KP Unpacked

What happens when a 60-year-old stadium tries to compete with the airport you flew through last week?

In this September takeover episode of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Chris Nations, President of Venue Development at Legends, ahead of his appearance at AEC Summit on October 19th at The Weylin in Brooklyn. Chris founded Nations Group in 2008, spent his career managing athlete venues and capital projects from Oregon State to Penn State's Beaver Stadium to the new Dallas Mavericks arena, before Legends acquired Nations Group in 2025. His read on the market: sports venue investment...

What if the best innovation in construction has never been the technology, but the people willing to listen?

In this September takeover episode of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Ravi Bhatia, Business Development Manager at Skanska USA Civil in New York, ahead of his appearance at AEC Summit on October 19th at The Weylin in Brooklyn. Ravi brings 35 years of commercial high-rise, transportation, critical systems, and design-build infrastructure experience, and teaches pre-construction and planning at Fordham. His through line across all of it: innovation is never really about technology. It's about people with...

What if the biggest impact of AI in construction isn't cutting costs or headcount, but raising the standard of what clients expect?

In this September takeover episode of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Brad Hargreaves, co-founder of General Assembly and Common, and founder of Thesis Driven, a newsletter reaching the investors, developers, and operators building American cities. Brad's take on AI in AEC cuts through the noise: the tools getting real enterprise adoption aren't the ones generating plans. They're the ones checking them. Validating them against code. Catching conflicts before they become change...

What if the biggest factor in America's reindustrialization isn't capital, technology, or policy, but whether your state ever learned to play well with others?

In this September takeover episode of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Tom Stringer, founder of Stringer Site Selection, ahead of his appearance at AEC Summit on October 19th at The Weylin in Brooklyn. Tom has spent two decades deciding where things get built. Aerospace plants, EV lines, defense facilities, Fortune 500 headquarters. He's secured billions in incentives and he's a licensed attorney and real estate broker in New York. When...

What if the most human-centered innovation in construction isn't software, a robot, or a platform, but what workers are wearing on the job?

In this September takeover episode of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Tiffany Yeh, CEO of Eztia and Forbes 30 Under 30, ahead of her appearance at AEC Summit on October 19th in Brooklyn. Tiffany walked away from medical residency to build HydraVolt, a cooling gel worn as apparel that drops skin temperature roughly 10 degrees Celsius for up to eight hours, with no batteries, no maintenance, and no infrastructure required. It is already...

What if the reason we can't electrify the world isn't that we don't have good enough batteries, but that we can't make enough of them?

In this September takeover episode of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Alexander Girau, CEO and co-founder of Group1, ahead of his appearance at AEC Summit on October 19th in Brooklyn. Alexander has worked on two Nobel Prize-winning technologies out of UT Austin, including technology developed by John Goodenough, the inventor of the lithium-ion battery. Group1 is his latest venture, commercializing potassium-ion battery chemistry that moves faster than lithium...

What if the reason construction robotics never scaled wasn't the technology, but the approach?

In this special September edition of KP Unpacked, guest host Tyler Sellhorn sits down with Nadav Shuruk, co-founder and COO of Okibo, ahead of their appearance at AEC Summit on October 19th in Brooklyn. Nadav breaks down why every other construction robot has failed to reach real scale, and why Okibo's EG7 took a fundamentally different path. No BIM. No site prep. No markers. No pre-programming. You unload it from the truck, press start, and it finishes roughly 1,000 square feet of drywall or...

What if the biggest barrier to data center approvals isn't policy, permits, or power, but storytelling?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick cover a lot of ground: why AEC firms are terrible at the billable hour compared to lawyers, why 18-year average tenure is a sign of mediocrity not culture, why AI is going to expose the standby workforce faster than anyone expects, and why architects have been handed a billion-dollar opportunity in the data center wars that nobody's talking about.

The Walmart analogy says it all. When Walmart was expanding...

What if the keyboard is already obsolete and we just haven't told anyone yet?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack eight takeaways from KP's breakfast with who he calls the smartest person he knows in AEC. The conversation spans how kids born today will interact with computers the same way we interact with abacuses, why LLMs finally let humans skip the translation layer entirely, and why construction is already sitting on the most valuable physical AI dataset in the world without realizing it.

The deeper thread is about empathy. AI...

What's the difference between a founder who pivots and one who just quits with extra steps?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy sits down with Andrew Ackerman, Zero RFI's Head of Special Projects ringing a fresh perspective on what it actually looks like to go from AI-adjacent to AI-native, why corporate AI rollouts fail before they start, and why the best onboarding experience isn't a training deck, it's a video game tutorial.

The conversation gets real about the state of construction tech startups: corporates are running pilots, paying five grand, and building the...

What happens when every silo optimizes itself but nobody optimizes the whole system?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack the central paradox of construction AI: if 500 AI estimating tools, AI scheduling tools, and AI design tools are all saving contractors 20-30% in their respective silos, why aren't buildings getting cheaper? The answer: all the waste lives in the interoperability, not the individual workflows. Walmart didn't get cheap by optimizing their suppliers in isolation. They engineered the entire supply chain to comply with their rules. Until someone does that in construction, everyone just...

What happens when non-technical people at a hackathon build in one day what software startups have been pitching for years?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack why sitting in a hackathon full of non-technical AEC people building working prototypes in eight hours is making software feel uninvestable. Incumbents are building features they've wanted for five years. Nobody needed corporate approval. Nobody needed a startup. They just needed a day and a keyboard. If that's the new baseline, what exactly is a software company selling?

The conversation covers why PE firms...

When every pitch deck looks the same, sameness becomes the fastest path to the rejection pile.

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack why AI-generated pitch decks have become the new resume red flag, why Zero RFI scrapped ROI calculators entirely in favor of just doing the work, and why a GTM leader took a salary cut to join a startup without ever doing the math on what a successful exit would actually pay them. KP walked them through the numbers. Their face went white.

The conversation spans the Bay Area...

The Facebook moment just hit enterprise AI. Did you miss the terms of service update?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick break down why the Alex Karp CNBC interview landed like a bomb in enterprise boardrooms but barely surprised anyone actually building with AI. Construction company CEOs were getting texts from board members within hours: "Did you see this? What are we doing?" The answer for most of them? Running Microsoft Copilot, banning Claude, and quietly dealing with ransomware attacks that have already put subcontractors out of business.

KP walks through...

What if teaching kids to complete the Millennium Falcon set is exactly what's making them unprepared for the real world?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack why AI reading drawings is a feature, not a company, why reindustrialization in Detroit changed how KP thinks about hard tech, and why the Lego analogy explains everything wrong with how we raise kids today. Original Legos were a mixed box of bricks with no instructions. You built whatever your imagination created. Modern Lego sets are Millennium Falcons with step-by-step instructions. Kids complete the set, lose...

Can you build a robot the same way you vibe code software? Not even close.

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick sit down with Guy German, CEO of Okibo, to unpack why programming motion control got 10x easier but building robots still requires years of field testing. Guy breaks down the three requirements for general-purpose construction robots: physical capability (reach, payload, battery life), tool flexibility (spray guns, rollers, power tools, dust collectors), and intelligence (real-time perception, work plan generation). Humanoids fail all three for construction. Chinese robots require pre-fitted BIM data that doesn't...

What if the thing limiting AI growth isn't chips or power, but wastewater treatment capacity?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack why water infrastructure is the next bottleneck. Jacobs has a $22.7B backlog weighted toward water. AECOM intends to double its water business in three years. Stantec's water practice is its single largest vertical. Meta just built a $70M wastewater plant in Idaho. TSMC broke ground on a 15-acre water reclamation facility in Phoenix targeting 90% recycling. The CHIPS Act, EV gigafactories, and hyperscaler water-positive commitments are pulling wastewater treatment capacity onto private...

What if the detail that seems trivial to you is the constraint keeping the entire project from moving forward?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy sits down with Dr. Barry Clark, CTO of Zero RFI, to unpack why construction projects fail on details nobody thought mattered. A structural beam seems simple: read the line on the drawing, spec the size, done. But the client needs the longest span possible without custom manufacturing (adds cost). The superintendent needs to know when the truck leaves to avoid traffic (adds delays). The permitting team worries about wide-load requirements...

What if the next five years of your career isn't defined by which AI you use, but by who you're working with?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack the quiet revolution happening in management consulting. OpenAI just launched a deployment company and acquired a consulting firm. Anthropic is backing enterprise AI consultancies. PE firms are partnering with AI-enabled consultants and offering equity instead of hourly fees. The result? Three tiers of value capture emerging: billable hours (worst talent), risk-based fees (middle tier), and equity models (where the best people go). If you're...

What happens when AEC firms ban Claude because they don't know where their project data goes?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack the regression happening across construction firms: people disconnecting Claude, companies banning enterprise AI tools, and employees carrying two laptops (work and personal) to keep building with tools their firms won't approve. A 3,000-person AEC firm just banned Claude entirely. The result? Everyone's using personal instances on company time, and the firm loses all institutional knowledge being built in those sessions.

But the deeper conversation is about IP anxiety...

What is it about watching a machine tape drywall that creates visceral discomfort in ways software automation never did?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick dissect the emotional response to physical AI versus digital AI. Nick's Okibo robotics video got 300K views and sparked a firestorm: half celebrating reduced construction costs, half horrified that "they're coming for the physical jobs too." The backlash reveals something deeper. People feel guilt about blue-collar displacement in ways they never did about white-collar knowledge work. Why? Because physical labor was supposed to be the fallback when AI...

What if tracking how much AI your team uses tells you more than tracking their hours?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick reveal a controversial management shift happening at Zero RFI: KP monitors enterprise Claude analytics and reaches out to employees with low token usage, not high spenders. The new performance metric isn't billable hours or output volume. It's curiosity, commitment to learning, and willingness to experiment. Someone burning through credits is building, iterating, testing limits. Someone avoiding the tools is resisting change. And if the CEO isn't in the top third of...

What happens when speed to completion collapses from quarters to days, and your planning cycles become obsolete overnight?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick process life after the Zero RFI launch while unpacking why every startup metric that mattered five years ago just became irrelevant. From PE firms opening San Francisco offices because "you can't remote control this from New York" to one company going from $1M to $61M ARR in six months, the conversation reveals why ARR, CAC, LTV, and 30-60-90 day plans are all anchored to a time domain that...

What happens when everyone's AI agents start talking to each other—and you're stuck without any?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick process the Zero RFI launch aftermath - from 3,500 resumes in 24 hours to a top-tier VC introducing themselves like KP's never heard of them. But the real conversation pivots to what happens when everyone deploys AI agents: cognitive overload, the spy-vs-spy escalation of automation, and why construction's suicide crisis gets worse when information flows faster but judgment disappears.

KP breaks down why engineering firms are drowning in RFIs that should ju...

What happens when a VC flips to the founder side and raises $13.8M to fix the biggest broken relationship in construction?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP and Nick finally reveal what's been hiding in plain sight across 20+ podcast episodes: Zero RFI, KP's human-first AI-scaffolded platform company purpose-built to modernize the construction industry at scale. After spending two years in conversation with General Catalyst – not shopping decks, just iterating on conviction – KP was handed $13.8M and a mandate to solve the asymmetry of information that leaves owners helpless: architects billing by the hour, contractors burying change orde...

What if the biggest crisis in construction isn't AI adoption, it's that we hand over $100M assets with no instruction manual?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy sits down with David Niewiadomski, former Turner Construction executive turned Shadow Ventures operator, to answer a haunting question: if your building could talk, what would it say? The answer isn't pretty. "You don't do scheduled maintenance. You didn't check the caulk joints before the warranty expired. You take me for granted." Dave spent 17 years in the contractor trenches, pre-con, estimating, project management, and walked away to solve the...

If contractors get 50% more efficient with AI, who captures the margin improvement?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick tackle a question that went viral in construction circles: with all these AI companies raising capital to serve contractors, will owners and developers actually see lower costs? Or will GCs pocket the efficiency gains and maintain pricing power? The conversation spirals into economic theory, prisoner's dilemma dynamics, and why the WebMD playbook might predict construction's AI future.

But the deeper thread is about what happens when an entire conservative industry, one built on...

Why are corporate knowledge workers structurally prohibited from learning the most important skill of the decade?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy sits down with Nona Black, Head of People, to unpack why hiring 36 people feels harder than running 36 Mac minis with Claude Cowork and why that's both a joke and a serious question. From Delta Airlines innovation leadership to startup chaos, Nona brings the corporate perspective on what happens when IT departments become the biggest barrier to workforce evolution.

The conversation spans the tactical (how Claude holds your ADHD thoughts while you...

What matters after decades of building, losing, and rebuilding?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy turns 55, and Nick uses the milestone for a lightning round conversation exploring career highs, crushing losses, and the philosophy that's shaped three decades of entrepreneurship. From living in a truck eating 19-cent tuna to running a VC fund, KP reflects on the moments that actually stuck and why they weren't the trophy wins.

The conversation moves between tactical and existential. KP explains how Claude Cowork is now his nurse practitioner (drafting insurance appeals, scheduling appointments, analyzing x-rays), why...

