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013 - Billy Ripple · The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast

• Paul: And welcome in to the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast on our way to being the world's number one concrete podcast. I am your host, Paul Finley, and we are brought to you by Rocket Start. You can visit them at www.gorocketstart.com to learn how they can elevate the culture and your company. Manny Tejano is the ultimate culture warrior. He set out to make sure that drivers specifically were rewarded and recognized for all of the hard work that they do. Now, since those humble beginnings, they've expanded quite a bit. And boy, are they going to expand even further. You want to get in on the ground floor right now. Go visit Rocket Start at www.gorocketstart.com. Tell Manny that we sent you. And learn today how you can elevate the culture and your company through rewards and recognitions for things folks are doing every day, the little things that go above and beyond to keep your business running smoothly. boy. Word of the week. Deception. Merriam Webster defines deception as the act of causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. I'm talking about the University of Virginia and the way they played football against West Virginia University. Very, very, very upset. I'm mad at myself. I should not have put my faith in an ACC team to give you a lock of the week last year well last week during the college football pick And I did. I I was fooled. I was deceived. It can't be my fault. I can't be wrong. No, no, I was deceived by those terrible people at UVA. I'm I'm so sorry that they did that to us, and our lock of the week was not successful. the Cavaliers are not the only team that disappointed me. there are several, and I wish I could go into that in incredible detail. Today is not the episode for that. We have a wonderful interview today. It's a little bit longer than our normal interview, but we got him. We got the greatest IT guy in all of concrete to join the show. And when Billy Ripple is on your program. You just shut up and let it go, man. There's no reason to bury the lead. But with that said, we do have a little bit of a show to do. if you're one of the poor, unfortunate souls that's watching this thing on YouTube, you'll notice the every every episode that more stuff accumulates in this office. today in in the back, you you see the ASTM guidebooks are are open as we were searching through some things. You also see a box of tissues. That's because I'm under the weather. I I have not felt this badly in a long time. I debated even coming on and doing the show because I just don't feel well. But the show must go on. I do it for you. I love doing this. It's my favorite thing that I do, so I really appreciate it. Well, you know, actually pouring concrete and like making concrete better in ways that people didn't think were possible. That's actually probably my favorite thing. But this is easily the very close second. And we got we do have a couple things we need to get through before we get to Billy Ripple. Very excited for you to hear that interview. the slump monkeys college football pick-um presented by Vince Hagen is in week four, going all the way to December. Don't forget $500 prize for the winner and a wonderful trophy. We've printed out, we 3D printed the trophy. It's pretty sick. we're gonna smooth it up, paint it, get it mounted on a base. We'll have some Images and photos when that's ready. it's gonna be I mean it's awesome. It's really, it's really, really great. I'm really excited for ever wins to be able to have that trophy in their office or on their desk as a point of pride. something about the Pick'em. we have the guy who's in first place. I'm assuming it's a guy. Person in first place. And our Pick'em, it has a screen name called Go Buck Yourself. Well, congratulations, Go Buck Yourself. You're currently ranked 57th in the world. There are 92,000 people in the ESBN college football pick'em. And go buck yourself is number 57. Like that's incredible, man. So congratulations on how well, your Pick'em season has started. But we're only, you know, a couple weeks in. So we still have time to catch him. there's one of our players is right on his heels, Anthony R1 Forever. We have several people who are in the 90th percentile in picks. it's just we got a good group. It's a challenging group. You're gonna have to earn it, but we're not even a quarter of the way through. So plenty of time to catch up on everybody. One of the ways you can catch on up on them is listening to the lock of the week. I'm gonna give it to you right now. I think the most obvious lock to me is Georgia minus thirteen and a half over OU. I have no idea what Vegas is thinking. Making this less than a two touchdown spread makes no sense to me. Oklahoma's terrible. Oklahoma can't score. Oklahoma almost lost last week to, you know, roast beef tech. They only scored 10 against Michigan. Michigan's got a fine defense, but they're not crazy good. They're not better than Georgia. And Georgia's averaging a hundred points a game. You're telling me that that Georgia team Is not gonna beat this Oklahoma team by at least fourteen. Get out of here. I think Georgia's probably the best team in the country. I and that that hurts me to say that as a as a Bama guy, but it just facts of the matter are they're unbelievable. So I think it's I think it's free money and we're not betting for money here, but if we were, it feels like free money. So lock of the week. UGA minus 13 and a half over OU. John Mateer cannot hit the broad side of a barn. Georgia actually has weapons on the outside for once. Just I just don't see any way this game's close. And while ESPN is where you can pick college football teams to win or lose, do you know where you can pick your next job? That's right. Concrete careers. I invite you all to visit concrete careers.com slash D. jobs. They have an aggregated job board specifically for concrete positions only. It's amazing that nobody's been able to do this before. So excited that TJ Crosby and his team over there at Concrete Careers has put that together. Again, that's concretecareers.com slash jobs. Go and see for yourself. Maybe there's something in your area, in your line of work. Maybe you're looking for that promotion and it's not coming where you're at right now. Maybe it's available and that is the spot to find out what is there, what are they offering, and you can connect with them. If you are a company, maybe you're a business owner and you're looking to make a critical hire, Concrete Careers does that too. They're not just headhunters, they go out and establish relationships with folks, key folks in the industry, and they'll have them on backlog for years, just so when the right opportunity comes along. They don't waste that person's time. They bring them only the best opportunities. Maybe your opportunity is the right one for those key individuals. If so, call concrete careers. TJ Crosby can help you out. ConcreteCareers.com. We're gonna be in Nashville in a few weeks. The Concrete Works Trade Show is there. And RMCA puts that on. It's my absolute favorite gathering of the year for ReadyMix folks. World Concrete special. It's massive and it's crazy. but I like Concrete Works a little bit better. It's a little bit more subdued, but all the people that you could really want to talk to and interact with, they they all go to that one. It's really great. Slump monkeys will be recording a podcast live on the site. So we're super thrilled that Vince Hagen is giving us some space inside their booth. They're actually gonna erect a podcast set there at the show. I mean, every every time I talk to them every week and I'm just more blown away at you know, the the amount of effort, time and effort that they're putting in to make this successful. So big thank you to Vince Hagen for doing that. And so when we get to Nashville, we're gonna have a lineup of folks that are gonna come in. you're looking at like 10 minute interviews or so when you're doing these live ones. And we still got a few slots open. If that's something that you would like to be a part of to get you know your message out there, please let me know. You can email me at admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's O N K E Y Y S dot com. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com to see if you would like to get a spot at the Concrete Works live show. if you're going to Concrete Works, also come visit booth 242. That's my day job. Fall line minerals. We will be there. Come see the product that has all the hyperscalers excited. That's right. We've got a calcine clay. We've got a the most beautiful plant production plant you've ever seen in your life. we're gonna make hundreds of thousands of tons of calcium clay for the concrete. Whether you're trying to increase the performance of your mix or you're looking to lower the GWP value of the mix, we are the product for you. Feel free to come by booth two four two. I'll be there. One of the owners will be there too. Very, very excited to show it off to the world. And, you know, I cannot be more excited about this interview. I'm very sorry that I'm under the weather. I was actually not feeling great during that interview either. So if you're watching that and you think I look terrible there too, that's fine. You know, that's fine. it hasn't been my best week. You know, these are those daycare germs, you know, they come home and they get you. So we're gonna power through it, but appreciate you guys for listening to the show. This every week the viewership just grows and grows. If i if you don't mind, could you just take a moment and check and make sure you're subscribed? It it's kind of crazy. Like of all the views and downloads and streams and everything that we get, only about ten percent of the folks are actually subscribed. And that just I it doesn't make a ton of sense to me, but you know, I appreciate everyone that wants to engage with, you know, our content and our program. And I just really appreciate it if you just take a moment, just check and see if you're subscribed and just look down and hit that button, follow us, like us, rate us five stars. so excited. Next week we're conspiracy corners back next week for the next episode. That's gonna be a fun one. Super, super excited about that. what else is coming up? We've got next week we're gonna go deep into the bell pole. Remember a couple weeks ago we had Joey Bell on here and he talked about his idea for how to rank teams and do it more effectively. It helps weed out some of that bias that comes with you know the A people coming out preseason kind of you know, makes everybody think a team's good when they're really not. And it's his poll is incredible. He's been updating it every week and only and it was giving it a couple weeks to sort of let it massage itself out. And it it's incredible. So we're gonna do a deep dive into that. there are some fun stories out there. Bechtel had a big split, a public split. You don't see that very often. They were doing a a a Bill Gates backed nuclear project and they parted ways and with with and is you don't normally normally when those jobs fall apart like you don't it doesn't hit the news like the GC doesn't run out and start you know talking crap. So I don't think that was their intent. I think they have to file an a a notice in the state of Virginia that says like hey we have to lay off you know 200 people for reasons XYZ but in this case the reason was because the they decided to walk away from this project. It's not like the project hadn't it was like just getting started. They're cuss a couple of years into it. And a bunch of orders had just been placed at the end of August. I mean we're like three weeks ago. Like things were moving forward. A bunch of stuff got put into place and and then now now Bechtel's like, no, we're