What happens when a 26-year construction veteran decides to reinvent an entire industry?

In this episode of "Pitch, Build, Scale", host Chris Fanchi sits down with Steve Dell’Orto, Founder & CEO of Concntric, to explore how his company became the first AI-powered pre-construction platform, uniting data, workflows, and people into a single, intuitive system.

Steve shares what it means to “bear hug AI”, why simplicity is the hardest design challenge, and how the right UX can turn skeptics into advocates in one of the world’s most traditional industries.

From eliminating redundant workflows to building an agentic AI layer that helps teams do the work of ten people, this conversation reveals how Concntric is unlocking capacity and transforming how the built world gets built.

Chapters

00:00 Intro – Why Construction Needed a New Operating System

02:08 From Builder to Founder: Steve Dell’Orto’s Leap Into Tech

07:44 The Problem Hidden in Plain Sight

10:21 Building Concntric: From Stealth Mode to Scale

15:54 “Make Less Work, Not More” – The Simplicity Principle

17:42 How Concntric Is “Bear Hugging” AI

19:03 Agentic AI: The Future of Pre-Construction

25:14 Building Faster Through Human + AI Collaboration

26:40 The Moat: Domain Expertise as the True Differentiator

29:17 Hands-On Relationships in a High-Tech World

32:14 The Magic Wand Question – What’s Next for Concntric

34:26 Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Steve

Resources

🔗 Concntric – https://www.concntric.com

🔗 Connect with Steve Dell’Orto on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevedellorto

🔗 Big North Network – https://bignorthnetwork.com/managing-ai

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Managing AI: Humans, Agents, and the Future of Work — out now from Chris Fanchi.

Learn more and order at https://bignorthnetwork.com/managing-ai