Chuck Yates Got A Job

Five lessons pulled from a junior high dance floor, a Wall Street Journal firing, and a weekend in Battle Creek learning to code. Chuck Yates, co-founder of Collide, takes the Ion stage and argues that energy's AI problem was never the tech. It is permission, labels, and an industry that named its flagship product West Texas Intermediate. Plus a serious ask about being better people on the way there.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 End of the world as we know it03:00 Bobby Joe and the 1982 church dance07:46 Labels matter11:54 Why energy is bad at marketing14:41 Building distribution before a product16:22 The clock reset18:58 James Broach21:18 A weekend of Claude code and David Lee Roth23:48 Houston, freaking Texashttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

A garage full of Ethereum rigs once set a house on fire, and that was only the warmup. Rakesh Agrawal and Lloyd Kirchner run Piping Technology & Products, a 50 year old Houston manufacturer where 100 employees now build their own AI agents and a welding cobot just got unveiled to 450 people on the shop floor. Cut cables in West Texas, new collar jobs, Pope Leo, and why the guy with the pickup truck had every reason to be nervous.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 The house fire05:07 A cryptic DM about dad's company06:15 What Piping Technology makes09:56 Family business and the second chair12:43 Every tech wave since dial up17:02 Getting AI to actually spread20:14 The guy who cut the cables24:04 Unveiling a welding cobot26:16 Pope Leo and new collar work35:32 Agents on the quoting desk42:22 The CIO problem44:22 Letting Claude psychoanalyze you49:04 Guardrails and permissions53:11 Five years out57:56 Intention and actionhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Houston has always run on optimism, spending everything to drill a hole where nobody has drilled before and then finding out what came back. Leon Coe, founder of Amplify Intelligence and the Houston AI Club, thinks that same instinct is exactly what AI needs. He and Chuck get into why executives cannot delegate this one, why augmentation beats automation, and why your own level of ambition is a hard ceiling on what the models will ever hand back.https://www.meetup.com/houston-ai-club/events/316056350/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_eventsClick here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 The perfect podcast length02:03 What executive AI coaching actually is04:48 Building the Houston AI Club08:50 Why Houston is wired for AI14:29 Augmentation, not automation18:29 Talking to AI instead of typing at it22:41 Cost savings versus new revenue24:37 The real prize in oil and gas27:54 What executives are actually asking31:52 Banned in 2024, bought in 202533:31 Why you cannot delegate this one38:51 The Burton McMurtry card story40:32 Ambition as a technical limiter44:08 AI as a thought partner48:23 The September 3rd operator spotlight50:24 Where to find Leonhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Everybody chases the drill bit, but the real money can hide in wells that have produced for years. D.J. Snyder left drilling and completions to chase what nobody wanted to touch: production. His company Vannevar builds downhole tools that squeeze more oil out of wells already in the ground, using a marginal gains mindset borrowed from F1 and the Tour de France. Chuck gets into frac plugs, pumper routes, why nobody shuts in a well to fix it, and how AI could give operators one source of truth.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00   Meet D.J. Snyder01:05   From drilling to the overlooked world of production02:47   Old tech, new problems: gas, sand, and horizontal wells06:24   Physical widgets and the marginal gains mindset08:32   Why there's no one size fits all13:00   Heresy: actually watch and fix your wells16:57   The AI promise of one source of truth18:43   Rethinking the pumper's daily route22:57   War stories, the Bakken, and naming tools25:18   ROI, payback, and how you really sell it28:25   Who to call, what it costs, and building a company36:03   How AI reshapes the work itself38:16   Robots, drones, and the future of the field40:14   Why boards say yes and value beats cheap44:53   Wrap up and where to find DJhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

You can own the dirt under someone's ranch without ever setting foot on it and still collect a check every month while an oil company does all the work. Karl Brensike of Harvest Mineral & Royalty Partners calls minerals the single greatest asset class on the planet, and he makes a pretty convincing case for it. Chuck digs into how regular folks can finally get a piece, why people really decide to sell, and the apple pie scheme that squeezed a million bucks out of Chevron.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 - Mineral versus royalty, explained for mom1:23 - Why US mineral ownership is uniquely American4:28 - The first oil lease and the Far and Away land rush8:11 - Splitting estates and why mineral owners keep multiplying9:25 - Karl and Chuck's history and the 2014 Thanksgiving crash10:43 - Why people actually decide to sell11:55 - The early days of investing in minerals14:46 - The Caritas run and the perfectly timed 2008 hedges22:17 - Buying ahead of the drill bit with Haymaker23:33 - Why everyone should own some as an energy hedge26:08 - The four kinds of buyers and the grassroots game27:22 - The thesis behind Harvest44:46 - Crazy mineral stories from the field48:09 - The Toby Bean apple pie storyhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai