customer is a professional nomatter what type of professional, and the

(01:03:03):
building or structure they wanna build is sothat they could go bring their product and
solve the world's challenges, make it moreefficient.
And if that means figuring out how to use therobots that are sitting in our warehouse right
now to build faster timber truss systems thatare 30% faster and more efficient, which leads

(01:03:23):
to a reduction in costs and gets people's housedown from $250,000 down to a $150,000 so it's
more affordable for more technologists has thenext SaaS software or the next robot that could

(01:03:48):
go hang drywall by itself so that my peopledon't get injured that are carpenters, man, and
they want me to go build a robotics factory,that's that's greatness.
That's, to me, greatness.
So it's just natural that, we've been in onesegment.

(01:04:09):
We've been in one market called building, andnow we're gonna go build out the segments of
building.
We've we've been awarded $600,000,000 worth ofhealth care.
We've done tons of that health care withveterans and veteran facilities.
I'm, like, been so honored that our people ourpeople are so honored and gracious about it,
and so are the patients.

(01:04:30):
You know, when a patient comes out, which we'veseen in hospitals we've been in for 7 years,
and the patient comes out, it's like, man, Ihad to wait, like, 4 months or 5 months to get
in and do this MRI scan.
I got this one in, like, 2 weeks.
That's when the power happens.
It's not the the bottom line.
You have to be efficient in the bottom line tobuild scalability of companies, to have the

(01:04:53):
opportunities to bring more people in your intoyour culture.
For us making these acquisitions to bring morepeople into what we think the vision is of for
what construction can be, which is apartnership of humans and robots moving
together to build world class structures.
You can't necessarily do that all in a fairlybureaucratic government space.

(01:05:15):
We're not leaving it.
It's gonna be there.
But what what you've seen in those commercialsand our new website is, yeah, power power
generation.
Right?
Renewables.
Right?
We're so lucky that we got into Biden's EV,electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
We're in 28 different locations around theUnited States, surveying and getting them

(01:05:35):
prepared for their 2,035 mandate to take allthe gas guzzlers and turn them into electric
vehicles at every base around the country.
This this is real, but there's so manychallenges trying to get power to those sites,
and you start seeing the customer working outthese challenges, challenges everywhere.
So, we believe that we are very fast anddynamic and that we're technologically forward

(01:06:00):
and focused and that we got these supremelytalented, ethical, moral leaders that are gonna
lead construction into its golden age, workingwith and partnering with whatever technology
is.
Because it was it was AI first then becamegenerative AI and large language models that

(01:06:22):
we've talked about prompting and picking outdifferent steps in the prompt.
Who knows what it's gonna be called in 3 years?
We just know it's gotta move forward.
And if that enhances the lives of people andmakes their work live play scenario better,
then that that's that's that's what a tombstoneworthy life could be for me when I hang it up

(01:06:45):
and say, hey.
Our people did this for construction, and we'vekinda etched ourselves into history.
And that's that's the next 10 years.
1st 10 years, we we learned.
The next 10 years, we're teaching.
That's a that's a I love how you summed thatup.
I wish we could talk more, and record it.
We're just not the Joe Rogan podcast just

(01:07:06):
yet.
Yeah.
So we gotta bring it down to our last question.
So, Jed, if you were to go back 20 years, whatwould you tell yourself?
Well, learning lessons, what things would youwhat would you impose upon
your
your younger self?
It's a it's a real easy thing, and I wish I hada more eloquent way of saying it, but be the

(01:07:28):
average of your 5 best friends.
That's your 5 best business friends.
That's your 5 best friends outside because weweren't even to delve into, like, wellness and
spirituality and all the other things that wedo in this company.
Our our values, grit, gratitude or I'm sorry.
Gratitude, resilience, excellence, adventure,and transparency, those are our values in the

(01:07:49):
company.
Adventure is so important.
So if you could surround yourselves with peoplethat live that passion with you, and when you
gotta go cry on a shoulder that or if you evenwanna boast because you did something really
awesome, and you don't wanna go showcase thatawesomeness to the world, but you wanna just go
sit there and enjoy it with somebody thatthat's been through the humble process of

(01:08:12):
entrepreneurship or growing a company.
And that's for everybody.
If you're not you know, it's, so Aristotle, youknow, what is happiness?
Right?
What what is happiness in life?
And I it it's progress.
It's continual progress and continual learningand continually making yourself better in

(01:08:37):
whatever respect that is, whatever your passionis.
And, so that's that's what I would say.
And I I I I'm not saying that because I didn'thave those I I wasn't the average of my 5 best
friends.
I am just continually hunting.
I'm not leaving my old best friends alone.
Right?
I'm not leave I'm not they're not going out tothe pastures.
I'm I'm I'm gonna live to death with them, butI'm absolutely needing to sit in a room with a

(01:09:03):
conversation that makes us think like we'rethinking today.
That's progress, and that's human progress, notrobotic progress.
And, yeah, and I wanna do it sitting somewherein a house out on that river just below that
mountain basin at some point.
I wanna be able to take people out there, andhave conversations till 3 AM in the morning

(01:09:27):
talking about what's really important in life.
So and that's
it's days I hope I hope to do that with you.
Yeah, man.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate this, I appreciate you giving methe mic, and, I think we talked about
construction.
We did.
I'm glad we talked to AI because I don't thinkit's being thoughtfully promoted or presented,

(01:09:51):
in our space.
And, I if you know how to connect me to thosesorts of people and have more of these sorts of
conversations, it's so completely necessarybefore it gets beyond our comprehension,
especially in the AC space.
And I know you guys are huge proponents ofthat.
And from what you guys are doing on thetechnology side, cybersecurity, and all the
things that you guys and that we're looking attogether on, I I, I I think that's the next

(01:10:16):
step in construction.
Beautiful.
Well said.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're gonna throw all your social stuff in theshow notes.
No problem there.
But if if somebody wanna get a hold of, Richardor you, specifically, is there a best way to do
that?
Yeah.
I I I, didn't like link LinkedIn at thebeginning.
I've been been told and promoting that I do Ido do all my own writing on LinkedIn.

(01:10:41):
I would ask that people go, you know, follow meand reach out to me on LinkedIn.
I typically answer almost every person.
I've got a train ride into work and back home,and I do it every single day tied to that.
I think that's the best place to start, and thepower to say no is also important.
So if there's I get try to get sold about a1,000 things a day.

(01:11:03):
So if there's something that's meaningful thatwill add to us having a better, more
sophisticated project, I'd love to talk to youand collaborate with you.
And that's so that's why I would ask.
And then Colleen and Sofia are in our marketingdepartment.
If there's some other collaboration inbuildings or thought processes, that's that's
that's where I would direct them.

(01:11:24):
No.
Totally.
This has been awesome.
I'm sure our listeners, had an amazing time, asI know me and Will did.
And and usually I say adios, but, it feelsright to say, keep chasing the buffalo or keep
chasing the bison.
Yeah.
Let's go.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Everybody's gotta keep going.
So much more to learn and accomplish.

(01:11:45):
Alright.
That's it for today.
So, until next time.
Adios.
Adios.
Thanks for listening to Building Scale.
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Remember, the 3 pillars of scaling a businessare people, process, and technology.

(01:12:07):
And our mission is to help the AEC industryprotect itself by making technology easy.
So if you think your company's technologypillar could use some improvement, book a call
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(01:12:30):
And until next time,
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Scale.