Guardian Angel, Not Big Brother: How Dan Hobbs Is Rewiring Safety with AI Vision

Mousa 00:00:00
Dan. So good to see you, man.

Dan 00:00:02
Yeah, great to be here. Love it. Timing was very good. Yeah. Having to be in London.

Mousa 00:00:07
Oh, lucky! I mean, I just messaged you yesterday. We've been talking about this for a while, Uhhuh. I've always wanted to sit with you and talk to you, man. I love what you guys are doing and uh, we just literally emailed you yesterday or the day before. Luckily you're here.

Dan 00:00:17
Yeah.

Mousa 00:00:18
You're flying out today?

Dan 00:00:19
Flying out today? Yeah, going back to Boston this week. Um, doing a lot of stuff out there, but, uh, we got an office in just, uh, by Holburn. Um, really great team there. So I tend to spend my time between the offices.

Mousa 00:00:30
Cool. That's awesome. I wanna learn, I wanna learn a bit about that, uh, in a while. 'cause we keep talking about the US and how complicated the US is, and you've done a lot there. So it'll be cool to learn about that. But yeah, talk us a little bit about yourself, Protex, help people who are listening. Learn more about like your background and what Protex does.

Dan 00:00:47
Sure. Yeah. So I'm the CEO of Protex AI. We're a computer vision company, so that's using cameras and AI together. And essentially we're a data intelligence layer, uh, for enterprise companies, for factories and warehouses to look at their safety and operations to make them more efficient, safer, and, uh, and essentially create a better flow within these organizations. Um, started about. Four years ago or so. Um, and we have about, you know, about 80, 90 people, um, working with some really cool enterprises, fortune 500 across, uh, we're now in 30, 36 countries, I think.

Mousa 00:01:23
Wow.

Dan 00:01:23
Overall. So it's been a fun four years.

Mousa 00:01:25
That's awesome, man. And like the team is in Dublin, I believe like the the HQ is in is in Dublin.

Dan 00:01:31
Yeah. Technical. Is that what? Technical HQ is actually in a place called Limerick in the west of Ireland. The small, it's small city. Which when during COVID we set up there, we were like, we're gonna build the biggest company outta this small town, a small city. And then we realized we couldn't really hire many people there. So we still have, so our technical HQ is there. We have a great team down and there, small team down there, but our HQ's in Dublin, technical HQ's in Dublin, um, the kumi for saying that. And then we got our US operations outta Boston and our, uh, London operations as well.

Mousa 00:01:56
Cool. So you have a team here as well? Mm-hmm. In London. Okay. That's awesome man. So we'll hopefully see more of you here in London.

Dan 00:02:01
Yeah, I love it here as well.

Mousa 00:02:03
Okay. It's good time. Awesome. Alright, so just to dig deeper into what, uh, AI vision technology really means. Mm-hmm. And how it involves safety. And you mentioned operations as well, so if you can explain that a bit more, that would be helpful.

Dan 00:02:16
Sure. Yeah. So maybe, uh, where the company came around, uh, helps to illustrate what we do. So Ciarán's, um, family member, uh, was an operations manager on a site in Ireland. Um, and this guy got crushed by a forklift. And he died. Oh God. And they thought it was a freak accident, but when they went back through to CCTV, they saw that all of the behavior patterns that were leading to that accident were actually happening all the time. So it could have been stopped. So that's kind of where we at, we were like, Hmm, okay, well if those patterns are there all the time, why? Why can't people see these things? And it's because. You've been on these huge sites, there's so much stuff going on. Um, and it's really hard to spot these things, you know, where there be someone not using a walkway or a forklift, almost hitting people, or people not wearing PPE or ergonomic issues that are big problems for, especially companies in the states. Um, and all these things are happening, but it's really hard to pick it up. Um, so what we found is. Solving for safety, we're able to identify these patterns and stop these things happening before they actually occurred, which sounds a bit strange, but being predictive and proactive rather than reactive. On the safety side, and what we found in the last kind of 12 months is a lot of companies are saying, Hey, cool, you're, you're working with our existing infrastructure, existing cameras. What else can we do? Past safety and now we're moving into that operational flows. You look at asset and area utilization using cameras, which is really great, and spotting these places within the, within these factors and warehouse where you can create efficiencies, um, all by learning and getting visibility through cameras.

Mousa 00:03:45
Wow. So like you moved from, let's make sure people let's make sure we track behaviors to predict incidents before they happen to. Of course there's a lot of RI and cultural impact there, but companies started seeing a lot more, a lot of value as well when it comes to efficiencies, how the site operates and how is that transition and how are you finding when you look at the product and how it's, how it started and where it's going. I'm sure the two feed into each other really well. Like safety is operations. Yeah. But how is that looking?

Dan 00:04:15
I think the safer operations are more efficient operations. Um, overall we've seen that like our safest clients are definitely the most productive and, um. Most fluid when it comes to how they manage their facilities, but they're the same teams, which I think is cool. Like safety, not safety. Usually reports to operations. Um, some report to hr, some report to legal, um, and risk. But in general, it's the same teams, uh, and the same outcomes to operational excellence, continuous improvement, all ties into safety, um, as well. So there's that kind of trifecta within organizations is really who we try to tackle.

Mousa 00:04:49
Yeah. It's so cool. Honestly, like, uh, thinking about the power of understanding your operation through intelligent vision

Dan 00:04:56
mm-hmm.

Mousa 00:04:56
Is just a, such a powerful thing that seems to, I feel like we'll be moving further and further into that being the gold standard for how you run. Yes. How you run an operation

Dan 00:05:04
and there's more companies doing like Syrian, um, do like, um. Process improvement for, uh, for manufacturers. Really cool company. There's, I think computer vision's gonna come to fold, like what you guys are doing is cutting edge as well. So there's more technology using vision related stuff, which I think is really cool. 'cause it's this 24 7 data source that you can tap into that's, that's really been untouched.

Mousa 00:05:26
Yeah. And like us humans, we are always thinking we're distracted. There are things that we're not sure you're not gonna notice, but you just have this like. Partner with you. Mm-hmm. That's always looking at what you're doing. Yeah. And helping you get better.

Dan 00:05:37
And I think the cool thing about it, like vision, like is videos, you know, it's, it's very easy to understand what's going on, which is good. You don't have to like explain like a data set or look at, you know, especially when we started the company, we want to do something that everybody just got, you know, you just understood how it worked and just videos you watching, you know, it's going on instead, like, what does this data set mean? Same as you guys, you know, looking at it from the vr uh, VR and AR side of things. Um, you get it, you know, you put on the headset and you understand what's going on.

Mousa 00:06:01
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome man. Um, so one thing that I'll jump right into, 'cause like as soon as we think of. The power of this technology. Obviously many people resist technologies and many people think are my data. And going through that aha moment to understand how it's helping you versus it monitoring you and you've been doing this for some time, and when we talk to many customers, that's the first thing they ask themselves. And then when we see they implemented the technology. Uh, and I talk to them again. They go from, oh my God, we're worried about privacy to, oh my God, this is amazing. We're learning so much and, uh, what can we do with this data so we can like deploy training preemptively and take action preemptively. What have you learned about data privacy and that topic, and what advice would you give companies that are thinking about this and that see this as a limitation?

Dan 00:06:51
Yeah, it's a great question. It's a question we get all the time. Um, I think when you look at. Privacy, it's, it's very core to what we do. So we do de-identification. We actually blur people outta the scenes. We're not looking at individuals whatsoever. We're looking at the collective, and we say to manage by the collective, not the individual. Our whole ethos is to see the forest, not the trees. Look at the trends, look at the behaviors rather than the individual. I think when you focus on the individual, you lose the game straight away. That's from the company side of things is taking a step back and looking at it. This isn't a gotcha tool. Saying, Hey, you did a really bad job here. We need to improve you individually. It's looking at it at the shift in company per level, and we've seen reductions of, you know, up to 80% in risk reduced using our system. So really good results. Wow. And on the efficiency side, we're seeing really cool gains starting to come into. Um, I think how people are looking at AI in general, um, has shifted drastically in the last 12, 18 months, even that recent.

Mousa 00:07:46
Mm-hmm.

Dan 00:07:47
Previously, people were. And And it's still there for sure. And I think they're right to think that, you know, it's like, is it gonna take my job? Is it this terminator system is gonna come in? Um, and that's okay. And it's crossing the chasm. Like you said, once they start using it works a lot better, especially from privacy piece. Mm-hmm. Once they start, once they see it works a lot better. We tell companies, don't hide this software. Tell teams what you're doing. Tell the sites what you're doing. Um. One story I have, we were talking to a union. We went over to the States, um, and there was, uh, one of the biggest unions in America. Um, and we sat, we sat on stage and we were like, we're gonna get absolutely destroyed. Destroyed on stage. It was like my worst nightmare, just 300 union members. I was like, oh my God. And we went through what we did and we address all the questions like people think it's like Big Brother. And we went through what we did and a guy put up his hand and he turned out to be one of the senior guys in the union. And he said, this isn't big brother. This is a guardian angel. Wow. You know, looking over. And I was like, that was, and like you said, that shift in understanding what it is makes people really believe that this is the future and this is something that's. That's a helping hand rather than something that's gonna be a deterrent.

Mousa 00:08:52
Yeah. That's so awesome, man. Like that gave me goosebumps. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Think about that. Yeah,

Dan 00:08:55
I know. When he said on stage, I got a bit teary, I was like, you're so right man. You're so right.

Mousa 00:09:00
It's so cool. And yeah, I love how you said it. Um. It's not about the individual, it's about you're, you're always looking at the systems. It's not about blaming anyone, it's about learning as a group and getting better as a group. Um, and, you know, something that I wanna try to get into, 'cause I really want listeners to learn the depth of what you guys do. How does this look like in practice? So if may maybe start off with the types of companies you typically work with, like ICP, how would you, how would you categorize the different companies that. Are the core personas and then taking us through the story of how, typically, how they typically would implement and the journey they go through from pro, from like testing to successfully implementing it and what the results look like. You mentioned a few numbers, like 80 per, these are Yeah. Amazing numbers to hear, but how do people get to these numbers? Yeah, just help us learn about it in a by contextualizing a real story.

Dan 00:09:58
Sure. So we always talk about, we don't, we don't do pilots, we do projects. I think it's a really important way of, like, companies now have AI strategies, most companies have AI strategies now of how they wanna bring in the technology, but at the same time, they need vendors like us and you to assist them and help them to ease it into the company. I think that's really important. Like. It's the biggest understanding that we've learned in the last while, and it's, it's how we talk about the technology and how, and what we do and what we sell and what we support is. We're really good technologists, but you guys are the experts at your job. We're here to support that. We're not gonna come in and tell you our agenda and tell you how to do your job. They're the experts. They know their facilities way better than we ever will, which means when we come into it, we're assisting them and be more kind of consultative rather than a case of trying to push something or shove something down their throats. Um, I think when it comes to our particular technology, um, usually what we do is we start in a few sites. Mm-hmm. Um, they'll have a plan, they'll have a rollout plan for. A year or two, whatever it may be.

Mousa 00:10:59
Yeah. The example of a company would be like, what are your ICP companies?

Dan 00:11:03
Oh, yeah. So our, ICP so our ideal customer profile would be, um, kinda Fortune 500 companies, anything over 4,000 employees, um, with about, you know, 40 plus sites. So a lot of scale,

Mousa 00:11:14
so many sites around the world Yeah. That operate and they need to kind of like, understand and optimize.

Dan 00:11:19
Yeah, exactly. DHL would be one of our.

Mousa 00:11:20
Are

Dan 00:11:21
good clients, um, as well as the, I can't, can't name a lot of them, but, um, a lot of fortune five. So

Mousa 00:11:26
like logistics, manufacturing?

Dan 00:11:28
Exactly, yeah,

Mousa 00:11:29
distribution.

Dan 00:11:29
Cool. Yeah, exactly. Um, so usually what we do is we do, we create a baseline. So the system turns on and it just, you don't touch anything. And it just gets a gauge of what's going on. Um, so don't, don't change any rules, don't change any corrective actions. And it's funny, you, they see this spike happen. They're like, oh my God, our sites are way more dangerous. Since bringing in projects, we're like, no, you're just seeing more things of what's actually going on. And that's the baseline, create the baseline. To be fair, we've got like an awesome client success team, um, both in the, in Boston and and in London and and Dublin. Um, really great team. Like they're such, we always get complimented on. On how we work with clients and it's amazing. It's all them. Um, so basically what happens is they do that and then we start building these things called rules. So rules are essentially instructions that you tell the cameras to things you wanna pick up. So things like I mentioned, those ergonomic issues or um, near misses with forklifts, whatever it may be. Forklift. Yeah. And then the system then pulls that data from the site and gives you that visibility of what's really going on. The trend analysis. What parts of the body are the most concerned when. Doing ergonomic lifts and things like that. So lifting boxes and dock doors. And then they bring that to the teams and say, okay, well how do we wanna solve this? So you look at the data, try to put in the corrective actions then, and then we've seen that drastic, that risk drastically drop. Mm-hmm. How teams seem to use it a lot. They actually bring it to the fold and we'll show the videos to teams on site. You know, we were on site with a client, um, in Kentucky, and it was the first time I'd been on a site where someone's almost actually died.

Mousa 00:12:56
Wow.

Dan 00:12:56
And we saw it.

Mousa 00:12:57
Oh my

Dan 00:12:57
God, this forklift swings around the corner. This guy's stacking a shelf doesn't see it at all. And it almost crushes him against the shelf.

Mousa 00:13:03
Man. Forklift safety is, it's crazy. So crazy. People don't get like it times we hear that. Yeah. It's not paper cuts, it's, it's, yeah. It's like, it's just people are start operating and they just get, you know, get, you know, lose track of who's around them and reversing forklift. It's just such a big deal, man.

Dan 00:13:18
Yeah, we've seen a lot of fatalities happen off the back of it.

Mousa 00:13:21
God.

Dan 00:13:21
Um. So usually what would happen in those instances, if you, if they happen to see it, if it's safety leader or plant manager happens to see it, they'll walk up to the guy and say, Hey John, just to let you know which happened in this case when we were on site, I was like, show me what you do. So he went up and he said, Hey John, just let you know. Forklift almost hit ya. John goes, yeah, but it didn't. He goes, I know it didn't, but it could have. And he didn't know that the piece around us. And uh, he said if we had a video of that, I went in and showed him it.

Mousa 00:13:47
Makes them go like, oh my God, how was this close to

Dan 00:13:50
it contextualizes it for them in their own, in their own world. And when you see that's really what changes behavior. And that's why we've seen such a drastic change in in it.

Mousa 00:13:57
Yeah. That's so powerful, man. So typically it would go into so much data where. The customer sees that, wow, we're actually tracking so many things and setting up rules that allow you to contextualize that data and see it in a valuable way. And then you start seeing that sites are now using that data to, during their stand standups or Exactly. Toolbox talks or,

Dan 00:14:17
and the same with operations, like operations. They can understand the flow, they can understand where their choke points are, where their intersections are, where it's causing a lot of wastage and time wastage. Whether it be someone has to stop at a junction every time before they leave or looking at things like, um. Are you using all the forklifts in the area, the ones that are just sitting there collecting dust. Um, so using cameras to really get that visibility, understand what's happening, and then act on the data that you have to improve the efficiencies and the safety operations.

Mousa 00:14:46
Yeah, it's insane. The ROI that you can get from something like that when you're talking about it, one, you what you did several things. You pre under, we understood the risks in the site. We taught pe like we had people learn through actual. Sto actual real realistic videos that have happened around them for people that they can relate to as well. So the group is learning and then your understanding as a management team or a site manager, the utilization of your equipment and utilization of your site. Um, so if it's implemented correctly, it gets to like really driving, uh, insane ROI.

Dan 00:15:20
Yeah.

Mousa 00:15:20
Um, and then from there you start expanding from that. So you kind of build that success story within a few sites and then the organization start expanding across. Across different sites.

Dan 00:15:29
Exactly. Yeah. And that's, that's where we're in, uh, I think we're, we're most recently in like the Ivory Coast, which I think is so cool. Um, I was like, I wanna get a site visit there. But, um, it's, I see like the problems are the same across all these companies, which is cool. Like the, it's, it's, it's surprised me how common. Issues are across the fold. And what's really great about, I think, in the world that we're in, like I love chatting to our clients 'cause they're the most awesome people. Cool. They're cool. They all people who want to do well same as yourself. Yeah. You know, you this, and we spoke about this be before and offline. Where at that conference where people are just like. Love telling stories and they want to help. They want to help and they want to do better. Like it's very rare that you get to work in this world and

Mousa 00:16:09
they care. They really care about the human and I feel like because they, the majority of them have lived through actual incidents that so many of them had to have conversations with families and when I hear their stories, it starts off from, oh, this is a job to, oh my god. This is what can happen if we don't do our job correctly. And then it's like unfolds into this deep, you feel like they all have to be way closer to the human and how the human functions and the systems versus blaming people or,

Dan 00:16:43
yeah.

Mousa 00:16:43
Thinking about, so yeah, honestly. Great. Always grateful for working with that group. Mm-hmm. The more what I learned about them and I, it makes me love my job more and more. So,

Dan 00:16:52
so

Mousa 00:16:52
I fully relate to that man. Alright. Yeah, go on.

Dan 00:16:55
No, I was just, no, I was just gonna say like exactly that. There's, there's really funny stories thinking that we were on a site and we did night-time site walk and how mission driven, it's like, it's like a family or a sports team. I always relate and like, but on a massive scale, like thousands of people. And, um, there's a really funny one where we saw. Uh, there's like a tug, which is like a, kinda like a forklift, but there was like a, it was a couple on it. They were like having a date on the forklift. I was like, oh, that's so lovely. So just like that, you know, love blossoms even in these sites as well. As much as they're, as much as they're just good people and, uh, and very family orientated people as well, which is great.

Mousa 00:17:33
It's so cool, man, and particularly in like manufacturing and logistics and, uh, like that world. Um, yeah, I feel like people connect a lot more and have to work with each other a lot more when I look at construction turnover is much higher. And you don't. Make you feel like it's more transactional. So it's interesting you got to this point where you started seeing, you know, people see it as their second home in a way. Yeah. 'cause they spend so much time in that space.

Dan 00:18:00
We've

Mousa 00:18:00
seen people've

Dan 00:18:01
seen like that are like 30, 40 years in the organization.

Mousa 00:18:03
Wow.

Dan 00:18:04
That's not uncommon for us to meet people that are. Like decades in a place.

Mousa 00:18:08
Mm. That's so cool.

Dan 00:18:09
Yeah.

Mousa 00:18:10
Alright, so to go back to the product, um, organizations prove that value, then it becomes like an operating system for the sites and they skate it across all sites. Um, I wanted to dig into, uh, features that you have, like copilot, et cetera, but before we go there. What are the, what are the issues that typically surface when you're going through that journey that you talked us through? What are things that are good for listeners to be aware of that surface and sometimes act as blockers in that journey?

Dan 00:18:40
Sure. Yeah. And I'm, I'm sure you've find a lot of the similar problems we have, um, or your clients do. Um, I think it's okay not to know what. How you're going to use it initially. Like you don't have to figure out everything. You know, you kinda need to build a plane, which isn't a very safe thing. Build a plane as you're flying a little bit. Um,

Mousa 00:19:02
it's like start, it's like get into it and start, get into it and then learn and improve.

Dan 00:19:05
Yeah. I dunno. Do you find that as well where clients are, they're trying to figure out everything before they actually introduce it and adopt it?

Mousa 00:19:11
Yeah.

Dan 00:19:11
Um. So I think like, just get it in the door and then you figure things out. Um, we've seen a lot of things stall because people are like trying to figure every single nook and cranny with it. Um, that would be probably the biggest one. And then just understanding, you know, I think if you look at, and this isn't just us, I think any, like if you, even if you're using Claude or Cop Out or anything like that, if you have it as a, like a sexy tool that just sits on the side. That you'll touch, you know, at the start it's just cool to look at. You'll never really use it. I know it. There's no longevity and that's what I mean. We don't do pilots really, we do projects

Mousa 00:19:43
Nice.

Dan 00:19:44
Um, it's

Mousa 00:19:44
like how do you actually implement it as a repeatable Yeah. Sticky process versus hey, this is a nice thing and it's just running there. Then it

Dan 00:19:50
doesn't exactly the same to you guys. Like, what you do is so cool, especially from the outset. So people will just be interested in it naturally, but how do you actually integrate it into your. Into your, um, current flows is really important, but spend the time on it, get in the door, figure it out. That's what the vendors are for, to work with them. Um, and then you can see, okay, well this is what makes sense. And then you can spread it across the network very easily.

Mousa 00:20:12
Cool. And then it, like, what's something that popped in my head when I was asking this question is like, how big of a hurdle. Is it typically when you integrate and how do you, how do you cross that? What advice would you have for people to be able to solve for that?

Dan 00:20:25
Do it early. You know, I think people leave it to the end where they're like, cool, we figured out now let's talk to it. And legal. And that usually takes like a little bit of time. Mm-hmm. Um. That's probably the biggest one. We've never had a blocker with it.

Mousa 00:20:36
Just

Dan 00:20:37
the way we takes,

Mousa 00:20:37
just

Dan 00:20:37
takes time

Mousa 00:20:38
sometimes.

Dan 00:20:38
Takes a bit of time. Um, there's one client we worked with who had eight different councils.

Mousa 00:20:45
Oh my God.

Dan 00:20:46
It felt like I was in Star Trek or something. It was like, which council am I speaking to now? And some people brought like the same people were on the same council. I was like, I've seen you before. You've seen this already. He's like, I know I'm part of this council as well. Um, so, uh, I think like starting those journeys early, which I'm sure you figured out. Do this every once in a while. Starting that early is really important. Get them involved. I think if you, especially it should be involved in AI projects to get them involved early and understand the what rather than just, Hey, this is a project you wanna

Mousa 00:21:13
Yeah. So they're like part of it and they're champions versus, and they should be, Hey, I wanna be a blocker here. Exactly. Cool. Alright man. So. The camera piece is super clear to me. And then I know some of the features that you guys deployed recently, maybe not so recent now, is like AI copilot and other AI features that help you contextualize the data and gather information. Can you tell us more about how these work and how has that adoption been

Dan 00:21:38
really good? So we, um. We have Protex Intelligence, which is our LLM system that sits over the whole platform, both from the safety and operations side of things. Um, and I guess a really cool thing about, uh, that is it helps to cut through the noise. So for us, we have some clients who will have thousands of events a day. And they're not gonna go, we don't expect 'em to go look at every single one. They shouldn't go look at every single one. But what intelligence does, it's able to not only cut through the noise and understand and summarize what's happening, but also give corrective actions of what they should do based on that data, which is cool. So now when they're, before they're going on site, they can check out. Hey Protex, what do I need to focus on today? And we'll, based off all their data, we'll tell them from a safety side of things and operations side of things, what they need to focus on, which is really cool. 'cause it just, it narrows the focus on what really matters. Um, and that's how we're using our intelligence tool, right? In the case of just asking it anything, just for fun, it's a really focus to say, okay, what should I focus on? What reports do I need to build? How do I, we're starting to bring like agent AI into it, which is asking you to do different tasks. They send me a report every week or whatever it is. Um, and that's. I think how people interact with data is gonna change, especially with the companies that we work with. Yeah. I think previously it would've been very much a power BI focused go in and look at a graph and try to decipher what's happening. Yeah. But now it's just how do you ask the right questions or prompts as they're called.

Mousa 00:22:58
Yeah.

Dan 00:22:58
Um, to say, you know, show me this and let the system do the work for you. Yeah. That's how it's gonna change.

Mousa 00:23:04
I love how you framed it here. It's like if I were to get a daily briefing with some videos attached that show me certain things that are happening as trends for me to like use that within my toolbox talk in the morning. Exactly. That would be so powerful. Like become part of a process that's like evolving with me. Yeah.

Dan 00:23:21
But it has to be easy.

Mousa 00:23:22
Has to be easy.

Dan 00:23:22
That's a big thing. I think if it's anyway complicated and that's on the vendor. To make it easy. Um, if it's any way complicated, it's like, I don't really want to do it anymore. It's another system that where things get tricky has to be just like ask question, get the data. Yeah. And focus on where you need to matter. Yeah. Where it matters.

Mousa 00:23:36
Yeah, absolutely, man. It's like, uh, in our world what I reflect on when I hear this is like, we obviously are our, are deeply thinking about how we can use AI more. But we're, we're putting all our attention now as in self-authoring because of how. Much. Our clients typically, when they get that experience and they're like, wow, it's so much more powerful to go through a realistic 3D story on any device. How can we move all our content? And then I. Oh, it's just so powerful now how much you can do, um, to automate the process of building very high quality experiences. Yeah. And again, the data piece that you're doing is so powerful. Uh, the, what I reflect on always when I hear this is like closing the loop on learning is always exciting. And it's cool that you guys are doing it through, Hey guys, look at what actually happened. Here's your colleague. Without knowing who the person is, but here's someone at the site who almost died. That's like the biggest learning experience. Yeah. 'cause it's close to home and you know that it could have been you know? Mm-hmm. Or one of your friends.

Dan 00:24:37
Well, the same I think with what you guys do as well, it really, uh, contextualizes it for them. 'cause 'cause you see them first person.

Mousa 00:24:44
Yeah. And as long as you trigger emotions and you feel it, then it's, it's extremely powerful.

Dan 00:24:49
Mm-hmm.

Mousa 00:24:50
Yeah, man. And then where do, where is this going? So when you think of. A lot is happening on the agent side and copilot. So you can, now you have all this data coming in, you understand your site operations, you understand the risks, and then you can start creating workflows that help you run your operation better. If you keep think, if you keep like going further and further into where this is gonna go and how much value it's gonna create, and then let's not go to long term. 'cause technology is changing so fast. Yeah. In the midterm, what comes to mind?

Dan 00:25:17
I was actually laughing at, uh, when. Invested in the metaverse, have seen how much money they've, they've lost like 80 billion, shit. Oh, no. More than that. I think it's, it's something crazy. Eight, maybe 800 billion or something like that. And just like how much they invested in this metaverse and these avatars, these shitty avatars that Zuckerberg made. Now it's just got the shit. Um, now we, they've just invested everything into ai. Um, uh, but I think, do you know what, there's, there's two ways of looking at this. Um, mm-hmm. You can look at it from, um, the speed of AI and how quickly it's going. It's like, oh my God, this is so fun. There's lots of things happening. You have to get on, you know, have to adopt everything and use everything. But I think in our industry, what we really have to take into consideration is the speed and the pace of how AI's moving and the speed and the pace of at which enterprises can move.

Mousa 00:26:05
I love it

Dan 00:26:05
and I think you need to find a middle ground between that. Like there's all this stuff's gonna come online and it's, it can be scary for these enterprises to say, do we have to. Trial everything here.

Mousa 00:26:14
Yeah.

Dan 00:26:14
And get a gauge of it. 'cause it's changing so quickly. It's okay to move at your own pace and to move it at the rate. The companies aren't gonna change overnight. That's the big thing about

Mousa 00:26:25
it, especially these very, like very large companies, they, if you move too fast, if anything, it's gonna impact them and impact you and huge. And you're gonna be too noisy.

Dan 00:26:32
Yeah. So move to the pace that you're really comfortable with. I think it's a big thing around, because companies like, I would dare say get on board and get on board with like. D adopting things like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and stuff is a nice entry point to it. Stuff like us, you what you guys do, start trialing these, like bringing in these technologies, but it's okay to move at your own pace For us. Yeah. In a world where there's so much stuff changing? Um, I think when people look from the outset and the outside in, they think that. Everything's gonna be super automated in the next, you know, three years. If I've been on plenty of sites, hundreds of sites now, I can tell you that that's not gonna happen out overnight. Yeah. You know, things are gonna change and move towards automation stuff, but not, yeah, not anytime soon. Genuinely. Like if you see the Amazons of the world, only a handful of Amazon sites are actually fully automated.

Mousa 00:27:15
Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you look at sites, like if you look at construction and if you look at. Areas that are just completely unique. Every time you get into 'em and stuff, they are gonna take time. Yeah. And again, yeah, like behavior. When you're running that process and you have all this machinery, you can't expect things to move super fast. Yeah. The industry we're serving is a slow moving industry and they need to be slow. So yeah, this beautifully said. Yeah. I love.

Dan 00:27:38
And I think AI can be seen as scary or it's gonna change, or what's the world gonna look like if things go wrong. But I think a really good question to to think about is like, what if everything goes right? If everything goes right, we're in for a good time next few years, you know?

Mousa 00:27:54
Yeah.

Dan 00:27:54
Health's gonna be better. Yeah. Diseases are gonna drop down. Yeah. Work is gonna be easier. We can focus on really what matters. Yeah. Um, it, we're in, we're in the, a faster version of the Industrial Revolution right now.

Mousa 00:28:06
Yeah,

Dan 00:28:06
that's what's happening. Um, and look at that changing things. It didn't, they didn't take away, like people's jobs has changed what people needed to and focus on and what mattered, and we're in this hyper version of that at the moment.

Mousa 00:28:17
Yeah. Honestly, I'm extremely optimistic about that too. You know, I just see all the positives and it feels strange and it feels like it can be, but I feel all of us as a species. Are deep down, like loving and caring people, and we will, it'll help us just become better and better as people and how we connect and operate. So,

Dan 00:28:34
yeah.

Mousa 00:28:34
Um, I love hearing that other people think about it the same way. I feel like I'm always isolated when I have that positive view.

Dan 00:28:40
But you know what? At the same time, I always. Still, I still say please and thank you to, uh, to Claude or chat or copilot what I'm using it just in case the AI overloads take over. They'll remember that. They'll be like, you're one of the good guys. You're one a good guys. That's matters.

Mousa 00:28:55
Damn it, man. Okay. Uh, jumping to the us So you guys started off in Dublin. Now you're spending a lot of time in the us. How's that been, man? How are you feeling? How difficult has this journey been and maybe the cultural differences that you're noticing would be cool to learn about from a technology provider?

Dan 00:29:11
I think, um. So I moved over a year ago now to Boston and built a team out there. We've got a great team out there. So much fun. They're so much fun. They're great people. They're all like Irish Bostonians, or American Italians and I just have like the best accents ever, um, which works great on the phone as well. Um. Just good people, but I think, um, we were very much pulled over. So about, you know, 60% of our business was in the US before we even Cool. We had a couple bums in seats down, like Max in New York and Amelia in, uh, in North Carolina. And then we added a lot more to the team. We've about 30 people now. Wow. Um, in the states in the last year. Um, I think, uh, US is like, it's a business. It's a business first country in a nice way. Mm. Um, I think they're very transactional in a good sense when it comes to business. They know they're in a conversation. I think it's more of a dance in Europe. Mm. Um, I think you need to sell to European, but an American will buy from you. Um, again, in both very different ways of, uh, interacting with mm-hmm. With, uh, the purchasing process. Um, but I think from an adoption level, the US is probably quicker. The Europeans are more. Uh, hesitant in bringing in technology and want to, uh, move a little bit slower, whereas us kind of a bit more bullish.

Mousa 00:30:27
And do you feel, do you feel their decision framework is similar or would like the US companies prioritize efficiency, for example, or ROI on operations versus safety? Or are they pretty similar?

Dan 00:30:40
They're, they're pretty similar, but I think the biggest difference is, um. Which sounds really weird, but European headquartered companies are almost more like democratic and give more power to the sites to make decisions.

Mousa 00:30:54
Mm-hmm.

Dan 00:30:55
US is more central focused to, they get buy-in from the sites, but they make decisions at the central level centrally, which is something I didn't know and I've experienced it a lot more since moving over. Mm. Um, both work in the long term. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think from an. The US probably a bit more experimental than than Europe. Um, I think workforce is very similar. We, like we picked Boston 'cause it's very European like. City, super walkable, uh, a lot of culture there. Um, a lot of like second, third generation Europeans there. My first weekend was St. Patrick's Day and it was so I thought I wouldn't have to pay for a drink, and then everyone just ended up trying to do my accent after. I'm having 10 pints and I was like, I'm just gonna go home. Um, but they're very multicultural people. Cool. Uh, so like New York. So it's

Mousa 00:31:45
been like just a year ago. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's nearly been almost a year. Yeah. Just,

Dan 00:31:49
just over a year. Yeah. I think it was like my second or third weekend there was.

Mousa 00:31:51
Well man, you've done a lot in a year. Good job. Well done. And I hope you give yourself as a CO and a founder, you probably don't take, I wonder if you take a step back and appreciate how much you've done.

Dan 00:31:59
I have a very good friend who says, as you're climbing this mountain, make sure to appreciate the views sometimes. So I try to make a thing of doing that both like myself and the team we look. We we're very, transparency is one of our values internally, and I do think we live up to it and showing board decks and stuff, but make sure we, uh, celebrate the wins when it happens.

Mousa 00:32:15
Yeah, man. And how are you feeling, man? Like, how are you doing, um, how are you feeling about everything? How have you been personally, uh, running this and building this? It's, it's difficult to be a founder as well. Uh, generally, you know, you're typically on the front line. You have to, the way I think about it is it's, uh, it's, it's counterintuitive and when the team is feeling, uh, defeated, you have to be the one who's. Pulling them up and championing the path. And when the team is feeling super excited, you're the one who's meant to keep them on, keep them rooted and mm-hmm. And, um, and you guys have been growing super quickly and, uh, you're dealing with industries that are pretty complex and a product that is, uh, pretty sophisticated. So how are you feeling personally?

Dan 00:32:55
Yeah, it's been a crazy year. Like in a great sense, like moving over to the States was a big shift for me. Um, I'm not in the boat of having like a wife and two children, so I was able to move a bit more. Remember we spoke about that. I was like, you should move to the States, dude, you're not gonna have a good time. And you're like, I've got a wife and two children. I was like, totally fair. Totally fair. Um, I think, uh, so it's been pretty, it's been great for me. I've been able to bounce, I had ninety-two flights last year. Wow. A lot of flights just, which slowly killing the planet myself, so, oh my God. I've been planting a lot of trees recently. Oh, very good to make up for it. Um, but, uh, no, it's been, it's really good. We've seen a lot of growth in the company. We've seen a lot of team growth and client growth. We've seen a lot more companies adopt. On a wider scale than they they ever have. And the cool thing is they're saying, what else? What's new? It's, rather than us trying to push the door open, they're very much pulling us into these conversations, which is cool. Um, yeah, personally, it's been, it's been a, it's been a hectic year, but a very exciting year. Like reflecting on it. I had a lot of fun. I think when I stopped during Christmas, I was like, whoa. Oh my gosh, my God. I didn't realize how tired I was, um, doing all those flights. I like, I dunno, I've just like, I'm 31 now, so I don't want my back's getting more sore than it should. And I wake like I had the most 30-year-old injury I yawned in the office and just like stretched my arms out and pull my back. Oh my God. Oh my God. Um, so I need to do more yoga or something. Um, but it's been really good. I think I'm spending a lot more time with the team across, that's what I'm mm-hmm. You know, here in London and mm-hmm. And, um. We in Dublin a lot and Boston a lot. And we're opening up another office in, um, in Budapest soon in Hungary. Um, so that's gonna be fun having a more of a team out in Europe. Um, but I think like you're right from the team perspective, it's. When you're moving at pace, which you guys are as well, it's really important to not become complacent. Um, and with all these, you know, new systems coming out, new types of technology that people are building off, it's very easy for competitors to come in and try to take a slice of the pie. So we need to make sure we're not complacent. Mm-hmm. And staying on top, finger on the pulse, like you said, when people get excited, I'm usually one that excites people and I get over excited and Ciarán, my co-founder is great for like pulling me back, pulling back. He is like chill out. Um, like small things, like if people leave the company, I get really like. Personally attacked. I'm like, why would they leave? Yeah. So a rocket ship. Yeah. Um, but he's really good. He's like, um, he's like the sounding board in the company. He's, um, he's even for like, he's 20. He's, he's in his last year of his twenties and. Um, but he's, he's so mature and does a, has a really good head on his shoulders for keeping things in a good place. And that's why we work kinda yin and yang when it comes to managing the company and know our strengths and know our weaknesses, uh, which tends to work really well. But it is lonely at the top when you're a founder 'cause you're dealing with everything. Um, and it's hard to talk to people 'cause you've gotta look like you. You're the one that that is set in or steering ship.

Mousa 00:35:41
Yeah, man. Awesome dude. Honestly, we're all lucky to have like you and Ciarán. I haven't met Ciarán face to face, but I'm looking forward to meeting him at some point. Yeah, you guys are doing amazing things. The industry needs people like you and you're obviously doing it from a place of love and passion and care and yeah, like take care of yourself, man, like, make sure you prioritize yourself. It's a long journey for sure. But yeah, thank you so much for coming here, man, and I looking forward to seeing you next time.

Dan 00:36:04
It's good. Thanks. Thanks, bro. Cool.

Mousa 00:36:08
Love this. We.