Energy 101: We Ask The Dumb Questions So You Don't Have To

0:00 Welcome back to another episode of energy 101. It has been a hot minute since myself and Misty have been in here So stoked to be back. I don't know if anyone saw Julie's post, but we're coming back

0:11 with a vengeance So get ready. We are I'm I was honestly surprised at People wanted to help so many. Why didn't we do that sooner? I Don't know

0:23 We so unintentionally intentionally because like really work to get people to come on Was when we're like all the executors in the business. Yeah, we have a real job here Do both I mean as you know,

0:38 so we're trying to do the same thing. That's fine. I'm JP Warren Yeah, he did the same thing. He was doing podcast and they took a break. Mm-hmm. He called me. So I'm a first-back on We

0:53 he was on our platform and then he

0:56 just took it under his umbrella of Connection crew, yeah, I mean, yeah, it works. So that's exciting for him. Yeah. I think for us. So speaking of our first guest back, Brett, do you want to

1:10 introduce yourself? Yes, sir, I'm Brett Chell, CEO of COBOR technology, new Houston transplant, almost fresh American. Great, welcome. Yeah, excellent. Wait, I love, I feel like you're

1:22 more Texan than most Texans in Houston. That's what I get told a lot. Yeah You belong in like West Texas. Please get me out there. Wherever is like the freest with the most guns and everyone wants

1:34 to talk about politics, that's me. You're there. Midland Texas is calling your name. Yeah, I love it. I escaped Canada, I'm very thankful to be here. Yeah. So how long have you been here? A

1:45 couple of years. Okay. I was living in the Marriott downtown for a couple of years, basically off and on. And then I got a house

1:52 in, was it clicker lake? Big city? I just looked on a map and I didn't really ever go there. And I'm like, oh, that's not too far.

2:01 It's funny you say that because Crystal on our team, the same thing happened to her, she moved from Japan and she also lives in Clear Lake because she bought it when they were over there. So on an

2:13 app and was like, That doesn't seem too far. Now she hates her life but rides now. It drives an hour to work every day. It's so bad 'cause when you're not from Houston, you don't have the traffic

2:22 and the distances and the Clear Lake kind of looks nice 'cause it's always lakes and water. Right, you're like, This is the best. That's great, no Then you got their direct surprise. I was like

2:31 trying to tell people like, Well, come on here. And they're like, No, I'm not coming back. Yeah, it's way too far. No thanks. So now I live in heights, which is like 10 minutes away. Good,

2:39 me too.

2:41 That's a good position. I'm a heights bitch for life.

2:44 Sweet. Yeah, so, should we get into it? So I think today we're gonna talk about your rough-necking experience in Canada, 'cause we're all very interested. I'm wondering if we'll have any more

2:58 questions

3:03 came on and he explained everything to us. So I think like the difference will be how it is in Canada 'cause we only know how it is in Texas. I mean, he worked in other places, but when he was a

3:11 Roughneck, it was in West Texas. And yeah, there's a big difference between that and Canada. Mm-hmm. So what year, or how old were you when you started a Roughnecky? I think that's exactly

3:25 right, but I got like 23. 23 Did you, were you like born and raised like in oil and gas? No. No, so I was born in a small town and then I dropped out in grade 12. Kind of, I didn't really

3:40 technically finish. Like I didn't get all my credits and everything, but my assistant principal, he really liked me. So he's like, I was like, Can I just have like the very potter outfit and go

3:47 to the thing with everybody and get my pictures? And he's like, Yeah. So he gave me things on the kind of - All in exactly.

3:55 All the same person Did he do that to you? Barely grad like I don't know. I don't know how he ended up like talking that into letting him graduate because he wasn't supposed to Yeah, basically I

4:08 didn't have this stuff. I didn't really care if I did graduate Yeah, so technically I didn't I didn't get my thing Yeah, but they let me have the paper they put my name on it and I got my pictures

4:15 and I went on stage great The principal's like I don't care. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly everybody got to come

4:23 So but I basically drop out left and I went to art school in Vancouver because I'm an artist That's what I love to do and there's a great school there where I got accepted into it And so I started

4:31 doing that and I realized pretty quick. I'm like all my friends This is like early 2000s where a hundred grand a year was a lot of money Yeah, like you're rich and so all my friends were on drilling

4:40 rigs This is in the boom of Alberta Canadian on gas And so they're all making hundred hundred fifty grand a year some two hundred grand a year and I'm like making nothing painting pictures Yeah, and

4:50 that's how I ended up in a waffle. I Want to have an escalator so I quit and left. That's so interesting because I feel like going and working on a rig is

5:01 A lot different than painting pictures. A lot more rough. Was it like a hard culture shock? Oh yeah. I had like no discipline. No, like I was just like - Oh, you're like a free spirit. You're

5:12 very creative and yeah. Yeah, and so about my sister was dating a guy who was a driller out there and he came and we got along really good and I liked him, but he was a hard-ass. And I kind of

5:22 like respected that about him. I'm like, oh, this guy can be friends

5:26 'cause he's kind of cool. And then he's like, you'd come up to the rig for sure and make kind of grandeur like right away. And I was like, let's do it That's easy. Just bought all my hard hat,

5:32 my little cup, coveralls, and I'll just go out there and just screw around and make some money.

5:39 How was your first day? Oh, terrible. It was scary. It's honestly scary. Like you're, it doesn't really sit in until you're driving for eight hours in the middle of nowhere. And then the

5:50 truck's going down the dirt road and all of a sudden this giant machine is just there. And you don't, I don't know. Like, I don't know what a Derek is. I don't know what anything is. And then

5:57 there's five guys there that all have worked together for years others. And they're the guy and you're the new guy, but they're trying to run off. Yeah, that's it. And it's like, I think it's a

6:08 lot different now. You're not allowed to do like trial by initiation. But it was very much like you are not part of this crew. You don't get to eat, you don't get to go on the you don't sit where

6:18 we sit, you don't change. And it's rude. And it's hard. And it's on purpose. It's deliberate, because they don't want soft people out there. Yeah, they want guys that can take it, we'll hack

6:28 it and put it in. They all had to go through it. So it's like, you have to do this. It was crazy. Yeah. How long did you work out there it do to supposed was I So? for like a, my plan,

6:39 classical field plan is like a year or two, like enough money to buy a cool car and a little bit of cash and then go do whatever I'm going to do. And it was like six years, almost seven. And then

6:50 my brother and I got hired to go and I got hired to go to build rigs for another company. And so then I was there for a little while and then start promoting us and then I'm like.

7:01 When we got offered promotions there, I was like, Come out of here. Yeah. The day they offered me the promotion, I could. Yeah, 'cause it's like, you have this like moment. Yeah, you're like,

7:08 Am I gonna do this the rest of my life? Yeah, it's very hard to leave. And that's a lot of the problem in Midland. People don't leave Midland because it's so hard to leave the money. Yeah, you

7:19 get to be careful 'cause there's a trap. Like a lot of people say this about oil and gaskets, like a running joke. Like the rigors that make the money and they spend all the money and they're in

7:25 that cycle It's true, I think a lot of it because we don't get, like I didn't grow up with any education around money. Like, you know, you get your money, you buy assets, you depreciate them,

7:35 you buy houses, you get passive income. No one talking about that. So it's like, you get a job and you make 50 of what your money is the rest goes to the government and then you buy shit. Yeah.

7:45 And that's it. Yeah. That's it. And then the trap is I don't think these guys are so much worse than anybody else, but the life is that you go away for three quarters of your life and you live it

7:56 on a rig in the middle of a field. and you don't see anybody, you miss all the dinners, you miss all the birthdays, you miss all the weekends, you miss everything, and you're stuck on this rate.

8:04 And then you get one week off to come back. And it's like, I'm going jet skiing, I'm going boating, I'm going taking my family to Disneyland, I'm going up, up, up, up, up, I'm trying to cram

8:14 life into a week, and that's where all the money goes. Yeah. And unless you're like, Go, you do drugs. Or that, yeah, that was it, but it does Like I have sympathy and empathy for that, you

8:16 know, that kind of perspective it gets put on, 'cause they're trying to cram

8:23 life into it.

8:31 Yeah. Yeah. So you worked, what, two weeks on when we got? Yeah, two weeks on when we got off, and on a drilling rig, and so I did a lot, like what caught him. What did Colin tell you? What

8:39 did he do? I don't even really know. Are you drilling rigs? Yeah, so he was a rough neck for, I wanna say four years, he actually broke out on a Canadian rig, so his crew was pretty much all

8:53 Canadians

8:56 and He worked his way up to maybe in Derrick hand, or maybe he was about to get promoted, and then he went into services. He went into Ireland after that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's like, I'm

9:11 going to need to go into all the details of that, but the lifestyle and everything. You were dating. So I know we were, okay, during that time we had, we were dating, we

9:19 had just moved in together. We got pregnant with our first kid So the two week on, two week off was pregnant and, you know, had our first son. And then when it went into a wire line, it was very

9:33 much a 247 on call. So I would prefer that two weeks, he actually worked four weeks on, two weeks off. He did two weeks of days, two weeks of nights, two weeks off. So the two weeks of nights,

9:45 like absolutely sucks. Like I never saw him. Yeah. He came home. He just slept all day. I had to see quiet. So that sucked I actually talked about this on the last podcast. I don't think people

9:58 realize how much of a work ethic is passed on to the families of oil-filled fans because I, everything I did, I had to do by myself. I had to figure out how to move furniture, put things together,

10:14 like do everything, take care of everything. So on our days off, we could just enjoy each other. It wasn't like, he came home and - You had a list of things to do. Yeah, I couldn't have like a

10:25 honeydew list and it's bled into how we live our lives now, which a lot of people I don't think understand. Yeah, it's very traditional in a sense, but at the same time, it's like, it's what we

10:36 had to do to survive that. Right. And it's honestly nice not depending on anyone. Whenever you're like, wanna get something done, you wanna get it done, you don't wanna wait for two weeks off to

10:47 finish this project, so, yeah. Yeah. The only zone, I mean, people don't realize that on,

10:54 That's just like - Oil-filled wives. That's the task side of things too. That's not like the emotional mental side. Exactly, yeah, like you're alone all the time, all the time with the kids.

11:03 Like there's no like calling for help or hey, come watch the kids, anything like that. So yeah, and ours were very little at that time. And when he was, I think when I had three, they were all

11:14 like four and under. That's when he was on call. And that's whenever like no days off, there was no for sure days off Sure, he might be home for a week, but it could be gone the next day. So

11:26 that was tough. And it was a transition for when he quit his job and was home all the time. Like it's very, very different. Are you guys involved with like anyone that has this in your field or

11:36 has been in your field? No. No. Nope. Don't ever do it. No,

11:42 I'm from Florida, I'm not even from Texas. So I had no idea. So you do alligator farmers. Right. And drug dealers Yeah, we do bath salts and gators. Um, no, but I didn't, I don't think

11:54 people outside of where oil fields are, anyone that's working in energy, it's not talked about in other, like, it was never a type of conversation Florida. You like maybe here on the news, but

12:07 even then I still don't think unless, like your parents are really into politics. No one knows where electricity comes from. No one knows where gas comes from or nothing. That's crazy But it's

12:20 true, even like Alberta, where I live is kind of like the Texas of Canada. I didn't know that Canada did oil. Didn't I either until recently, no idea. Canada used to do a lot more oil. We've

12:31 got pretty liberal governments now, so we're squishing the whole thing. But there's a lot up there, but it's kind of different. It's like, there's some unconventional, no some tar sands. That

12:38 anyway, it's all technical stuff, doesn't matter. But I lived in a town that was like few hours from where like West Texas would be where all the Midland. That's where the action is used in people

12:48 know about oil and gas because there's a lot of headquarters here right but if you go outside like Austin and all that They don't. Yeah. Right? It's not a thing, so it's crazy. Mm-hmm. Because

12:56 we're in it, we think that people know or just face common sense. You know you have to - They really don't. Yeah, I know. I didn't either until I got into it and then when you get into it. Yeah.

13:07 You just don't know what to expect. There's no way you can prepare for it. It's such an interesting thing, but

13:13 yeah. One, it's interesting to be on the inside and to realize like how big the industry really is We talk about it all the time as not just oil production, but like the petrochemicals. Everything,

13:26 almost everything that you touch daily is somehow related made from petrochemicals. Like it's insane. We had a downstream person on last week. I've never learned about downstream at all because

13:40 being from England, it's like, is it upstream? I'll show you now. I know.

13:47 So it's just interesting that there's so, There's so many parts to downstream, and this is just oil and gas. Then you have all the other verticals. It's it's wild and that's how you started it.

13:55 So you can try to learn more, but I will say it's very hard to learn Where when you can't go and like touch it or like go out there and experience it like actually look at the rig I actually look at

14:08 whatever is going in the hole. You know, it's very different being hands-on So I will say that's a little bit tough, but you just need to do like add some video to some of these things I know yeah,

14:19 so you can show them like a picture. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, cuz that makes a big difference Yeah, I mean and between Canada and the US like to your question about what's different about Canadian stuff

14:28 Mm-hmm. I think obviously so there's the temperature differences which make a big difference Yeah, that's there's different like schedules like we have months in the spring where you can't work They

14:37 just everything shuts down. Oh, it's called break up. It's too cold too muddy. Oh to muddy Yeah, too soft like the ground's too soft because when it thaws out and all the snow melts Your eggs

14:47 can't drive around because it just seems to be there So that and they don't want to wreck all the farmers roads So there's no drilling at all going on during this one. Yeah. So what does everyone,

14:58 do people have other drugs? No, we don't. You just don't. Yeah. You go find a different job. Yeah, and sometimes break up, no, usually you work. So the thing in Canada is you work a lot in

15:07 the winter as much as you can, like pretty steady. Yeah. The whole time. And then come around like May, April, May, break up starts. And then, so it's called breakup. And then from April,

15:19 May, June, July, basically to sometimes August, if it ever depends on what it was, slowly comes back in August. That's insane. I didn't know that. So you get like a few months off in Canada,

15:30 but it sometimes turns into like four, three, four, you're waiting for that phone call. So you like try to save?

15:36 What do you feel like, what do you do? I feel like I'd run out of money if I didn't get another job. Or do you work your days off? A lot of guys like go farming or something like that if they run

15:44 out of cash. The thing is you work like three months of notice off in minus 50 and dark.

15:54 most of it. So you're just I don't understand. I can't even like visualize what that looks like. I just picture all these like refnecks trying to work with like icicles coming down their feet.

15:59 Yeah. Just the tears.

16:04 Yeah. Okay. So there they'll tell you Star Wars. So we worked on a rig in Northwest Territories with basically Alaska. And in the winter there, we went and on the way, we just did a camp. So

16:15 it's like these little trailers, we just been to a camp here. I mean, I think there's a square at co-trailers. Yeah. They got like beds in the bathroom. And then they just have 40 of them. And

16:24 they just flatten a piece of land and put them all there in the toilet. It's horrible.

16:31 Yeah. It sounds, it's as bad as it sounds. I'm like, yeah. I'm like the cringing on that. Yeah. So you'll fly like a big plane to whatever city's closest and then you'll take a truck to a

16:37 smaller port and then you'll get on some plane. There's planes where one time it was like puttering out on the way there because they're crappy planes for that no one ever uses, to jolt to like the

16:47 brush with a curve.

16:49 You come crashing down, we're right here. I went to go and plane shut off in the air and it just started to drop. And you have never seen like your crew's faces go so white. We're all like, we

17:01 all thought we're gonna die. Oh my gosh. And then it's just like,

17:05 So you're already doing a dangerous job. It's like, it's dangerous, it's dangerous. No, no, I risk my life every day and I'm gonna die in a fucking plane. Yeah, yeah. So they fly on those

17:13 crappy planes and then you get in a crew truck and a crew that was working is coming out And you're like sitting there and you're like bumping next to each other. Yeah, it's hot, bumping. And like

17:22 praying at the same time. It's all around you and you know you're going to like a Siberian work camp for three months. It's the one. That's what it sounds like. It is. Siberia. Yeah. And so

17:32 you'll go to the airport and the upcoming crew, you see them. And these are guys that look like they're wearing World War II. Like, they're like, God, get me out of here. And you're just.

17:41 You're like, haircut yourself. Yeah. And you get and, you go to your crappy trailer and you unload your stuff and then you go and you drive another maybe hour or two out to the rig. And on the,

17:49 in the truck, I remember a lot of times when we were working up there, we'd look at the mirror where it has the temperature thing on the old GMs and it said minus 58. It was just about to ask that.

17:57 Yeah. And I was just, and you're supposed to shut it down at like minus 30 or something. Like they're not supposed to go past that. That's not a thing. They don't care. Yeah. Yeah. That's just

18:05 like finished drilling, please. Right. And so minus 58 and you grow out there and there was a trick that we all had. So you put on your like four layers and you're like big, you're like a

18:14 starfish. Yeah

18:17 And you come outside and they just spray you down with the wash gun. Yeah. You went, why? Well, because you're probably like, so it's really minus 58 and windy. So the wind show, they're kind

18:28 of any skin sticking out. You're going to get frostbite. Yeah, it took a minute or two and it'll just like frostbite your skin. So you have to have everything covered and then the wind is still

18:37 getting through. So you want, you spray yourself down with a water gun for two reasons. One, it makes like an ice layer on all your clothes and that stops the wind. And then two, if you're

18:46 tripping pipe, and you're on the floor and you're breaking connections, like we said, so they pull the pipe out and they break it off and go lay it down. All the fluid out of the top pipe spills

18:55 on you. So it's like, what, it just drips on you. So if you just do the light layer first, it makes that first layer and you don't get it soaking through. Wow. So just build on it and just keep

19:04 breaking it off. Oh my God. And you can't go inside for 12 hours. That sounds terrifying. Are there like,

19:13 kind of like heaters, like are there any insulation type of things, like is it boxed up, like normal rigs? They're like in West Texas, they're not, there's nothing that really protects you

19:23 because weather's not that bad. But are there like walls? The bigger rigs have what they call prefabs. So they'll put up walls around it and they'll have heaters in there and then it's a little

19:31 more normal. But I was on like crappy or little rigs and so on. No, there's nothing. Get out there. That's insane, especially because you just walk outside and you're just gonna get frostbite We

19:42 always had like the lines all under. Yeah. Yeah. Like you need to go home for two weeks and you have these red lines on your cheek on your skin being tested. Um, so what happened when you have to

19:53 go to the bathroom? You do it quick, you go on the cellar. So underneath the right floor, there's like heated box. It's all, that's prefabbed in to keep this, like where the bowl and everything

20:02 warm. And so you go down there. Okay. Yeah, or there's bathrooms, but you go quick so that your clothes don't melt. 'Cause if you go in the shack or form, they start melting and then you're

20:10 screwed. Oh my gosh I have like a newfound respect for Canadian restaurant. I feel like there should be some, you know, like that should make it an afraid. Like I feel like there needs to be some

20:20 sort of like survivor-esque last for a Canadian restaurant. Yeah. Why is it dead away? Yeah. One of the, there's cross shifts there, so you usually do two or three weeks in kind of thing. And

20:33 then our two of our guys on our cross shift quit last minute. And so they're, they fly them in, there's no one else. You don't have to say. You can't leave them we just did three nights of or

20:42 three weeks of night. So we didn't have sauce on for like six weeks. I think I would go dancing. Yeah, you literally do. It's so depressing. Did it take a toll on your mental health? Yes. Yeah,

20:53 I bet. 'Cause you're like, you just watching all the stuff that's going on at home, people are like, you miss, you really end up like the little things like going up for dinner. I feel like if

21:04 you don't have enough gratitude in your life, you're not thankful for your God, you go do something like that. And then you're isolated from that. And you just be glad to be able to go for dinner

21:11 with your wife again. All I do is, you know what I mean? Yeah, you don't take it for granted. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you end up here and starting Cold War? Let's get into it.

