What if most private equity firms are using AI completely wrong — and leaving massive IRR on the table because of it? Mohamad Chahine has sat in nearly every seat in the deal ecosystem: corporate engineer at Schlumberger, MBA consultant, PE deal team member, operating partner, and now PE tech founder. In this episode, he shares a rare practitioner's perspective on value creation, the trust curve, and why the PE library desperately needs more voices from people who've actually done the deals.

Mohamad is the author of Private Equity Next and is currently building Meit Trium, a platform developing what he calls "AI Value Readiness Operating Systems" — tools designed not to save analyst hours, but to maximize IRR in ways human effort alone cannot.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Mohamad's full-circle journey: engineer → consultant → PE deal teams → operating partner → PE tech founder
• Why an engineering mindset is actually an asset in private equity
• How PE firms really view consultants — and when they add vs. destroy value
• The concept of Total Value Creation and its five buckets
• EBITDA as a flywheel metric and how to trace value creation to its source
• What founders need to understand before pursuing PE capital
• The trust curve: why operating partners should be engaged before acquisition
• Why most PE tech startups are solving the wrong problem
• AI as a multiplication tool vs. an efficiency tool — and why it matters to LPs
• Mohamad's upcoming trilogy: The PE Quarterback, The PE Coach, and The PE Game Plan

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