Texas woke up to a blue wave, and Ryan Yang, cofounder and CEO of GridPilot, joins John and Bobby to talk about what it means for data centers and the grid. Ryan breaks down the years long interconnection grind, why power engineers are stuck on decades old software, and how AI can turn months of modeling into days without taking the engineer’s stamp out of the loop. Plus game theory, copycat hackathon projects, vertical foundation models, and a low pass over Manhattan in a single prop. Click here to watch a video of this episode. 0:00:00 Intro and Election Night Fallout 0:03:28 ERCOT's 200 GW Data Center Queue 0:06:18 Meet Ryan and GridPilot 0:08:29 How the Grid Actually Works 0:11:07 The Interconnection Process 0:13:42 From Data Science to Energy 0:16:34 Game Theory 0:19:40 Copycat AI Models 0:21:50 Vertical Foundation Models 0:26:24 Why Tech Outsiders Struggle in Energy 0:31:17 Ryan's Path Through Utilities 0:35:29 Domain Expertise Over Software Skills 0:37:40 Agents and the Future of Work 0:43:58 Data Security and the PE Stamp 0:50:24 Learning a Business Through Its Data 0:53:15 Fundraising and RE+ 0:54:52 Private Jets and Learning to Fly 0:59:10 Flying Over Manhattan 1:01:01 Why Pilots Fear Flying 1:03:58 Where to Find Ryan https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io/ https://www.facebook.com/collide.io/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Building a nuclear reactor in America used to take three years. Now the paperwork alone can eat a decade. Kevin Kong, CEO and Founder of Everstar, went from scaling Bird scooters to using AI to untangle nuclear permitting, supply chains and robotic welding. We get into why large reactors can beat SMRs on cost, how the US lost its nuclear supply chain, the jobs a new reactor fleet could create, guarding export controlled data, and how they always knew when Shaq was riding a Bird. Click here to watch a video of this episode. 0:00 Intro 1:12 From Bird to Everstar 6:33 The library book that started it all 10:16 Nuclear myths and the Watts Bar story 13:49 How the US lost its nuclear edge 19:38 AI for nuclear permitting 27:05 Models, physics and regulation 32:58 SMRs vs large reactors 41:34 Data centers and nuclear jobs 44:05 Knowledge gaps and robotic welding 50:16 Security and export controls 53:43 Simulating plant operations 58:43 Building across teams 1:01:54 AI native energy companies 1:06:59 Scaling chaos at Bird 1:09:39 Book picks and where to find Kevin https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Scale builds up downhole and the usual fix means chemicals, pumps, and a pile of equipment on surface. Mahyar (Matt) Mohajer, CTO at Blue Spark Energy Inc, breaks down a wireline tool that fires electric pulses to shatter it instead, and why bringing samples back up matters just as much. Plus twenty years at Schlumberger, opening a Houston headquarters, and what a five month old team can build when AI does the heavy lifting. Click here to watch a video of this episode. 00:00 What Blue Spark Does https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Upstream finance teams have been white knuckling giant Excel models for decades, and the husband and wife team behind WellWorth thinks that era is over. CEO Samra Nawaz and co-founder Vinay Acharya talk with John and Bobby about automating capital structure logic, running 50 scenarios at once, why they built an Excel add in after swearing they never would, and how AI lets a two person team ship like a much bigger one, plus a detour into local models and soaring GPU prices. Click here to watch a video of this episode. 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:51 Meet WellWorth 0:03:23 Why finance still lives in Excel 0:09:02 Building for flexibility 0:11:20 Getting data in and out 0:17:08 Automating capital structure logic 0:19:53 Build vs buy 0:22:25 A&D vs FP&A workflows 0:28:07 Living models and faster decisions 0:34:55 Scenario analysis 0:36:44 Lookbacks and actuals 0:39:44 How AI fits into WellWorth 0:41:53 Day to day AI tools 0:45:07 Agents and plan mode 0:50:19 AI for everyday decisions 0:53:27 What's next for WellWorth 0:58:17 Scaling across business units 1:03:19 Speed round 1:04:42 Local models vs cloud compute 1:11:09 Wrap up https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Utilities are drowning in paperwork long before a repair crew ever leaves the yard. Aarya Borele, co-founder and CTO of Evardi Energy, walks John and Bobby through outage requests getting rejected a day out, FERC 881 pushing line ratings from seasonal to hourly, and why 95 percent accuracy is a failing grade when the lights are on the line. Also in here: the grid as cloud infrastructure, Griddy's flameout, and a 49ers conspiracy theory involving a substation. Click here to watch a video of this episode. 0:00 Agents, VMs and running everything at once 3:26 Back in the studio 4:34 What Evardi does 5:45 Uri and the incentive problem 10:28 When the ISO rejects your outage 12:35 How the grid actually works 15:02 FERC 881 and hourly line ratings 17:46 Where Evardi fits in 21:37 Blackouts in India and Kenya 25:28 The grid as cloud infrastructure 30:17 Griddy and the wholesale gamble 33:45 The stack, compliance and weather models 37:40 Accuracy in critical infrastructure 40:22 Jargon, bad data and context 45:56 Models, local hosting and token costs 55:29 The 49ers substation theory 57:13 Speed round 1:05:38 Physical AI and robot ducks 1:11:25 Paying attention in a granola world 1:14:09 The ask https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai