Episode
A 50-Year-Old Pipe Support Company Where 100 Employees Now Build Their Own AI Agents
- Podcast
- Chuck Yates Got A Job
- Published
- Aug 28, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3680
- Processing state
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Summary
A garage full of Ethereum rigs once set a house on fire, and that was only the warmup. Rakesh Agrawal and Lloyd Kirchner run Piping Technology & Products, a 50 year old Houston manufacturer where 100 employees now build their own AI agents and a welding cobot just got unveiled to 450 people on the shop floor. Cut cables in West Texas, new collar jobs, Pope Leo, and why the guy with the pickup truck had every reason to be nervous. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io Click here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 The house fire 05:07 A cryptic DM about dad's company 06:15 What Piping Technology makes 09:56 Family business and the second chair 12:43 Every tech wave since dial up 17:02 Getting AI to actually spread 20:14 The guy who cut the cables 24:04 Unveiling a welding cobot 26:16 Pope Leo and new collar work 35:32 Agents on the quoting desk 42:22 The CIO problem 44:22 Letting Claude psychoanalyze you 49:04 Guardrails and permissions 53:11 Five years out 57:56 Intention and action https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai