February 5, 2025 • 44 mins
The Future of AEC: How Podium.io is Driving Digital Transformation
In this episode, Bill Ruh and Pankaj Srivastava dive into the transformative power of technology in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. They discuss the challenges of digitization, the shortcomings of Building Information Modeling (BIM), and how Podium.io is building a next-generation collaborative platform to bring all stakeholders together in the construction process.
With the $20 trillion property development market ripe for disruption, they explore the role of AI, cloud computing, and strategic partnerships in shaping the industry’s future. Singapore emerges as a key growth hub for Podium.io, highlighting the need to adapt to local markets while leveraging cutting-edge technology.
Key Takeaways:
✅ The AEC industry is at a tipping point for digital transformation.
✅ Podium.io aims to revolutionize how construction projects are designed and executed.
✅ Digitization challenges persist, contributing to declining productivity.
✅ BIM has not yet delivered on its full potential to transform the industry.
✅ Real-time collaboration and data sharing are crucial for efficiency.
✅ Partnerships with industry leaders like Autodesk play a strategic role.
✅ The $20 trillion property development market holds vast opportunities for innovation.
✅ Singapore is a strategic hub for Podium.io’s expansion.
✅ The future of AEC will be driven by AI and cloud-based solutions.
Tune in to hear how Podium.io is redefining the future of AEC—and what it means for the industry’s next chapter.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast
(00:01):
Transformational Architecture, Engineering,
and Construction, or AEC.
I'm Bill Rue, your host.
Now the property market is one of the largest industries
in the world, and yet, it's one of the last
to be transformed by technology.
Given the size of the prize,
there's definitely great opportunity to make giant leaps
in the quality buildings, reducing time and costs
(00:25):
to address affordability and profitability issues
that the industry faces, making construction safer,
and reducing the carbon footprint
of construction and operations.
These are global trillion dollar opportunities.
Now there have been attempts in the past,
but these have always fallen short of transformation.
(00:45):
Digitization of design was the last major transformation
that began over 30 years ago.
Now BIM has been an important technology,
but it hasn't been transformational yet.
It has been important to record keeping,
but it hasn't yet solved larger automation workflow
collaboration and commercial problems.
But it seems like now the technology and infrastructure
(01:07):
is beginning to appear, led by cloud and AI,
coupled with large quantities of data.
This is opening new opportunities to develop technologies
that can transform this industry.
Now this will not be easy, as this industry
has some uniquenesses that are major roadblocks to success.
(01:28):
Projects involve many different players
with different competing interests.
Projects often become 100% bespoke.
Large number of organizations are needed to design,
build, supply, and operate a building.
Costs are not often understood until late in the process,
and design may not accurately reflect the physical reality.
(01:48):
Lastly, industry culture is often skeptical of innovation.
But today we're going to talk to the CEO of Podium.io,
a startup developing a platform that they believe
will transform the industry.
This is a platform that will automate
and streamline development and construction,
as well as create a marketplace for solutions.
And so let's jump in and talk to our first guest,
(02:11):
Pankaj Srivastava.
Pankaj is the CEO of Podium.io,
company trying to lead us into transforming
the world of architecture, engineering, and construction.
So welcome, Pankaj, and thanks for joining the podcast.
Let's start with your background,
because you've got quite an impressive
(02:33):
but eclectic background.
You were in AI before anybody thought you should be in AI,
studying AI at MIT in the really early days.
And you've worked at consulting firms,
you worked at big companies like Cisco,
and you've also worked for small startups.
So why don't you tell us a little bit
about your journey to get to Podium.
(02:55):
Oh, absolutely, Bill, thank you.
Look, I've been writing software
since I got my first Apple IIe in 1983.
And I am in love with how much software can disrupt industry.
I call software the universal catalyst
for disrupting industries.
And it is data that software produces,
(03:18):
a universal solvent.
I always look for those opportunities.
When I finished my computer science degree at MIT,
my first job was building neural nets for hedge fund trading.
And we were writing them in C++ and pulling out our hair,
but we knew that we were onto something.
Unfortunately, infrastructure, data, all of that wasn't ready.
(03:39):
Took a lot, but all hedge funds today
are powered by neural nets,
long before neural nets and CNN and deep learning
was a household name in recent years.
So that got me hooked.
I left that and I went to the e-commerce world
with some consulting companies and software startups
to really bring that power of AI to e-commerce.
And I was a Netscape bigot.
(03:59):
If anybody was in the first internet wave,
I was building on the Netscape platform,
which was the first truth and client platform
until Microsoft disrupted that with the Internet Explorer.
But for me, e-commerce was massively disruptive.
In fact, the early days of digitalization
was about really how you bring digital value to the backend
(04:21):
through exposing everything that happens
to big companies onto the customer.
People just couldn't connect to their customers
without e-commerce.
So I was caught up with that
and then joined a few startups.
One of those startups, of course,
Bill was acquired by yours.
And we almost went public before the dot-com bust.
And that was a lot of fun.
We were trying to disrupt the market of enterprises
(04:43):
and how they go to their customers
by bringing e-commerce technology.
So my journey has always been a common theme is,
look, I think software continues to democratize.
I am not a guy who builds core technology
as much as I apply it.
And I think if you understand it and you apply it,
it can help transform and catalyze whole change.
(05:05):
Good software, good software understanding.
I've been applying AI, internet, e-commerce, cloud.
And with Bill at Cisco,
we started disrupting the industry,
the actual sector with IOT.
And so we were the first, in fact, you remember Bill,
you were one of the first people out there
bringing the idea of IOT to life, Internet of Things.
(05:26):
And then you took that forward with GE with Predix.
And that's what I've done.
And after Cisco, I was in the genomic space
because precision medicine
is going to disrupt healthcare as well,
where we're not all gonna be bombed by the same chemicals.
Medicine will quickly understand who we are
down to our genome and our cell structure.
I was in that space having a lot of fun.
(05:47):
And then Bill recruited me to the property industry.
One thing I learned over the years
in all these different roles, big and small,
is big companies, small companies,
is if you wanna innovate,
you have to bring something very disruptive.
Let's offer some new kind of technology to a new space.
You have to find the right space
because you can't disrupt something
(06:07):
that's working pretty well.
You've got to pick places that are really not moving
as fast as they should.
And you've got to find a way to scale.
And what I thought until Bill recruited me to lend lease,
to build podium with him,
I thought that the healthcare industry
was the largest industry in the world, $10 trillion.
Turns out that the property industry
(06:28):
is a $20 trillion industry
that's been barely touched by technology.
The largest software players products
are still primarily using desktop and on Windows software
as opposed to on the cloud.
And so this was an industry ready for disruption.
Really Bill, when you and I looked at it at lend lease,
we realized that it's not just something
lend lease can do for itself, we can transform the world.
(06:51):
And 10 of the $20 trillion is spent
in property development, design and construction.
What another trend, the other 10 is spent
in managing the properties once they're up and running.
In that $10 trillion, there's barely any software,
enterprise grade, crowds grade, AI, anything.
In fact, billions of dollars on each project
(07:11):
are managed by Excel, Outlook, EDF and PowerPoint.
So this whole industry runs on what I call
circa 1999, these digital technology.
And they've all missed the boat.
So this is why I've been at podium.
And this is why I've been pursuing the vision of podium
and at lend lease and now we've spun it out.
(07:34):
We're very excited because I think we're about
to disrupt the industry.
What is it about our industry that makes transformation
and digitization so hard?
And is it really possible to disrupt in this industry?
Yeah, no, absolutely Bill, it's a great point.
And not only, I think the other thing
that's very compelling, interesting
about the McKinsey study is not only are we
(07:54):
at the bottom of the stack, maybe above hunting and fishing,
but our productivity metrics keep going down.
And why is that?
Because it takes about three to five years
to build out projects, a project being any large development
and then turn it operational.
And a lot of that is caught up in manual processes
(08:16):
and outsourcing and contract risk management
to general contractors and architects.
And essentially managing it financially
as opposed to realizing that a building
and a place that you're putting the building on is a system.
It's a system that you're putting in
that in a system that once up and running
will be populated and inhabited,
you have to sustain it and you turn it into money.
(08:39):
So whether it's computer, whether it's a chip,
whether it's a plane, whether it's a human being,
everything else has been digitized to be treated
like a system that you can maintain, manage and design.
We don't treat the building
as one integrated holistic system.
We fork it out to all the specialists
and hope eventually that it comes together
(08:59):
and we do a lot of rework.
So productivity is one of the biggest issues
and the downward trend of productivity is a bigger issue.
It's compounded by the fact that there are a lot of tailwinds
as we emerge out of COVID and other things,
the time is now because every region,
except for a few that are struggling like China right now,
(09:20):
is trying to get back, trying to meet its growth,
population growth demands with sustainable properties
and new kinds of places to meet the needs of its industry,
its people and how they work, live and play.
And they can't keep up because they don't apply technology,
they don't treat buildings as a digitized system.
So productivity and so cost keeps ballooning up,
(09:43):
it keeps going up and concrete is one of the largest
drivers of carbon emissions.
So as these properties are built out,
every industry that is taking it on in every region
has to team up with the public sector,
which is driving sustainability metrics.
So the property developers now have charters and targets
on sustainability and productivity
(10:03):
and it's compounded to the fact that
it is causing more and more issues
and with interest rates high, it's reducing profitability.
The industry is facing a crisis.
It's facing a crisis,
they haven't looked at technology at all to fix it.
The real issue then is you've got several forces
that are beginning to act upon our industry
(10:24):
to make the change.
So it's affordable housing, sustainability, profit levels,
complexity, quality, everyone's gonna be forced
in the next decade to begin to embrace the technology
in order to address these challenges.
Though wasn't BIM supposed to solve this problem
(10:47):
decade, two decades ago?
And where does BIM fit into this?
Yeah, BIM was supposed to,
but all BIM really did is create a standard model
to allow 2D CAD drawings to go 3D
and still live on the desktop of architects
and structural engineers.
It didn't bring the idea of how you create
a connected model, how you design the whole building,
(11:10):
how you drive outcomes.
So outcomes is what the industry is looking for.
BIM was supposed to encapsulate that,
but it's missed the mark because it's essentially upgraded
2D drawings to 3D drawings.
And if you look at Autodesk,
who's a key partner of ours, investor and industry leader,
they're also trying to drive the industry to go beyond BIM
(11:31):
because BIM caps out with its information models
and things at essentially data standards.
It's not just about data, it's about models,
it's about system advising things,
it's about connecting all the other dimensions of activity
that make up a multi-dimensional system like a building.
Now, I look back and I joined this, I said,
(11:52):
it was in the early 90s that Boeing designed the 777
as a complete digital system
on a early version of the digital twin.
Why can't we have a true digital twin of a building
that becomes the simulation point, the AI point,
the model point?
And that's what BIM fails to do.
It doesn't let you build a whole building system model.
(12:16):
So tell us a little bit about then podium.io
and what you're trying to do.
No, absolutely, Bill.
When we looked at Podium and you were heavily involved
with this at LendLease as well,
we realized that in this industry,
unlike any other industry,
software does not serve the people
(12:38):
who control the business.
It serves the specialists.
So CAD and BIM just create better tools
for the architects and designers.
But the building is a business and a living system
that is commissioned by a property developer
that who is taking massive risk
and tying up billions of dollars over five years
(13:02):
in the hopes and the plans of making a huge profit,
huge return or huge annuity
once that building system goes live.
And it's becoming harder and harder for them to do that
without the technology.
So we looked at all the industries.
We built Podium as a platform with a data lake
and a data model across the spectrum
of property management construction.
(13:24):
And we really honed in the product market fit
on the biggest issue facing us.
And I'll just give you an example of it.
If you look anywhere, you're in Bozeman
or if you're in Hunter B,
you look at a large building that costs a billion dollars
to build.
It usually takes three to five years to build.
Off the billion dollars,
about a hundred million is spent on architecture
(13:45):
and design fees.
A hundred million dollars on essentially creating PDFs
and Excel reports on the fact that the building's ready.
And not only that,
that design phase of getting that building design
commissioned takes about 12 to 18 months
of that three years before you put any ounce of concrete
on the ground.
And then when you put concrete on the ground,
(14:07):
because your model is only design perfect,
but it's not treated as a system, you have a lot of rework.
So that's where we focused in Podium.
And we said, look, let's disrupt this
because this is the place where you can actually encapsulate
what most of what architects and designers do,
especially the things that are repetitive
and help create repeatable designs and save time,
(14:30):
save an enormous amount of time
and get to the act of building the building
that these property developers need.
So that's been the focus of Podium is,
we've built a platform that truly disrupts the workflows
that are involved, that are all manual today
up to point where construction begins.
(14:51):
We're also focused on bringing the power of vertical AI
in the form of agents, we call them solvers,
that come together to really capture the intelligence
and the algorithms and heuristics
of what an architect designer does on a daily basis
to automate most of the process.
So our focus is automation and in the thinking
(15:12):
and automation of the collaboration
so that you can actually reduce the cycle time
of what it takes to get a building.
We think we can actually take 30 to 50% or more
off what it takes in the design time of a building,
which is 40% of the total time constructing a building.
Well, if you can achieve that over the next decade,
(15:34):
that's a game changer.
A lot of technology exists to build solvers.
So what's really different from the way
people have been building solvers, say,
for the last five years to what you're really providing
that differentiates it or provides greater value?
No, absolutely, Bill.
Look, everybody has built their bite-sized technology
(15:57):
and then where does that sit?
It sits on their desktop.
It sits in their environment.
It sits in a way that they can create a better answer
for their customer, the property developer,
but it doesn't serve the property developer.
What we've done is we've created a common cloud.
We run it today on the Google Cloud.
It can run on any cloud where you can bring your model,
your building model to life.
(16:18):
Why on the cloud?
Because these models are large.
They contain a lot of data, not just design data,
but financial data, regulatory data.
They also tap into what's happening in the region
in terms of the views, the sunlight.
We bring all that together into models
and then we plug the algorithms in there
and then we invite everybody to bring their solvers
(16:39):
onto it as well.
The suppliers bring their solvers, the architects,
and what you do is you get a holistic building model emerge.
The best way to describe it is it becomes a true digital twin
of a building that actually encapsulates not just the design
and the details that the architect cares about
and the the illities that the structural engineer
cares about, but it also incorporates all of the analysis
(17:03):
and lets you scale it up and share it, share it back.
It's one thing to have one model in the cloud.
We also wrap it with workflows that can work
not just within the architecture firm
or the engineering firm or the property developer,
it can work across them and the regulatory agencies
to submit all that as one model to the industry.
(17:25):
Regulators say we're ready.
We're ready in record time with better quality
and better vetting and we're not going to have conflicts
between what our architects design
and our structural engineers analyze.
It all comes together as one synthetic model
that can drive the process faster.
And we do it in the cloud and so that is the key.
(17:47):
That's, we become the place, the platform where you can collect
and build all the solvers.
What does platform mean to you
and what you talk about the podium platform,
what exactly is it?
And if I'm using the podium platform,
what benefit is it to me?
Absolutely, so look, I think at the heart of the platform,
what we're talking about is as a platform is a common place
(18:12):
for the ecosystem of a property developer,
a supplier, their suppliers, their architects, designers
and their regulators to whom they're submitting
their proposals can all come together and collaborate.
So we provide that and it's powered by a set of workflows
and deliverables that are dynamically coming out
(18:32):
because everybody's working at this.
At the heart of this, the nucleus of this
is that synthetic building model.
That holistic building model which captures the best
of what the architects have asked for,
what the system has simulated on their behalf,
the structural analysts have asked for
and the structures calculated on their behalf.
What the suppliers are bringing in terms of their catalogs
(18:54):
and what the system has factored in
as the best possible parts for the price points
that are available comes together,
but it's a dynamic platform in the sense that that model
and the supporting workflows and the orchestration
across this community is done in real time,
dynamically and an ongoing basis.
Today, an average cycle time of getting a new scenario
(19:18):
built, a property commissioned by a property developer
can cost thousands of dollars and weeks.
I'll give you an example.
We were doing a project with Podium and Lend-Lease
in the Bay Area and the customer decided they wanted to go
from mass timber to steel frame on the structure
on the building in the Bay Area.
(19:39):
Well, it was sent back to the architect structurally.
It was three weeks before they came back.
They charged another 50 to $80,000 through that analysis
and gave them a set of PDFs.
All that can be done dynamically.
So the platform has a lot of technology
to make this possible, but it's a business platform.
It's a multi-sided platform on one side,
but most importantly, it's a collaboration platform
(20:00):
where all the participants in a project that's about to go
live or is getting commissioned or planned
can participate and look at it and touch it.
It's very much, you know, I look at this industry
and I said, as Podium comes to life,
Podium will do for this industry
what Boeing and others do for their industry.
And you guys did this at GE.
(20:21):
Locomotive engines are designed by GE,
but all their ecosystem and their buyers
are all looking at it.
Similarly, big planes are.
They're all working on that common model
that's dynamically evolving
and scenarios are happening every day
and you don't lose time.
So that's what Podium is doing,
is creating that platform for the ecosystem of glares
that have to work today on the basis of Excel,
(20:45):
PowerPoint and conference calls to solve these problems.
We're saying it can all be done in the cloud
with every constituent and every expert factored in,
in real time.
To me, that is where, that is the idea
of a universal catalyst in software.
So you developing all the solvers,
are you developing all the workflows
or can all of these participants do that?
(21:08):
And is there some form of data control?
I'm a supplier, I don't put my data on,
I lose control of my data.
Well, those are probably the two things people care about
when they work on a real quality platform.
So how do you address that?
So we talked just now about the business platform.
It becomes a place where all the participants collaborate
and look at each other's work
(21:29):
and get the benefit of it and come in model,
but underneath is a set of technologies.
And so to your question,
what we've done is created a rich set of APIs and tools
that allow not only our software team
to build these algorithms and build these workflows,
which we do to seed the market,
but we make those available
is what the software industry calls
(21:49):
SDK software developer kit.
On the data model, we have a universal standard data model
for this architecture weeks.
Give that data model to suppliers, to architects,
they're able to contribute it.
In fact, our early customers who are property developers,
who have their own in-house architects
and structural engineers,
are now starting to take an industrial building
and create their own format of it, Bill.
(22:12):
And then they say,
I don't want this design shared with my other customers.
So that's the other power of cloud.
Cloud gives us the ability
to be what's called multi-tenanted.
So we then make sure that based on the licensing
and agreements with them,
if they don't wanna share those specializations
of those algorithms and those workflows
and those reconfigurations are all running
(22:33):
in their tenancy or their partition of their cloud.
Think of it as their own cloud.
But some of the customers are saying,
look, I wanna do this, but I want actually a license fee.
I wanna share it with others in the industry.
So they're actually finding an aftermarket
for their designs to be going after others
that may not be in their region, but could benefit it.
So we've got that kind of capability.
Suppliers want to make sure that their catalogs are available,
(22:56):
but they don't want the catalogs
shared with other suppliers.
So we protect that.
But suppliers are also now building their own items
and solvers to say,
how do you make sure that you can factor this
into all the different building types in each region
to be the best fit for, let's say,
a highly sustainable lift core?
Schindler is an example of an investor in this.
(23:18):
So we've had to provide all those underpinnings
because once you're in,
it's just like being on Airbnb or anywhere else.
If you're setting up your property,
you're gonna curate it to your needs.
You're gonna want it to be available for your customer base,
but you're not gonna wanna make everything available
in that to the rest of your market, your competitors.
So that is key to this as well.
Well, it kind of blows my mind
(23:39):
that there's actually multifaceted aspects
of this platform.
You started with a project.
How do I take a big residential project
to make it go faster?
But you actually then have a facet that's,
well, everyone can now put their own data
(23:59):
and their own solvers in and compliment it.
Then you have the ability that it becomes a marketplace.
A marketplace for solvers, a marketplace for designs,
a marketplace for suppliers.
So the architects now have an ability
to get more leverage out of what they do.
The engineers do as well, the suppliers do.
(24:22):
That's right.
Everyone who participates can either create their own value
or acquire value from others
to allow their projects to go faster.
That is exciting because that's a real network effect.
And in transformation, you'll always look for that.
So I think that's quite exciting what you're doing.
(24:44):
So who are you working with?
What are the partners?
What are the investors?
Absolutely, Bill.
So to your point, the Autodesk is a key investor and partner
because they want the market,
they want the industry to evolve from CAD and BIM,
which they helped create, to outcome-based BIM, industry cloud,
where you can connect all the participants
(25:07):
and all the stakeholders.
The really drive value in several key areas,
cost, time to delivery,
net operating income on the project,
affordability, sustainability, and reuse is very key
because it turns out other than a few big iconic buildings
like the Empire State Building,
or if you've been to Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands,
(25:27):
most buildings are actually can be repeatably built.
But every time a building is commissioned by a developer,
which is similar to the last building,
it's actually a completely bespoke building.
So what we're doing is not only creating this environment,
we're creating a data lake of models
that then and parts and supplier configurations and designs
(25:48):
that then can be reused.
This is bringing object-oriented design
and lean manufacturing principles
to the property development industry.
Why can Toyota and Boeing on the same assembly line
manufacture two different vehicles, two different planes?
Because they have the model that allows them to swap in
and swap out parts and keep 60% cost common.
A Toyota Corolla and a RAV4 have the same chassis,
(26:13):
but a building that looks essentially the same
in two parts of the city
don't have the same designs underneath.
So we are creating that kind of architecture.
And that's why the suppliers and the design firms
and Autodesk are so keen,
because once we do that, property developers at scale
(26:34):
can then commission multiple projects at the same time
or plan for them.
I'll give you an example.
Sirbata Jorong is one of our investors,
one of the largest AEC firms in terms of architects
and structural engineers out of Singapore.
They see this as a way to disrupt themselves in the industry,
as a way to create a new class of services,
(26:57):
solutions and services
that allow their largest developer customers
to leverage Sirbata to create properties faster
and rinse and repeat what they wanna do
across a certain kind of property,
let's say a mid-range residential tower.
Autodesk sees this as a way to allow architects and designers
to now connect with the real spenders,
(27:18):
which are the property developers,
and deliver that time to value, the cost.
Take out that $50,000 that took to turn around a scenario
in three weeks, take that out completely.
We are working with some of the largest
property developers in India.
One of the large conglomerates says,
with this, I can transform the industry
where I can actually meet India's growth demand
(27:39):
by bringing hundreds of feasibility studies to life
without much cost,
and I can have the right design partners, such as Sirbata,
help me create the projects in a repeatable basis.
So it brings the ecosystem together.
So our partners are Autodesk and Sirvaj,
and Lend-Lease is already now starting to apply it
(28:00):
into their own markets.
And then finally, in terms of suppliers,
we've also had the privilege of getting Shinlert to invest
because they see this as a way to get in early
on the projects and create a high quality product
and design it and take the time out
that goes into reworking and customizing the lift shafts
and the elevator cores and the escalator systems.
(28:22):
Once construction begins, the cost in them
and the general contractor is huge.
So we've got partners like Sirbata,
architecture firms who want to digitize the processes,
not just the tools that architects use.
We've got Shinlert who wants to bring in these kinds
of high value supplies and components early in the process
(28:42):
so that there's not a lot of rework
and quality issues and safety issues later.
And we've got partners like Autodesk
who are really saying this is the linchpin,
in fact, to outcomes-based bin.
In fact, if people are interested,
they can see Autodesk feature this
at their auto university in October in San Diego
as one of the key tools powered by AI
(29:04):
to bring outcomes-based bin to life.
And very soon, maybe the next episode,
I'll mention some of the customers
that have actually applied this with all these partners.
And we're really, as we go after each of these large customers
that are trying to transform not just one building,
but build hundreds of buildings,
or plan for a hundred and build tens of buildings,
they're actually platformers
(29:25):
bringing all of these partners together with them.
You spun out of Len Lees.
Congratulations on your A round that you just completed.
That was really awesome.
You're headquartered in Singapore.
Why?
Yeah, Singapore.
We're following, you gotta pick,
you can't go after the whole world with technology,
(29:46):
although you know you can disrupt the whole world.
You have to pick your land and expand points.
Jeffrey Moore calls it your lighthouse customer
that helps you cross your chasm.
Others call it the product market fit.
Who is your co-innovation partner?
What we've found is Singapore has had a vision for this.
Singapore has been a BCA organization,
(30:07):
which is their authority.
Is a market leader, an industry leader,
in thinking in terms of how this all comes together.
And so they have been driving what's called
a industrialized design delivery,
digital IDD, integrated design delivery framework.
And they're actually establishing regulations and policies
(30:30):
and creating systems which allow developers
to work digitally in moving the process forward.
Why?
Because Singapore has limited space.
It has a growing population.
In the next year, the next couple of years,
they'll go from five to six million,
probably 10 million by the end of this decade.
They don't have more land, but they've gotta build faster.
(30:51):
They've gotta build more.
They've gotta, and all that's been stuck
in the productivity issues.
They've got to bring sustainability to the next level.
They've gotta manage all the cost issues.
So they've established the government
is driving this top down.
And what they've done is they've fired up
their key public developers to follow this process.
(31:13):
So Singapore was a perfect fit for us,
not only because there's such demand,
but there is a strong endorsement and a standard.
And if people are interested, look up IDD by BCA.
You'll find it very compelling.
It's the first time I've found a reference architecture
in an industry that provides product market fit
for disruption, for true disruption.
(31:33):
And I think what Singapore will do
is we'll take smart property development
as a model to the rest of the world.
And we're already teaming up with BCA
to see how we can actually bring this message
to other parts of the world,
because every region wants this.
It's just Singapore has a true public-private
partnership model in their business, in their government.
(31:54):
So it was a perfect market for us.
And they gave us a great reference architecture,
and they gave us great reference customers
that actually are trying to espouse the future
of digitization for property development.
So I think it's very smart to be in Singapore.
And then with the Economic Development Board there,
helping to guide and support, it's a great idea.
(32:16):
But you're not limited to Singapore.
I hear you working in India.
I hear you working in Australia.
I hear you working in the US.
I assume at some point you get to Europe.
Yeah, it's the land point.
It's the expand point.
It's where we prove the market.
I mean, the one thing also Singapore is very strong about
is repeatability.
They want to bring design for manufacturability
(32:36):
to the property development standard.
In fact, based on their ideas, we
brought that idea of suppliers into the platform faster.
So all we need to do is pick the typologies.
Today we support residential, public, and private,
and industrial, and then just expand to typology,
and then adapt the typologies for each region.
(32:57):
What are the regulatory constraints?
What are the land masses?
What is the geography there?
And also, what are the supplier base?
And so as we go from region to region,
once we have a typology working in Singapore,
it takes us a matter of a month or so
to get ready for the next region with that typology.
And then we work with the local partners and the customers
(33:17):
to say, what additional solvers and algorithms and workflows
do you need for you?
Do you want that made available to all the players
and the participants, or do you want it just in your environment?
So that's why this is truly a cloud platform.
And in that context, I'd like to call out
that cloud allows us to scale to the market.
We want to go anywhere that that $10 trillion
(33:40):
market for property development, design, construction
needs this.
And so we're also partnering with Google Cloud.
What we run in the cloud for Singapore now,
we're setting up with them in the India Cloud,
and we're setting up in the Australia Cloud.
And it's just very easy.
That's an overnight thing to set up
the whole system in the next region.
And then it's another month to get the data and everything
(34:01):
loaded up and the regulations connected in,
and the ecosystem suppliers plugged in.
But you're ready to go.
But only cloud.
And I think I like to use the term cloud speed.
This industry runs at concrete speed.
And the rest of the world has gone to,
takes time to dry concrete is what the industry runs at.
(34:21):
Internet speed came out in the mid-90s.
We're now at cloud speed.
And what's coming next is AI speed,
which kind of breaks all barriers.
So I think at least we're bringing this industry cloud
speed with the power of AI.
And then it will be more adaptive as we go.
You've been a longtime Silicon Valley guy.
You're now running a company headquartered in Singapore.
(34:41):
What do you see as the differences
to be in a Silicon Valley startup versus a Singapore
startup?
Look, I think just over the last five years,
I've seen it converging.
When I first started coming here for this,
there wasn't as much of an emphasis in software,
but there were other key industries.
But I think over the last five, 10 years,
EDB and the government has been pushing for Singapore
(35:03):
to become a leader in software.
You see more and more of the big dot coms from China
being headquartered here.
And that's coming all the big tech firms out of the valley,
establishing this as a center of operations, some R&D,
some sales and marketing as they move out of Hong Kong.
You see a lot of the big unicorns out of India
(35:25):
coming here.
And so you see more and more of a software ecosystem emerging.
Just like we saw Israel become essentially another valley,
and then parts of London become like that for fintech.
And I think Singapore is doing a lot to essentially transform
part of the industry into being a software innovation
center for cloud, AI, and they're bringing consciously
(35:48):
all the different players and inviting.
And it's a very business-friendly environment.
So I think what I find in Singapore, what's different
is that still early days for that high-intensity innovation
culture still needs more of that critical mass of people
like you, me, Bill, and hardcore software engineers,
and more are coming.
But the journey's begun.
But it's a business-friendly environment.
(36:10):
There's a growing VC base.
In fact, my next round, some of my investors
are actually local versus the global VCs
behind this following Autodesk.
So I think Singapore is setting itself up
to be another valley, right?
And you see that in Bangalore now.
You see that in Israel.
You see that in a few other key regions and areas.
And you're starting to see Singapore essentially again
(36:32):
in that government sponsorship model,
starting to create that ecosystem here.
We're early days, but more than half my team is Singaporean.
Any podcasts that you're listening to other than this one
that are influencing you, you'd recommend for others
who are listening on?
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
Look, I will share my favorite podcast right now.
(36:54):
And it's not related software.
My other love is history, new politics.
And so I follow a podcast called Empire by Alan Dallara.
And it's worth listening to.
It talks about how the world has evolved.
And it starts with the first season
being about the British Empire and how the British,
the East India Company was like the early version of Facebook
(37:16):
and Tesla.
And it was a conglomerate that emerged.
So worth listening to, guys, folks, if you're interested.
It's definitely not in this space.
But that's my favorite podcast at the moment.
I will share others if I come back.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So last question.
What's your favorite restaurant in Singapore
(37:37):
that if I go, I got to go to?
Singapore, like New York City and a few other places,
London and also Tokyo, is a foodie town.
I actually don't have a favorite restaurant that persists.
I have a favorite restaurant of the month.
So I just went to a place in MBS called My Melos.
It's a new Greek place where you bring in fresh fish
(37:58):
from the Mediterranean.
And they cook it Greek style.
It's great.
They grill it.
And it's quite an experience.
And I'd recommend anybody trying that.
Thank you.
And we've run out of time.
So I'm going to, we'll move on.
And really enjoyed talking to you.
Great progress and any potential partners out there
(38:21):
with a platform like this, they should give you a call
and see what you guys can do together.
Well, that was a very exciting interview with Pankaj.
And his vision for the future of AEC
is certainly transformational.
And the work that he's doing with podium.io,
that platform could become the cornerstone
(38:44):
of what sparked this revolution of disruption
so that we can solve these big challenges
and really address this trillion dollar opportunity.
Now, I just want to call out a few of the key points
that he said, although there's not enough time
to cover everything that Pankaj talked about.
But I think for the listener, the idea that,
(39:07):
starting with this idea that software
has been a universal catalyst for disrupting industries
and that all industries are like dominoes,
that eventually that software disruption occurs
and it changes that industry for the future.
Now, today our industry, which we all love,
(39:30):
because it creates such great product,
it creates such great value in the world,
is still based on a nice Excel world.
And finally, there's a technology
or a series of technologies available
to underpin that transformation.
And that is cloud and gen AI.
But if you're really going to address it,
(39:51):
the technology alone isn't going to solve the problem
because nobody knows how to use the technology,
they don't know how to create the value out of it.
So something like podium.io is necessary
to unlock that value.
And underpinning it is not so much the technology,
it's the idea that buildings need to be treated like systems
(40:13):
in the design phase, in the construction phase
and in the operation phase.
And we have seen this in other industries,
the chip design industry, the airplane industry,
the spacecraft industry, all of these industries
have gone through the systemization of how they design,
(40:33):
how they build it and how they operate it,
leading to the kinds of transformation
that we're looking for in our own industry.
Now, the key to what has happened in those other industries
and what they did is a couple of things.
One is they applied this idea of generative design
where software is used to augment the design process.
(40:55):
They have reusable components that are brought in
to simplify those designs based on what really works.
They design for manufacturing automation
and they have collaborative workflow automation
for large teams of disparate people to work together
over a long period of time to generate that end product.
(41:18):
But in the end, a platform is needed as a common place
for all those participants to interact,
for all the data to exist.
But at the same time, the platform has to be open
for all the participants to innovate on their own
and to put their own data in, but to own their innovation
(41:41):
and own their data through the whole process.
And I think one of the things
that is truly foundationally game-changing
is for this particular platform is by bringing suppliers in
so that they can participate in the design
is incredibly powerful
because that idea of them knowing their products the best,
(42:01):
them innovating to include in the design,
them being able to ensure that what gets put in the design
is a real manufacturable product
or the most cost-effective product
for the need for the building.
And that I think creates opportunities
to further enhance this and create a marketplace
(42:24):
for the future.
And that's when we can see real transformational change
in our industry.
And if you look at podium.io,
I think it's trying to tackle
these rocket science level problems
and it's been able to address quite a number of them.
But this is not a game that can be won by any one individual.
(42:45):
It requires working with other folks in the industry
and they're fortunate.
They're working with great partners, investors to build from.
So in technology, Autodesk,
who has led one of these transformations
in the past in design.
Architecture and engineering with Sabrina Gerong,
(43:06):
a global player in this space.
Developers working with Len Lies,
who incubated this idea and suppliers like Schindler.
But they also have another partner that is quite exciting.
And that is a lot of support out of the government
and with industry in Singapore.
(43:26):
And what is exciting and what I learned is
Singapore is an emerging startup leader
and they have all the elements necessary
for startups to be successful.
And with podium.io there
and with a lot of the work being done in Singapore,
it's a great spot for prop tech
and construction tech to be built upon.
(43:49):
Those are some great lessons learned.
And I really believe that that can be a trend
that what Pankaj is doing and Timmons doing
can be a major transformation for our industry.
Now, going forward, this podcast
will have other great transformation leaders
and we'll look at a variety of different approaches
being used to really help our industry
(44:11):
go through this foundational change.
Because now is the time and the place to do this.
So thank you very much and look forward
to catching up with you next time.
Hi everyone, welcome to the podcast
(00:01):
Transformational Architecture, Engineering,
and Construction, or AEC.
I'm Bill Rue, your host.
Now the property market is one of the largest industries
in the world, and yet, it's one of the last
to be transformed by technology.
Given the size of the prize,
there's definitely great opportunity to make giant leaps
in the quality buildings, reducing time and costs
(00:25):
to address affordability and profitability issues
that the industry faces, making construction safer,
and reducing the carbon footprint
of construction and operations.
These are global trillion dollar opportunities.
Now there have been attempts in the past,
but these have always fallen short of transformation.
(00:45):
Digitization of design was the last major transformation
that began over 30 years ago.
Now BIM has been an important technology,
but it hasn't been transformational yet.
It has been important to record keeping,
but it hasn't yet solved larger automation workflow
collaboration and commercial problems.
But it seems like now the technology and infrastructure
(01:07):
is beginning to appear, led by cloud and AI,
coupled with large quantities of data.
This is opening new opportunities to develop technologies
that can transform this industry.
Now this will not be easy, as this industry
has some uniquenesses that are major roadblocks to success.
(01:28):
Projects involve many different players
with different competing interests.
Projects often become 100% bespoke.
Large number of organizations are needed to design,
build, supply, and operate a building.
Costs are not often understood until late in the process,
and design may not accurately reflect the physical reality.
(01:48):
Lastly, industry culture is often skeptical of innovation.
But today we're going to talk to the CEO of Podium.io,
a startup developing a platform that they believe
will transform the industry.
This is a platform that will automate
and streamline development and construction,
as well as create a marketplace for solutions.
And so let's jump in and talk to our first guest,
(02:11):
Pankaj Srivastava.
Pankaj is the CEO of Podium.io,
company trying to lead us into transforming
the world of architecture, engineering, and construction.
So welcome, Pankaj, and thanks for joining the podcast.
Let's start with your background,
because you've got quite an impressive
(02:33):
but eclectic background.
You were in AI before anybody thought you should be in AI,
studying AI at MIT in the really early days.
And you've worked at consulting firms,
you worked at big companies like Cisco,
and you've also worked for small startups.
So why don't you tell us a little bit
about your journey to get to Podium.
(02:55):
Oh, absolutely, Bill, thank you.
Look, I've been writing software
since I got my first Apple IIe in 1983.
And I am in love with how much software can disrupt industry.
I call software the universal catalyst
for disrupting industries.
And it is data that software produces,
(03:18):
a universal solvent.
I always look for those opportunities.
When I finished my computer science degree at MIT,
my first job was building neural nets for hedge fund trading.
And we were writing them in C++ and pulling out our hair,
but we knew that we were onto something.
Unfortunately, infrastructure, data, all of that wasn't ready.
(03:39):
Took a lot, but all hedge funds today
are powered by neural nets,
long before neural nets and CNN and deep learning
was a household name in recent years.
So that got me hooked.
I left that and I went to the e-commerce world
with some consulting companies and software startups
to really bring that power of AI to e-commerce.
And I was a Netscape bigot.
(03:59):
If anybody was in the first internet wave,
I was building on the Netscape platform,
which was the first truth and client platform
until Microsoft disrupted that with the Internet Explorer.
But for me, e-commerce was massively disruptive.
In fact, the early days of digitalization
was about really how you bring digital value to the backend
(04:21):
through exposing everything that happens
to big companies onto the customer.
People just couldn't connect to their customers
without e-commerce.
So I was caught up with that
and then joined a few startups.
One of those startups, of course,
Bill was acquired by yours.
And we almost went public before the dot-com bust.
And that was a lot of fun.
We were trying to disrupt the market of enterprises
(04:43):
and how they go to their customers
by bringing e-commerce technology.
So my journey has always been a common theme is,
look, I think software continues to democratize.
I am not a guy who builds core technology
as much as I apply it.
And I think if you understand it and you apply it,
it can help transform and catalyze whole change.
(05:05):
Good software, good software understanding.
I've been applying AI, internet, e-commerce, cloud.
And with Bill at Cisco,
we started disrupting the industry,
the actual sector with IOT.
And so we were the first, in fact, you remember Bill,
you were one of the first people out there
bringing the idea of IOT to life, Internet of Things.
(05:26):
And then you took that forward with GE with Predix.
And that's what I've done.
And after Cisco, I was in the genomic space
because precision medicine
is going to disrupt healthcare as well,
where we're not all gonna be bombed by the same chemicals.
Medicine will quickly understand who we are
down to our genome and our cell structure.
I was in that space having a lot of fun.
(05:47):
And then Bill recruited me to the property industry.
One thing I learned over the years
in all these different roles, big and small,
is big companies, small companies,
is if you wanna innovate,
you have to bring something very disruptive.
Let's offer some new kind of technology to a new space.
You have to find the right space
because you can't disrupt something
(06:07):
that's working pretty well.
You've got to pick places that are really not moving
as fast as they should.
And you've got to find a way to scale.
And what I thought until Bill recruited me to lend lease,
to build podium with him,
I thought that the healthcare industry
was the largest industry in the world, $10 trillion.
Turns out that the property industry
(06:28):
is a $20 trillion industry
that's been barely touched by technology.
The largest software players products
are still primarily using desktop and on Windows software
as opposed to on the cloud.
And so this was an industry ready for disruption.
Really Bill, when you and I looked at it at lend lease,
we realized that it's not just something
lend lease can do for itself, we can transform the world.
(06:51):
And 10 of the $20 trillion is spent
in property development, design and construction.
What another trend, the other 10 is spent
in managing the properties once they're up and running.
In that $10 trillion, there's barely any software,
enterprise grade, crowds grade, AI, anything.
In fact, billions of dollars on each project
(07:11):
are managed by Excel, Outlook, EDF and PowerPoint.
So this whole industry runs on what I call
circa 1999, these digital technology.
And they've all missed the boat.
So this is why I've been at podium.
And this is why I've been pursuing the vision of podium
and at lend lease and now we've spun it out.
(07:34):
We're very excited because I think we're about
to disrupt the industry.
What is it about our industry that makes transformation
and digitization so hard?
And is it really possible to disrupt in this industry?
Yeah, no, absolutely Bill, it's a great point.
And not only, I think the other thing
that's very compelling, interesting
about the McKinsey study is not only are we
(07:54):
at the bottom of the stack, maybe above hunting and fishing,
but our productivity metrics keep going down.
And why is that?
Because it takes about three to five years
to build out projects, a project being any large development
and then turn it operational.
And a lot of that is caught up in manual processes
(08:16):
and outsourcing and contract risk management
to general contractors and architects.
And essentially managing it financially
as opposed to realizing that a building
and a place that you're putting the building on is a system.
It's a system that you're putting in
that in a system that once up and running
will be populated and inhabited,
you have to sustain it and you turn it into money.
(08:39):
So whether it's computer, whether it's a chip,
whether it's a plane, whether it's a human being,
everything else has been digitized to be treated
like a system that you can maintain, manage and design.
We don't treat the building
as one integrated holistic system.
We fork it out to all the specialists
and hope eventually that it comes together
(08:59):
and we do a lot of rework.
So productivity is one of the biggest issues
and the downward trend of productivity is a bigger issue.
It's compounded by the fact that there are a lot of tailwinds
as we emerge out of COVID and other things,
the time is now because every region,
except for a few that are struggling like China right now,
(09:20):
is trying to get back, trying to meet its growth,
population growth demands with sustainable properties
and new kinds of places to meet the needs of its industry,
its people and how they work, live and play.
And they can't keep up because they don't apply technology,
they don't treat buildings as a digitized system.
So productivity and so cost keeps ballooning up,
(09:43):
it keeps going up and concrete is one of the largest
drivers of carbon emissions.
So as these properties are built out,
every industry that is taking it on in every region
has to team up with the public sector,
which is driving sustainability metrics.
So the property developers now have charters and targets
on sustainability and productivity
(10:03):
and it's compounded to the fact that
it is causing more and more issues
and with interest rates high, it's reducing profitability.