out. So that's an interesting story. We're gonna get into that in a little bit more detail on on the next episode as well. So there's some fun things coming up. Got a bunch of fun interviews lined up for the next few shows, not just the one here today, but just so excited for the guests that we have coming. You know, somebody from NRMCA will be on here. We're gonna have Station from Exact Technologies be on here. We've got, you know, some technical folks from the industry are gonna be on here. Just gonna be an all-star lineup of guests, and that will roll us into concrete works where you're just gonna hear the best of the best coming on here and It's just can't be more excited for this program. So thankful to the audience for tuning in and listening. our final sponsor for this episode is Command Alcon. They've been with us since the beginning. They have been with the industry since the beginning of software nineteen seventy-six. They're celebrating 50 years in the concrete business serving software. Now they got hardware, software. They've been through the on-prem to the cloud. They've done it all. And I'm so excited to have one of their very own here, the greatest IT guy in concrete. Give it up for Billy Ripple. And welcome into the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. We finally have the man himself, the greatest IT guy in all of concrete, Billy Ripple. Billy Ripple: Hello, hello, hello, hello. How we doing, Paul? It's been a minute. Paul: It's been too long. I don't think we've seen each other since like I think it's literally been Billy Ripple: It was Paul: a year. Billy Ripple: yeah, it was concrete works last year. In Florida. I'll be there. I'll be there. Yeah, it'll be fun. We'll have to do another one. Catch up real quick. We did Paul: Concrete works last year. Are are you going this year? Good. Good. I'll be there too. We'll see each other. Yeah, that's that's my favorite show. Billy Ripple: like a little like ten like a ten minute speed dating round last time, so we'll we'll have to do it again. Paul: We're gonna run it back. I'll the podcast will be there. So we'll we'll Billy Ripple: Good. Good. Paul: run it back. Well I'm I gotta get I gotta get all the people who've said yes so far to being a guest live at Concrete Works. I gotta get it all put together. So we'll find we'll find out exactly what time. We'll be a little bit more prepared. Last year we were just grabbing people out of the aisles and it was like, Hey man, wanna jump on. It was it was great. It was great. Billy Ripple: It worked perfect. That's how you get the most the spontaneity is what creates good content, I think. It's like, I wasn't preparing for that, but yeah, absolutely. Let's chat, let's catch up. Paul: Yeah, I think I texted you. I was like, Hey, you wanna come over? And you're like, Yeah, can I come over at four? Yeah. Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. and it worked out great too. We were able to run over there real quick. I think right after that I went on stage, did a little demo real quick and then Yeah, wrapped up the rest of the day there. We got it Paul: yeah were right now. Billy Ripple: in we have Florida last year, we got Nashville this year, yeah. Paul: Nashville's gonna be awesome. what did you demo last year? Billy Ripple: It was right. Did we record that after the driver rodeo? Paul: Yes. Billy Ripple: So the theme what I demand last year was our driver management slash resource planning in command cloud. So we you know, I mean concrete works obviously has a big theme with the the driver rodeo and the award ceremony afterwards, which is absolutely incredible. If anyone hasn't done that yet. highly recommend to one, just concrete works an amazing event every year. And then two, in particular that Sunday night when they do the award ceremony, I think it's that Sunday. and all the drivers come out. I mean, it's like a it's like a a like a wrestling event. They get a walking out stage, they get to the music's hitting, Paul: Yeah. Billy Ripple: they you know, it just they there's so much emphasis on just appreciating the drivers. You know, and then it has the results of the rodeo after the fact too. And it's just incredible. I d it's I've got like a million different recordings that, you know, I'll probably watch again one day, but maybe my maybe my kids will think it'll cool one it's cool one day too. So yeah, it's Paul: Bye. Billy Ripple: the best part. So we we I had I think the demo sessions were like ten minutes max you had on stage there and and yeah, we were showing how we can build a schedule up for the drivers and then tell when they need to show up the next day at what plant at what time based on the orders that get put into command cloud. So it's been it's been good. There's been a lot of change this year. Paul: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, are you gonna do another demo for this year? Yeah. What Billy Ripple: That's the plan. That's the plan. Paul: what are you gonna can you tell us right now? Sneak preview, breaking news. What are we gonna show off in twenty twenty six? Billy Ripple: I don't I don't I don't know if the world's ready for it, so I may have to hold that one in my chest. no Paul: Well, I was I was at I was on your website recently actually and I was like, how many products do they have? You have like three thousand dude, three how do you keep up? Billy Ripple: Too many. Too it's a it's it's a blessing and a curse. It's one of them deals where where you know the customer asks, Hey, I've got this problem. Do you have a way to solve it? And the answer almost every time is yeah, of course. Yeah. You just need to, you know, prepare to implement, you know, either a new SOP or prepare for some change management. and downtime and it's like, well, I ain't got time for all that. I'd I'd rather just put up another plant, buy some more trucks. And it's like, well, okay, I get it. That's fair. Paul: Yeah. Billy Ripple: so yeah, it's it's it's it's a challenge. but it again it's one of them it's one of them good problems to have. It's it's tough to stay up to date at times because we're building so rapidly. And that's probably like the the the hardest part, I guess, of the the day job, so to speak. But again, it's one of them really good problems to have. We've just been super blessed with how much I guess the lack of a better work change has happened in the last, you know, especially on the command side too, here lately, with just some recent, you know, press releases we've done with the acquisition and You know, moving from Tama Bravo to Francisco partners and then we're hitting our fiftieth year as a company here overall. So, you know, we have a good mix of our customers down our legacy on premise software and then we have our you know, another third of our customers who are on the cloud journey have migrated over. so it's been a it's been a busy year. Yeah. Paul: I I don't I don't mean this negatively. I I mean this shockingly. I'm surprised I'm surprised it's only a third on the cloud. Is that because everybody made those investments in the on prem and so they don't want to let go of it? 'Cause the cloud seems Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: like the way to go. Billy Ripple: Yeah. No, the cloud's definitely the way to go. I mean, you know, probably I I would say any other software application that a producer's running nowadays probably is a cloud based software. But you know, with our software, it's a lot of times it's a system of record. A lot of times it's the financial system of record. so and it's a revenue impacting software, meaning if it goes down the c the producer's losing money. So It it's one of them things where it's such a you know, you obvio definitely know, concrete's a perishable product. So to it's very expensive and to produce it is very expensive. The the trucks, the maintenance, the employees. So to say, Hey, let's pause all that six days out of the week and implement this new software, even if it's our legacy software. You're gonna have this brand new cloud-based software. Nobody's ever used it yet. It's so much change management from the folks at the batch plant to the dispatch group to to QC to finance Paul: Mm-hmm. Billy Ripple: that it it's it's honestly one of them deals. And not every producer is like this, just to be clear. It's just I'm speaking in generalities. more often than not, it's like, no, we're good. What you know, let's just keep keep the status quo going because it feels like every year. You know, depending on each market, there's some extenuating circumstance that, you know, has not given that producer, you know, its ideal production rate, whether it's rain or allocation or driver shortage, which is everywhere. you know, especially in the last five or six years, just with how much has gone on with like the pandemic and coming out of that and DOT requirements, you know, for every DOT operation. So it's just one of them things where it's like, If I don't have to change, I'm not going to. but with that being said, you know, with the again, the very generic third, let's just call it a third for sex simplicity. to have it third within, you know, third of the folks that have moved over Out of 50 years of existing as a company, and they have a worldwide footprint, it's really not that bad. Cause we've only had the cloud. Command cloud's only been available on the market since April of 2024. So we've had just unbelievable adoption. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah, it's Paul: Okay. Wow. Okay. Well yeah. That changes it. Yeah, I didn't realize it'd only been two two years. I thought it'd been Billy Ripple: not yeah, yeah. We had to and we had to get to a point to with parity too, you know. Customers have specific processes and workflows and And they've built their company around these and and a lot of times those processes and workflows were likely consulted from us to say, Hey, you need to do it this way to get optimal results. so to you know, to essentially go back, say, Hey, look, we are we're sunsetting that product and Some of the things that you have is it processes are gonna change and they gotta vet out those things too, whether it's third party integrations to ERPs or reporting tools or QC tools. So there's just there there are so many layers, and so many departments that it affects is is what can delay, you know, even even more rapid adoption. And we're always probably the biggest fundamental thing that has completely changed the world at this point is, you know, how can we accelerate this with the use of AI? You know, how Paul: man. Billy Ripple: can we ease the pain with the use of AI, whether it's, you know, something simple as generating how-to guides, you know, with all of our products, to something as more complex to you know, hey, let's rebuild let's have AI rebuild every integration that you ever had. and and you just adopt software. So it's it's very interesting to see it go from from one end of the spectrum where they're just okay with the status quo with traditional on premise software. They ran it for thirty thirty years to the the opposite of not only are we gonna adopt and use cloud based software, we're gonna we're gonna ensure that every single other software application that helps run our business successfully is connected to that revenue impacting mission critical applications that you know Man Alcon offers as a solution. So Paul: I was trying to describe your company to somebody the other day that doesn't really know a lot about concrete. Billy Ripple: awesome. I love this. Paul: And it they were like, okay, so you have software that like tells the the the concrete plant how to batch. The concrete like you have to press a button that says Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: go and it loads the materials. I said, Well, that's how I got started. I was like, But you've ever used an ERP system in like a