Secrets of Success: How Emad Al-Turk Went From Boots to Boardroom

Hari Vasudevan (00:02.112) Alright, welcome to a new episode of From Boots to Boardroom. I'm your host Hari Vasudevan, founder and CEO of KYRO AI. Previously, I was the founder and CEO of ThinkPower Solutions. Not every leader sits in a corner office, but this guy certainly did, Imad Al-Turk. From Boots to Boardroom shares the journey of those who power America. from the job site to the boardroom, leading with grit, tenacity, empathy and vision. Hope you'll find the show to be educational, entertaining, eye-opening and most importantly, entrepreneurial. Presenting sponsor of the show is KYRO AI. Digitize work and maximize profits. For more information, visit KYRO.AI. Today's guest is my really good friend, Imad Al Turk. Imad was previously the president and CEO of Waggoner Engineering. He led the establishment of Trilon Group platform through its partnership with Waggoner by Alpine Investors. At Trilon Group, Imad was the CEO of the group's water and municipal platform. Trigon Group is now a top 20 engineering firm in North America in just three and a half years since it was established. Emad is now an angel investor in AI, crypto, and other businesses. He's passionate about social justice for the marginalized and oppressed communities here in the US and in the Palestine. Emad is a proud Palestinian. Imad Al Turk. Welcome to the show my friend. Emad (02:12.854) Well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me and I'm very proud of your podcast and your new career in life. Hari Vasudevan (02:17.97) Man, no, honestly, you know, obviously the listeners and viewers may not know, but I've told this to you privately so many times. I've learned a lot from you because you and I worked from about 2010 to 2012, 2013 in Klinefilter before I established ThinkPower. What I learned from you was the importance of developing long-term relationships in the selling cycle because you know as you know I am a civil engineering background but I was a geotechnical engineer so you geotechs didn't necessarily think long-term it's just all about selling to the immediate next project and you don't necessarily think about repeat customers and long-term customer development. I remember back in the day when you and I were pursuing Austrian energy I learnt it quickly from you. and that has been the cornerstone of the success of both ThinkPower Solutions and KYRO AI. So whether you know it or not, you had a huge role in my success and my company's success. So thank you for that. Emad (03:38.315) Well, you're welcome, but the credit goes to you, not to me. You're the one who did all the hard work and the tenacity and the vision for where you wanted to take not only Think Power, but also the people that you impact their lives every day as well. So it's been a pleasure getting to know you and work with you and work by your side for over now 15 years almost. Hari Vasudevan (03:48.802) Yeah. No. Hari Vasudevan (03:59.106) Yeah, no, honestly, that's great. So, know, so, Imad, I mean, for the listeners, I really want to know if there's one guy who is entrepreneurial, tenacious, Persistent, has the perseverance to overcome adversity. It's this guy and we're going to learn a lot about him and his life story, his journey. And we can all take a little bit, learn a little bit and go from there. So. You know, we really want to know what are some of the personal and professional experiences that shaped you, right? Because you have obviously a life story. And I really want to understand that and how that shaped who you are and what not. Emad (04:52.865) We being a Palestinian actually force you to become resilient. So I'm originally from Palestine. Actually, my father is from the Gaza Strip. And I still have a lot of family back in Gaza today, which really pains me deeply because of all the atrocities and the genocide and ethnic cleansing and the apartheid that's committed by the state of Israel against our people. So for us to survive for the last almost 80 years, because from the creation of the state of Israel, it was created with the premise, and this is what Zionism is about, is basically with the premise that to replace the indigenous people. We've been there for thousands of years. Here comes Eastern and Western European Jews under colonial powers to displace the Palestinians. But we're still here, although we're still occupied and we're still fighting to gain our freedom and our dignity and our human rights. It's long struggle. So all Palestinians in general, find they have the resilience to succeed. And because of all of this migration and forced migration, not really. It's not our choice to leave our homeland, but the forced migration forced us to really focus on education. you will find Palestinians in general, refugees are the most educated refugees in the world. Yeah, so this is because really of the family's focus, they say they can take your dignity away, but you can, they cannot take your knowledge away. This is really my father. Hari Vasudevan (06:30.37) Hm, I did not know that. Emad (06:47.804) instilled this in me when I was a young kid. So education is very important. And you'll find Palestinian families who might have five, six, seven kids. The father struggles to send the elder son or daughter to college or to get full education. But once the elder actually graduate and start working, it's their responsibility to educate their siblings. And they do this until every sibling is is fully educated. So you will find doctors, engineers, lawyers, really every aspect of professional life within the Palestinian community. They are the most educated in the Middle East by far. So this forces to actually become resilient. So I came to the US now, it's been almost 50 years now. Hari Vasudevan (07:25.87) Yeah. Emad (07:46.221) in 1977 as a young teenager to go to school and again traveling and being out of your home environment when you are 17 and trying to depend on yourself to survive. My English was not very good at the time. So it takes a lot of either you survive or you collapse. And I was determined to actually survive. Hari Vasudevan (08:06.69) Yeah. Emad (08:14.029) But this is the spirit of the Palestinian people. This is not unique to only me. You will find many, many, many Palestinians across the world because they are, as you know, half of the Palestinians, around seven million live inside the Palestinian occupied land. And the other seven million are scattered all over, they're refugees all over the world. So I've been blessed, but 14, 14 million. Hari Vasudevan (08:31.5) Yeah, the total Palestinian population you said is 14 million. Okay. Emad (08:42.537) Yeah, half are inside Palestine and the other half are, I mean, you don't go to any country, you don't find Palestinians. Hari Vasudevan (08:44.214) Yeah, no, honestly, you know people don't realize it. I mean, I know people here in the DFW Metroplex and the utility industry who are Palestinians. I people may not realize that but you know if they open up to you they'll tell you that you know we're from Palestine, we're refugees in Lebanon, whatever and we're here, right? So people may not realize it but you're right, you guys are scattered all over the place I guess. Yeah. So no, that resilience comes from the challenges and obviously other fundamental issues that the Palestinians face that builds that resilience and education and things like that. So you came to the US, right? And then how did you do that? Because I remember reading about it in the Palestinian travel document. You can't necessarily travel. all over the place. Give us a little bit of story there. Emad (09:50.28) Yeah, mean, of course, as Palestinian refugees, it's really very difficult to get access to go to many countries. You have to get through a visa process and a lot of countries will not grant you the access because they think if you go there, you're going to migrate to their land. And this is really what was not the intent. But there was a Palestinian organization. in Kuwait where actually I graduated from high school that gives scholarships to probably I would say maybe the top 90-95 percentile of graduates and they give them scholarships to either England or the United States. So I was fortunate to actually receive that scholarship to come to the University of Mississippi back in 1977. Hari Vasudevan (10:44.078) So let me pause you there. So you had a choice. Did you have a choice to go to UK or US? Emad (10:45.716) So that's really how I came here. So I got the student visa Emad (10:58.292) I did, but really I wanted to come to the US and I guess I retrospect, I was thinking about why did I choose when I was a teenager to actually come to the United States. But you know the image of the United States back then was this is a country that protects human rights, they're democratic in nature, they... there is a country of laws, all of the things that I admire, know, I've learned about the constitution of the United States. Yeah, exactly. So these constitution and bill of rights, protecting minority rights, women rights, know, really people endowed by the creator and they're equal in the sight of God. Hari Vasudevan (11:27.896) Beacon of Light, obviously, the Constitution, Bill of Rights. Emad (11:51.315) So all of these areas, I feel this is probably the right place for me to come and study in. I never intended really actually to live in the United States. You know, so after I graduated in 1980, I basically went back to Kuwait to work in the construction business. And I worked there for three years. But while I was in school, actually, I met the love of my life, my wife. Today we've been married for 44. Hari Vasudevan (12:17.272) Karen. Emad (12:21.095) Plus years now. Yeah, Karen, right. So, and she actually came to Kuwait with me as well. So we got married. We got married over there. And really was not my intent to actually never come back. But after three years, she got homesick and she said, well, let's try it to come back home. And we did. Of course, I've been here since then. So I've lived. Hari Vasudevan (12:49.144) Yeah, vast majority. Vast majority of your elect. Yeah, no, so that's fantastic. So you know, when I was in Spain with my family this past summer, I kind of texted you saying, I'm in Alhambra and then you told me your story of that's where you spent your honeymoon. something I did not know, but you told me about it. With the Palestinian travel document, you couldn't travel a whole lot. Emad (12:51.024) in the US, really the majority of my adult life. Not most of it really. that's majority, absolutely. Hari Vasudevan (13:19.074) But you know what, for your honeymoon, obviously you wanted to go together, right? mean, for honeymoon, most people travel together, is that right? So, you kind of wanted to go to different places, Australia, New Zealand, whatever, but you couldn't go because they wouldn't recognize the Palestinian travel document and Spain recognized it. So you went there and I did not know that. Emad (13:30.802) I assume that is the case, Hari Vasudevan (13:45.472) traveling guys texted you and you said hey brings me great memories there so that's something I wanted to throw it out there to the listeners here right so so you travel so your resilience your super competitive super relationship driven so explain to us where you got that piece of the puzzle right because if I can think one thing one thing that you know I can really think about Emad is relationships You and I are still in touch. We have not worked together for the last 13 years now, but we talk frequently. I know you keep in touch with a lot of people, right, across the spectrum no matter what their interests are. How do you do that and where did you learn the importance of relationships? Emad (14:41.551) You know, we have a verse in the Quran that says God created us from a... single soul and create us into nation and tribes so we may know each other and not despise each other. Really, actually this diversity that we have, you know, we live in a community. We don't live as individuals, although, you know, somebody can be in a cocoon by themselves and don't want to interact. But the more that you interact with people, you really enrich your life with their experiences as well. So I really always thought that This is an opportunity for us to get to know each other better. And there's a lot of misunderstanding. The world is in chaos today is because basically of stereotypes and labeling people different labels that I really don't abide with. I I consider everybody is a human being and everyone has the ability to create and prosper. regardless of the difficulties that they face. And the difficulties actually could be a challenge that will strengthen us to actually learn from those mistakes that we make and become even stronger. Hari Vasudevan (15:56.59) Yeah, no. So, you know, it's actually an interesting piece because, you know, I've seen you back in the day when you and I worked together. If somebody were supposed to, were on the verge of being let go, you pick them up on your team and you give them an opportunity. Right. And I can now connect the dots there. Right. so let's talk a little bit about your career journey, if you will. Right. You know, I know There's a lot to cover, but let's focus on three fundamentally important pieces. Although what comes before and after are obviously important pieces too, and that would have influenced you. But Wagner, right, where you rose to be the president and CEO. And then from Wagner, you led the search for a partner. and you ended up with a people-focused private equity firm, Alpine, who I know, right, super well run. And then you led Alpine's water and municipal practice, right, CEO, president of that platform, if you will, right? So help us through that journey, if you will, in what lessons somebody else who is listening to the show can learn from that. Emad (17:25.002) I've been blessed in my life really with a lot of opportunities. People say sometimes things fall on your lap by luck. I don't really believe in luck. I believe in a lot of hard work and tenacity and vision. You have the right vision, have the right people in your team, and you have the right value system. you'll be able to get there. So that's really what drove me from a young age. So I was extremely competitive. to a point, maybe in my early career, I would say I was arrogant in my early career. But I have meloed from arrogance because I realized that this is not really a positive attitude. slowly try to work on actually removing this arrogance element there. So when I came back from Kuwait in 1983, I worked for a small period of time with the state of Mississippi with the Department of Environmental Quality. And really I did this on purpose because I wanted to build a relationship across the state. And I was working through a grants program at the time through the West Water Clean Water Act system. But I had the opportunity to actually meet mayors, city council members across the state that we were actually funding to try to support them in the funding areas. this three years, although I hated state work because it's really most people don't do a lot of work in state government. They complain most of the time, but they don't do a lot of productive work. Although there is some that... that do great work. But for the majority, it's not similar. There's the pressures of the private sector, which I was used to. mean, I used to, when I was in the construction business in Kuwait, I worked 60, 70 hours a week. know, just going there for, you know, 20, 30 hours worth of work every week was not fulfilling. But I really pushed myself to actually develop relationships. So I had a good network of cities and counties. Hari Vasudevan (19:39.426) Hmm. Emad (19:48.751) I got to know elected officials extremely well because I was really servicing their accounts and servicing and offering value to what they were trying to accomplish. So I got a call from Wagner back in 1988. They said they're looking for a project manager. So I started as a project manager with them and managed a portfolio of projects. Hari Vasudevan (20:03.47) Hmm. Hari Vasudevan (20:14.652) as Wagner back then when you joined them. Emad (20:18.462) And the back then, they probably were about 30 people. So it's relatively small organization. So I think the majority, at the time he was really the only owner, Joe Wagner, the founder of the firm. I think he saw something in me that would be different than the couple of the vice presidents that were there and the couple of other project managers. Hari Vasudevan (20:45.614) Maybe in Mississippi, nobody looked like you back in the day. Emad (20:48.488) and he said that he called me to his office. Hari Vasudevan (20:52.75) Hahaha! Emad (20:55.726) But they still don't. They still don't. But this doesn't deter me from developing relationships. So he said that, you know, you have a good network. I'm thinking about promoting you to vice president of business development. I was like, I don't know, 24, 26, 27, something like this. Hari Vasudevan (21:22.478) Yeah. Emad (21:25.736) I want you to grow the business. So I said, okay, no problem. So I started actually traveling across the state, connecting with my contacts, but more importantly, really trying to understand how you can position yourself for success to grow a firm. So there is thousands of engineering firms. So the question you have to ask is why? Hari Vasudevan (21:52.958) You know, that's the question. So I'm gonna be the host and I'm gonna ask you the question, why Marty Wagner and not why some other firm? I've worked with a few, I don't wanna name names, but I gotta tell you, not a pleasant experience at some other firms, but you go for it now. Emad (21:54.939) Do you have to pick Wagner instead of picking somebody else? Emad (22:03.169) Emad (22:14.882) Yeah, so first, really what I encouraged our team to do is first is to be innovative. So even with a small firm, you we were probably with the first engineering firm that developed GIS in the state of Mississippi back in the late 80s. We invested for a small company of our size. We invested in the first LIDAR system in the country, which would give us... Hari Vasudevan (22:36.152) Yeah, yeah. And this is where I believe you worked with Sam, Sameer Hana, right? Yes, yes. Emad (22:47.799) Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, this from Austin. Yeah, this was before he actually got into the lidar business. So we had to do figuring out really what our strength and having technology that nobody else does give you an added value. So that's one component. The second thing, know, the firm historically, I don't think there's probably very few not only in Mississippi, but across the country that actually can help clients figuring out how to fund infrastructure projects. So I've learned a whole lot from the founder in this area. And this was a unique differentiator. So basically when I went there, I've never went and tried to competition or bash what engineering firms they're using. I just basically asked them, tell me what your issues that you are restricted from sleeping at night and basically providing them solutions of how to fix it. And they said, well, you know, that's great idea. You we wanted to do this, but we don't really have the money to do all of this. We might be able to scrap 20, 30 % of the project budget. Where is the risk in income from it? So of course we helped him get the funding for this. And of course you do this, you get the funding, you have the idea, solved the client problem, you're gonna be hired. Hari Vasudevan (24:14.572) Yeah, yeah, I know because you know, you're you're hired because you're also bringing them the money to not just hire your firm, but also to execute their projects, which is, you know, it's all it's a win win win deal, right? Because the community benefits from better infrastructure, the elected officials benefit because, know, they go to the elections and they say absolutely, they can say, listen, we got this done, right? And then Emad (24:41.3) They're going to look good in front of their constituents. Hari Vasudevan (24:42.978) The local municipalities, obviously, you know, they're there to serve the community and helps Wagner at the end of the day, right? Because it pays your bills and it keeps you, that's the difference. That's the Wagner difference that EMAD brought to Wagner. I always say this, it's like, hey, as long as you can show something that you're doing that is different, right? than the competition, then success will literally follow you like a shadow. And that's the difference that you guys brought. Emad (25:22.742) Yeah, so within a couple of years, we grew the firm probably by maybe 30, 40 percent. And the founder said, you know, really what I need you to do is to run the company for me. He was really more a relationship person. He comes from a political family. His father was actually the transportation commissioner, one of the three transportation commissioners in state of Mississippi. and had actually back in 1987 was instrumental in developing a couple of billion dollars for landing all state highways in Mississippi. So he, exactly, right. So he said, really, I need to continue on the political side and getting funding, but I really need someone to actually run the firm. Hari Vasudevan (25:58.786) He knows, he understood the municipal piece, understood the political piece. Emad (26:19.211) So I became actually the Chief Operating Officer of Wagner when I was probably 30 and did this probably for about maybe eight, nine years until about 2003. So I was basically managing all aspects of the company from financial to growth, business development, operations, marketing, all of the firms operation. And you know. became the second largest shareholder of the firm after the FANTA because of really the significant contribution we had. But I was spending a lot of time and I had two daughters that were growing up. So I, in 2003, we were actually having some funding discussions after the Iraq war. And I actually went to Turkey and to Iraq. as part of this process and I was driving back from Baghdad to Amman. It's about probably eight, nine hour drive. No, no, no, I had a security detail with that. You at that time, you can't be driving by yourself. Yeah, so, but during that drive, actually my life kind of flashed and Hari Vasudevan (27:19.967) Did you drive by yourself? Hari Vasudevan (27:24.75) I was just wondering, so... Emad (27:43.371) I decided to actually resign from my position because I really wanted to, my life was not balanced. You know, I was focused more on the material things, focused on the growth of the business. I have two daughters that I wanted to spend more time with. And really, my family was very important to me. Hari Vasudevan (27:44.172) Why is that? Emad (28:08.65) So I came back and submit my little resignation to the friend of the firm. And I said, Joe, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to be competing with the firm. I really wanted to do something totally different. I don't know what it is. And really, I don't have anything planned. But of course, during that period of time as well, I co-founded the first Islamic History and Cultural Museum in the country called the International Museum of Muslim Cultures. Where there's another one now in DC that is a lot smaller, but we were the first in the country. Biggest and first. You're always going to be first, I guess. So we'll be celebrating 25 years in April of next year. Hari Vasudevan (28:37.646) It's still the only one, right? Hari Vasudevan (28:47.586) You're still the biggest. Hari Vasudevan (28:58.734) So you founded that after your, let's call it as the first retirement from Wagner, right? Okay, okay, okay, all right. Got it. Emad (29:10.123) No, no, actually I found it while I was away. I found it in 2001. Yeah, yeah. So, but again, know, I spent some time trying to grow the museum. And so Joe didn't believe it. He said, you know, I thought we'd get everything set. Yeah, sure. Hari Vasudevan (29:23.19) Imad, can I say something? If you don't mind, I just took notes here. Can you go back a little bit? below the shoulder is more visible than your face. Your forehead is getting cut off. Perfect, that's better. That's better, Perfect, yeah, keep going. Sorry, we'll edit that piece out. Emad (29:39.708) now it's better. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (29:42.646) Yeah, you talk about Joe, right? Emad (29:46.122) Yeah, so where do you want me to start from? Emad (29:50.984) Yeah, so so when I submit the letter of resignation to Joe. He said that I really don't know what to tell you because I thought you're going to be the basically the successor for my firm. Now I said, you you have good team that we built. You'll find some other people to do this. And I said, I'm not leaving tomorrow or the day after. You tell me when you're ready for me to go. And if you want two months, three months transition, six months transition, I'd be glad to do this. Hari Vasudevan (29:58.584) Successor. Emad (30:27.56) So he kept my letter of resignation in his desk for three months and didn't share it with anybody. Finally I said, Joe, you know, it's time to do something about this letter in your desk. Can you get it out? And of course, in the meantime, you get some of the board members to come and talk to me. But when he realized that really my mind was made up for me to actually do something different, you know, we announced it to the staff and I had a... transition period for another three months, tried to help him out during the transition and then moved on really for a period of 15 years before I came back to Wagner. So in the beginning, you know, I had... Hari Vasudevan (31:02.926) Yeah, so you know, I want to go back to your resignation. So here you go. You're traveling from Iraq to Amman and Jordan, right? Where in Iraq were you there? Baghdad, Baghdad to Amman, you're traveling and you made up your mind. Emad (31:19.759) I was in Baghdad. Hari Vasudevan (31:23.608) So what is your daily life Karen? Hari Vasudevan (31:28.814) Yeah, yeah. No, no, what did she think when you decided, hey, you know what, I'm going to quit my job? She was like, dude, you got two dollars and how are you going to pay your bills? She was like, okay, what are you going to do next? How'd you put food on the table, my friend? Emad (31:32.374) What did she think when I was in Iraq? Emad (31:50.374) Well, know, of course, like I said, I was the second largest shareholder and the company was required to buy me out. So I had a good amount of income that came for sustain me for two years. And I figured I will figure what I'm going to do at that time. So really financially, it was not a consideration for us. What was more important to her is really make sure that I'm happy with whatever decision I'm making. And she was very supportive. She said, whatever you decide, I'm good with it. And again, retrospect, I don't really regret. I don't know where Wagner would have been earlier if I stayed at the time because they had a lot of difficulties and that's what brought me back 15 years later into Wagner. it's all meant to be because this actually helped me develop in a lot of different areas. So I did a lot of different things. We wanted to be investing in two ice cream shops. had two restaurants. had beauty shop. I had my consulting arm that different firms wanted me to help them with policy and actually growth and strategic planning for their firms. And I had an office actually in Baghdad and Turkey and Istanbul that had people running it to actually help with the reconstruction in Iraq. after the war. from 2004 to about 2006 when my manager actually wind up dying for a different, not because of the war, he actually had a heart attack and he was my competent on the ground. So I wound up in Iraq, right? So once he passed on, I decided just to close the office and of course my wife was very delighted that I did. Hari Vasudevan (33:32.256) in Europe. Emad (33:47.688) It was not a safe environment to be in at the time. But I wanted to selling the business to a Turkish firm and coming back home over here. Hari Vasudevan (33:57.103) When you were traveling from Jackson to Istanbul, Baghdad during this entire time, what you did. Emad (34:10.629) Yeah, I was probably going once every quarter. I go there for a week and just have everything set up and you know, most everything was done by phone and remotely. But then I had a team on the ground, both in Istanbul and in Baghdad that actually helped with the company development and executing on projects and things like this. So I wasn't really as hands on. But that's why I actually picked a great manager that led the organization on the ground there. But once he passed on, I just didn't feel that I wanted to spend more time over there. Hari Vasudevan (34:48.654) Yeah, it makes sense. So, you know, this is honestly the true spirit of entrepreneurship, right? You join a firm, you help grow that firm, you move on from that firm, you start a couple of ice cream shops, a couple of restaurants, a consulting company, you have a company that does business in the Middle East, Istanbul, Baghdad, all these kind of things, right? It's unbelievable. I'm assuming all of them were... reasonably successful or are there any stories that you want to share with our listeners about the entrepreneurial journey that you took after Wagner and before going back to Wagner that you know lessons learned and things like that any any flavors of ice creams that customers didn't like or anything like that? Emad (35:47.174) Yeah, the ice cream was actually Marvin Slab Creamery. These are the ice cream shops we had. And my wife ran the ice cream shops. So I was helping her whenever she needed support in this effort. No, actually, I sold them after about 10 years. They were extremely successful. Yeah, so I sold both of them. Hari Vasudevan (35:56.705) You still have those shops? Hari Vasudevan (36:02.636) Yeah, I thought I'll come and visit you and get some free ice cream, but. Emad (36:13.026) Yeah, I don't own him anymore, but I'll buy you some ice cream. Hari Vasudevan (36:16.834) Okay, keep going. So you sold the lessons. What are the lessons learned by the way? You still have the restaurants or you sold them too? Emad (36:27.718) The lessons learned is I never want to be in the restaurant business again. Hari Vasudevan (36:30.094) Why is that? Why is that? Emad (36:38.726) Well, you know, this is really a very low margin business. And you you depend on a lot of employees, some of them show up, some of them don't. And it is just not... If somebody is younger in their life and don't have family, I think it'll probably be a great business to start. Yeah, but it's very time consuming. And again, the return on the investment is not that high. So that's not something I actually admire the people in that business. Because I've done it and had enough of it. And I want them to... No, no, I sold all of these areas. Yeah, I really I sold everything when I joined Clamp. Hari Vasudevan (36:55.651) Interesting. Hari Vasudevan (37:11.668) You don't have it anymore. You sold it, I guess, right? Emad (37:25.701) So I didn't have any of those. Well the ice cream shop, I had a manager that actually ran it and she wanted to buy it. probably both ice cream shops were there maybe two years into my climb field tenure. Hari Vasudevan (37:38.178) Yeah, no, that's what's interesting. I'm good to know that don't start a restaurant business because, you know, every time we go to some restaurant, always am not happy with the service and whatnot. like, you know, I need to start a restaurant business so that I can provide amazing service. I guess it'll just dwindle my savings. That's what I live. Okay. All right. So then you join ClientFolder. Feel free to talk about ClientFolder or you can skip it, right? Emad (37:59.503) Yeah, exactly. Hari Vasudevan (38:07.502) For me, obviously, you being there was a great blessing, right, because I learned a lot. And then you go back to Wagner or you can cover your client for the days if you want. Emad (38:25.216) I mean, just quickly, a couple of minutes back, I mean, really what attracted me, I missed the engineering business. a recruiter called me and said there's an opportunity in Texas for this firm that wanted to transform from a geotechnical engineering and material testing company to a full service consulting firm. So and their idea is to grow, they want to become a billion dollar company in few years and they want to acquire firms. So I said, this actually sounds good. It's a challenge that I was intriguing until I got the hips. So this is what attracted me to actually join Clamfield is the vision that they had. But unfortunately, they didn't really have the leadership. I'm talking about the highest level of the company. Hari Vasudevan (38:56.878) you Emad (39:19.109) to really understand how to transform the company from a geotechnical material testing to a full consulting firm. And they put people in place that have never done it, expecting that they're to be able to do it and it did not materialize. So basically I've written the CEO and telling him that, I think I brought him a four page letter saying, Bill, this is not working. All of the milestones that you all established, that a single one of them have been made. Hari Vasudevan (39:46.27) That one's keep changing. That one's keep extending. Emad (39:48.918) since I was there for a few more years. And yeah, exactly. So I decided it's probably better for me to go back to Mississippi. So really, I came not having a plan to actually work with Wagner or anything of that nature. But I started, restarted my consulting business. So I was basically just helping. Hari Vasudevan (39:55.874) Yeah. Yeah. Emad (40:16.546) companies or individuals who wanted to do strategic planning and trying to grow their business. So one day in June of 2016, I get a call from my dear friend, founder of the firm, Joe Wagner. Say, Amal, I need to have breakfast with you. I said, sure. He said, we're in trouble and I don't have anybody that I can trust more than you to help me get the company back on track. I said, what happened? So, you know, we got a lot of work during Katrina. And they were the program manager for the whole state in managing the Katrina work, which was several billion dollars worth of work. And we focused on this. We ignored our clients. And we lost significant clients when the Katrina money dried up after 10 years. We found that our business shrunk by probably about 40, 50 percent. Hari Vasudevan (40:48.856) Yeah. Yeah. Emad (41:15.618) But we are way overloaded with staff. And he said, I don't know what to do. Hari Vasudevan (41:16.034) Yeah, yeah. It's honestly, it's an important lesson learned for everybody running a business, whether you're entrepreneur or not. Customer concentration is bad. It's good to get started, but then you have to use that initial customers or the customer concentration, the profit margin, the cash flow from that to expand your business, invest in sales and business development, marketing and grow your business beyond that key customer. this case, I don't know for a fact, you obviously would know. Wagner seems like they had put all their eggs in one basket. It's great until the gravy. Emad (42:01.037) Well, they had a very diversified client base until they got this major contract with the state of Mississippi to manage the Katrina work. So they diverted a lot of their staff to go and do this work and ignore the other customers. Exactly. So over time, and they were making a lot of money. And then all of a sudden, the work finished in 10 years and they found that they lost some clients. I don't know where they were sleep. Hari Vasudevan (42:05.836) Yes, yes. So they ignore their other customers. Hari Vasudevan (42:25.826) Hey, listen, at the end of the day, there's always somebody who's waking up every single day to kick your butt in business, right? So Wagner ignores their customers. Somebody like me, I'm gonna wake up that morning to kick Wagner's butts, go get the customer who's not serviced, right? And there you go, you lose your customers. So it's easy to lose a customer, hard to build it back, I guess, right? Emad (42:30.711) in this process here. Emad (42:58.051) Yeah, so he said, I have a challenge and I've been losing money for the last two years, putting a lot of my personal funding into keeping the company afloat. so I said, so what do you want me to do? I said, really, my life is set. I'm not looking for a position. He said, I really need to turn around and consult. Can you just come help me evaluate what needs to be done? I said, well, give me all the, I gave him a list of all information. I said, let me do this. Let me review it. And I'll sit down with you next week. So I went back and said, Joe, you are a lot worse problems than I thought. This is going to require major surgery here. And I will be more than happy to do this, but. It has to be done. I will commit to a six month assignment. I'll spend about 50-60 % of my time in the office. This was in 2016. I said I'll spend six months over there and I'll begin to turn the company around where we can make money after I finish. But I said I want you to, before I join, I want you to fire the president and the CEO. Hari Vasudevan (44:00.376) When was this? Which year was this? Emad (44:25.827) And then when I join, there's probably going to be some decisions that I'm going to make that you're not going to like. You don't have a veto power in anything that I do for those six months. If we have an agreement on this, I'd be more than happy to help you because I love Wagner, I love you personally, but I know you're not a manager and you work. Hari Vasudevan (44:51.768) Seems like. Emad (44:53.526) really from a crisis to crisis, but your strength is, yeah, but I said your strength is client relationships and funding. So you need to be doing basically what you're good at and leave the rest of the decisions internally, 100 % to me. If you are agreeing with this, with those two conditions, I will commit the next six months to help you. So he came back, he said, give me a few days, let me think about it. He talked to couple of consultants he hired to try to help him figure out. They told him basically you don't have a choice, I think. So he called me and said, that's fine, can you start Monday? I said, this was like on a Wednesday. I said, so when you're gonna fire the CEO, mean the president and the CEO? He said, I will do it Friday. Hari Vasudevan (45:46.786) Wow. Emad (45:51.958) I okay. I said, okay. He said, by the way, know, my firing those two guys has the letter of termination has been in my briefcase for four months. Hari Vasudevan (45:58.933) He already knew that. Emad (46:05.375) Yeah, yeah, of course he knew. But these guys have been with the company for a while and he didn't really want to... Yeah, exactly. He didn't want to make the hard decision. And really, what I told him, said, Joe, with all due respect, I know this is tough on you. But you have another 70 people and their families that you have to take care of. So anyway, he agreed. Hari Vasudevan (46:06.516) He didn't want to make the hard decision. Honestly, you know, that is the Hari Vasudevan (46:27.118) No, honestly, I really want to posit. This is something that I talk to people all the time. Even yesterday, I was talking to somebody about this, which is like, if you run your companies to satisfy one or two individuals, you really are not doing justice to others in the company, right? 300, 400, 3000, 4000, whatever the number may be. In this case, it is 70, 80, right? You're actually being unfair. to the 70 people and their families by trying to be nice to these two or three people. As the CEO, your job is not easy. Otherwise, anybody else would do it. Make the hard calls. You need to constantly weed out the weak links. only then will the company grow to be stronger. Because when you have weak links in the company, what happens is, in this case, the CEO, president of President and CEO, guess, right, of Wagner. What would have happened is they they're gonna hire, if they're incompetent, they're gonna hire incompetent people below, beneath them or below them or underneath them, whatever. And then that's gonna make the company weaker, right? This is such an important piece of the puzzle. And sometimes people don't want to make the hot calls, but you gotta make the hot calls all the time. Emad (47:51.809) Yeah, and these guys really, they were not incompetent. They were great engineers, but they were not great leaders. So he probably should never have been a sheikh. Yeah, exactly. Hari Vasudevan (47:53.42) Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were put in the wrong spot. They were just, just because you're a great engineer doesn't make you a great manager, right? Emad (48:05.632) Exactly. So he put them in the wrong spot. But I guess at the time after I left, didn't have anybody else to do. of course, they were making money for 10 years. So they didn't really think about all of that. Exactly. When you're making money, you're not thinking about what are the difficulties that they're facing. So anyway, so I come back next Monday. He introduced me to the team. said, this is going to be the new leader of the firm on a consulting basis for Hari Vasudevan (48:10.678) It masks all problems. Emad (48:35.134) The next six months you need to cooperate with them. So basically I interviewed probably about the top 30 plus people in the company. Just said and listened probably for the first couple of weeks, understanding what the issue is with their concerns. There was many old clients that we had that I've known for years. Some of them, know, we were our clients since inception of the company. I went and met with them just to kind of listen to it with their concerns. In some cases, they're still stuck with Wagner, but they were not giving them as much work. In some cases, they did not use Wagner. So I just wanted to hear from them so I can figure out what we need to do. And they let a lot of the technology issues lapse. We were a leading technology company. Hari Vasudevan (49:20.044) you and then you don't invest, you don't think about it, then somebody else comes and kicks your butt, right? Emad (49:30.567) Exactly. So basically after about 60 days and I met with probably some of the key managers and some of them, you know, the first thing they do is point fingers at this step, didn't do this, this step, didn't do this, this step, didn't do this. I don't have work for them. So we have to let them go. we basically let really technicians go. So I sat down. as I was putting together the turnaround plan for the company. I said, this picture is not right. People come to work to do a job. And we're basically removing the livelihood every time we're firing him. And the problem is that it's not the responsibility of a technician that we don't have work. It's the responsibility of the manager who didn't get the work. Hari Vasudevan (50:16.493) Yeah, other sales guys. Emad (50:24.779) getting all the managers together and said Hari Vasudevan (50:25.55) Yeah, Yeah, hang on one second. I think you had a call come in. I'm just going to take a quick note here. So you can you restart from where you said it's a responsibility of the managers and then keep going because it stopped recording. Emad (50:38.635) Yeah, so it's the responsibility of the manager to get the work and make sure that the people are busy. Their responsibility is to do quality work. Exactly. If you are a department head and you're a head of the civil department, you need to get work to feed your people so they can continue to do the work. So they're blaming everybody that they're not doing what they're supposed to do. I said, what is it they're supposed to do if they're telling me that there's no work for them? Hari Vasudevan (50:48.95) It's a sales guy's job, right? Emad (51:08.351) That's why their utilization is 30%. So why are you blaming him for this process? So anyway, I sat down with them with the probably the next year, the directors probably was about 12 of them. And they were fighting among themselves, sharing resources and a lot of other things. So I reorganized the company. I said, we only have one Wagner. We're going to have instead of having 12 profit centers, we're going to have one profit center. and we're all going to either sing together or we're going to succeed together. There's the seven guys that out of the 12 that basically they said what you're doing is wrong. And I said, guys, I'm telling you, if you are not on board, I expect your resignation on my desk tomorrow. Hari Vasudevan (52:02.702) You're laying out your expectations, Yeah. Emad (52:02.804) So. Yeah, and basically the seven of them were gone the next day. Hari Vasudevan (52:11.608) Good for you. Emad (52:12.788) So I got with the whole company, I said, I know this is appears gonna be difficult, but they are not doing right by you. As employees of the company, they were not doing right by you. The company is in trouble. And if we continue in that trajectory, the company is gonna have a choice but to bankrupt and none of you can have a job. Hari Vasudevan (52:36.248) So let me ask you this, if I can ask you one question here, how did you earn their trust? Did they know you from pre 2003? Emad (52:45.418) Many of them either know me or know my reputation because I've worked with the company for 15 years. So, so obviously this helped a lot and some of them I actually hired myself. So I said, you all need to trust me, but this is going to be a team effort. And my expectation is for you all to step up as well. And we're going to turn things around. Hari Vasudevan (52:51.618) Got it. Okay. That helps. Emad (53:13.582) And so I'm glad that what our plan, what the organization structure is going to be, which is totally different than what it was, obviously, because there was a lot of did wait, even the leadership. Hari Vasudevan (53:22.07) Yeah, clearly. I 30 % utilization. You know, the company was not being run essentially. It is getting run because of the Katrina money and it stops running at some point, right? When the gravy train stops flowing. Emad (53:30.185) the Emad (53:37.865) Yeah, so by the end of the first quarter, by cutting these expenses and reorganize the company, we started making money. And the first thing I said, I said, we need to invest in technology. So we invested heavily in actually getting moving all of our data into the the cloud. And a lot of people were actually had the ability to work from home. And luckily, a year to down the road, the COVID hit and we didn't miss a beat. Hari Vasudevan (54:07.01) Yeah, because you were obviously a cloud enabled company, tech enabled company, didn't have to come to work. That's the advantage of having invested in technology earlier, right? Emad (54:12.681) Very good. Emad (54:19.337) And of course, the first reaction he said, we're expenses, we're supposed to be cutting expenses. I said, no, this is an investment. I don't consider this an expense. This investment is gonna pay off big time for us. And luckily it did. in the first one, the staff did not receive bonuses. Some of the leadership team actually got cut in salaries for two years prior to me joining. So I put up a bonus program, I shared it with the employees, depending on the performance. So we're all one team. If we need you in a different area, you need to help, because we need to pull ourselves out of this trouble here. By the end of the first quarter, Hari Vasudevan (55:12.494) So you injected that entrepreneurial spirit that went missing. You injected back by saying, hey, we're all in this together. If the company makes money, you're going to make money. And that drives the entrepreneurial spirit that drives innovation and being in the same team, I guess. Emad (55:23.976) You make my Emad (55:32.709) And of course, one of the biggest complaints that they say, we give a lot of suggestions to management and they never implement any of it. So I say, give me all these suggestions that you had. And they had a couple of pages of suggestions. Many of them were great. And I wanted to implement it. So they felt empowered in this process that somebody is listening to them and to their areas. by the third month, actually, our P &L was passed. By the end of the year, when the quarter, the last quarter of the year ended, we actually distributed the first bonus for the employees in the last two and a half years. Hari Vasudevan (56:15.854) Yeah. you were still a consultant there? did you? God. Emad (56:19.596) I was still a consultant. I was still a consultant at the time. after... Hari Vasudevan (56:23.992) So you're like Steve Jobs, you're like the I-CEO kind of a thing, right? Interim CEO, but as a consultant. Fair enough on that? Yeah. Emad (56:30.748) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So after, so I developed a 90 day plan and started implementing it and then shared it with Joe and the board. And I said, my top priority right now, I have another 90 days. One of the things that I need to do is to hire you a CEO of the company. So anyway, they took it under advisement. Then I started getting calls from all of the board members and said, Who in the heck is going to implement your plan? And we love your plan, but who's going to implement it? Nobody knows it. And we bring somebody that doesn't understand the culture of the company and all this other stuff. So he said, really, Joe and the board want you to be the CEO. I said, really, my life, I get a lot of other priorities in life. This is not what was not on my, they said, tell us what it'll take to do it. I said, no, mean, you give me an offer. I don't really have anything. said, first of all, I want to know from Joe, said, Joe, what is your plan? Do you want to sell the company or what do want to do? He said, really, I prefer to sell it internally. I said, as we grow it, the company is going to be worth a lot more. Who in the company right now, after we fired all the people who had the resources? gonna have the cash to buy you. So anyway, negotiated with him to actually have, I picked the three top leaders as vice presidents of the firm and turned to an agreement with them where they had stock interest in the company. And they gave me stock options as well based on performance, where over a couple of years we were actually wind up. Hari Vasudevan (58:20.984) Yeah. Emad (58:31.035) buying Joe totally out of the firm. Hari Vasudevan (58:33.742) So he ended up being the CEO of the company. Man, this sounds like the 2000 vice presidential pick of George W. Bush. Dick Cheney was leading the committee and then he went on to be the VP there. He picked himself. Sounds like that out there. Emad (58:44.326) Ha To be honest with you, didn't pick myself. I didn't even want that position. But I think I had an offer that I couldn't refuse because basically I became the majority shareholder of the company within a short period of time. Hari Vasudevan (58:52.897) Yeah Hari Vasudevan (59:03.148) Yeah. Yeah. And when was this? When did you just so that our listeners are on me actually tracking time here. 2016 you came in as a consultant. So when did you become majority owner of Agnes? Emad (59:15.142) Well, in January 2017, I became the CEO. In January 2019, I was the majority owner. Hari Vasudevan (59:24.044) Wow, two years. Emad (59:26.31) Yeah, because we increased revenue within those two years by 80%. And every quarter we were profitable and we were ranked in the top 90 percentile in performance in the country. Hari Vasudevan (59:45.624) Wow. I mean, I'm assuming you use the Z-Wig and all these kind of metrics to track that, right? Emad (59:46.809) Sure. Emad (59:52.969) Absolutely, and we were tracking it regularly and I was sharing all of this with the staff and sharing with them, of course, they've seen and the bonus structure that had was actually distributed quarterly or half of it was distributed quarterly and half of it annually because I wanted them to see the benefit of, immediately the benefit of their work instead of waiting until the end of the year and giving a bonus. Hari Vasudevan (01:00:11.308) Yeah, you know, I actually had something similar program and I was a ThinkPower where every employee got a bonus quarterly, right? We had significant referral bonuses. mean, significant. I'm talking about, you know, five thousand bucks per employee when you refer. And some of them, believe it not, some of them made I know of cases when I was there who made thirty, forty thousand dollars in bonuses for referrals. And they came and told me, listen, this is my Kids College Education Fund, right? And what that did, honestly, was that made it entrepreneurial because we're in the business of serving our customers, which means the more people that we have, that means you're billing them more out. So you talked about 30 % utilization. We were close to 100 % utilization, and we needed more people. So I'm like, you know what? What is the missing piece? I need more qualified people. Let's give them a $5,000 bonus to get people on board. And that was the best thing we did. We grew significantly after that, right? So, but anyway, you keep going. you had this bonus programs that obviously had the entrepreneurial spirit. You became the majority shareholder in January 2019, right? And then the company continues to grow. Keep going. Emad (01:01:31.907) Yeah, we continue to grow and then I expanded the shareholders to about 12 other people in the company. Obviously they had a small percentages there, but they were in track to actually continue to grow. Because I was planning to work only for about five, six, seven years and leave and retire anyway. My plan was never to stay there for an extensive period of time. So. I got the leadership team together and say, we've accomplished a lot together over the last few years. Now, what is, where do you see the awareness going? He said, we really need to be a lot more regional in nature. We need to be from Texas to Florida, and we need to grow five faults in five years. And five faults in five years. So this was our strategic plan in. Hari Vasudevan (01:02:21.036) What is it again? Five. Wow, ambitious. Emad (01:02:29.064) 2019. And of course, because of our performance and relationship with the bank, the bank says, you know, whatever you need them at, I mean, they had because the this this bank we've been dealing with them probably for 25 years. Yeah, so they went to visit with them and said, our leadership team is looking at this, we're going to probably grow not only organically, but also through acquisition. Hari Vasudevan (01:02:44.994) You're talking about line of credit, working capital and things like Emad (01:02:59.228) Are you are prepared to support us? And they said come up with a plan and we'll do whatever we need to do to help you. So I got all of this lined up. But I am personally against it. I mean, I don't have I have zero debt in my life, in my personal life, not nothing. So I got the management team and said, you know, there's risk. I just want you to be aware of it. This is what the consensus of the group. Hari Vasudevan (01:03:11.02) Yeah. Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:03:16.546) Yeah, no. Yeah, fantastic. Emad (01:03:28.664) we will move forward with that direction. But how are going to finance this growth? I said the one option is to finance through debt. Another option is to finance through equity partnership. So they didn't know much about equity partnership. So I said, let me go through and talk to different people about it. So I want them talking to probably a dozen different equity companies. I did. No, we didn't hire anybody. And I put the criteria for the firms that we wanted to partner with, wind up getting six companies that we're interested in, narrow them down to two, and basically negotiate between those two and we got the best deal with Alpine. And of course, Alpine, the timing was also right because they decided that Hari Vasudevan (01:03:59.19) And you led the search yourself. Did you hire a Mr. Bacter or something? Hari Vasudevan (01:04:26.882) Which year was this? Emad (01:04:28.067) They decided that they wanted to grow into the infrastructure business, but they didn't have a single deal under their belt. So we were their first deal, which probably, I know for a fact, that probably we got a lot better deal because we were first than the other companies that we acquired. And they acquired probably 35, almost 36 companies. Hari Vasudevan (01:04:32.706) and which year was Hari Vasudevan (01:04:53.556) God, you guys have grown, and which year was this again? 2022, right? Emad (01:04:57.442) Well, we started the process in 2019, no, 2020, we started this process. And then in January of 2022, when we actually executed on Hari Vasudevan (01:05:11.832) Yeah, I mean, this is important for people to know because going into these kind of equity partnerships takes time. got to, can't just jump on it one or two months. You got to evaluate your partners. And I did that. It took me a year or so to actually find the right partner. And that's the reason I was asking for the timeline. So it took almost a good solid two years. You ended up with Alpine, great partner. Congrats on the trial on group. Obviously, you know, you guys rolled significant equity into. Trilon, what became Trilon. And then you continued to lead the water and municipal practice within the Trilon group, which essentially is Wagner, right? Emad (01:05:55.607) Well, Wagner was actually one of them, but we wanted to acquire firms in Louisiana. We acquired the firm in Arizona, acquired the firm in New Jersey. So yeah, yeah, yeah, we were, and I was leading all of them. So the CEOs of all of these companies, so I had a CEO for Wagner was reporting to me. The CEO of Wilson engineers in Arizona was reporting to me. The CEO and CME in New Jersey was reporting to Hari Vasudevan (01:06:04.226) But you were the first, right? Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:06:15.96) Got it. Hari Vasudevan (01:06:21.475) Got it. Emad (01:06:21.763) So I was a CEO of CEOs basically. we had almost, when I retired, we almost had 800 people. Yeah, which is at the time probably the 20th largest water company in the country. So we came a long way in actually two years when I was there. Hari Vasudevan (01:06:31.854) Cheese. Hari Vasudevan (01:06:47.782) Alpine and Trilon's growth, candidly, is nothing short of stunning. I mean, honestly, I ran into Dan Saner at Alpine in one of the conferences. And of course, they were interested in ThinkPower, as you know, right? But man, stunning growth and the foundation you guys provided to fuel that growth is nothing short of stunning, actually, right? Yeah, keep going. Emad (01:07:17.889) Yeah, so it's phenomenal. So I had a great journey. We built a great practice. And of course, it has grown even more since I left, which has been now almost a year and a half. Hari Vasudevan (01:07:30.444) Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. That's a great story. So let's kind of dive further into entrepreneurship. Right. I know, you know, time flies. It's already one hour, seven minutes into our recording. But but it's a beautiful conversation. Let me know when we want to stop it. We'll keep going if you will. Right. So so one of the things I want to ask you is one of the beauties of America, honestly, is the entrepreneurial spirit. Truly nothing. more is amazing about entrepreneur about America than entrepreneurial spirit right. You're a living proof I'm a living proof I came here as an immigrant you came here as an immigrant and both of us have built unbelievably successful companies right and 99.9 percent of US companies are small people don't realize it right 44 percent of US GDP is coming from small companies right. I think 46 % of employees are employed by small companies, if I remember my math right there, right? So it's a significant number. One of my questions is, as I started ThinkPower from nothing, and I scaled it when I left as almost 400 employees, what I realized was as you grow, you get access to all these sophisticated tax planning strategies, and lawyers, attorneys, and all these kind of things, and small companies don't. I mean, you know that fully well. Can, what can the regulatory environment be? What can the government do to really help entrepreneurs more? Right? I have a couple of ideas I want to run by you on this, right? One of the things I was thinking about is, why can't we half, make 50 % reduction for employees working in, in taxes, 50 % reduction in employees working in small companies to make it more attractive for entrepreneurial people to take on slightly riskier jobs in smaller companies. I did the math, I'll share it with you. It's about 3.59 % of the federal revenue and it costs about $176 billion. It sounds like a lot but in this day and age where people are blowing through deficits anyway, what is $176 billion? It's like a cup of coffee for you and I. Hari Vasudevan (01:09:57.878) So my question is, what do you think of that? The second idea that I have is a better tax rate for stock incentives for employees. Your own example where you bought Joe out, you had other employees who were incentivized. how do employees pay their taxes? For the most part, it's like the spread between the fair market value and in the strike price. And that's taxed at ordinary income. A lot of times there's negative consequences to it, right? Because you're not able to liquidate those stocks immediately. Can we drive a policy where it's like, hey, just like QSBS, which you may be aware of, right? QSBS, section 1202, where it's like, can you make that tax free up to a certain amount, right? It can be a few million bucks, a few hundred thousand bucks. That way you drive these entrepreneurial employees to take a job with startups. Emad (01:10:43.488) Thank you. Hari Vasudevan (01:10:55.084) Can you drive the economy there? I know I said a lot. Too, too, what's your take on that? Emad (01:11:00.383) No, I think this is important, but I think our priorities are in the wrong place. You know, as a country, our priorities are in the wrong place. So we really have to examine what is the sources of revenue and where it comes from and what is our sources of expenses in a national sense. So you look through a household budget, for example, or a company budget. for a small company, a significant amount of this is insurance. Hari Vasudevan (01:11:36.046) 100 % 100 % I mean my second my largest vendor at ThinkPower was my insurance companies. I'm not joking. Yes, it is nuts. On that note, Ema, sorry, sorry, I want to interject here. I mean, I'm talking about this was more than half a million bucks, right, for a company at ThinkPower, say it's number one. Number two was early on in the ThinkPower's evolution, right? Emad (01:11:38.665) Sure. Emad (01:11:45.92) No, I know. And this is... Hari Vasudevan (01:12:05.656) There's one employee who's, unfortunately, his kid had some... leukemia and things like that, right? The next year our insurance rate, health insurance rates went up by 69 % for every single employee, right? I had to really come in and say, know what, we have to absorb the cost because you know, we're still sub 20 employees. I would lose everybody if I didn't do that. But I also believed in providing healthcare for all our employees, right? It puts small companies at such a massive disadvantage. Because you don't have scale to negotiate better rates. Long story short, I agree with you on that. Insurance rates for all kinds of insurance and for health insurance just can kill small companies. Keep going. Emad (01:12:52.061) Yeah, so again, this goes back to our national priorities. mean, really, so for those smaller companies, I mean, they're faced with the choice, do I even insure our employees? And many of them don't. And even if they do, they probably only just do a small percentage of the employee and might not even cover the family. So you're basically putting a huge burden on employees to carry their own life, health insurance in this process. To me, health insurance should be our... healthcare should be a right that should be provided by the government. People say, well, do we actually have enough money in our budget to make healthcare as a right, to make college education as a right? I do believe we do, but our priorities is wrong. So if you look at our 60 % of the U.S. budget consists of four items. Defense, which has now exceeded a trillion dollars. Interest on debt, Social Security and Medicare. Those items, our debt keeps going up. And interest is going to become the first highest budget item. Hari Vasudevan (01:14:11.906) And as the interest rate goes up, your payment on the debt goes up. Emad (01:14:21.48) within the next three to five years. It's gonna be even more, exceed the defense budget. And even the defense budget, we are spending more on defense than the next combined, I forgot the numbers, I think it's like 16 or 17 countries combined. So we can afford probably to cut defense by 25 or 30 % annually and still be the most powerful country in the world. Hari Vasudevan (01:14:50.87) And I don't think any of you're not you're not saying that we shouldn't aspire to be the most powerful country in the world. At end of the day, you want to be the most powerful country in the world to drive your economy. You want to have the strongest currency in the world and all those things. It is just that, hey, we prioritize some of these things that way we can continue to do that in a sustainable manner. Is that a fair way to put it? Emad (01:15:12.889) Exactly and cutting 25 and 30 percent like a few years ago the Defense Department wanted to cut the budget for their tank tanks because most of the warfare today are not really tank based Exactly which is a lot cheaper than tanks But the wisdom of Congress is so we don't need to cut this program. We need to keep it and increase it so so again Hari Vasudevan (01:15:26.838) It's drones. Hari Vasudevan (01:15:37.774) Honestly, that's probably because somebody in wherever, some powerful state, swing state, might have an incentive to keep producing tanks, which may never be used because it's a source of jobs for that specific state, but it's not necessarily good for all of us. Emad (01:15:52.574) That's my point because we are actually, our system is corrupt because we are influenced, our policymakers are influenced by the special interest groups, whether it's the defense industry, whether it's the pharmaceutical industry, whether it's AIPAC in the case of Israel and all of the Christian Zionist movement that spends billions and billions of dollars on campaigns. They're not making decisions on the best interests of our country. They're making decisions based on these elected officials getting reelected. That's the focus. The focus is not to serve the constituents. So that's why really the whole system is where the problem is. So I want to start with a big picture first. Then I'm going to answer the question about priorities for the businesses. So we definitely need to make incentives for small businesses to thrive. Because if small businesses thrive, Hari Vasudevan (01:16:33.496) Yeah. Hari Vasudevan (01:16:41.282) Yes. Yes. Emad (01:16:50.939) they're going to be paying a lot more taxes and the employees are going to be spending a lot more money because they have more disposable income if they're successful to actually fuel the economy. Hari Vasudevan (01:17:01.454) 100 % because you know, talking about taxable income, listen, when I was the sole shareholder of ThinkPower Solutions, I was paying 40 % of my income as a flow through at the end of the day, right? Same thing you do to, know, Apple, Google, Facebook, whatever, Amazon and all these places. What happens is, you know, they have an entity in Ireland and they pay nothing to the US Uncle Sam at the end of the day, right? So. Small businesses and the taxes that small businesses, employees and business owners pay is honestly a significant chunk of tax source for the US government. And we can make it easier for small business to actually thrive in this great country. Emad (01:17:46.365) And for large businesses that are actually living off the poor and middle income people, class people and small businesses, it's unfair for them not to pay taxes. So really what the government need to do to actually balance this whole equation is to say there is a minimum tax for large corporations. They have to pay regardless of what, there's no loopholes. The minimum you're going to pay is this. Hari Vasudevan (01:17:59.138) Yeah. Emad (01:18:15.482) Now they still can get a lot of other loopholes, but many of those large corporations pay zero in taxes. Hari Vasudevan (01:18:23.064) Zero. Yeah. mean, how is that? Honestly, I've never understood that, right? Because it actually puts a small businesses, which are the engines of innovation. Like you said, Wagner really was the innovation engine. I've seen the evolution of small businesses. The smaller you are, you have to create a differentiator with your competition. So you innovate, you create some difference from the competition, and then you push the competition further to keep up with you, right? then a big company comes and buys you out or a private equity comes and buys you out which is I'm all for it right because that's that's a liquid even for the entrepreneur for the employees who may have shares and things like it's a great thing about this country the liquid even that comes through with it but you know this big companies who end up buying the small companies they don't necessarily innovate right they you know they just kind of live off the innovation for the next 15 20 years and then the innovation dies and then you got the new company coming in and they innovate and they disrupt the market and things like that. So long and short of it is we need to figure out a way to absolutely incentivize innovation risk taking for the top tier talent for them to say you know what I don't need to worry about health care I can go to a small company and start up and still support my family right and you know what if I'm making 100,000 bucks a year. from Google or from a small company, for example, it's Cairo AI here, I can actually make 10,000 bucks more if I go to Cairo AI because I get a tax break, right? And if this becomes company becomes a hit, I actually have the ability to make a lot more during a liquidity. And we need to really, you know. Emad (01:20:12.838) We need to re-examine the whole process with incentivizing small businesses to succeed and grow and thrive. Because this is really where the engine of growth for the US government and its funding. This is where it comes from, not from large corporations. Hari Vasudevan (01:20:17.902) 100%. 100%. Hari Vasudevan (01:20:29.4) percent. Yeah, large corporations, what they fund is they fund, you know, lobbying. Emad (01:20:39.663) That's exactly right. That's why the special interest groups, they all need to be banned. Hari Vasudevan (01:20:45.762) Yeah. Emad (01:20:47.643) This is illegal corruption. What is going on in our government? Hari Vasudevan (01:20:51.606) Which everybody knows honestly, right? So it's interesting. So that's good. So, you know, I want to hit on a couple of more topics, right? Which is you're an angel investor, you invest in crypto, you invest in AI companies and whatnot, right? What's your take? I mean, you have grandkids, have daughters, whatnot. What's your take? What is going to be the impact of AI on society, on You've been in the construction industry, construction industry, engineering industry. Where do you think AI is going to lead us? Emad (01:21:29.594) Well, of course, AI has a lot of, like any other technology, it has a very positive attributes and has some negative attributes. The positive attributes is AI is by nature, it is an iterative process to actually continue to improve itself. So you can save significant amount of time. mean, can, our team, for example, from Mississippi for a Just World, they do a lot of research. basically have taken a researcher maybe three or four or five months, they can probably do this research in a matter of hours. The problem with this is it's not verified. You don't know what the sources are. So you have to spend a lot of time to do this. we, yeah, well, but some of it is good. Yeah, so, but if you're saving somebody's time. Hari Vasudevan (01:22:16.47) Yeah, it's it's pure bullshit, to be honest, right? Hari Vasudevan (01:22:22.555) some of it's good. I'm not disputing that. Emad (01:22:28.101) from four or five months to about three, four hours. And then they can spend on top of this, let's say a month to clean up the data and verifying it and bid it. They're still gonna be three, four months ahead of the game. So it's actually gonna improve our productivity as a country. And AI is gonna happen, so we need to... But what I tell people is don't fight technology, you need to embrace it. Yeah. Exactly. You need to embrace it, but you need to figure out what can you do more with what you've got. So the employment picture of the future five years, 10 years from now is going be a lot different than what it was before. Hari Vasudevan (01:23:00.654) Absolutely. There's no way around it. Hari Vasudevan (01:23:19.618) Yeah, yeah. So you were to advise a 15 year old kid, right, who's going to be in the workforce in the next six, seven years, right? mean, they'll still be in the workforce even today, by doing small jobs, but full time employment, right? What is your advice be? AI? Or what would you tell them? Emad (01:23:20.762) Yeah, to to do to do. Emad (01:23:41.302) I would tell them to get into that field. Start studying it. Get into AI, get into quantum mechanics, get into robotics, get into coding, all of the things that we're going to need five, 10 years from now, a lot more than what we did before. You know, within the prediction is within the next five to 10 years, we're probably going to lose over a million. Hari Vasudevan (01:23:45.43) in the field of AI. Emad (01:24:11.043) truck drivers because of autonomous driving. So if I was young, I wouldn't advise my kid to actually get into becoming a truck driver because it's a dead end position ultimately. Hari Vasudevan (01:24:15.864) Yeah, Elon Musk. Hari Vasudevan (01:24:31.15) Yeah, yeah, there is a time I mean for listeners, there's a time when actually truck driving was very attractive. They could work six months a year and take off for six months, but times have changed obviously, right? So. Emad (01:24:49.303) And this applies to every industry. Hari Vasudevan (01:24:51.818) Engineering, construction, what's your take on that? mean, is engineering going to be disrupted? Emad (01:24:54.425) It's the same thing. I think the companies that do not adopt it, they're gonna be in the dust of history. mean, similarly, this is what I remember back 25, 30 years ago when LIDAR started. People are saying, you're crazy, why are you investing in LIDAR? You're gonna be mapping all these areas, what are you gonna do with it? And of course, it revolutionized. Hari Vasudevan (01:25:06.328) Yeah. Emad (01:25:26.168) large area mapping. You can map a state in probably six months. State of Sazou, Mississippi. Obviously, Texas is going to take a lot longer. Hari Vasudevan (01:25:28.184) Yeah, big time. Hari Vasudevan (01:25:37.262) Yeah, no, you know, honestly, that's actually a big deal, right? Because, you know, I've seen this in the utility space, which I, you know, I know fairly well about is LIDAR is changing vegetation management, LIDAR and AI actually, right? Because you're just saying what took one or two years to map out the vegetation that encroaches your transmission lines, distribution lines, which are the biggest source of outages, right? LIDAR and using AI to analyze the data is actually accelerating that by three, I mean, by four times almost, right? So what used to take one or two years is now taking three months. And they're able to predict outages with an 85 % accuracy, hey, during a storm that fuse is going to be out, which means I need to send veg management crews now to chop off those branches. that odds of outages is limited. mean, honestly, again, going back to your LIDAR days, LIDAR is really making a big impact on the utility space today. Emad (01:26:45.592) Yeah, and really every aspect of, mean, USGS used to use quad maps. I don't if you remember, these quad maps were not accurate enough and it took him years to actually develop it on an initial wide basis. And now you can fly it and even update those flights in a significant list time. But we didn't really lose employees as a result. There's a lot of fear that we're gonna lose employees. where we're to be able to do a lot more with it. That's really what we have to understand. Technology is going to enable us to do a lot more with the same staff that we have. Hari Vasudevan (01:27:22.668) Yeah, no, I agree with on that. that's great about AI. Let's get to rapid fire questions, my friend. You ready? Yes, that's we wrap it up in five minutes. So rapid fire questions. You've just been elected as senator of Mississippi, representing the great state of Mississippi in Washington, D.C., right? I see a smile on your face. Emad (01:27:31.424) Yeah, and I got about five minutes, so. Hari Vasudevan (01:27:52.83) So Senator Al-Turk, what are you going to do, sir? Emad (01:27:59.564) think the first thing I will do is... figuring out how we can balance our budget. Because we're robbing our kids and grandkids. When we are, I mean, this beautiful bill that just passed is gonna get us probably to a $40 trillion debt. This is not sustainable. If we had this debt to income ratio in any of the companies we were talking about, we would have been bankrupt by now. The company cannot sustain this table of debt. The second thing I would do is focus primarily on changing this corrupt system we have. That's why we spent $12 trillion in wars in the last 25 years. But we complain, we don't have time to build schools, but we're bombing schools in Gaza with military weapons. We don't have money to build the rural hospitals. Rural hospitals are closing in trickled time. but we have money to buy hospitals in Gaza. And this is just an example. Our infrastructure is becoming... Hari Vasudevan (01:29:06.478) Yeah, let me know. The trillion dollar war in Iraq, was it a trillion dollar war, I guess? Emad (01:29:12.631) We have been talking about not only Iraq, you have Iraq, you have Afghanistan, you have Syria, you have Libya, have Somalia, you have Sudan. We've been involved in seven wars, and now Iran. And Ukraine, of course, all the support, then of course you have Israel is continuing, is fighting, using our own dollars here. So why are we supporting a foreign country like Israel in the tune of 350... Hari Vasudevan (01:29:25.261) and Ukraine. Emad (01:29:41.322) billion since its inception, where Israeli citizens have free health care and free college education, but we're denying it to our people here in the United States. Hari Vasudevan (01:29:51.234) That is one powerful stat, right? Where here we have no money in the budget to actually support our own people in terms of high quality healthcare and high quality infrastructure that we expect in the world's leading superpower in the countries that we support actually are providing better healthcare. So that's a really good. one and you know I hope you run for to be the senator of the great state of Mississippi and and we'll go from there. any other you know are you you big into college sports or pro sports anything like that? Emad (01:30:39.087) College and I'm not a pro guy because I'm I'm an SAC SAC guy Hari Vasudevan (01:30:41.228) Yeah, college sports. SCC guy, who do you root for? Emad (01:30:46.474) We now went to Mississippi State and Ole Miss. Hari Vasudevan (01:30:49.298) Miss Anne. So so so you so you're a Eli Manning guy, Archie Manning guy, SEC guy. Is that right? Emad (01:30:50.774) So, Emad (01:30:57.672) Yeah, of course, unless Mr. Bistair is winning, then I'm promising to stay. Hari Vasudevan (01:31:04.002) know Dak Prescott, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback is from Mississippi State. So do you root for the Dallas Cowboys? Emad (01:31:06.838) Absolutely, yeah. And during that time when he was here, actually he brought Mississippi State for a certain period of time was number one in the nation. Hari Vasudevan (01:31:21.186) Yeah, so we certainly hope that Dak brings the Cowboys a championship, but you know, we have the great Jerry Jones as the owner and general manager, so you never know. So anyway, do you have any take on Arch Manning? Do you think he's gonna be successful? What's your take on that? Emad (01:31:45.078) I don't he's been sluggish in the beginning of the year, but he comes from a huge tradition of his family, obviously between his dad and his brothers and now him. I think he has hope, but we just probably need a little bit more experience. Hari Vasudevan (01:32:04.92) Yeah, what's your take on NIL being Mississippi State guy? NIL, do you think it's gonna help or hurt college football? What's your general take on that? Emad (01:32:16.502) I think it's probably going to help. Hari Vasudevan (01:32:19.66) Yeah, yeah, okay. Awesome. Emad, my friend, seriously, thank you so much for your generous time here. It is a super fun discussion, super free-flowing. Thanks for everything. Emad (01:32:33.921) Thank you for making the time and good luck with your podcast and I hope in few years I'll give you a call and you say I don't have time for you anyway. I'm so popular now. Hari Vasudevan (01:32:47.406) No, I really appreciate your time, my friend. Obviously, I said this at the beginning of the show. I learned a lot from you and wish you all the success with AI, crypto and all the investments you do, all the social justice causes that you're leading. We need more people like you in the US and elsewhere. So congrats and stay in touch, my friend. Emad (01:33:13.268) Thank you, I appreciate it. Have a good day.