{"podcast":{"title":"POWERS","slug":"powers-1144811","podcast_index_feed_id":1144811,"rss_url":"https://thefort.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"https://www.powerspod.com/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/542c1dce-d934-11ed-b705-43cdef1b1abd/image/acaa7171a7a4ab31e8321b0fe2409f64.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Chris Powers","episode_count":421,"summary":"Conversations with the best founders, entrepreneurs, and investors.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T18:22:17.375067+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/powers-1144811"},"episode":{"title":"The Ex-SpaceX Engineer Reinventing the American Home with Riley Meik (#421)","slug":"the-ex-spacex-engineer-reinventing-the-american-home-with-riley-meik-421","published_at":"2026-07-01T09:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/powers-1144811/the-ex-spacex-engineer-reinventing-the-american-home-with-riley-meik-421","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/powers-1144811","url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/ATHLLC5365814160.mp3","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/ATHLLC5365814160.mp3","summary":"In this episode, Chris sits down with Riley Meik, co-founder and CEO of The American Housing Corporation, a company building factory-made row homes for the kind of city lots we've stopped building on. For 70 years we got great at putting single-family homes on the outskirts and basically quit building family-sized housing in the places people actually want to live. Riley's bet is that you fix that the way you'd fix any hard manufacturing problem: own the whole stack, design every part from first principles, and build the home in a factory. His first prototype went from manufactured to installed to finished in 13 weeks, and the goal from here is a home that costs 30 to 50% less than local construction. Timestamps(00:00) Intro(01:22) The Housing Crisis Is a Production Problem(04:33) Why America Stopped Building Family Housing in Cities(09:50) The First Company and Why Selling to Home Builders Doesn't Work(14:58) First Principles Engineering: What Does a Wall Actually Need to Do?(21:39) Getting Code-Certified for a Building System That Doesn't Exist Yet(27:57) One Miracle at a Time(31:47) Three Entities, One Mission: How AHC's Capital Stack Works(37:52) 18 Months of R&D: Panel Install Time Dropped 70%(44:22) The Two-Week Build Goal(47:03) Eichler Homes and Designing for Young Families(52:24) Beautiful Housing Gets Approved: Design as Regulatory Strategy(1:00:08) Gigafactory Over Mobile Micro-Factory(1:04:40) Margin Targets, Market Selection, and the Coastal City Thesis(1:11:39) Earning the Right to Automate and Hiring for the Housing Crisis Find our sponsors: True North AdvisorsTrue North Advisors is a multi-family office and private wealth advisory firm serving business owners, entrepreneurs, and families since 2000. With over $5.6 billion under management, they're r…","meta_description":"In this episode, Chris sits down with Riley Meik, co-founder and CEO of The American Housing Corporation, a company building factory-made row homes for th…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4869,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/powers-1144811/episodes/the-ex-spacex-engineer-reinventing-the-american-home-with-riley-meik-421/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/powers-1144811/the-ex-spacex-engineer-reinventing-the-american-home-with-riley-meik-421.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}