Most general contractors are consumers of construction technology. NOVO Construction is something different -- a Bay Area commercial GC that has built its own internal software for 15 years, while also being one of the most deliberate buyers of outside tools in the industry.

In this episode, Cameron sits down with Colin Stoner, Chief Innovation Officer at NOVO, to unpack how a large commercial GC actually decides what to build, what to buy, and what to leave alone. From partnering with early-stage startups, Colin's framework is part product manager, part VC, and entirely practical.

• The "wheel and spokes" model NOVO uses to decide what to build internally vs. buy from a partner
• Why NOVO passed on buying large scale platforms and what the "60% solution at 100% of the cost" calculation actually looks like
• What makes a construction tech partnership work and what founders get wrong in the first five minutes
• How AI changed the build vs. buy math by collapsing the cost of an MVP from months to minutes
• Why Colin tracks token spend as an adoption indicator, not a cost to control
• What Colin hopes early-stage founders ask before they pitch

• 0:00 Colin's background and how he landed at NOVO
• 7:00 NOVO's growth and what that ride looked like from the inside
• 12:00 Why NOVO built Sentinel and what problem it was actually solving
• 17:30 The buy vs. build framework: what stays in-house, what gets bought
• 23:00 What NOVO looks for in a technology partner and how early-stage pilots actually work
• 29:00 How AI changed the economics of building internally
• 36:00 What NOVO is working on now: knowledge graphs, drawing parsing, and Conduit
• 42:00 Humanoid robots, context windows, and where the industry is headed
• 50:00 What Colin tells founders who want to sell to GCs
• 55:00 What Colin hopes never changes in construction and what needs to

Build what only you can build. NOVO built Sentinel because the market couldn't give them what they needed at the time. That calculus is always live -- when a partner does something better, you buy.

Point solutions beat platforms when they're genuinely better. The compliment is in the specificity. If a vendor understands the problem deeper than NOVO ever would internally, that's the buy.

The pilot is mutual due diligence. Colin doesn't just evaluate software -- he evaluates founders. Can they think on their feet? Do they know what an RFI actually is and why it exists? The product is part of the bet. The team is most of it.

AI collapsed the cost of being wrong. When an MVP took four months, you held on to bad ideas too long. When it takes 30 minutes, throwing something away is just part of the process. That changes what's worth trying.

Token spend is a signal, not a line item. Colin's framing for leadership: if NOVO is spending significant money on tokens, that means the team is driving efficiency. Measure it like output, not overhead.

The relationship layer doesn't get automated. Whatever AI handles next, Colin's hope is that the human side of construction -- trade relationships, trust, reputation -- gets protected. The bet is that AI handles the grind and the people handle everything that actually matters.

Most contractors wait for an ownership opportunity to come to them. Ryan Wall went and found one. In this episode, the CEO of Silicon Valley Mechanical breaks down how he and two partners acquired a $20M contractor in 2014 and built it into a $600M business with over 1,000 employees, and what he'd tell anyone in construction who wants to do the same.

Ryan and Clearstory Founder and CEO Cameron Page cover the acquisition structure, the culture shifts that made SVM what it is today, and how the AI and data center boom is reshaping mechanical contracting from the ground up.

• How three PMs quietly acquired SVM without tipping off the market
• Why buying an existing company beat starting from scratch
• How SVM broke down the office/field divide and made it a competitive advantage
• Where AI is delivering results in mechanical contracting, and where it fell flat
• What PMs should be doing now to position themselves for ownership

• 0:00 Ryan's path into mechanical contracting
• 9:50 The SVM acquisition: how the deal came together
• 22:41 From project manager to CEO: imposter syndrome and leadership
• 28:39 Why field experience matters in construction leadership
• 35:23 Early AI adoption: what worked and what flopped
• 40:51 How AI is changing construction processes on the ground
• 46:47 Career advice for PMs with an entrepreneurial spirit
• 53:38 The future of construction and AI

• Buy, don't build from zero. Doubling $20M is easier than doubling nothing.
• Succession gaps are opportunity. Healthy business, no exit plan. More common than you think.
• Communication is the job. Over-communicate, especially when things go wrong.
• Break down the wall. Office and field on the same side. It changes everything.
• AI improves process, it doesn't replace people. Yet.
• Train your replacement. Every transition opens a door for someone below.

This is Behind the Build — a podcast hosted by Clearstory founder and CEO Cameron Page. Each episode goes inside the real stories shaping modern construction, with candid conversations with builders, GCs, subcontractors, and construction tech leaders about the decisions, trade-offs, and realities that almost never happen in public. Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode.