Sean Devine, Founder & CEO of XBE, appeared on the "Construction Genius" podcast with Eric Anderton.

It was a great interview that covered some important and interesting topics including:

• How is the rapid decline in the cost of intelligence (knowledge deflation) reshaping the competitive edge in construction?
• In an environment where more knowledge work is automated, why is vision and trust becoming crucial for leadership success?
• With specialization increasingly commoditized, how should construction companies position themselves to thrive amid uncertainty?

You can listen here.

If you'd prefer to read the transcript, it is included below.

Eric:
AI is changing knowledge work faster than most people realize. The cost of intelligence is collapsing, which means estimating, scheduling, and planning—the knowledge-driven parts of construction—are becoming automated. And if your edge has been “we execute better,” that edge is disappearing. So what actually matters now?

Sean Devine is the CEO of XBE, and he argues that leadership in construction isn't about managing tasks anymore—it's about seeing. Seeing uncertainty, seeing multiple possible futures, and positioning your company to succeed no matter what happens. We break down why vision is the new competitive edge, why specialization is turning into a liability, and why trust, not just data, is becoming the most valuable asset in business.

We also talk about whether construction company owners who have spent years building a business on execution should adapt or even sell their companies. This conversation has a ton of insight and vision. It’s a clear look at what’s happening as AI impacts construction, and how to make sure that you’re ready for that world.

Let’s get right into it. This is Eric Anderton, and you’re listening to Construction Genius, a leadership masterclass. Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If you’re a construction leader, you know all about the perspiration, and this show is about the 1% inspiration you can add to your hard work to help you improve your leadership.

Eric:
Sean, welcome to Construction Genius.

Sean:
Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me.

Eric:
Before we start, you mentioned earlier you’re in San Francisco today. Please tell the audience why you’re there.

Sean:
My wife and I decided at the last minute we would take our nine-year-old twins to NBA All-Star Weekend here in San Francisco. For my birthday last year, my wife got us a trip to Indianapolis for All-Star Weekend, and we had such a good time that we were looking for an excuse to redo the experience.

Eric:
That’s great. What was your favorite thing about the last All-Star Weekend you went to?

Sean:
My favorite thing wasn’t even NBA-related. We went to a concert at All-Star Weekend. Keith Urban was performing, and we ended up five feet away from him for the entire show. He was face-to-face with us. It was pretty thrilling to be near someone so talented and famous—someone otherworldly but also very human. Right afterward, another country singer who had performed ended up in line with us to get into the All-Star Game with his family, so we got to know him a little bit. There were a bunch of interesting musical moments I didn’t expect.

Eric:
That’s interesting. Are you a fan of Keith Urban or the All-Star Game?

Sean:
I’m not a superfan of Keith Urban, but I listen to his music. He’s a spectacular guitarist, almost impossibly good, and he showed that off during the concert. It’s amazing being in the presence of someone with transcendent talent. As far as seeing the human side, you could see that he’s both very attractive and also aging. It’s part of his brand, but when you’re literally a few feet away, you see the whole picture. He’s also a little guy, which I find sort of entertaining because so few people are 6'5". It was fun noticing that.

Eric:
Nine-year-old twins—are they identical?

Sean:
No, they’re not identical. Different sizes, different vibes, but they were born at the same time.

Eric:
Let’s dive into the meat of the conversation. You’ve done some thinking around what you call the coming “deflation of knowledge work.” What do you mean by that as it relates to the construction industry?

Sean:
I think about this a lot in general, and last year’s focus on inflation was interesting because I believe we’re on the precipice of the largest deflation in knowledge work that we’ve ever seen. When we look back in 10 years, I suspect we’ll find it unbelievable that we were so focused on inflation just as the cost of intelligence was about to plummet.

We’re in around year six of noticing that the cost of a given amount of artificial intelligence—think of it as the cost of a token of intelligence—drops by an order of magnitude every year. What cost a dollar two years ago costs a penny today, and soon it’ll be a fraction of a penny. Meanwhile, the amount of intelligence available artificially is going up as we put more compute resources into training and inference.

The percentage of knowledge work that can be done by AI is increasing rapidly, and the cost is going down just as fast. That means there will be two classes of organizations: those that ride that exponential curve and take advantage of the dramatic deflation in the cost of intelligence and those that don’t. Because it’s an exponential growth, it’s going to feel sudden, and the effects could be jarring. The question is: Are you positioned as an individual and as a company to benefit—or at least not get hurt—by this rapid change?

Eric:
What are the implications of that for a construction company, given that part of its work is knowledge work, and a large portion is the hands-on fieldwork? How should they position themselves strategically?

Sean:
I’d think about the portion of a construction company’s work that actually contributes to competitive advantage. While most of the labor hours may be from field crews, the competitive advantage often comes from the knowledge work—estimating, planning, scheduling, continuous improvement, and making the right capital expenditures. The difference in performance between companies often comes down to how well they do those things.

If your competitive advantage simply comes from better execution in the field, that’s getting automated and commoditized. Estimating, planning, scheduling, and improvement—those areas will see the most profound changes. Whereas the crew side is crucial, the real question is whether you’re advantaged or disadvantaged in the knowledge areas.

Eric:
How do you advise a CEO to balance the demands of ongoing projects while adapting to these big changes on the horizon?

Sean:
Lean on your executives or managers to handle day-to-day project execution, so leadership at the top can look ahead. If they’re stuck micromanaging projects, they won’t have time to position the company for changes in intelligence and automation. You need to be ready to take advantage of the falling costs and rising capabilities of AI. Only top leaders can see the big picture and guide the organization’s strategy.

Construction is complex because you have partners and owners at different stages of development, all wanting projects done quickly, safely, cheaply, and with quality. There’s a lot of inertia. But I’d say embrace uncertainty. If you wait until everything is certain, you’ll be behind competitors who adapt faster. Instead, optimize against various possible futures—don’t place all your bets on one outcome.

A lot of leaders think they need to have “the” answer. But in a world of uncertainty, you want to position yourself to be successful in multiple scenarios. That means not just waiting around for clarity. You can’t know exactly how things will go, but you can set up your organization to thrive in a range of possibilities.

Eric:
As you look into your crystal ball for the next three to five years, especially around estimating, planning, scheduling, continuous improvement, and capex, where do you see the major changes?

Sean:
Starting with estimating: right now, certain companies gain an edge from arbitrage of information—like having a better sense of what your costs will be, who else will bid, the supply-demand balance, and so on. Soon, information that used to be a competitive advantage will become a commodity. Tools like ChatGPT are already shockingly good at researching, synthesizing, and providing knowledge. That’s only going to get better very quickly.

However, understanding pricing means you must see the future: how does the customer value this, how will competitors bid, what are their alternatives, and what’s your own opportunity cost if you lose a project? AI can gather the data, but also simulate possible outcomes. We’ll see a lot of innovation in forecasting different scenarios and selecting the right strategies. Companies that master how to navigate uncertainty—rather than just gather information—will gain an edge. And I think we’ll see that change accelerate in the next 6 to 18 months.

Eric:
What part is left for human beings in all of this? If the technology is making the choices for us, or presenting near-perfect solutions, what do we humans still do? And what kinds of people should we hire to use this information effectively?

Sean:
First, I have to say, “I don’t know.” Because if you told me four years ago that software development would be largely commoditized in six years, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet here we are. We’ve seen AI quickly take over much of the coding process. That taught me about humility: any specialization is in danger of being replaced.

We’ve likely hit peak specialization. The future belongs to generalists who have good taste or judgment. By “good taste,” I mean they can integrate information and make qualitative judgments without clinging to a narrow identity. People with small but sturdy identities can embrace the infinite possibilities generated by AI. They’re flexible, they can adapt, and they bring a certain intuition or taste to decisions that data alone can’t replicate.

Eric:
Is that why intuition is so important? Because it’s a doorway to grasping what isn’t fully knowable?

Sean:
Yes. Sometimes “intuition” is just an excuse for not doing the work, which isn’t good. But having a gut sense of uncertainty, regularly acknowledging we can’t fully predict the future, and still making robust decisions—that’s valuable. Machines can run the data, but they don’t have inherent ambition or desire. They don’t care about an outcome. Humans do, and that drive changes how decisions get made.

Eric:
So you’d say ambition is central to being human, and that’s what machines lack?

Sean:
Yes. Machines don’t have a will to live. Our biology gives us that fundamental drive—and from that will to live, we get ambition, purpose, direction. Machines are given a goal; they don’t set it themselves. That might be the biggest difference: we decide what matters and why.

Eric:
If the machines do the sweat-of-the-brow work, how do we live enhanced lives? What do we do with ourselves if so much of our work is automated?

Sean:
Look at history: most work people do today didn’t exist 150 years ago. The entire economy shifted. Then, it happened over a longer timeline, but still quite fast historically. Now, the exponent is much steeper, so it’ll happen faster. But humans have always adapted. We find new tasks, create new knowledge, and discover new forms of meaning. Knowledge is infinite; there’s an endless frontier. We don’t necessarily know what those new roles or activities will be, but that’s what we’ve always done.

Eric:
From a leadership perspective, if what sets humans apart from machines is ambition, then will great companies be led by those who understand human beings at that deeper level—tapping into that ambition alongside technology?

Sean:
Absolutely. The leader needs to provide that ambition. Faith or belief in possibility is the superpower and raw material of greatness. People want certainty, but we can’t provide absolute certainty—only a vision of possibility. Leaders who can say, “We believe in the infinite possibilities of knowledge creation, and we don’t have to predict the future to benefit from it,” will set the direction. They lend faith to the whole team.

Eric:
So that’s about vision, right? Being able to see—even if “seeing” means seeing multiple possible futures. That’s where the premium is, as opposed to raw execution.

Sean:
Exactly. Execution is like ammunition. Once it’s cheap and abundant, the question becomes who has the best gun—who’s aiming? Leadership and vision are the guns deciding where to point all that execution. It’s more powerful and also more dangerous.

Eric:
Let’s say I’m a construction company owner who built a billion-dollar business through operations, not vision. If my edge was execution and now that’s commoditized, how do I position my company for the future?

Sean:
If your advantage is rare hard assets—like land, quarries, unique equipment, or natural monopolies—then you may be fine. That advantage won’t go away quickly. But if your advantage has only been, “We’re better at blocking and tackling,” it’s time to think about selling or radically changing, because pure execution advantages are going to shrink in value.

Eric:
In construction, many say it’s a relationship business: if the numbers are close, I pick the people I trust. Does relationship-building have an even bigger premium when execution is commoditized?

Sean:
Yes. A relationship often means trust—I trust how you’ll handle situations. If our execution is roughly equal, the differentiator is whether I believe you’ll pivot correctly when something changes. I want a partner who believes in positive-sum outcomes, not someone working at cross-purposes. So trust-based relationships become more important when the execution gap narrows.

Eric:
Could we say, in short, that as knowledge work deflates, two big premiums are (1) the ability to see and believe in multiple possible futures, and (2) the ability to build trust and confidence?

Sean:
Yes, precisely—vision that embraces uncertainty and trust that fosters collaboration. Those are the qualities that matter when execution is no longer the limiting factor.

Any time you see someone “win,” remember that it could be luck in one version of the future, or it could be because they made a strategy robust against many possible futures. The best leaders are those who consistently make choices that work across that distribution of outcomes.

Eric:
Sean, I know we could go much longer here. I really appreciate your time. Please tell us more about your company, XBE, and how people can get in touch with you.

Sean:
I’m the founder and CEO of XBE. We’re an enterprise software company that provides an operations and business management platform for large, vertically integrated horizontal contractors—think companies that own quarries, asphalt plants, ready-mix plants, trucks, crews, and so on. I started working on it in 2016 and grew it from scratch to about 40 such contractors using XBE as their primary operations platform. Our mission is to fully integrate the physical and financial perspectives of the business into one thought. The website is x-b-e.com, and you can find me online if you search my name, Sean Devine. Feel free to get in touch.

Eric:
One last question: what’s your top parenting tip for parents of twins?

Sean:
It’s the same for any parent, but it helped us greatly in the hardest days with twins: remember there won’t be a time you won’t wish you could have back. Even the stressful moments are part of something you’ll look back on fondly. That perspective carried us through tough days.

Eric:
Sean, thanks so much for coming on today.

Sean:
Thanks for having me, Eric.