Most companies talk about AI strategy but freeze when it's time to actually implement. Collin McLelland shares how one E&P CEO cut through the noise by focusing on small, tangible wins—like automating regulatory filings that saved 1200 engineering hours. The real insight? Stop chasing sexy AI projects and start with workflows that deliver immediate ROI. Once teams see quick wins, adoption spreads fast and sophistication builds naturally.

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00:00 - The AI strategy question every executive is asking
00:45 - Why big companies struggle to start with AI
01:39 - Start small: the $1M savings approach
02:20 - Real example: automating regulatory filings saves 1200 hours
02:39 - Why companies chase sexy AI projects instead of practical wins
03:07 - How sophistication builds through successive applications
03:58 - Reimagining workflows: focus on outputs, not processes
04:58 - The foundation: get your data house in order first
05:50 - Pattern recognition: where the real home runs happen

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Collide AI 2025 Wrapped Part 1 turns into a real talk on why forward deployed engineers win where AI pilots stall, with Michael Cortez, John, and Nick Smart swapping war stories from completions, geophysics, and the startup trenches while they map out how Collide Enterprise moves past basic chat tools into search plus workflows that actually hold up in the real world.

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00:00 Setup and intros
 00:45 Michael’s path and joining Collide
 01:59 Nick’s background and role shift
 03:08 Collide Enterprise vs community
 04:16 Search, RAG, and workflow evolution
 06:31 Why out of the box AI falls short
 08:41 Time savings and real work focus
 11:39 Single source of truth vision
 13:16 Small teams scaling bigger assets
 17:18 AI adoption vs past tech hype
 19:26 Digital transformation missing link
 20:20 Why FDEs make pilots work
 23:36 Biggest learnings this year
 31:52 What’s next in 2026
 38:57 Bold predictions for 3 to 5 years
 47:37 Fine tuned models teaser and wrap

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Collide basically did its own Spotify Wrapped and the punchline is simple: the community doubled, the conversations got more technical, and the team got way clearer on what Collide is now and where it’s headed. Crystal, Todd, Jacob, and Sydney walk through 2025 stats, why events evolved, how Energy 101 came back, what university partnerships unlocked, why Collider AI took a pause, and the platform upgrades and community goals lined up for 2026.

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00:00 Collide Wrapped setup
 00:24 Why an energy specific platform works
 01:29 LinkedIn fatigue and the Collide vision
 02:55 Community calls and Power Hours
 03:33 Member growth stats
 04:26 2025 output highlights
 05:04 Events evolved and ETN sunset
 09:38 What members missed most
 10:28 Energy 101 comeback
 13:24 University partnerships
 18:56 Student field trip recap
 21:49 Talent pipeline and students
 25:24 Collider AI update
 29:31 Gamification and Dog House
 33:02 Platform UX roadmap
 33:48 2026 goals and favorite moments
 42:02 Wrap and thanks

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Catching yourself rereading last year’s VC emails while you’re back in Silicon Valley is a pretty good way to realize how wild the last 12 months have been. Colin, Chuck, Canisius, and Todd break down how Collide AI is turning fast POCs into real production workflows, why change management is the actual moat, and how a stacked forward deployed team plus community driven distribution is setting up 2026 to be the year everything scales.

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00:00 Product market fit jokes and kickoff
00:28 VC email flashback and velocity
01:29 Forward deployed model and AI first mindset
02:18 Sam Texas and AI coding shift
04:04 What AI first actually means
06:18 Not just podcast bros anymore
07:00 AI breaks silos across the business
08:21 Doglegs example and incentives
09:57 Change management is the advantage
10:18 Client story and regulatory filings win
12:42 Selling outcomes not hype
13:36 Building the FTE team and faster delivery
16:24 AI strategy as workflow ROI first
18:26 Grok as a thought partner and GPU cluster
20:15 Shale revolution mindset parallel
22:29 Recruiting, software DNA, and stacked team
26:16 Content and community as a recruiting engine
29:11 Distribution flywheel in the real world
30:22 Team distribution vs product debate
32:32 2026 is the scaling year
34:02 Community platform finally clicking
36:09 Building the community platform the hard way
39:20 Scaling clients, POCs, and production
41:09 Why mom and pops matter
41:55 Energy demand tailwinds and macro impact
44:44 One word answer for next year: scale
45:20 POC to production cycle time focus
47:12 Scaling tech, sales, and financing
49:45 Moving at AI speed story
50:14 Raising capital and building serious software
52:56 Collide as the operator layer vision
54:02 Gratitude and community over everything

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H2S gets the Hollywood treatment, and let’s just say reality has some thoughts. The crew tears into how *Landman* portrays one of the oilfield’s most dangerous hazards, separating legit risks from TV-level exaggeration based on real-world experience. Along the way, the conversation veers into iconic Billy Bob Thornton one-liners, unhinged family drama, and the kind of business chaos that makes the show wildly entertaining, even when it stretches the truth. Equal parts industry reality check and group chat-style commentary, it’s honest, funny, and exactly how people who’ve actually been around the patch talk about this stuff.

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00:00 - Intro
00:27 - H2S Safety
06:32 - Maria Character Analysis
06:42 - Ariana Character Insights
10:22 - Allie Larter's New House Tour
11:33 - Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley Loans
17:35 - Matt & Warden Discuss Andy Garcia
22:10 - The Snow Cone Scene Breakdown
23:50 - Rebecca's Plane Ride Experience
26:15 - Snakes Only Deal with Snakes Concept
28:05 - Demi Moore at Monty's Grave
31:10 - Final Thoughts on Episode
34:00 - Weekend Wrap-Up

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Chuck, Matt, Gates, and Boar got together to unpack “Landman” Season 2, Episode 2, and it turned into the perfect mix of oilfield therapy session and comedy hour, calling out the ridiculous drilling logic, roasting Cooper’s disastrous money moves, and laughing through the show’s dramatic family moments. They riff on everything from cartoon-level oilfield economics to cartel side hustles and legal chaos, plus one absolutely unhinged analogy comparing modern extraction to a Whataburger milkshake. And of course, the infamous “sins of the father” moment sparks plenty of debate. If you’re into oil and gas or just love watching a good TV meltdown get dissected by people who actually know the industry, this breakdown hits the spot.

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00:00 - Intro
00:24 - Cooper's Character Analysis
02:12 - Opening Montage Breakdown
04:00 - Cooper’s Financial Situation Explained
07:53 - Breakfast Burritos Scene Discussion
08:41 - Man Camp Insights
10:53 - Tommy vs The DJ Showdown
13:18 - Demi Moore's Cameo
14:01 - Rebecca's Role in the Episode
19:58 - Cooper's Deal Unpacked
27:50 - Best Relationship Advice from the Show
29:10 - Episode Recap and Highlights
29:48 - Final Thoughts on the Episode
34:30 - Thanksgiving Reflections
36:00 - Oil District Overview

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Canisius and Bill dug into the whole on-prem vs cloud debate through the lens of AI, pointing out that massive compute needs and generative models pretty much force serious work into the cloud, with most operators moving to a hybrid setup rather than pure on-prem or multi-cloud. They spent a lot of time on trust, encryption, and data ownership, stressing that customer data stays isolated, is not used to train models unless you opt in, and that Microsoft’s job is to be the secure, scalable platform while companies like Collide handle the oil and gas specific workflows and “last mile” value. They also hit on why “we already have Azure and Copilot” is not the same as having a purpose-built solution, why a single-cloud plus good governance usually beats juggling multiple hyperscalers, and closed with a look ahead to a world where agents manage other agents and AI is wired into everyday work across legal, operations, and the field.

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Continental Resources’ John Argo sat down with us to talk about how AI can materially improve safety and performance in the oilfield, starting with the Lifesaver Initiative, a collaboration between multiple operators and workover companies to use AI and shared incident data to surface well- and job-specific risks before crews ever step on location. Drawing on his own path from first-generation oilfield kid to leading Continental’s Williston Basin, John connected the dots between the shale revolution (where U.S. production wildly outperformed every forecast), our still-low recovery factors (often under 20%), and the massive upside in using AI to capture tribal knowledge, diagnose problems faster, and turn scattered data into actionable frontline insight. He closed by tying it back to the culture that built Continental in the first place, embodied by Harold Hamm mapping wells at night from library logs and made the case that AI is the next big lever for the same mindset: more energy, safer operations, and better use of the resources we already have.

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Aurian Norouzi from Kraken Oil and Nick Smart from Collide break down how Kraken is using AI to replace some of the most time-draining midstream and commercial workflows, from digging through gas contracts to analyzing acreage dedications. They walk through real examples like automating North Dakota stripper-well filings, speeding up third-party forecasting with GIS data, and mapping contract dedications directly in Collide. A quick look at how AI is cutting manual work, reducing friction, and helping teams move way faster.

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Michael and Buck broke down how well search and automated regulatory workflows are already helping small, lean production teams move faster. Instead of digging through PDFs, Buck can pull a full well history in seconds, and he sees the next big win as using AI for diagnostics, spotting trends, suggesting likely issues, and helping pumpers focus on what actually matters. They also talked about the huge amount of tribal knowledge stuck in people’s heads and how tools like transcripts and voice-to-text can finally capture it so newer hands aren’t starting from scratch.

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