CRE Unplugged: Innovating from the Streets to the Skyline

The commercial real estate (CRE) industry, long resistant to change, is poised for transformation with AI and climate change driving the charge. This podcast bridges the worlds of CRE with Proptech, bringing humorous, insightful conversations with both industry veterans and newbies. Aimed at innovators and occupiers alike, we've set out to demystify and revolutionize CRE, making it accessible and relevant for a diverse audience. Join us in shaping a new, innovative era of real estate.

CRE Unplugged: Innovating from the Streets to the Skyline is a business podcast hosted by Ryan Elazari, with 36 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Ryan Elazari hosts CRE Unplugged: Innovating from the Streets to the Skyline, a business show with 36 episodes published.

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  Episode #23

  Why Building Beats Buying, Industry Experts on the Housing Shortage w/ Bryan Lamb and Charles Tseng

  Aug 27, 202653 min

  One guest is closing a deal to build eight townhomes on a former parking lot in San Jose. The other develops multifamily communities by the hundreds of units, nationwide. In this episode, Ryan Elazari sits down with Charles Tseng, Founder and CEO of Cityzone, and Bryan Lamb, EVP and Multifamily Sector Lead at Ryan Companies, to break down two opposite bets on how America actually gets housing built: AI-driven infill at the missing middle versus institutional multifamily at national scale. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN • Why Bryan Lamb says building beats buying at today's cap rates, and the math behind a 7 percent return on cost • How Charles Tseng uses AI to source and permit missing middle infill housing under California's new pro housing laws • Why California's stacked zoning codes have gotten too complex for humans to navigate without AI • Why a national rent growth policy and as of right permitting are the two levers both guests agree could fix housing • Whether this is really a national housing crisis, or one concentrated at the bottom of the market "Imagine a city where you could only shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. That's basically what's happening in housing." — Charles Tseng Show Notes: 00:10: Introducing Charles Tseng and Bryan Lamb 02:33: Why building beats buying in today's market 05:41: Inside Cityzone's AI driven infill deals 07:49: The renter by choice generation 11:45: Why property management operations drive returns 14:42: National housing crisis, or a bottom of market crisis 18:43: The K shaped housing market and the missing middle 21:54: The condo divide: risk, taxes, and litigation 26:05: One policy lever to fix housing 34:02: Can AI break the permitting logjam 35:57: Modular construction and 3D printing, hype vs reality 41:22: Advice for the next generation of real estate professionals 45:04: Unplugged, life outside cap rates and entitlements 50:18: Ryan's postgame recap ABOUT CHARLES TSENG Founder and CEO, Cityzone Tseng is a 25 plus year data scientist who built the original business intelligence system at Realtor.com before the 2008 crash, then went on to serve as technical co-founder or CTO of venture-backed startups including REX Homes and SteadyMD. He now runs Cityzone, an AI platform that helps homeowners and investors identify, evaluate, and permit missing middle infill housing under California's new pro housing laws. ABOUT BRYAN LAMB EVP, Multifamily Sector Lead, Ryan Companies Lamb is a Harvard MBA and 20 year real estate leader with more than $3B in principal level multifamily acquisitions and development. He built Exeter Property Group's U.S. multifamily platform from scratch to roughly $1.5B in AUM before joining Ryan Companies in 2025 to run its national housing platform. ABOUT CRE UNPLUGGEDReal, unfiltered conversations about where commercial real estate is actually going. Covering AI, innovation, and the human side of the industry that nobody else is talking about. Hosted by Ryan Elazari. Subscribe for episodes with CRE founders, operators, and innovators pushing the industry forward. Connect With Us Email: info@creunplugged.com Website: creunplugged.com YouTube: @CREUnplugged1 LinkedIn: CRE Unplugged Instagram: @cre.unplugged Connect With Charles LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ctseng Cityzone: cityzone.aiConnect With Bryan LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bryanplamb Ryan Companies: ryancompanies.com FOLLOW CRE UNPLUGGED ⁠⁠⁠creunplugged.com⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠ This episode is sponsored by our awesome partner, ⁠HILO⁠ , making connectivity and engagement a breeze in commercial real estate.

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  Episode #22

  From Casper Mattress to Data Centers: Philip Krim's Bet on the Electron Economy

  Aug 13, 202637 min

  Philip Krim spent eight and a half years turning Casper into a household name, then walked away from consumer almost entirely to bet on something people will never see. In this Founder Series episode, Philip Krim, Co-Founder and CEO of Montauk Capital, breaks down why bring-your-own-power is becoming the default way data centers get built and what it actually takes to build the infrastructure behind AI. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Why bring-your-own-power is becoming the default way data centers get built, and why Texas is leading it Why New York's one-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers is a preview of the regulatory wave heading nationwide The real tell that a company's AI governance is a boardroom mandate and not actual organizational change Why Krim thinks capital is not the bottleneck in energy and digital infrastructure, deployment and deal structuring are How Montauk turns commercial real estate owners into company-building partners, using Perimeter Compute as the model The line between founder conviction and simply not listening to customers, and how Krim tests for it "Maybe the only thing as universal as sleep is energy." — Philip Krim Show Notes: 00:10: Introducing Philip Krim 03:09: The universal need for sleep and power 06:09: Bring-your-own-power for data centers 07:44: New York's moratorium and the regulatory pushback 09:19: Educating communities on data centers 10:35: The AI governance gap: mandate versus real adoption 14:02: Is now the time to invest in AI 15:27: Angel investing: Ramp, Reddit, and the ones that got away 17:24: Why branding matters as much in B2B as consumer 18:38: Conviction versus not listening: what makes a founder 21:24: Partnering with asset owners 26:09: Lessons in leadership 28:22: Career advice for the AI Generation 33:42: Ryan's postgame recap ABOUT THE GUEST Philip Krim co-founded and led Casper from its 2014 launch through its 2020 NYSE listing and 2021 sale, while building a decade-long track record as an early investor in companies like Ramp and Reddit. He is now Co-Founder and CEO of Montauk Capital, a company builder and investor at the intersection of AI, energy, and digital infrastructure. FOLLOW CRE UNPLUGGED ⁠⁠creunplugged.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Instagram This episode is sponsored by our awesome partner, HILO , making connectivity and engagement a breeze in commercial real estate.

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  CRE Unplugged: Innovating from the Streets to the Skyline

  The CEO Breaking the AI Hype Cycle, Ryan Adelman of Verantum

  Jul 16, 202646 min

  Every vendor in the built world calls itself an AI company. Verantum's CEO refuses to. In this Founder Series episode, Ryan Elazari sits down with Ryan Adelman, Chief Executive Officer of Verantum, to talk about why his company traded a 22-year-old brand name for one nobody had heard of, and what that rebrand signals about where building performance is headed. Phoenix Energy Technologies spent 22 years becoming the name that large, multi-site portfolio operators trusted to manage HVAC, refrigeration, lighting, and energy across their buildings. Adelman joined the company six years ago and became CEO two years ago. Under his lead, the company expanded past comfort and energy optimization into full asset lifecycle management, tracking the health of the equipment itself rather than just its settings, culminating in this year's rebrand to Verantum, a name built from verus and quantum, truth quantified. Adelman explains why facilities and energy teams keep shrinking while the portfolios they manage keep growing, and why so much smart building technology gets installed, demoed well, and then dies the moment a technician has to use it in the field. He makes the case against leading with AI, even though Verantum has used it for 15 years, and lays out how a conservative industry with zero tolerance for risk comes to trust one company enough to open its entire network, every controller and sensor, to outside integration. The conversation also covers Verantum's partnership with Leap, what deferred capital actually costs an owner over time, and the trait Adelman looks for after mentoring founders through Cleantech Open and Village Capital. Show Notes: 00:10: Intro: welcome to the Founders' Series 01:52: What's on your desk? 02:49: From Custom Bike to Verantum 06:33 From Phoenix to Verantum: what the rebrand signals 09:33 Shifting owners from deferred to preventive maintenance 10:10 Condition-based maintenance at scale 12:58 Equipping technicians in the field 16:32 An operator's scar: alerts nobody understood 18:42 Why Verantum refuses to lead with AI 21:25 Structured data first: garbage in, garbage out 23:53 What a vendor should say instead of "we have AI" 25:43 Earning trust 29:15 The Leap partnership and virtual power plants 32:42 What makes a founder who will make it 37:34 How Ryan Adelman unplugs 41:32 Ryan's postgame recapCONNECT WITH RYAN ADELMANLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelmanryan/Verantum's Website: verantum.com FOLLOW CRE UNPLUGGED ⁠creunplugged.com⁠ | ⁠LinkedIn⁠ | ⁠YouTube⁠ | ⁠Instagram Want to be featured on the Founders' Series? We're spotlighting bold leaders building the future of commercial real estate. Reach out at info@creunplugged.com. We’re always looking to spotlight bold leaders and founders who are building the future of commercial real estate. If you’re solving real problems, challenging outdated norms, or reshaping how this industry operates, we want to hear from you.

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  Episode #21

  Why Most CRE Firms Will Fail At AI with Nadine Ezzie

  Jun 18, 202657 min

  Most CRE firms are about to fail at AI, and not for the reason they think. In her farewell as co-host, Nadine Ezzie tells Ryan Elazari why buying the tools is the easy part. Nadine Ezzie, Managing Partner of Ezzie and Co. has spent twenty years in law and PropTech watching the industry chase shortcuts. Her warning: the firms treating AI as a switch to flip, without clean data or trained people, are setting themselves up to fail. If your data isn't ready, you're automating slop. If you skip upskilling, adoption stalls. She makes the case for human-centric commercial real estate, explains why skill-based roles get automated while human skills move to the center, and reads the migration to the Midwest. Two years after they launched CRE Unplugged at a NAIOP dinner, this is Ryan and Nadine closing her run as co-host with the candor the show was built on.CHAPTERS00:00 A bittersweet farewell 01:16 How CRE Unplugged started at a NAIOP dinner 02:59 What the show is set out to do 05:37 Thanks to Hilo and the team behind the show 06:52 What Hilo does for buildings 08:30 Favorite episodes and guests 14:36 The human-centric CRE thesis 17:33 From hustle culture to human-centricity 18:49 How AI is redefining work and space 20:36 Why technology fails without training 25:04 Customer success versus customer service 29:51 The new kind of leader CRE needs 33:47 The rise of fractional work 37:36 What is real in AI adoption right now 41:11 Data readiness and enterprise AI 44:48 Building an AI-first culture 46:15 The migration to the Midwest 51:00 Affordability, climate, and where people are moving 54:58 Saying goodbye and what is next for Nadine ABOUT THE GUEST Nadine Ezzie is the Managing Partner of Ezzie and Co. With two decades of experience across law and PropTech, including Lease Pilot. She is a partner in CRE AI Studio, a co-founder of CRE Unplugged, and is now based in Canton, Ohio. Connect With Us 📧 Email: info@creunplugged.com 🌐 Website: www.creunplugged.com 📺 YouTube: @CREUnplugged 💼 LinkedIn: CRE Unplugged 📱 Instagram: @CREUnplugged This episode is sponsored by our awesome partner, HILO, making connectivity and engagement a breeze in commercial real estate.

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  Episode #6

  Ep. 6 - Founder Series: Where Are Americans Moving? CENSAI on Climate Migration and Data Centers

  May 28, 20261h 3mS0

  <p></p><p>The data center industry is losing the public narrative, and CENSAI has the survey numbers to prove it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>In this Founder Series episode, Ryan Elazari sits down with Devin Boesen, Director of Population and Migration Products, and Jon Liggett, Head of Data and Partnerships at CENSAI, to dig into what population intelligence actually reveals about how Americans move, where they avoid, and why the stories being told about climate migration and data center opposition don't always match the data.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>CENSAI was...

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