Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

Gene outlines the when, why, and how a 72 year old premier general contractor setup a formal innovation group, i4 (and associated BLUlabs R&D facility efforts), how Mortenson consciously takes a people-led, inclusive approach to rolling out innovation ensuring talent in the field doesn’t feel like innovation is “happening to them”, why the firm developed a Director of AI role and the architype...

Rise of the construction and power rental market is an understatement title for this episode, and Tony helps us unpack the macro and technology shifts underway underpinning this builtworld boom to support the AI race. We discuss how the world’s largest equipment rental company, United Rentals (30 years old, 28,500 employees,1,750 rental locations spanning multiple continents), is approaching this...

We discuss why North America’s largest construction trade show, CONEXPO, is launching a new “Ground Breakers Stage” specifically aimed at spotlighting future innovation ahead, how industry leading trade associations like AEM and ABC took a ‘mixed fleet’ outlook to collaborate on their respective innovation trends and efforts to bolster CONEXPO 2026, how AI-enabled heavy machinery autonomy specific...

Mark outlines why the Trimble Dimensions conference last November was the right time to make such a big AI splash in the AECO sectors, details where the company is headed with its expansion of the Trimble Marketplace to create a more open and integrated ecosystem, looks back on lessons from his prior Chief Digital Officer role as to what it has taken both technically and culturally inside Trimble...

John walks us through the story on both the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’ a 101 year old general contractor built a single common data environment underneath every business unit (a foundation that has been laid for over a decade now!), shares the cultural alignment required to execute a technology strategy like that, outlines how that common data environment now enables their internal Citizen Technology eff...

Joe shares the why, who, and how Holman Robotics was launched within a 100+ year old global automotive services business, what it takes to scale robotic automation solutions from pilots to scaled deployments, how Holman succeeded internally with their own robotic automation deployments before launching Holman Robotics externally, and finally how Holman is approaching AI internally and within its r...

Alice shares why the firm launched the first AEC-focused accelerator, Formwork Labs, and what the ecosystem gap was it wanted to fill for founders, how her construction operating experience informs her outlook as an AEC investor and what she looks for in founders (hint, industry experience can be a “double edged sword”), details a then and now lookback on the key drivers behind all the current inv...

Mark shares both his career journey across some of the world’s premier technology companies and how his roots growing up in a Midwest industrial town + degree in operations management gave him a unique vantage point/passion for optimizing some of the world’s premier supply chains for those technology companies, details his lessons learned on what it takes to scale and lead a finance function withi...

Rachael digs into the history behind Zachry’s now >100 years (!) of construction operation, shares a then & now look back on how she has seen Zachry evolve technology and innovation during her nearly 2 decades of service, details why an Ideation and Investments function was stood up, outlines that nuance between ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ construction projects, and finishes with a “What’s...

Aaron shares the back story on why one of Korea’s largest conglomerates stood up GS Futures and its associated Built Environment fund, how they balance objectives between financial returns and strategic impact, details why the construction industry is “allergic to overhead” and where that presents opportunity ahead for innovation, and finally discusses some current built environment tech trends ar...

Jake outlines why a company like NFI (that has been innovating supply chain & logisitcs since 1932!) decided to stand up a ventures effort in NFI Ventures, how NFI approaches build, buy, partner decisions, what their ventures team lessons learned are when vetting deal flow, ensuring succesful pilot launches, and engaing successful firm-wide deployments, how their firm is approaching the AI in...

Thai shares the backstory on why one of the world’s premier GCs decided to launch innovation and investment platform Diverge, details how Diverge has developed a systematic process to discover, evaluate, operationally mobilize, and invest in AEC innovators, gives a pulse check on where the industry is at balancing the critical human element with advancements in robotics and AI automation, and fina...

We kickoff with a macro capital markets 1H’25 lookback and 2H’25 look ahead, dig in on how industrial software has gone from “relative obscurity” +15 years ago to now one of the biggest sectors in software today, discuss how the exit environment for industrial innovation is shaping up going into the fall and which sectors are showing the most green shoots,  and finally search for the signal from t...