What happens when execution isn't enough to raise capital?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick tackle a critical founder mistake: obsessing over traction while forgetting to sell the vision. Inspired by a portfolio company struggling to fundraise despite excellent execution, they unpack why venture capital demands storytelling (not just proof points) and why construction tech founders in particular fall into the "show me" trap when they should be in "tell me" mode.

The conversation spans SaaS market dynamics (why KP canceled Salesforce mid-contract), the psychology of software loyalty (people love Excel...

What if getting cheaper is actually the goal?

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack why AI-driven deflation isn't something to fear, it's the entire point of innovation. From Davos narratives to Elon's predictions to the Grok CEO's commentary, deflation is becoming the dominant framework for understanding AI's economic impact. But construction, housing, healthcare, and education have resisted this trend for decades. Why?

KP walks through live AI experiments: writing 150 job descriptions in 30 minutes, automating recruiting workflows, and why corporate acquisitions like Consigli (AECOM) and Datagrid (Procore) are really about speed-to-market...

This episode is a reality check for anyone who thinks construction is just catching up to tech. It's not. Construction is now leading it.

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick make the case that design and construction have become the single most important constraint on technological progress. Data centers can't get built fast enough. Housing can't scale. Power generation is racing to keep pace. And for the first time in history, construction is facing technology-driven upgrade cycles, not aesthetic ones.

But this isn't just macro. KP walks through live experiments with...

This episode is a gut check for founders heading into 2026.

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP sits down with Nick to unpack a question every builder eventually faces: are you pushing through healthy friction or slamming into an immovable wall? From startup shutdowns to lifestyle businesses to full resets, they explore how to make clearer decisions when time (not money) is the real constraint.

This conversation spans the very practical (how founders are using AI tools daily to replace entire workflows) to the deeply strategic (why AI adoption has become a diligence...

This is our final episode of the year, and we’re ending it with the kind of conversation AEC needs more of.

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP sits down with Dr. Barry Clark (CTO) to connect the dots from “physical startups” (robots sewing denim) to what comes next: robots + humans coexisting on jobsites, AI-driven motion control, and a coming wave of materials + manufacturing innovation that could reshape how we design and build.

If you’re a founder, operator, or AEC leader wondering what’s real vs...

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 da...

Founders, if your board meetings feel pointless, this one’s for you. Rethink the people shaping your company’s future.

Private company boards should drive growth, not block it. Yet too often, they become performative, disengaged, or simply wrong for a company’s stage. In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Nick unpack what makes boards work — and why so many founders get them wrong.

They break down the difference between governance and guidance, how private equity’s rigor reshapes accountability, and why boards need to evolve just like product or operations...

AEC leaders, operators, and innovators, this one matters. Listen now and fix your closeout before it burns value.

The closeout process is where most projects quietly fail. In this episode of KP Unpacked, the #1 podcast in AEC, KP Reddy and Nick pull back the curtain on why handovers break, why owners get stuck with the bill, and how to design for decades instead of deadlines. 

From BIM’s broken promise to the CapEx vs OpEx split, this is a hard reset on how AEC should finish work.

Highlights

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If meritocracy starts at a web form, do you still need warm intros or just relentless curiosity?

Track3D founder/CEO NK Chaitanya joins KP for a field-level riff on founder-led sales, learning on job sites, and why doing the unscalable early creates durable moats later. We unpack how a cold application turned into a partnership, why “works on day one” beats roadmap theater, and how automating the boring parts brings joy back to building. NK also breaks down Track3D’s $10M Series A, the tech vs distribution dance, and what it really takes to earn a cust...

If you can ship a site plan with one click, do you still need the degree or just better prompts?

Director of Innovation Brandon Blackberg (RTM Engineering) joins KP for a fast, practitioner-level riff on how AI is reshaping civil and structural work. We cover the “McDonald’s vs gourmet” future of delivery, why generalists win in a systems world, and how to avoid getting locked into someone else’s feature stack. We also talk vibe coding, token bills, and what KP would do if he started a firm tomorrow.

Highlights 

KP Unpacked, the #1 number podcast in AEC breaks down how early-stage teams actually win attention and revenue in 2025. 

KP and Nick go deep on founder-led distribution, “signature marketing” vs checklist B2B tactics, and why authenticity beats AI-generated slop. You’ll hear concrete examples from guerrilla stunts at conferences, product-led marketing, event strategy (sponsor vs booth), and running tight experiments you can pivot from fast. 

We also cover brand risk, mission-first messaging, and hyper-legibility: publishing the “exhaust” of your work at a useful cadence. If you build, sell, or invest in AEC or construction...