The industry is facing a crisis.
It's facing a crisis,
they haven't looked at technology at all to fix it.
The real issue then is you've got several forces
that are beginning to act upon our industry
(10:24):
to make the change.
So it's affordable housing, sustainability, profit levels,
complexity, quality, everyone's gonna be forced
in the next decade to begin to embrace the technology
in order to address these challenges.
Though wasn't BIM supposed to solve this problem
(10:47):
decade, two decades ago?
And where does BIM fit into this?
Yeah, BIM was supposed to,
but all BIM really did is create a standard model
to allow 2D CAD drawings to go 3D
and still live on the desktop of architects
and structural engineers.
It didn't bring the idea of how you create
a connected model, how you design the whole building,
(11:10):
how you drive outcomes.
So outcomes is what the industry is looking for.
BIM was supposed to encapsulate that,
but it's missed the mark because it's essentially upgraded
2D drawings to 3D drawings.
And if you look at Autodesk,
who's a key partner of ours, investor and industry leader,
they're also trying to drive the industry to go beyond BIM
(11:31):
because BIM caps out with its information models
and things at essentially data standards.
It's not just about data, it's about models,
it's about system advising things,
it's about connecting all the other dimensions of activity
that make up a multi-dimensional system like a building.
Now, I look back and I joined this, I said,
(11:52):
it was in the early 90s that Boeing designed the 777
as a complete digital system
on a early version of the digital twin.
Why can't we have a true digital twin of a building
that becomes the simulation point, the AI point,
the model point?
And that's what BIM fails to do.
It doesn't let you build a whole building system model.
(12:16):
So tell us a little bit about then podium.io
and what you're trying to do.
No, absolutely, Bill.
When we looked at Podium and you were heavily involved
with this at LendLease as well,
we realized that in this industry,
unlike any other industry,
software does not serve the people
(12:38):
who control the business.
It serves the specialists.
So CAD and BIM just create better tools
for the architects and designers.
But the building is a business and a living system
that is commissioned by a property developer
that who is taking massive risk
and tying up billions of dollars over five years
(13:02):
in the hopes and the plans of making a huge profit,
huge return or huge annuity
once that building system goes live.
And it's becoming harder and harder for them to do that
without the technology.
So we looked at all the industries.
We built Podium as a platform with a data lake
and a data model across the spectrum
of property management construction.
(13:24):
And we really honed in the product market fit
on the biggest issue facing us.
And I'll just give you an example of it.
If you look anywhere, you're in Bozeman
or if you're in Hunter B,
you look at a large building that costs a billion dollars
to build.
It usually takes three to five years to build.
Off the billion dollars,
about a hundred million is spent on architecture
(13:45):
and design fees.
A hundred million dollars on essentially creating PDFs
and Excel reports on the fact that the building's ready.
And not only that,
that design phase of getting that building design
commissioned takes about 12 to 18 months
of that three years before you put any ounce of concrete
on the ground.
And then when you put concrete on the ground,
(14:07):
because your model is only design perfect,
but it's not treated as a system, you have a lot of rework.
So that's where we focused in Podium.
And we said, look, let's disrupt this
because this is the place where you can actually encapsulate
what most of what architects and designers do,
especially the things that are repetitive
and help create repeatable designs and save time,
(14:30):
save an enormous amount of time
and get to the act of building the building
that these property developers need.
So that's been the focus of Podium is,
we've built a platform that truly disrupts the workflows
that are involved, that are all manual today
up to point where construction begins.
(14:51):
We're also focused on bringing the power of vertical AI
in the form of agents, we call them solvers,
that come together to really capture the intelligence
and the algorithms and heuristics
of what an architect designer does on a daily basis
to automate most of the process.
So our focus is automation and in the thinking
(15:12):
and automation of the collaboration
so that you can actually reduce the cycle time
of what it takes to get a building.
We think we can actually take 30 to 50% or more
off what it takes in the design time of a building,
which is 40% of the total time constructing a building.
Well, if you can achieve that over the next decade,
(15:34):
that's a game changer.
A lot of technology exists to build solvers.
So what's really different from the way
people have been building solvers, say,
for the last five years to what you're really providing
that differentiates it or provides greater value?
No, absolutely, Bill.
Look, everybody has built their bite-sized technology
(15:57):
and then where does that sit?
It sits on their desktop.
It sits in their environment.
It sits in a way that they can create a better answer
for their customer, the property developer,
but it doesn't serve the property developer.
What we've done is we've created a common cloud.
We run it today on the Google Cloud.
It can run on any cloud where you can bring your model,
your building model to life.
(16:18):
Why on the cloud?
Because these models are large.
They contain a lot of data, not just design data,
but financial data, regulatory data.
They also tap into what's happening in the region
in terms of the views, the sunlight.
We bring all that together into models
and then we plug the algorithms in there
and then we invite everybody to bring their solvers
(16:39):
onto it as well.
The suppliers bring their solvers, the architects,
and what you do is you get a holistic building model emerge.
The best way to describe it is it becomes a true digital twin
of a building that actually encapsulates not just the design
and the details that the architect cares about
and the the illities that the structural engineer
cares about, but it also incorporates all of the analysis
(17:03):
and lets you scale it up and share it, share it back.
It's one thing to have one model in the cloud.
We also wrap it with workflows that can work
not just within the architecture firm
or the engineering firm or the property developer,
it can work across them and the regulatory agencies
to submit all that as one model to the industry.
(17:25):
Regulators say we're ready.
We're ready in record time with better quality
and better vetting and we're not going to have conflicts
between what our architects design
and our structural engineers analyze.
It all comes together as one synthetic model
that can drive the process faster.
And we do it in the cloud and so that is the key.
(17:47):
That's, we become the place, the platform where you can collect
and build all the solvers.
What does platform mean to you
and what you talk about the podium platform,
what exactly is it?
And if I'm using the podium platform,
what benefit is it to me?
Absolutely, so look, I think at the heart of the platform,
what we're talking about is as a platform is a common place
(18:12):
for the ecosystem of a property developer,
a supplier, their suppliers, their architects, designers
and their regulators to whom they're submitting
their proposals can all come together and collaborate.
So we provide that and it's powered by a set of workflows
and deliverables that are dynamically coming out
(18:32):
because everybody's working at this.
At the heart of this, the nucleus of this
is that synthetic building model.
That holistic building model which captures the best
of what the architects have asked for,
what the system has simulated on their behalf,
the structural analysts have asked for
and the structures calculated on their behalf.
What the suppliers are bringing in terms of their catalogs
(18:54):
and what the system has factored in
as the best possible parts for the price points
that are available comes together,
but it's a dynamic platform in the sense that that model
and the supporting workflows and the orchestration
across this community is done in real time,
dynamically and an ongoing basis.
Today, an average cycle time of getting a new scenario
(19:18):
built, a property commissioned by a property developer
can cost thousands of dollars and weeks.
I'll give you an example.
We were doing a project with Podium and Lend-Lease
in the Bay Area and the customer decided they wanted to go
from mass timber to steel frame on the structure
on the building in the Bay Area.
(19:39):
Well, it was sent back to the architect structurally.
It was three weeks before they came back.
They charged another 50 to $80,000 through that analysis
and gave them a set of PDFs.
All that can be done dynamically.
So the platform has a lot of technology
to make this possible, but it's a business platform.
It's a multi-sided platform on one side,
but most importantly, it's a collaboration platform
(20:00):
where all the participants in a project that's about to go
live or is getting commissioned or planned
can participate and look at it and touch it.
It's very much, you know, I look at this industry
and I said, as Podium comes to life,
Podium will do for this industry
what Boeing and others do for their industry.
And you guys did this at GE.
(20:21):
Locomotive engines are designed by GE,
but all their ecosystem and their buyers
are all looking at it.
Similarly, big planes are.
They're all working on that common model
that's dynamically evolving
and scenarios are happening every day
and you don't lose time.
So that's what Podium is doing,
is creating that platform for the ecosystem of glares
that have to work today on the basis of Excel,
(20:45):
PowerPoint and conference calls to solve these problems.
We're saying it can all be done in the cloud
with every constituent and every expert factored in,
in real time.
To me, that is where, that is the idea
of a universal catalyst in software.
So you developing all the solvers,
are you developing all the workflows
or can all of these participants do that?
(21:08):
And is there some form of data control?
I'm a supplier, I don't put my data on,
I lose control of my data.
Well, those are probably the two things people care about
when they work on a real quality platform.
So how do you address that?
So we talked just now about the business platform.
It becomes a place where all the participants collaborate
and look at each other's work
(21:29):
and get the benefit of it and come in model,
but underneath is a set of technologies.
And so to your question,
what we've done is created a rich set of APIs and tools
that allow not only our software team
to build these algorithms and build these workflows,
which we do to seed the market,
but we make those available
is what the software industry calls
(21:49):
SDK software developer kit.
On the data model, we have a universal standard data model
for this architecture weeks.
Give that data model to suppliers, to architects,
they're able to contribute it.
In fact, our early customers who are property developers,
who have their own in-house architects
and structural engineers,
are now starting to take an industrial building
and create their own format of it, Bill.
(22:12):
And then they say,
I don't want this design shared with my other customers.
So that's the other power of cloud.
Cloud gives us the ability
to be what's called multi-tenanted.
So we then make sure that based on the licensing
and agreements with them,
if they don't wanna share those specializations
of those algorithms and those workflows
and those reconfigurations are all running
(22:33):
in their tenancy or their partition of their cloud.
Think of it as their own cloud.
But some of the customers are saying,
look, I wanna do this, but I want actually a license fee.
I wanna share it with others in the industry.
So they're actually finding an aftermarket
for their designs to be going after others
that may not be in their region, but could benefit it.
So we've got that kind of capability.
Suppliers want to make sure that their catalogs are available,
(22:56):
but they don't want the catalogs
shared with other suppliers.
So we protect that.
But suppliers are also now building their own items
and solvers to say,
how do you make sure that you can factor this
into all the different building types in each region
to be the best fit for, let's say,
a highly sustainable lift core?
Schindler is an example of an investor in this.
(23:18):
So we've had to provide all those underpinnings
because once you're in,
it's just like being on Airbnb or anywhere else.
If you're setting up your property,
you're gonna curate it to your needs.
You're gonna want it to be available for your customer base,
but you're not gonna wanna make everything available
in that to the rest of your market, your competitors.
So that is key to this as well.
Well, it kind of blows my mind
(23:39):
that there's actually multifaceted aspects
of this platform.
You started with a project.
How do I take a big residential project
to make it go faster?
But you actually then have a facet that's,
well, everyone can now put their own data
(23:59):
and their own solvers in and compliment it.
Then you have the ability that it becomes a marketplace.
A marketplace for solvers, a marketplace for designs,
a marketplace for suppliers.
So the architects now have an ability
to get more leverage out of what they do.
The engineers do as well, the suppliers do.
(24:22):
That's right.
Everyone who participates can either create their own value
or acquire value from others
to allow their projects to go faster.
That is exciting because that's a real network effect.
And in transformation, you'll always look for that.
So I think that's quite exciting what you're doing.
(24:44):
So who are you working with?
What are the partners?
What are the investors?
Absolutely, Bill.
So to your point, the Autodesk is a key investor and partner
because they want the market,
they want the industry to evolve from CAD and BIM,
which they helped create, to outcome-based BIM, industry cloud,
where you can connect all the participants
(25:07):
and all the stakeholders.
The really drive value in several key areas,
cost, time to delivery,
net operating income on the project,
affordability, sustainability, and reuse is very key
because it turns out other than a few big iconic buildings
like the Empire State Building,
or if you've been to Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands,
(25:27):
most buildings are actually can be repeatably built.
But every time a building is commissioned by a developer,
which is similar to the last building,
it's actually a completely bespoke building.
So what we're doing is not only creating this environment,
we're creating a data lake of models
that then and parts and supplier configurations and designs
(25:48):
that then can be reused.
This is bringing object-oriented design
and lean manufacturing principles
to the property development industry.
Why can Toyota and Boeing on the same assembly line
manufacture two different vehicles, two different planes?
Because they have the model that allows them to swap in
and swap out parts and keep 60% cost common.
A Toyota Corolla and a RAV4 have the same chassis,
(26:13):
but a building that looks essentially the same
in two parts of the city
don't have the same designs underneath.
So we are creating that kind of architecture.
And that's why the suppliers and the design firms
and Autodesk are so keen,
because once we do that, property developers at scale
(26:34):
can then commission multiple projects at the same time
or plan for them.
I'll give you an example.
Sirbata Jorong is one of our investors,
one of the largest AEC firms in terms of architects
and structural engineers out of Singapore.
They see this as a way to disrupt themselves in the industry,
as a way to create a new class of services,
(26:57):
solutions and services
that allow their largest developer customers
to leverage Sirbata to create properties faster
and rinse and repeat what they wanna do
across a certain kind of property,
let's say a mid-range residential tower.
Autodesk sees this as a way to allow architects and designers
to now connect with the real spenders,
(27:18):
which are the property developers,
and deliver that time to value, the cost.
Take out that $50,000 that took to turn around a scenario
in three weeks, take that out completely.
We are working with some of the largest
property developers in India.
One of the large conglomerates says,
with this, I can transform the industry
where I can actually meet India's growth demand
(27:39):
by bringing hundreds of feasibility studies to life
without much cost,
and I can have the right design partners, such as Sirbata,
help me create the projects in a repeatable basis.
So it brings the ecosystem together.
So our partners are Autodesk and Sirvaj,
and Lend-Lease is already now starting to apply it
(28:00):
into their own markets.
And then finally, in terms of suppliers,
we've also had the privilege of getting Shinlert to invest
because they see this as a way to get in early
on the projects and create a high quality product
and design it and take the time out
that goes into reworking and customizing the lift shafts
and the elevator cores and the escalator systems.
(28:22):
Once construction begins, the cost in them
and the general contractor is huge.
So we've got partners like Sirbata,
architecture firms who want to digitize the processes,
not just the tools that architects use.
We've got Shinlert who wants to bring in these kinds
of high value supplies and components early in the process
(28:42):
so that there's not a lot of rework
and quality issues and safety issues later.
And we've got partners like Autodesk
who are really saying this is the linchpin,
in fact, to outcomes-based bin.
In fact, if people are interested,
they can see Autodesk feature this
at their auto university in October in San Diego
as one of the key tools powered by AI
(29:04):
to bring outcomes-based bin to life.
And very soon, maybe the next episode,
I'll mention some of the customers
that have actually applied this with all these partners.
And we're really, as we go after each of these large customers
that are trying to transform not just one building,
but build hundreds of buildings,
or plan for a hundred and build tens of buildings,
they're actually platformers
(29:25):
bringing all of these partners together with them.
You spun out of Len Lees.
Congratulations on your A round that you just completed.
That was really awesome.
You're headquartered in Singapore.
Why?
Yeah, Singapore.
We're following, you gotta pick,
you can't go after the whole world with technology,
(29:46):
although you know you can disrupt the whole world.
You have to pick your land and expand points.
Jeffrey Moore calls it your lighthouse customer
that helps you cross your chasm.
Others call it the product market fit.
Who is your co-innovation partner?
What we've found is Singapore has had a vision for this.
Singapore has been a BCA organization,
(30:07):
which is their authority.
Is a market leader, an industry leader,
in thinking in terms of how this all comes together.
And so they have been driving what's called
a industrialized design delivery,
digital IDD, integrated design delivery framework.
And they're actually establishing regulations and policies
(30:30):
and creating systems which allow developers
to work digitally in moving the process forward.
Why?
Because Singapore has limited space.
It has a growing population.
In the next year, the next couple of years,
they'll go from five to six million,
probably 10 million by the end of this decade.
They don't have more land, but they've gotta build faster.
(30:51):
They've gotta build more.
They've gotta, and all that's been stuck
in the productivity issues.
They've got to bring sustainability to the next level.
They've gotta manage all the cost issues.
So they've established the government
is driving this top down.
And what they've done is they've fired up
their key public developers to follow this process.
(31:13):
So Singapore was a perfect fit for us,
not only because there's such demand,
but there is a strong endorsement and a standard.
And if people are interested, look up IDD by BCA.
You'll find it very compelling.
It's the first time I've found a reference architecture
in an industry that provides product market fit
for disruption, for true disruption.
(31:33):
And I think what Singapore will do
is we'll take smart property development
as a model to the rest of the world.
And we're already teaming up with BCA
to see how we can actually bring this message
to other parts of the world,
because every region wants this.
It's just Singapore has a true public-private
partnership model in their business, in their government.
(31:54):
So it was a perfect market for us.
And they gave us a great reference architecture,
and they gave us great reference customers
that actually are trying to espouse the future
of digitization for property development.
So I think it's very smart to be in Singapore.
And then with the Economic Development Board there,
helping to guide and support, it's a great idea.
(32:16):
But you're not limited to Singapore.
I hear you working in India.
I hear you working in Australia.
I hear you working in the US.
I assume at some point you get to Europe.
Yeah, it's the land point.
It's the expand point.
It's where we prove the market.
I mean, the one thing also Singapore is very strong about
is repeatability.
They want to bring design for manufacturability
(32:36):
to the property development standard.
In fact, based on their ideas, we
brought that idea of suppliers into the platform faster.
So all we need to do is pick the typologies.
Today we support residential, public, and private,
and industrial, and then just expand to typology,
and then adapt the typologies for each region.
(32:57):
What are the regulatory constraints?
What are the land masses?
What is the geography there?
And also, what are the supplier base?
And so as we go from region to region,
once we have a typology working in Singapore,
it takes us a matter of a month or so
to get ready for the next region with that typology.
And then we work with the local partners and the customers
(33:17):
to say, what additional solvers and algorithms and workflows
do you need for you?
Do you want that made available to all the players
and the participants, or do you want it just in your environment?
So that's why this is truly a cloud platform.
And in that context, I'd like to call out
that cloud allows us to scale to the market.
We want to go anywhere that that $10 trillion
(33:40):
market for property development, design, construction
needs this.
And so we're also partnering with Google Cloud.
What we run in the cloud for Singapore now,
we're setting up with them in the India Cloud,
and we're setting up in the Australia Cloud.
And it's just very easy.
That's an overnight thing to set up
the whole system in the next region.
And then it's another month to get the data and everything
(34:01):
loaded up and the regulations connected in,
and the ecosystem suppliers plugged in.
But you're ready to go.
But only cloud.
And I think I like to use the term cloud speed.
This industry runs at concrete speed.
And the rest of the world has gone to,
takes time to dry concrete is what the industry runs at.
(34:21):
Internet speed came out in the mid-90s.
We're now at cloud speed.
And what's coming next is AI speed,
which kind of breaks all barriers.
So I think at least we're bringing this industry cloud
speed with the power of AI.
And then it will be more adaptive as we go.
You've been a longtime Silicon Valley guy.
You're now running a company headquartered in Singapore.
(34:41):
What do you see as the differences
to be in a Silicon Valley startup versus a Singapore
startup?
Look, I think just over the last five years,
I've seen it converging.
When I first started coming here for this,
there wasn't as much of an emphasis in software,
but there were other key industries.
But I think over the last five, 10 years,
EDB and the government has been pushing for Singapore
(35:03):
to become a leader in software.
You see more and more of the big dot coms from China
being headquartered here.
And that's coming all the big tech firms out of the valley,
establishing this as a center of operations, some R&D,
some sales and marketing as they move out of Hong Kong.
You see a lot of the big unicorns out of India
(35:25):
coming here.
And so you see more and more of a software ecosystem emerging.
Just like we saw Israel become essentially another valley,
and then parts of London become like that for fintech.
And I think Singapore is doing a lot to essentially transform
part of the industry into being a software innovation
center for cloud, AI, and they're bringing consciously
(35:48):
all the different players and inviting.
And it's a very business-friendly environment.
So I think what I find in Singapore, what's different
is that still early days for that high-intensity innovation
culture still needs more of that critical mass of people
like you, me, Bill, and hardcore software engineers,
and more are coming.
But the journey's begun.
But it's a business-friendly environment.
(36:10):
There's a growing VC base.
In fact, my next round, some of my investors
are actually local versus the global VCs
behind this following Autodesk.
So I think Singapore is setting itself up
to be another valley, right?
And you see that in Bangalore now.
You see that in Israel.
You see that in a few other key regions and areas.
And you're starting to see Singapore essentially again
(36:32):
in that government sponsorship model,
starting to create that ecosystem here.
We're early days, but more than half my team is Singaporean.
Any podcasts that you're listening to other than this one
that are influencing you, you'd recommend for others
who are listening on?
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
Look, I will share my favorite podcast right now.
(36:54):
And it's not related software.
My other love is history, new politics.
And so I follow a podcast called Empire by Alan Dallara.
And it's worth listening to.
It talks about how the world has evolved.
And it starts with the first season
being about the British Empire and how the British,
the East India Company was like the early version of Facebook
(37:16):
and Tesla.
And it was a conglomerate that emerged.
So worth listening to, guys, folks, if you're interested.
It's definitely not in this space.
But that's my favorite podcast at the moment.
I will share others if I come back.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So last question.
What's your favorite restaurant in Singapore
(37:37):
that if I go, I got to go to?
Singapore, like New York City and a few other places,
London and also Tokyo, is a foodie town.
I actually don't have a favorite restaurant that persists.
I have a favorite restaurant of the month.
So I just went to a place in MBS called My Melos.
It's a new Greek place where you bring in fresh fish
(37:58):
from the Mediterranean.
And they cook it Greek style.
It's great.
They grill it.
And it's quite an experience.
And I'd recommend anybody trying that.
Thank you.
And we've run out of time.
So I'm going to, we'll move on.
And really enjoyed talking to you.
Great progress and any potential partners out there
(38:21):
with a platform like this, they should give you a call
and see what you guys can do together.
Well, that was a very exciting interview with Pankaj.
And his vision for the future of AEC
is certainly transformational.
And the work that he's doing with podium.io,
that platform could become the cornerstone
(38:44):
of what sparked this revolution of disruption
so that we can solve these big challenges
and really address this trillion dollar opportunity.
Now, I just want to call out a few of the key points
that he said, although there's not enough time
to cover everything that Pankaj talked about.
But I think for the listener, the idea that,
(39:07):
starting with this idea that software
has been a universal catalyst for disrupting industries
and that all industries are like dominoes,
that eventually that software disruption occurs
and it changes that industry for the future.
Now, today our industry, which we all love,
(39:30):
because it creates such great product,
it creates such great value in the world,
is still based on a nice Excel world.
And finally, there's a technology
or a series of technologies available
to underpin that transformation.
And that is cloud and gen AI.
But if you're really going to address it,
(39:51):
the technology alone isn't going to solve the problem
because nobody knows how to use the technology,
they don't know how to create the value out of it.
So something like podium.io is necessary
to unlock that value.
And underpinning it is not so much the technology,
it's the idea that buildings need to be treated like systems
(40:13):
in the design phase, in the construction phase
and in the operation phase.
And we have seen this in other industries,
the chip design industry, the airplane industry,
the spacecraft industry, all of these industries
have gone through the systemization of how they design,
(40:33):
how they build it and how they operate it,
leading to the kinds of transformation
that we're looking for in our own industry.
Now, the key to what has happened in those other industries
and what they did is a couple of things.
One is they applied this idea of generative design
where software is used to augment the design process.
(40:55):
They have reusable components that are brought in
to simplify those designs based on what really works.
They design for manufacturing automation
and they have collaborative workflow automation
for large teams of disparate people to work together
over a long period of time to generate that end product.
(41:18):
But in the end, a platform is needed as a common place
for all those participants to interact,
for all the data to exist.
But at the same time, the platform has to be open
for all the participants to innovate on their own
and to put their own data in, but to own their innovation
(41:41):
and own their data through the whole process.
And I think one of the things
that is truly foundationally game-changing
is for this particular platform is by bringing suppliers in
so that they can participate in the design
is incredibly powerful
because that idea of them knowing their products the best,
(42:01):
them innovating to include in the design,
them being able to ensure that what gets put in the design
is a real manufacturable product
or the most cost-effective product
for the need for the building.
And that I think creates opportunities
to further enhance this and create a marketplace
(42:24):
for the future.
And that's when we can see real transformational change
in our industry.
And if you look at podium.io,
I think it's trying to tackle
these rocket science level problems
and it's been able to address quite a number of them.
But this is not a game that can be won by any one individual.
(42:45):
It requires working with other folks in the industry
and they're fortunate.
They're working with great partners, investors to build from.
So in technology, Autodesk,
who has led one of these transformations
in the past in design.
Architecture and engineering with Sabrina Gerong,
(43:06):
a global player in this space.
Developers working with Len Lies,
who incubated this idea and suppliers like Schindler.
But they also have another partner that is quite exciting.
And that is a lot of support out of the government
and with industry in Singapore.
(43:26):
And what is exciting and what I learned is
Singapore is an emerging startup leader
and they have all the elements necessary
for startups to be successful.
And with podium.io there
and with a lot of the work being done in Singapore,
it's a great spot for prop tech
and construction tech to be built upon.
(43:49):
Those are some great lessons learned.
And I really believe that that can be a trend
that what Pankaj is doing and Timmons doing
can be a major transformation for our industry.
Now, going forward, this podcast
will have other great transformation leaders
and we'll look at a variety of different approaches
being used to really help our industry
(44:11):
go through this foundational change.
Because now is the time and the place to do this.
So thank you very much and look forward
to catching up with you next time.
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