Troy narrates through his three decades of US/Mexico cross-border experience that led him to now standing up yet another cross-border operation, Echo Mexico, shares his outlook where he believes US trade with Mexico is headed coming out of the tariff negotiations, details what the opportunities and challenges are for anyone considering expanding freight services into cross-border applications, and...

Ian shares the back story on how the 27,000-acre, master-planned development by Hillwood turned into Alliance, TX (a global logistics hub that has generated more than 66,000 jobs and an estimated $130B in regional economic impact!), why the Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) was stood up within Alliance to connect, “people, places, and ideas that push innovation forward in surface and air mobility”, h...

Dave shares his 20+ year journey launching and scaling Supply Chain Ventures where supply chain VC all began, details a historical look back on major supply chain events and innovation inflection points that have shaped where we are at today (hint: supply chain is an incredibly enduring investment sector), outlines what he thinks is investable vs. not in this latest wave of AI applied to supply ch...

The band is back together after the 2025 supply chain conference blitz and we cover how we tactically approach conference season, where the macro supply chain winds are blowing this year (tariffs, DOGE, regulatory changes, etc.), what role the latest AI into supply chain push is playing (tip: watch out for 'Annual Curiosity Revenue'), and how we think VC specilization has played out after crossing...

Dave shares his story of building up the Go-to-Market (GTM) engine at Onshape before it was acquired by PTC in 2019, what functional and leadership lessons he learned within that Onshape experience (venture-backed) that has translated to PTC (premier incumbent), how his team at the Velocity Group operates within the broader PTC organization, what lessons he has learned when it comes to recruiting...

Kristina outlines what macro trends she sees ahead in 2025 from both the public and private markets and zooms in how those trends will play into her Applied Technology focus areas, shares the evolution she has witnessed within the industrial innovation ecosystem over the past two decades (both investors and innovators), details why she believes recent advances in AI have the potential to reenergiz...

On the turn of Ironspring Ventures 5 year anniversary (!), Peter shares the story of the Holt family background and his own journey to now leading HOLT Group, details the various industrial businesses and associated sectors that HOLT Group operates within (hint: “Dynamic” is a core value), outlines how those efforts are clearly complementary to the genesis and ongoing efforts at Ironspring Venture...

Josh shares a then and now look back on his 20-year journey building multiple Builtworld startups and what key evolution points he has seen in the ecosystem, details how Oracle Construction and Engineering is leveraging AI to help customers and their skilled workforce do their jobs better and more safely, outlines how responsibly applying AI in construction can advance the entire industry, and wal...

Nick walks us through how he and Upfront went about furthering development of their national infrastructure and hard tech focus areas, shares his outlook on the LA and SoCal industrial resurgence that is underway, discusses the rich SoCal industrial history underpinning this resurgence (“primes” and associated talent have been there for decades!), and details why the human element involved in indu...

Sivan details both why Xylem set up a corporate innovation and venture capital team in 2021 and how those efforts move the needle for a $8B revenue F500 water-focused corporation that spans 150 countries and 23,000 employees, dives into how integral water and water technology are for the current Ai frenzy and data center boom to actually achieve the potential everyone is hoping for, outlines some...

Craig shares his story from growing up in the freight industry to what led him to found Freightwaves, takes us behind the scenes of his industry statements/predictions both entering (2022) and exiting (2024) the current freight recession and what the blow back was from being out ahead on market moving data like that, channels his inner Sec. of the Department of Transportation on what his vision wo...

Dave shares why he took on the challenge of building Tidemark after over 20 years in the venture asset class (and garnering Midas List recognition), how Tidemark takes on a product ethos in building its Vertical SaaS (VaaS) value-add capabilities such as content and community events among other efforts, VaaS learnings from recent research they’ve done on “Control Points” and a benchmarking study o...