normal company. I was like, that's basically what they are now. Is there an ERP? I think that's or to me that was like the most analogous thing I could come up with. And so when you were talking about like these guys don't want to change, it's hard. Bro, have you ever been through an ERP changeover? That Billy Ripple: It's it's it it it it it is it it is probably the most daunting software task that you can do within a company. Even e even with our production, you know, so to go back to your first point, how to describe the company. So we are a hardware and software company for the heavy building materials industry. So when trucks go across scales, our software is gonna print that ticket. When Ready mixed trucks back up under a plant or pull into a plant to get loaded. Our software runs and our hardware runs. that concrete getting loaded to specific weights and specific sequences. you know, our software controls all that. But yeah, to your point, all that information does need to get for a lot of times, even if it's just a QuickBooks, it still needs to get back to a financial system of record to To send out an invoice and collect cash and and post that against customers' accounts. So it's the it's two very synergistic applications. And there's even some customers out there that have they don't have any ERP. They have our solutions. They use our accounting packages within our solutions to run their entire business. so it it it is the the probably the easiest way is you know mission critical software and hardware applications for the heavy building. materials industry is is what summarizes us. Paul: And fifty years I was talking to Tr 50 Billy Ripple: Fifty years. Paul: years. I was talking to Trevor about it offline and he he was like, Man, do you really realize like who was around in software in nineteen seventy six? I was like, crap, Billy Ripple: It's unreal. Paul: that's actually like a really good point. That was a long that was a long time ago. Billy Ripple: Yeah, yeah, it's it's few and far between, man. It's it's i and I mean, you know, command You know, so for for lack of a better analogy, you know, we're we're the Microsoft or the Apple of the industry. You know, just having the footprint, the global the global footprint, the amount of customers we have. We've just been so blessed with so much success for s you know, and so many people were a part of that success over the past five decades. And I don't wanna discredit the the people that got us to where we are that so that I can enjoy to do podcasts like I am right now. so much work has been done in the past, you know, five decades to to afford us that that blessing. we recently just did an implementation for not just an implementation but also training and a complete overhaul and putting a QC systems for a customer in Mongolia. Do you know do Paul: Jeez, you had to go to Mongolia. You went to Mongolia? Billy Ripple: No, I did the but but no now I would, I would, if they said, Hey, we need you to come on top, I would love that. I would eat that up. I think it'd be amazing. But at the same time, I did I I did do the remote sessions for some of the products that they bought. And and it was one of them deals where it's like while I'm cum come conversing with this customer and I'm explaining, you know, they already use they already use a bunch of our hardware, like our batching systems they used and they were looking at our dispatch solutions. Command Cloud, even and they were they're like, Hey, this is a great fit. And in my head, while I'm explaining this, I'm like, you know, I'm I'm working on their time. So it was either super early in the morning or super late at night. Paul: Yeah. Billy Ripple: you know, it wasn't during normal working hours, so to speak, but I'm like, I'm literally talking to people in Mongolia about software that'll that'll change their business. And I have the greatest job in the world, you know, because I get to chat. I get to talk shop about software in this industry from my my little Texas abode to customers in Mongolia. And I mean like how cool is that? That's unbelievable. I know, dude. It's awesome. Paul: That's freaking cool, man. Yeah. I for people that don't remember your first episode on here where you went through your origin story of how you Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: were just a a lonely IT guy at a concrete company until Billy Ripple: I was, man. Yep. Paul: you got snatched up. Would you mind taking five minutes and retelling this new audience how in the world like nobody I know especially not like even five or ten years ago, like the idea of like Software and concrete wasn't it wasn't like a huge thing. You had to have it to like do batching, but then all of a sudden e-ticketing came in. And then people were like, Can I track my inventory? And then so now Billy Ripple: Mm. Paul: now, like, where's my truck at is like a normal thing. It's normal. You're expected to know exactly where the trucks are before before like I could be at McDonald's Billy Ripple: Always. Paul: and and you had no idea. You're just like, I don't know, trucks on the way, must be stuck in traffic. So now Billy Ripple: Yeah, it'll be around the corner. Paul: all these software solutions are Seem a lot more normal now, but it wasn't always this way. And it wasn't this way necessarily when you got snatched up by command. Would you tell your origin story for the folks? Billy Ripple: Yeah, yeah, I would love to. So I when I graduated high school and and even before high school, I mean when I was in middle school, I mean computers were my thing. Like it wasn't math, it wasn't social studies, it wasn't any of your generic, you know, curriculum they offer at public high schools, you know. It's just I if it didn't involve a computer, I didn't care to learn about it. So graduated high school, worked at a aerospace company and dfw here just doing manufacturing and that and i got laid off from that and when i got laid off it was just a really good opportunity and a really good company but when i when i got laid off i was like all right i'm gonna i'm gonna get in it because that's what i love to do it's it's a passion so I did that's exactly what I did I I form like my formal career where I got paid a paycheck was when I got laid off I was like I'm gonna do I'm gonna do IT now. I'm gonna do a career pivot. And so I started working at a company called 37 Building Products. And that was the parent company name. It had owned a trucking operation, it had a mining operation, and it had a ready mix operation. we had five plants, we had a hundred trucks, we had about eighty-five aggregate trucks with a varied mix of ag and sand haulers and then pneumatics for the powder. and I worked there four years. I started off as IT support specialist. I was swapping keyboards and batteries and stuff. I mean I was in heaven man. I was I was getting to do the IT dream that I set out to do since I got my first computer in two thousand one. Paul: Did you try did you try turning it off and turning it back on? Billy Ripple: I've still live by that. I recommend I tell everybody even today, whether it's co-workers or I'm at a conference like Concrete Works, it's I it still works. And there's a reason that works, but maybe not for that podcast or this podcast. But yeah, you always restart it and then afterwards, if that doesn't fix it, you call me and I drive out there and I solve it for you. So I I I got to have a lot of fun in four years to do that. And the comp that 37 building products and the concrete division was called American Concrete. it was a private, locally owned organization here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. the owner of that company decided after 27, 28 years it was it was time to wrap up that journey. the company got acquired by another producer in a local area and And at that point it was like, well, there's nothing left for me to IT anymore. I've you know, every everything got sold, all the assets got sold, the plants got sold, the drivers, the trucks. There's nothing to support. so after that, I was we were a full command alcon software shop. We used all their applications to run the business. So I'd I had been using them for the past four years. I built relationships with some of the command team members. And you know, at that time I was like, there's just Nothing for me to do anymore. I feel like I'm stealing from this owner after the acquisition because I got I can't fix anything every day. So do y'all have anything open? And they were like, Yeah, we do. We actually have this senior solutions analyst position. So I applied, started here in July of 2021. I started off doing implementation and support for at the time a cloud based trucking dispatch software. And then also a accounts payable automation software solution that we have that command alcon just recently acquired at that time. So I was doing implementation support for that. fast forward to a year, I joined the sales organization and I'm essentially a at or I was a sales engineer for all of our software and hardware solutions that command offers that producers look to implement and understand. So I would do you know, product demos like with the folks over in Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, worldwide. product demonstrations, gap analysis, technical deep dives, what products can do, what they can't do, and and just being that trusted advisor with the industry background, now applying that industry background to working at the company that you know most producers you know at one point or another at least shopped us. and I get to just say, hey, I understand how your business flows and and every producer's got a little nuance. So I understand that nuance or I try to, and then I recommend a a consultative approach of, you know, okay, if you wanted to solve this pain point, this is this is what I would recommend and I'll show you how I would use the software to do that. So fast forward Five years. I just hit my five year anniversary of Command this July. Thank you. And I am now the director of solution strategy and value consulting here at Command. So, you know, not only has the company gone through a lot of change with just, you know, a a fifty year anniversary and then you know the move from Tama Bravo to Francisco Partners, you know, we just had that announcement and then all of our acquisition activities that we've had the past couple of years and it's been the most unbelievable journey of my life thus far from a from a professional perspective. You know, when I when they sold the company and when the owners and I I I mean they're they still are like family to me. I I talk to them every week, sometimes every day, depending on what's going on. And and there they started up another Ready mix business, they run our software suite of applications. So I get to work with them again. I'm just on this side of the fence instead of, you know, their direct payroll. And it it's it time has flown, but but with the you know, again, the rapid development that we're offering from our cloud solutions now and and knowing from where I was at as a producer, and it's like, my goodness, if I had just half the tools that I got available to me now. my god, I could have completely overhauled the entire organization. So it's like, okay, well take that knowledge, Billy, and apply it ever to all these producers all over the world, you know, if it if it makes sense. So that's what I get to do every day. And it's the it's the biggest blessing ever. Paul: Cong congratulations. Congratulations on leveling up to director. I didn't realize that. So that's that's freaking cool, man. Billy Ripple: It's it's been been a lot of air miles to to get there and a lot of hard work and a lot of other people trusting me. and and I've had the support from the team. It it's been incredible. And just so blessed. I don't work a single day in my life. Paul: The one of the reasons why I tell everybody you're the number one IT guy in concrete is because Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: you well you you know, y one of the th details of the story about when you were at the the company before command was like you really like fell in love with the the company and the process of of concrete and you really like tried to understand like what are these people doing, what are their challenges. You said, Y'all you were changing batteries and replacing, you know, keyboards or whatever, but you You also went you took the time to like actually understand their business and what was painful for them and what wasn't and what problems were they trying to solve for an IT and what how could you help solve those problems from an IT perspective? So when you made the switch to command, you already had like the knowledge of how to how a concrete business was being run. And now you got to be the person that provided the solutions to help those people out. Like, yeah, I know what you're going through. Like here, Billy Ripple: Exactly. Paul: this this will help you. Billy Ripple: we've got a team of trusted advisors, you know, solution strategists that that take that real world experience using our applications and other vendors applications and saying, hey, knowing what I know now, this is and what you know, you, Mr. and Mrs. Customer do today, this is what I would if I were if if it were my choice, if I got hired on as a direct employee to you, if you were to ask me, hey, use your knowledge, what would you do to solve this? I I just explain that every day. and that's where it gets into the the the solution strategy. And having that credibility of coming from the industry, it makes Not that other people can't work at Command Alcon that didn't work at a producer and provide value. I want I I wanna make sure that that's not at all what I'm saying. But in our particular role with what we do, we're we're liaison. We're kind of the the the crossroads between the sales organization at command, the product development organization at command, and most importantly the customers that use our software. So when we have those conversations, you know, it's it's really important to to have that industry background to to relate to the good, the bad, and and everything in between to know where you can make a difference, you know, for these customers if you have subcombos. So it's been been good. Paul: It w it's really hard to sell it's in my opinion. It's really hard to sell into the concrete or heavy building space if you have no idea what those people are going through. it's almost it's almost impossible. Billy Ripple: Almost impossible. It's almost impossible. 'Cause they you just you just don't get it. And going back to you know, I I didn't answer this for you, no, going back to when I first started working at at thirty seven building products, that that was probably what what I mean, I think every human being has wants that sense of purpose. So for me when I started there, my mindset was like, I get to do IT work, but I get to do IT work in Rudding mixed concrete. And in my head, when I was applying to this and I saw the requirements for for the job posting, I'm like, why do they need all this stuff? Like concrete, you just buy the bags of it at Home Depot and mix it together and and like you have a fence now or you've got a pad for your shed or something. You know, it never really dawned on me. It's like yeah, at that time prior to the industry, it didn't dawn on me just how sophisticated some of these producers are. and the technologies they used, even then at that point. And and that's what it it was just this weird, like, especially in Texas, you know, it's it it's where I'm at anyways, it's very raw, a lot of cattle, a lot of farm town. So so to do technology work in a non-technology industry was extremely intriguing to me because there was some stuff that I could really solve. but also still recognize that, you know, my end users are are batch operators that I support and drivers at times that I support. They don't they don't want to know technology. You know, their expertise is making quality concrete and delivering quality concrete. So to to you know march with the team all in the same order and we all have our roles and then to see the success. the sum of the all of the parts and to have that success, you know, in the middle or the beginning or the end of the year. it was just very rewarding. I mean, I it still is rewarding. It's why I still love doing what I do and why I say I don't work a day in my life. It's just you know anytime you have the opportunity I feel like to to show someone regardless of what their role is, whether it's a C level you know, executive you work with or a loader operator. You know, w a lot of people begin as loader operators, just doing labor at a plant. You know, to be able to help, you know, from that again to a CEO or something like that. I mean, it's just most you know, most IT folks are, you know, the the job the job really isn't necessarily being willing to understand and learn tech. It's resourcefulness to solve a problem and not not stopping Paul: Yeah. Billy Ripple: until that problem is resolved. and and that part was the most enticing to me. and I think the pressure, you know, I had a conversation with Mr. Baker at IMI. You know, we were having dinner together not too long ago and and he said it and once he said it I was like that's exactly why I love this industry. And If you go back, you know, just a few minutes ago where I mentioned it's a perishable product and it's such a mission critical, you know, from the time it gets poured into the back of the truck at the plant, wet or dry, to the time it gets delivered at a job site, you know, it's perishable products and it it's expensive. And I that's the part that I like about it because so much is on the line. So when you succeed, it's it's it's so much more rewarding. Because you could fail. You could not deliver it on time. The concrete could be out of spec. You could blow your budget, you know, in a matter of seconds. emphasizing being dramatic a little bit, but and that part of it is what keeps me coming back, is that the the the sense of urgency that is required for this industry to have, and sometimes that sense of urgency is at eleven PM, midnight, one AM. And you still have to be there and support those people. You have to take care of your customers. And that's that's the best part. That that's what makes it exciting and fun. Paul: interesting. So I have so many questions. but let's start there at the end. So as a as a guy who used to do like a specialty ad mix to some of these places, I there it's you're right. I got phone calls at two in the morning, hey the dispenser's not dispensing. Can you call? So you guys get those same phone calls sometimes at command, like gosh. I never didn't even think Billy Ripple: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Paul: about that. Billy Ripple: Yeah. So so so b a perfect example of this, Paul. If you were to go like, you know, start working at a producer and using your knowledge that you've you've built, you know, schooling and professionally to. and you know, at any you know, let's say, hey, you're gonna cover these five plants, you'll be really familiar with our twenty four seven hotline in the event that a plant goes down. Because it's it's the r it's a reality. plants get struck by lightning all the time, you know, so it can mess up a computer, it can mess up the manual station, and you know, the plants Paul: Yep. Yep. Lightning. Billy Ripple: gonna have to manually patch and stuff like that. So, you know, if you're it the calls are gonna happen. We have twenty four seven support, we we rotate specific teams to to to answer that twenty four seven on call. we have a sunset support team. That from the time the sun rises, time the sun ends, folks answering questions on on not mission critical applications, you know, but we still provide support for that. And then that's just us, you know. Though a lot of these companies have departments full of team members that take those phone calls internally before they even call us. So it's it's pretty wild. Pretty wild. Paul: Yeah, I I didn't realize that I had I had another question. So you talked about like people like with with the cloud business. I mean, if you if you just started with command and you know, maybe you have Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: their hardware and you want to go like expand your software solutions, like you could just go natively Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: to the cloud. But you know, a lot of your people are on prem and maybe maybe they're migrating to the cloud, which which is a which is a process. But here's here's my question about that. Is there like a a difference in the the software and and how it works when you have it local versus cloud. And here's my example. Our company has QuickBooks for its invoicing and they're and tracking all the payments. But we had it like local. Like it was and it was amazing and it had all these features and then ownership was like, Yeah, but we're not always there. We're all out and about wherever. We want to access everything wherever we are. Let's go to the cloud version. And it just it ain't the same. It's just not the same. It not it doesn't have all the features. It's not as easy to use. Billy Ripple: Uh-huh. Paul: it's kind of a mess. And you know, what does command do to not have that happen? Billy Ripple: the the short answer is that we we there is nothing we can do to prevent that from happening, especially when you know, the infancy of that software is three years, two and a half, approaching three years old. There's it it just simply and that's any software regardless of the vendor. you know, and to your point, I mean I can't tell you how many customers we were a QuickBooks on premise customer as well. at American concrete. So I so the answer your first question, it takes so much infrastructure in place with respect to networking requirements and server infrastructure. And then having the knowledge or even if you hire a company to have that knowledge, it takes so much infrastructure to say, hey, I don't want to access QuickBooks in the office anymore. I want to do it from the house. Okay. So that's a the the the what it takes to do that is is a lot. Okay, so so when you insert the cloud and it's like, well, I can access any of this in a browser everywhere. So there's a level of convenience that that is more important than the features you may or may not have. So when we have these conversations with customers, especially when it was, you know, brand, brand new. I mean, we've we've got almost two hundred developers, and it's only gonna increase and and expedite it even quicker with the use of AI. gentic coding development too. Paul: We'll get to AI we'll get to AI in just a second. Billy Ripple: yeah I I look forward to it. so so when you when you take that it's it it takes there's gonna be a level of a period of time to to reach that level of parity that all customers are happy with and that's the other that's the other big thing with you know cloud based development is that you know That that customer in Mongolia is going to get the same version of the software that the customers in the United States are going to be running. And and there's quite a bit of difference of how concrete is maybe not necessarily produced, but but managed and tracked after it's produced, the invoicing procedures, how it's delivered, etc. So there is there's I feel like every software company that has on-premise solutions that's has done or in the middle of or plan to do their their cloud journey, if they start from scratch, it there's that they're they're gonna have that. And that's why QuickBooks still has that today because those legacy products are so deep. They've been on the market for so many, I mean decades, you know, so it's it's definitely a challenge. But again, it's one of those good problems they have. we're we're so We're we're just so blessed with to be afforded to have the resources of two hundred plus developers to build out this solutions because our customers keep coming back to us because we are that trusted partner for the past fifty years for Paul: Well, like the thing with like QuickBooks and I think it's it's probably the same with not probably it is the same with command, is that like the legacy product was so good still. Like just 'cause you're calling it you're only calling it legacy 'cause it's established. I think that's probably a better word for it because sometimes legacy denotes Billy Ripple: Yeah, it seasoned. Paul: like, that's old and we need to get away from from that. But it's not that. It's like it really does work and you know, QuickBooks the they're established On prem software was so good. It's like there's no reason to have to to have to go to the cloud. Billy Ripple: yeah. yeah. They're the they're the market leader for a reason. You can Paul: Yeah. Billy Ripple: have a a one man plumbing operation using QuickBooks to a a billion dollar company that probably has multiple sets of books, but technically you could do it in QuickBooks. Now you get in the ERP territory as every Paul: Yeah. Billy Ripple: company does when they mature to a point where they have to get out of the QuickBooks size, but I've I've worked with some Unbelievably large companies that run their entire operation on QuickBooks. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. It does. Mm-hmm. That's right. Paul: No, but I mean it it works. It it it does what it's supposed to do, helps to track everything, reconcile everything. It's it's it's a good product. Let's jump into AI. So so this is fun for me Billy Ripple: man Stewart Paul: because you're actually an IT guy and I'm I'm just a guy who had a at one time had free weekends. I I no lon I no longer do have six months. Well we had a we Billy Ripple: I heard that. Neither do I. Neither do I. Paul: we welcomed a new baby into the family this this year. So Billy Ripple: What? Paul: Yeah. Boy, six months old. Than thanks, man. That's Billy Ripple: my goodness, boy or girl. Nice. Congratulations, my friend. Congrats. Paul: that's where I got this cold from. And I was done. I was stunning about actually, Billy Ripple: That's that's right. Paul: the people who are who the the poor souls that actually watch this whole thing on YouTube, they saw me hit the mute button and and sneeze into a tissue while you were talking. So first off, the audio guys have no idea that happened because Billy Ripple's a pro and he just kept on talking. He saw me and he was like, I'm just gonna keep talking. Billy Ripple: No dead air. Keep it going. Wind letting wind letting no bl nose blowing disrupt this. No way. Totally Paul: So so apologize to Billy Ripple: intentional. Paul: you know, that's what you get for watching this on YouTube, I guess. It's we're we're concrete guys doing a podcast. so you're gonna have Billy Ripple: That's right. That's right. Paul: people blowing their nose. so the AI thing. I I am the biggest fan. The f as you probably know, the first couple episodes, if you remember the first couple episodes of this show, I I just couldn't shut up about AI. So I had to take a break for a little while because I think I was pissing off the audience. and Billy Ripple: Yeah. yeah. Paul: I was like, All right, now we're back. back on AI. I'm the biggest fan. There I I love I love it. I and I was not like the immediate like, this is the greatest thing ever. But I was so I was in business school, my last year of business school when GPT launched, GPT three launched to the to the public. And I was like, my gosh, this LLM thing is crazy. And I was taking AI classes at business school. And so we're going deep into the neural networks, different ones, you know, A and Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: N, CNN, RN. We're we're going super deep into reinforcement learning and human in the loop. We're like everything. We're going s like exactly how everything actually works. How do transformers work? Like, do we need to know all that for business school? Probably not. But they wanted us to have like really know how it works. So when you get out there and management says, we should do AI. Like you give it, hang on a second. Do you really know what you're asking to do? Because a what Billy Ripple: Do what with AI? Yeah. Paul: what with AI and How and why? Do you know how this works? The security, you know, do you have anybody does anybody know what a JSON file is? You know, he's like, yeah, like it marked. Yes. So there were a lot of things Billy Ripple: Yeah, exactly. What's markdown and why does it matter now? Yeah. Yeah. Paul: to there were a lot of things to for guys like me who didn't really know anything. I got a a nice nice education in and I was playing with them and I saw their limitations back then. You know, I also wonder how many people tried Chat GPT three back then and then haven't gone back and tried like Fable. And have no Billy Ripple: man. Paul: idea. I mean, I haven't gotten deep into Astra, but like they they haven't used Astra yet. And they have no idea. These are they're not even the same thing, it feels like, when you go Billy Ripple: No. Paul: from what we were doing in the fall of 22 to what we're doing here in the fall of 26. So the new thing coming into the start of the year was agents. And as a person, I work in a small company, it's a small business. I help out a couple of small businesses. And for me, I I I have to be a high agency person. I I don't have anybody looking over my shoulder telling me what to do. Now sometimes I talk to the owners and they remind me, hey, you didn't do this thing. So like, yeah, thank you. But I have I have to be a self-starter and have so many things that are going on. And to to feel like I have a team around me that are these agents that are helping me. No, they never communicate face to face with a person. So they're not gonna you're not getting an email from me that was written by an agent, but they're doing a lot of things on the back end that are helping Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: keep me straight. It has been my productivity is so crazy high. My ability to take enormous amounts of information and to synthesize them and to connect the dots on things, there's no way I could have looked through all 5,000 legacy documents. Billy Ripple: No, Paul: and connected Billy Ripple: no. Paul: any of these dots. It's just been so remarkable. And so then I look at somebody like you who actually knows what they're doing. And Billy Ripple: forgot. Paul: you're in a company and you've got to be falling all over yourself loving this stuff. Am I wrong? Or are you are you about to talk me Billy Ripple: No Paul: back away from this cliff I'm going to dive off of with AI? Billy Ripple: I it this this almost sound the this almost feels scripted with this question. I want to preface that like me and Paul didn't talk about this question prior to him asking me because I'm about to dump quite a bit on the the listeners. Okay. Paul: We didn't we didn't talk about anything. Billy Ripple: Yeah. No, no, no prompting, no script. So the answer to this. The the timing of this question is outstanding. So this January, Command Alcon started leveraging a product called Cursor. So Cursor's a it's a fork of Visual Studio Code, which is just an IDE. It's what what developers use to to build software applications. Short version of what that is. So Cursor's AI enhanced agentic IDE coding tool to help developers write code. So we started using that internally at command in January, not just for product development, but for product owners and for support and for implementation and for sales and for folks like me. So and that was a mandate. Essentially from Martin Willoughby. So hey, we're gonna invest in AI heavily. every department is, and and go crazy, go build cool stuff or solve hard problems, you know. as employees, the amount of tools that I have access to that command offers, literally every single language model you could imagine. what feels like unlimited access via cursor. and then if if there's something else that's valuable or that can help the entire company, you know, any one of us can say, hey, I started using X, Y, and Z thing. I think I think all of us would benefit from that. You know, they have such open ears with what everyone you know, uses that is provisioned and managed and maintained by command and RIT team. Which is a whole separate full-time job for IT nowadays as it has evolved. but but to get kind of that green light with what feels like an unlimited budget, I'm sure the RCFO says otherwise, but yeah. Paul: I can't imagine what your token spin must be. Billy Ripple: I I know what mine is and it's unbelievable. Like I I couldn't afford it, I tell you that. mm mm. Yeah. All right, buddy. Paul: Yeah. I know what mine is. I know what mine is, and there's days where I think I go a little off the rails, but my yeah. Billy Ripple: Yeah. I it's It it's so it's a massive it's a massive blessing. So I think I mean we've we've probably I think I think Martin when I last talked to sat with Martin and you know with a customer and they asked, you know, how big is command now? I think he said we're over eight hundred employees and I think I think we're at like five hundred plus employees leverage cursor every single day. that that does Paul: my gosh. 'Cause I'm vi I'm vibe co I'm vibe coding. I'm not using cart. Billy Ripple: Same. I'm a same. I am s I'm a self-proclaimed I don't know how to write code or develop or anything. But what I have Paul: interesting. Billy Ripple: what I have learned since to your point, September, if we if we've if we we we rhyme, I think it was it was September twenty two or twenty three, GPT three came out. Paul: Was it twenty three? It might been twenty three, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Billy Ripple: Yeah, it was one of those years. Paul: one of those years. Billy Ripple: We'll we'll we'll spot check that. But to go from you know, asking this, you know, this chat prompt in a web browser questions and it can answer anything that you ask it to to full blown product development, you know, enterprise worldwide product development. Because we're not the only folks using cursor. you know, be able to build products and you're essentially guiding The agent to solve the problem in the most secure way possible, whatever the problem may be. it it's it is I don't want it to it may be a dramatic statement, but I don't think it is. I mean, it's essentially completely overhauled how we we support, how we implement, and how we build here at Command Alcon. it's too powerful. It's one of those things where Where It's you know the saying you don't know what you have till it's gone. Paul: Mm. Billy Ripple: What I try to what I try to think to myself is what if command took away all these tools I have access to? And and when I say when I ask myself that question, I'd be like, I wouldn't be able to work. I I don't know how I did this before January of this year. You know, and we had Chat GPT access as a company and we had cloud access as a company, but to be able to have able to leverage cursor, which takes it a step further because we got access to stuff like source code and and to a variety of different MCP servers and language libraries. And then all of the open source cap capabilities with specific skills and rules and talents that these LLNs can natively offer and then what other folks all over the world have built and open sourced and put into GitHub, we can leverage that stuff too. so for me, you know, to to give you an example, you know, one of the biggest things we we had a problem with at command is saying, hey, legacy customer, since we've already kind of we we started off the episode with that, legacy customer, you use command series or integra, two of our legacy dispatch software solutions. You've used it for twenty-eight years. How about this? You know, instead of me asking, you know, you questions for two or three hours. You know, and I'm gonna hop on a plane and fly up there and sit in your office for a long time, order lunch, I'll ask a bunch of questions, and then from there I'm just gonna use my best based off my knowledge and expertise, which is limited compared to some others. I'm gonna do my best to essentially qualify you or not qualify you to move to the cloud because of a variety of features, processes, people, etc. And what we what we did this year, the leveraging cursor as an example, was we said, hey, we already have all that fundamental knowledge. We own the code for it. So why don't we take your actual usage from your legacy products? We have the source code. Let's compare that to the source code of our of our cloud-based solutions. And then I'll give you a report card and I'll tell you exactly how much we meet. With respect to the criteria of you being a successful candidate to move to the cloud. You know, imagine if every QuickBooks customer could go to Intuit and say, Hey, I use QuickBooks desktop version whatever. And a lot of times they don't even know the version. And Intuit says, Hey, look, I don't care. I can take your QuickBooks information and I can run a report and then I'll tell you exactly how much of QuickBooks Online we have or do not have. And then you, customer, make the decision to migrate or not. And that's what we did. We built that. We built the solution. We can we have a solution internally now to where I can take customers' real data, compare it to what they used to have, to what we now offer in the cloud. and and not only can I do that, the level of automation that I have to where it takes that information and inputs it into different places for us CRMs like Salesforce, financial force, project management software, project. tracking software. I mean it feeds in all that stuff automatically. so yes, AI can definitely draft up an email for you and put in lots of dashes and tell you you're absolutely right. But it can also completely Paul: Ha ha ha. Billy Ripple: overhaul, you know, an entire company overnight. You know, I went into World of Concrete with Matthew Brinker. He's our our VP of global VP of our product team. He's he's been at the company a decade now. he has industry background too. I remember talking with him at World of Concrete the first day when we were catching up. He was like, I just got cursor access. I was like, you think I could have it? He he'll say, he goes, yeah, absolutely. They'll give it to you. I'm like, okay, this is different now. because it's not just product development people, it's self-proclaimed vibe coders, which is definitely what I was and still am. Paul: Shoot. Yeah. I'm not proclaiming. That's that's what that's what I am. I've gone Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: so you mentioned help with like the CRM and stuff. Like my we didn't have one here. It's one of the things I think that these small businesses I work for could really use. And I said, Well, regardless, we we we went to Salesforce and you know, they wanted to charge us an absolute fortune for it. So I was like, look, man, we're we're small time. Like we can't pay all that money. So I I built my own CRM with the With LLMs. They built an app and Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: have my own CR, it have have every functionality that I could have wanted. And even better, it auto logs everything for me. So whether every night at two in the morning it scans all of my emails from the previous day and just goes and logs them away and creates notes and all the all the accounts. It just auto matches everything. And then let's say I just had a phone call. I get done my phone call. I just I just text my telegram bot. Like, hey, just talk to Thomas Concrete. we're we're we're a go on that project, but we need to have our pre-poor meeting, you know, Wednesday at two o'clock. you know, and it'll, did that, added it to your calendar. Like it just it just does it. It's like having an executive desistant that just does all the little things. not to mention, every morning at 6 30, it sends me a report and says, Hey. I cross-reference the last 90 days of emails with all of your open task and the CRM. And like, here's the things that you need to do. Here are the email, here are the most critical, like three or five things. Like if you don't do anything else today, like you need to get these three things done. I'm like, Billy Ripple: Uh-huh. Paul: dang. All right. Thanks for that. And it and and then sometimes I'm real guilty about this. And I don't I don't even care if anybody knows it. Like I'll write emails. I don't ever have it, I don't ever have it write the email for me. I write the email. I'm like, man, why does this look so sloppy? And then I'll I'll copy it, I'll paste it in, and I'll say, can you please make this look better? And it just writes the most beautiful thing. And it's a lot most of the time I'll tell it, like you said, I'll tell it, don't use any m-dashes. but I've you Billy Ripple: Yeah, yeah. Little s little stuff. Yeah. Paul: I've used mine enough now that like I think he knows not to do that. because I don't get any m-dashes anymore. It doesn't. Billy Ripple: It it's adapted, yeah. Nah. Paul: It doesn't highlight things in bold anymore. It doesn't use language that like you wouldn't normally use. It doesn't use an it doesn't overly use participial phrases, especially at the beginning of sentences. it was really bad about there's so many times where I could read something that somebody would write. I'm like, you didn't write that. Chat wrote Chat GPT wrote Billy Ripple: And it's just yeah, it's just it's rough. Paul: that, or you didn't write that. I can tell which ones were from I've used them all. So I I could tell when Claude wrote something versus chat wrote something. So Billy Ripple: I I I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. Paul: So I but what I found is if you write the email yourself with your in your own words with all the content that you wanted to have and then just have them like tighten it up, bro, it gosh, it makes me sound so much smarter. Billy Ripple: It do it does. It does. It's it's it's almost it almost it's almost like a veil of illusion, you know, because it's like dang this guy's emails are perfection. And then I shook hands with Billy at concrete works and my god. I he definitely uses AI. He definitely uses AI. Yeah, Paul: He definitely uses AI. Nobody from Texas can write like that. Billy Ripple: no, no, that ain't happening. It's just tumbleweeds and horses out there, you know, and a lot of concrete. Paul: And a lot my gosh, y'all are killing it on concrete volume in Texas, like ten years in Billy Ripple: Whip, whip, whip. Paul: a row of just dominating. Billy Ripple: We we pour quite a bit. I wanna go back to your point on the vibe coding piece 'cause there was a really it was one of the managing partners at Tom of Bravo, his name's Holden Spot, and he's a good follower on LinkedIn. you know, Tom A Bravo's portfolios and every private equity's portfolios that they have, you know, all their companies do their own things and commands are no different. And we've been afforded to have the the luxury of the tools that we have access to. And that, you know, there's a there's kind of a saying nowadays with AI software development is that SaaS is dead, you know, software as a service is dead. We've spent, you know, his exact quote was, you know, throughout, you know, the board meetings for the companies that he manages, he specifically says, you know, SaaS spent two decades selling tools that helped people do their work. AI now lets software do the work itself and the industry. not just our industry, but any industry, is is we're in mid transition to service as software. And and that's what customers are now maybe not necessarily construction software. I'd say we're still pretty solid in the SaaS world, but for for you know company software companies out there that feel, you know, like cybersecurity as an example, you know, where they're selling to people who who you know, likely understand technology sometimes better than the vendor they're selling that's selling it to them. you know, construction, not so much. We're generally the, you know, last or second to last with software adoption. and that's that that's not a stab. that's just the reality. And you know when he made that post and I read that, I was like, wow, this is this is really right. I mean, because You know, if you have a role at a at a company and and you know the the SaaS that you use, you know, Microsoft Outlook or Teams doesn't do this thing, I can go have AI do that thing for me. I don't need to reach out to another software vendor. It's like it's like being prescribed a pill at the doctor and there's a side effect and it's like, okay, to manage the side effect, but I need to give you this other pill. So that's like what enterprises have with respect to sat subscriptions to software services. Like, well, we found this one ERP that does X, Y, and Z, but I need it to do A, B, and C now, so I'm gonna sign another contract for this different software. And that that, in my opinion, and and to an extent, maybe Holdens, that that's where AI's has already disrupted the market because You know, if you get someone on a team, such as you, me, and and and they say, Yeah, we can't do it, we can't find a software to solve that. okay, just build it now. You don't have to it doesn't have to be this ad hoc custom software application now. It can be true enterprise grade out of the box, bespoke, specific to that company to solve that problem. And that's where, you know, it goes into the services software piece there. And that was really enlightening to me because he certainly has way way more access to all the companies that he manages in the boardroom he sits in and the people he sets with that will, you know, I'll never, you know, shake hands with folks that smart. And and you know the the exposure that he gets with the companies that he manages it was really enlightening for me. I and I was like, man, this tracks. I I I see it. You know, and even even our customers that use our software solutions They there's folks on their teams. I mean, I've been in their offices of things they vibe coded to, you know, to solve you know, safety meetings or come up with you know, a stretch routine prior to, you know, the beginning of shift. You know, just little stuff like that. And it's not just little stuff like that anymore. It's true. Hey, actually we're gonna cancel our subscription to, you know, big enterprise company name X, Y, and Z, and we're gonna use this solution that that, you know, Billy and Paul built. And that's the exciting part. I mean, we're we're entering Paul: Well I Billy Ripple: a a totally different era of of solving problems and you know, where I I I'm gonna digress, I promise. Where I went from Paul: From what? No. Billy Ripple: being, you know, the IT guy swapping batteries and rack and stacking and data centers of physical equipment to accessing all that same stuff in the cloud that is virtually provisioned to now. Whatever problem I have, I just ask AI to solve it. Now there's nuance on how it gets solved. Let's take that out. That's a different conversation. But just the overall goal, what AI has allowed us and enabled us to be able to do is the the other I love using analogies because it's how I understand stuff when other people are explaining things to me. and really kind of the best analogy that I use when I explain stuff to family members and folks who ask what it is that I do. I mean, it's like going from you know the caveman era to nuclear power. You know, I mean that's where we where when Paul: That's great. Billy Ripple: like instead of like carving stone to create a circle that we can, you know, put a log in and roll it down a hill, you know. We're we're now at nuclear level power plants and nuclear submarines. You know, that's where we have evolved from the software perspective to, you know, pre AI to where we're at with AI nowadays and and solving the problems that companies face using those tools. It's just it's so cool. Like it's it's incredible. Paul: I look forward to the day that it's error free. You know, I Billy Ripple: Mature. Paul: you know, when it first came out it was probably like ninety percent and then it couldn't do math at all. It was terrible at math and so I refuse Billy Ripple: Terrible at math. Yeah. Paul: to ever enter anything and it still like doesn't wanna Billy Ripple: I still don't do it just because of that initial heartburn, you know. I don't know if you're the same, but yeah, I d I I try not to task it with with math related items. But it has got better. Paul: Yeah, and in financial anything financial or sales, I just I still run it myself through like just through Excel. But what it does what it does do well, like if I if I have a question where I'm trying to get something to calculate and I'm like, why can't it's not calculated? I'll give it my sheet. I'll say, Hey, what am I screwing up here? And it'll be a workbook that'll have, you know, three or four sheets in it and they reference each other and all it'll go through Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: and I found it on this sheet, sell, you know, see 37, you accidentally have an you know a negative sign in there and you need them change that to a positive. I'm like, Jesus Christ. All right, my bad. So Billy Ripple: Yeah. Yeah. Paul: it'll it'll find things, it'll help me. And especially when I'm like, man, I really wish I could get Excel to do something a certain thing. And I'll be like, how do I do it? They're like, yeah, you can do that. Sure. Just copy in this nested if statement. And I was like, that seems really complicated. Is there another way to do it? It was like, yeah, good catch. There's a much faster way. Create a day but data table. And I'm like, all right. Well, why don't you suggest the Billy Ripple: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's like, well, why didn't you suggest that in the first place? Yeah. Paul: But but you know, back in the day I was using it so like in business school I wouldn't use it. And you could tell which kids were using it. Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: the teachers weren't smart enough to catch on it yet because it was brand new at that time, but I could tell. And so I would never use it, but I would never use it to create my answers because like I need to know this stuff, but I would use it to check my answers. So I'd be like, All right, this is what I came up with. Let's see if AI agrees. And with math. It was never the same answer. And I was like, well, I'm pretty sure I did that right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna just go ahead Billy Ripple: Yeah. Yeah. Paul: and I'm gonna go ahead and go with go with what I did. So it's interesting to see how long it's come and then I think about the future. So like right now, agents are the big thing and it's a lot of fun. SAS is dead, had its moment, but then all those stocks have rebounded. So go look at Salesforce stock right now. It's higher than it's ever been. but that's because instead of being replaced, they used AI to strengthen their own product. Not to mention, by the way, you I think you said this earlier about y'all's y'all software, but it it it comes true with Salesforces too. It ends up being a system of record. And it's Billy Ripple: It is, yeah. Paul: really hard to displace Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: a system of record. but then even moving forward, like how do we we're going to end up with a generation that's AI native. They're not going to have known a time. The same way you and I started our lives going to the library to look things up. But by Billy Ripple: That's right. Paul: the time we finished high school and got into college, it was like, why would I go to the library? I have Google. And these and these kids are going to be like, Billy Ripple: No, exactly. Exactly. Paul: why would I do X? Because I have AI. Why would I do why would I ever go to Google? I'll just ask AI, why would I do anything? I would ask AI to help me do anything. And so with my daughter, one of the things I noticed is like her first her first interaction with it was like, this thing can be my friend. And I I had ten. Billy Ripple: Exactly. How'd your d how'd your daughter, Paul? Okay. my god, that's perfect. My son's nine. He'll be ten in November. Now proceed 'cause I I wanna I've got I've got similar stories, but go ahead, sorry. Paul: Yeah, yeah. well, but I that thought didn't even cross my mind that like, Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: this like that was her her very first thing was, wow, this thing talks to me Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: like a friend. This thing could could be my friend. And I said, Whoa, hold on, time out. I don't want you to be friends with the AI. I want you to build with the AI. In fact, I want to teach you to make AI. I wanted to teach her how to make her own rag bots and and I was look, you know, you tell it what it needs to know. We're gonna link these databases. We're gonna do all this stuff. You know, now you can ask it questions. And it's like I was trying to teach her how to build those things, but I realized it was a little complicated. So I backed off. But then I was like, okay, well if you're not gonna build the AI, you need to build with AI. You need to solve problems with the AI, not not just be its friend. And and I said, what's one thing you've wanted think about your computer, like what's one thing you've wanted that you don't have. And so her her made when she thinks of computers thinks of games. And so she's Billy Ripple: Yeah, yeah. Paul: like, Well, I always wanted a game that was Minecraft themed, that did this certain, you know, whatever it was, I forget what it what it's called, but I was like, All right, well, in as much detail as humanly possible, I want you to describe that right now into this AI and then tell it to build. And she did. And I said, and I told her why it was building. I said, Hey, we're gonna go make dinner, give it a half an hour, we'll come back. It's not going to be exactly what you said. We're going to tweak it. Might have to tweak it five or six times, but at the end of it, we're going to have a web app and a game you can play. And sure enough, exactly what how I I described it. By the fifth or sixth time, boom, we had a web app. And she's sitting here playing this game. She's able to show her kids, her friends, like, I built this game myself. And it's exactly Billy Ripple: Crazy. Paul: how she described it. It was really cool. So my hope for that generation, you can tell me what your experience is with your kids, but I'm hoping that. at least in my household, I'm hoping, I'm praying that I'll be able to have her see the AI as a tool that she can leverage to build things, whether it's an Billy Ripple: Correct correct. Paul: actual app, whether it's whether it's a website, whether it's building a plan that she can then go execute. Whatever it is, I like this thing should be building for use it to build. I want her to be a builder, a maker, not a taker. So that's that's my ultimate hope for the the my the younger generation coming through through my family. Billy Ripple: Well, you're doing an outstanding job because if she can do that at ten, then I mean she's gonna be right as rain, you know, in about eight years whenever she enters the workforce, if not sooner. it it's man, you nailed it. I you know again, if I need to understand something, or what anyone did, you go to college, you you study for a certification, you Take classes, you ask your friend who's been a developer or a plumber or a carpenter, you know, you've you you your resourcefulness was you know, to solving problem was limited to the people you know or how well you could do research. And then yeah, to your point, it evolved to being able to Google really well to to find that answers and search websites manually. And now it's prompting AI. as specific as possible to achieve whatever outcome it is you need to achieve. And then to just have it automatically do all that and just give you the final version. I mean, you nailed it. I there will there will be, you know, I I think by the time our kids, since they're so close in age, I think by the time our kids get into the workforce, yeah, there won't be much manual go and audit this thing here and add this value there. It's just tell AI to go search for, check and do And then do that. you you you nailed it. I I think that's exactly what it'll be. and again, I I there'll definitely be some displacement and disruption. but I I do I don't think it's I I still think it's a tool and it isn't to where it's like, well, we got to figure out a way to have universal basic income because a lot of people are about to be employed. I I I think we have a a little bit for that. Paul: my gosh, we're so far away from that. And Billy Ripple: Yeah. Paul: and I don't think it'll ever get there. You know, I I like Elon tried to put a positive sp spin on it and said we'll have universal high income, not universal basic income. But I don't but none of none of that works. UBI doesn't work anyway, because the minute that you hand an entire neighborhood a free twelve hundred dollars a month, guess what just happened to all the rent in that neighborhood? The rent went up eight hundred dollars Billy Ripple: Yeah. That's right. Paul: a month and the price of everything goes up because the flaw the volume of money in that given area went up without an increase in work. So it doesn't it just de it's it Billy Ripple: Yeah. Yeah. It's free. Why not charge Paul: it does it it's it and it's guaranteed that it's coming in from the government. So Billy Ripple: Right. Paul: it's you can't devalue the the money base like that. It that drives me. And that's what people who want to argue about UBI yes or no. wouldn't it be good You cannot give people that much money and think that the prices of everything aren't just magically good. Do you Billy Ripple: No. Paul: think they're just gonna stay the same? No, they're not gonna stay the same. It's like, if you were paying 2,000 before now you got an extra thousand, well, now you can pay 2,500, 2,800. It's gonna happen. So UBI is not gonna work, Billy Ripple: It is. Paul: but what might work in the job displacement argument, it that doesn't hold any water with me. And the reason it doesn't hold any water of as being a concern is because. I would like you to name me any area, any era of progression that didn't come with job displacement that we now look back and laugh at. So we look back now and we say, who was toiling the fields to farm? You had a farm full of people with hoes in their hand hoeing to plow the field. And if you were lucky, you had horses to drag a plow. Now You got one guy on a tractor. The big, these massive monocrop farms that have a hundred thousand acres of corn. They're they're in an air traffic control dome watching their Robotractors run around and doing there's nobody out there in the in the Billy Ripple: Yeah. Remotely. Yep. Autonomous. Paul: in the fields. Are we are we sad that the guy out there isn't out there blistering his hands up in the in the in a hundred-degree summer, hoe in the fields and and without a job in the winter because there's no field? To tend to because it's snowing in Iowa all Billy Ripple: Right. Right. Paul: winter long. No, we're not sad for the person. Do you where the word computer comes from, by the way? Do you know where it comes from? A computer, right now we think of it as a thing: a PC, a laptop, a desktop, Billy Ripple: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Paul: a computer. A computer wasn't a thing. A computer was a person. You a computer was a person that computes. It was a job. You sat in an office with paper and pencil. And you took numbers and you did math and you computed. And so all of Billy Ripple: Yep. Yep. Paul: a sudden you went through from a room of 50 analysts that had to compute by hand to one person with a computer and a spreadsheet that could do it. And Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: now when I tell you that, that's hilarious. That computer was a person that had to do math by hand. Ha ha ha. But we just displaced 50 people for every computer. But those people didn't just go live in the street. Billy Ripple: No, yeah, yeah. Paul: They used their skills and went and found something else to do that was valuable for their families and for the world. Billy Ripple: That's you nailed it. You nailed it. I you know, any I get the pers I get the perspective of being especially as parents and husbands and wives, everyone is scared to not be able to provide. And I don't wanna not empathize with that. I I've the last thing I want to do is is get my position removed because AI did it. I mean, no, I no one's an advocate for that. But the reality is If that were to happen, what am I just gonna fall over and say, I can't I can't do software for concrete anymore. I'll just quitting. I'm not no, my son's gonna be like, dad, I need new shoes. So I'm gonna have to everyone's gonna figure out a way to to adapt and overcome. It's what makes human so amazing. So yeah, I you nailed it. the telephone operators, switch operators, plugging in here, adding them there. Now it's like I I can tell my phone with just voice to call or text a person. Paul: Across the world. Billy Ripple: Anywhere in the world. Paul: And there's nobody relaying that. Billy Ripple: No. Paul: No. Billy Ripple: So it's it's we we have to evolve. We gotta at least try. Paul: Yeah. It's all the doomers. I'm a big anti doomer. Like, get out of here. Billy Ripple: I know man. I I'm just, you know, I just refuse to accept like pessimism. I you know, I'm a habitual optimist. You know, if there's there's all the it don't matter what it is, there's always the worst case scenario. But there's always the best case scenario. And what if we got the best case scenario? And if we didn't try, then we already got the worst case scenario. Paul: But that's why you and I are in sales and business development, because you have to be an internal optimist to continue to be told no all the time and still march forward. That's right, all the time. Billy Ripple: That's right. You dang right. You ain't got a choice. That's exactly right. Just keep going. Hey, it's not a fit. Don't worry. I'll see you a year from now. Meanwhile, I'm I'm gonna dwell in my sleep about why didn't they say no? What did I screw up? Should I have done something? Paul: My right right now, mine's just like, why isn't this moving faster? Like I like Billy Ripple: Yeah. I Paul: I think adoption of what I'm doing should be faster. And then I have to like constantly remind myself, like, actually, this is concrete and we're actually moving pretty fast for like what we're doing. it's just when you're in it and you're in the trenches every day and you look up and you're like, Man, I feel like done a lot of work for we have a brand new cal sign cloy. So it's like, man, I feel like I've done a lot of work. To have like very minimal adoption. And I've got all these people that are like right on the Billy Ripple: Uh-huh. Paul: edge of blowing this thing wide open. You see the projects where people are bidding on with our stuff and you're like, Thank God, this is finally happening. I'm like, and I wait a minute, it hasn't actually been that long. I need I need to Billy Ripple: Yeah, yeah. Paul: calm down and realize we're actually right on schedule. Billy Ripple: It's a bit of a it's a bit of an entrepreneur mindset without the without the risk of at least for me, I I speak for myself in this statement, but like without having to risk actually being an entrepreneur and and winning or losing, you know, I get the comfort of of, you know, a salary. You know, I'm just Paul: Mm. Billy Ripple: not I'm not I'm too I'm just not built to be an entrepreneur, but other people are, you know, and it's like willing willing to take that risk and go all in and And just letting nature take its course. You know, but I even in even in that scenario, there's you know, if you work hard and you treat people right, good things happen. I live by that. It's a quote from Conan O'Brien. I like it's a part of my you know, everyone has their moral compass and their values and what they care about. And I I believe that with my entire heart. You know, you you like it, whether it's peeling potatoes or you know, recommending, implementing and building software. You know, if you in your mind are the I'm gonna be the best potato pillar, no one's even gonna come close. I'm gonna take all the skin and leave the most amount of potato, it's gonna be perfect and everyone's gonna love it. And that's my mindset. and then your coworkers around you, whether you get along with them or you don't, you still work hard and treat people right, you will bear fruit. You know, and and this took a bit of a a different turn with that statement. sorry for getting all like worshipy, I guess. Paul: Let me no, this this is my favorite nope, this perfect. I didn't so I d yeah, yeah, like you said, this is this is the whole point of this podcast is that we love concrete. Billy Ripple: Okay. Okay. Combo. Yep. Paul: We love we love concrete and we take that seriously, but we don't always take our t ourselves too seriously. And there's more to us than just batching concrete, and Billy Ripple: yeah. Paul: making mixed designs and solving software solutions. Let me tell you that about working hard and be nice. My daughter since the time she was probably two years old, she's ten now, Billy Ripple: Uh-huh. Paul: I have told her consistently that my job as the father is to protect you in all situations that I can. That's my number one job is is to love her and protect her anytime that I can. And then number two is to teach her how to be the best version of herself. And in order for her Billy Ripple: Uh-huh. Paul: to be the best version of self. She has to do four things. Work hard, be nice, tell the truth, or Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: or at least don't lie. And number four is be accountable. And you know, as a parent, you're not always sure if like those lessons are are really getting through. And, you know, but especially I mean, she's 10, so the accountability thing can be a little squirrely at times. Not my fault, not my fault. Billy Ripple: Sure, sure. Yeah. Paul: but You know, try to s try to always say that when she was younger, she could recite that. Like that's how often I said it to her. And you just don't know. Well, the other day she comes home, she's in fifth grade, she comes home and they're trying to get the fifth graders excited about reading. And so they had create their own bookmark. And Billy Ripple: Mm. Paul: at the top of her bookmark, she wrote, My name is Rebecca Dawn Finley. And these are the four things you have to know about me. I'm gonna work hard. I'm gonna be nice. I wanna tell the truth and I'm gonna be accountable. Billy Ripple: Mm-hmm. Paul: And she brought that home and she was like, Do you like my bookmark? Man, I was tearing Billy Ripple: Not man. Paul: up. I like, baby, I love that bookmark so much you have no idea. Yeah. Billy Ripple: My man. That's I mean When it comes to raising raising kids and you you know, r r raising the family and the trials and tribulations that come with that. There's some tough days and and like none of the you don't forget those da you don't remember those days. They're a thing of the past. I mean some things you do remember. But what you really remember is that bookmark. You'll always remember that. Twenty years from now you won't remember her failing a you know, a a a test she took or something like that. But that bookmark, that's forever embedded because it's like this is to your point, that the reason for your existence as a father now is to do those things. And to to for you to you know, reap what you have sowed is is the best feeling any parent could have. I I I cannot agree more. I cannot agree more. My son is he's he's My daughter's the same I I'm so blessed with the two kids I have. So I've got a daughter, she's seventeen, she's a senior year of high school. My son's in fourth grade, he's nine. And my my son is he's he's he he likes to be mischievous, but he doesn't cause harm and he doesn't want to cause harm. His guilty conscience would eat him alive. And give you an example of that, you know, he'll he'll like when I pick him up at school or after school care and he'll say Dad, I had a test today and I'd be like, how'd it go? He'll say good and then five seconds you go, actually it was really bad. You know, I made a sixty eight or something like that. It's like all right, son, that ain't no big deal. We probably get some extra points or retake it or something like that. He's like, I don't know, I just I just I just feel bad for not you know and I just had to tell you, I couldn't keep it in, you know, like that guilty conscience on him like, man, don't change son. Just be honest, you know, and it it goes back to one of the pillars you You know, you have you teach your daughter. Without saying that bookmarks incredible. I love it. I love it. Paul: Yeah, it was a special moment for us. and you know what? This has been a special podcast for Billy Ripple: That's right. Paul: for the slump monkeys. Man, I I I talk about you to everybody. I've mentioned as you've heard, listen to the show, mention you all the time. I'd really I really a hundred percent mean it and believe it. You're the greatest IT guy in concrete. I really really really really glad to have you here. I'll see you Billy Ripple: Good man. I appreciate you, buddy. Thank you. Thank you. There's I appreciate it. Paul: in Nashville for concrete works. If people want to try to find you and get a hold of you, are you on LinkedIn for them to find? Anywhere else they can contact you? Billy Ripple: yeah. yeah. LinkedIn. just search Billy Ripple and you'll find me. Command Alcon LinkedIn page. I reshare quite a bit of their posts and and they do some features. there's I think it's a concrete products magazine article coming out. and I believe the next topic I think is related to AI. So we gotta we gotta There's a new magazine article that we're collaborating with Concrete Products Command is. And there'll be some quotes in there from me. There'll be an article in there for me. So keep an eye out for that. I I believe our topics on that one's AI. and it's good. secondly, yeah, LinkedIn, and then last, so you just want to email me, B Ripple R I P P L E at commandalcon.com. And then concrete works will have a booth set up there. I'll be helping out with the NRMCA and the driver rodeo on that Saturday in particular. and I'll be around the whole event everywhere. So you know, I I've never not met a friend. So anyone who wants to catch up and chat or if they don't, I'll be in that booth and around all weekend and I'll definitely see you and look forward to chatting again there too. Paul: It's gonna be fantastic. Thanks again. Thank you for everyone tuning into this episode of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. Billy Ripple: Thank you. Paul: Thanks to Billy Ripple and Command Alcon for being here. And we will see you Billy Ripple: Sir. Paul: on the next one. Billy Ripple: Cheers, buddy. Have a great week. Take care. Bye. Mm-hmm. Paul: See man, thanks.