A little summary of my experiences from the last two weeks with Claude Cowork, Claude Chrome and Claude Excel Plug In. Can we get rid of all of our software? Maybe not right now, but I created a simple rubric to start trying. lnkd.in/g3gy5Uxg

The missing middle in affordable housing. open.substack.com/pub/onebui…

While this Sunday Scaries is mostly targeting founders. The reality, no one’s career is successful by sitting behind a computer doing Zoom calls. open.substack.com/pub/kpredd…

Bringing back the joy of construction. open.substack.com/pub/kpredd…

Check out my startup demo day this Friday. kpreddy.co/demo-day

The Future is GenZ I post a lot about AI and robotics, however it doesn’t mean that I don’t understand that humans are the biggest part of the AEC industry. Yesterday, I was in a roundtable talking about the construction workforce of the future. The few millennials in the room sighed with relief that the discussion moved to how challenging the Gen Z are and not on them. I guess they are out of the cross hairs now from us GenX and those Boomers. I happen to be the dad of 2 GenZ and through our emerging innovation leader program, I meet many more. As a rule, every generation thinks the next generation is lazy and terrible. That’s consistent. However, I think good and bad is not the right rubric, every generation is just different than the last. Each generation has a mixed bag of levels of work ethic, etc. IE .. every generation has the same percent of lazy no-good doers as the last. What makes a generation different, their life experiences that shaped them. Here are a few observations. 1. “They don’t want to pay their dues”. Why is this important? Is it because you are trying to connect with GenZ through a shared experience or do you believe that it’s important that they learn the basics in an experiential manner? If it’s the former, take that GenZ to play Top Golf and stop pushing them to follow your path. If it’s the latter, the learning process has changed and is accelerated. What may have taken your generation 5 years to learn through experience, can be learned in a year through videos, e-books at 1.5X etc. The opportunities for getting content optimized for the way an individual learns is tremendous for the GenZ. 2. “They don’t understand relationships “ why? Because they aren’t great at in-person interaction and want to engage via text and messaging? Your definition of relationship building may just be different. Once again, GenZ moves fast. You can learn a lot very quickly and get to know someone very quickly via text. They are very good at filtering the BS factor with people. That seems like a very important skill in business. 3. “They aren’t ambitious “ This is not true. They don’t believe that their employer is the platform for ambition. They saw their parents get screwed over, laid off and otherwise have a realistic view that your employer is not family. They pay you to work and if they don’t want to anymore they ask you to leave. They don’t believe your song and dance about the culture of your firm. Show me, don’t tell me. 4. “Meritocracy” This generation has been built on gamification. Things like 360 reviews etc and being assessed by people makes no sense. Tell me the metrics and math for me to progress in my career. Attending your dumb offsite shouldn’t be part of my performance evaluation. Give me a scoreboard, share it transparently and let me know if I’m winning. If I’m not winning, I will switch it up and go play a different game somewhere else. If I can find cheat codes to win. That’s not your business.

This weeks Sunday Scaries Why Aren’t You Able to Raise Your Next Round? Fundraising isn’t about pitching harder. It’s about finding the right fit at the right time. open.substack.com/pub/insigh…

#bim is dead. buzzsprout.com/2292477/episo…

Founders. Try this. When pitching an investor, start with your Problem that you are solving. Then pause and ask “Are you interested in solving this problem?” This will likely tell you whether you need to keep going or not. As a founder, you are a rebellion leader. You don’t have time to convince people of your mission. You need to use that time to find the believers.

AIA Contract Docs may make the top 10 list of things that slows innovation in the built environment. Oh, made up BIM standards… oh and Masterspec.. any others?