21:23 Yeah. So when I got the company that we were building Riggs for, when they were going to give me the price of the crit, and I wanted to start my own business, and I'd always done like little side

21:34 businesses. Yeah. All right, real things. I'd be able to do share with you all whatever. Yeah. Mr. Baskets or whatever. It's not a real company, but -

21:40 Stuff like that, I was selling. But the money's real, so it's not a matter of ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was selling cars a lot, but I wanted to do a real thing. So I asked three or four

21:48 different mentors, like, what's the thing that I can know? 'Cause, you know, you're selling companies, I literally don't know anything. Yeah. And so there's a lot of stuff they said, but the

21:58 one thing that was a common theme was, if you're planning on doing what you think you're gonna do, which is this, kind of do some larger scale stuff, you have to learn how to finance a company.

22:07 So you don't know corporate finance, you don't know how to fund and you don't have private equity, and you don't need this. If you don't learn that to some level before you go do this, you

22:16 probably won't get far, and even if you do, you'll get it taken from you at a certain point. And so then I went and joined a Biscuit PE group, like accelerator, it was kind of a weird thing, but

22:30 we raise money, we build narratives for startups, raise money, and then get them off the ground and then do another one and do another one. So a great spot to do that. and then started Cold War

22:40 and Raptor Regan. So you did that, like you were an employee there? You took Cold Boy there. No, I was an employee there. Oh, to just learn. Yeah. Yeah, and that's actually where Aaron and I

22:50 met. Yeah, so. Oh. Yeah, at that place. And so, learn from a lot of really smart people, the fun startups and build 'em. And that's where you get to see it happen a bunch of times. And more

22:60 importantly, you see like, through a forum, don't work. What works with us? For whatever reason, right? And so it was a really good experience And then start a cold book and I was like, on a

23:08 14, already. So it's been nine years? Yeah. Wow. I know. Was this hard yet? I was planning on it being half that, but. And here we are. Yeah. Welcome to entrepreneurship. Yeah.

23:24 I feel like we're not halfway yet either. I feel you on that. Right? I know, I know you guys too, like.

23:32 We're so -

23:36 Yeah, right. Okay, in the center. Start a play, I'm on the stay. Start a play, yeah. We're grateful. Yeah, we're back. Full of goodness. I was like, let's be grateful, fuckers. You seen

23:46 that guy? No, I was the best. He's a yoga guy, but he swears all the time. Yeah. Come on, center with the fuckers.

23:53 I hate you. We do, we do. Yeah, we do. We do. We need that, like, all the time. I, I especially, I need to come in this room and say the same thing to myself, like, every hour on time

24:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to swear on her, I just realized that. We could beep it. It's okay, yeah, totally fine. I don't know if we'll beep it. We won't beep it.

24:13 We're all about being real humans here. Good. In real humans, 'cause. We're not robots. I like it. Yeah. I like it. Yeah, we're probably gonna get yelled at on LinkedIn for not being

24:22 professional, but it's okay. Who cares?

24:26 Okay, so what does Coldboard do? Okay, so layman's terms, you guys are familiar, Everyone's kind of familiar with fracking. basically two things. Drillowell comes out, big drill, puts a hole

24:38 in the ground. Fracking, they come, they pump a bunch of water or whatever, a bunch of stuff in the water, and they just break up the rock underneath the ground so that it can release more

24:45 natural gas or oil. Yep. Pretty straightforward.

24:49 The gap that we're filling is that the fracking, just like everything else, the fracking process over the last 10 years has gotten a lot more complex and the jobs have gotten bigger and the

24:58 equipment's gotten more complex and all this stuff. When they started fracking, it was one well, and they would just crack that well, and then they went to multi wells, and there's a bunch in a

25:06 row, and then they tried to get more efficient. So they're all like 10 companies out there, big companies, they're all doing a part of it, and they started like, Oh, I gotta do my part, and

25:15 then you do your part. And then they're like, Well, what if we do our part on this well and you do your part on that well, while we're doing this so we can go faster and we're gonna jump over each

25:23 other? And that's evolved to like now those two of each of those companies doing stuff, right? And so it just gets more and more complex and from 2000 to 2015.

25:34 was really like getting going in that level of complexity. It was like a land grab. Like it was good times for long gas. So that just means they're going as fast. Yeah. For long, for long. And

25:46 the operation got more complex, but in that type of an environment, there's not a lot of desire, especially in oil and gas, which was one of the slowest industries to adopt technology. We talk

25:55 about it all the time, yes. So you have that and then you have that there's not attention on it because there's money being made everywhere and they have to make more money Then 2015 to now has been

26:05 like this roller coaster up and down and up and down, which has changed the sentiment for people like, okay, hold on, we have to figure out how to make more with less, get more automated, be

26:15 more diligent, do all these things, be more efficient. And so the challenge that's arisen that's given us the opportunity is that in doing that, the oil companies are saying to all these companies

26:26 on location, you've got to send us all your data, we want to look at it. And so they all got control systems,

26:33 before, and they all started sending data to the old company, and it's just, it's like a big mess, because now you got multiple wells that are part of that data set, you got multiple companies

26:43 sending you their version of what they did, and they're trying to put it together to make it completely. I'm sure some of it like doesn't match up, then it's all all over the place. Yeah, it

26:51 doesn't match up. And like, the other thing is like, none of these guys are hard-lined into each other. They're not sharing data in real time, which is crazy. They're like, 30 million for ACK.

26:59 They're not connected. They're just like, You're a turd, Bill. Yeah.

27:05 It is nuts.

27:07 Which is like a walkie-talkie, like, All right, that's actually what it is, walkie-talkies. Oh my gosh. I'm not kidding.

27:17 So there's some of it. It's actually advancing faster now where they're trying to do that, but still, so there's no connection. And all that data coming to their oil companies is really hard for

27:24 them to do much with, they do what they can, but there's not a lot. And so we're just going out there and connecting all these companies, and we. format on that data so that it's one dataset

27:35 that's usable and they can just look through our, they can log into our thing. And it kind of agnostifies all the services out there and just brings it all into one program. So they can just click

27:44 through screens and make a relative analysis and pull it all back. And then they just tell us, I need this to go into a database or I need to make analytics or reports or whatever. And so our

27:55 business is about putting that infrastructure out there and maintaining it and then providing software development services for all the service companies and to our companies to start actually using

28:04 infrastructure. That seems very helpful. Yeah. I think it is. I mean, nine years later, it's obviously working. When you're on the other like softwares or other things that are like going into

28:17 yours. Like, where are they getting that data from from the beginning that it's all being pushed into one place like yours? Like, are there some things that are like everyone uses? Yeah, I mean,

28:28 it's just like it's To make it generic, there's controls. It's like, everyone has their own equipment, and then their own sensors on the equipment. We're driving a number of things, like

28:36 pressures, or rates, or timestamps, or whatever. But there's five of those companies with their own equipment, with their own sensors, that's coming into their own computers. They don't

28:44 necessarily have the format to talk, they don't know how to connect, and so they just send it up to the cloud. And in a cloud, they try to make sense of it all. But it's like different format,

28:54 different program, different, it's like Excel and Word. I was gonna say, yeah. It's like, let's try and make Excel and Word go together It's like, I don't know how to do that, right? And so

29:01 they try their best to make it happen. When we go out there, it's like, hey, here's the operating system. And we just sit below all those control systems. So when they show up now, they just

29:10 snap on. And we have like the translator slash adapter. Yeah. And we built all that in. So now it just pulls all that body. When you say that, is that like a hardware software?

29:26 So that's layer zero, that's a turtle. It's a turtle. I talk with my hands a lot to you. It's a turtle, I love it. It's a good visual.

29:31 So that we call it layer zero, that's a word. So the thing is that we had to find language to make this simple for people to understand. 'Cause even for oil and gas people, this is more of a

29:41 software problem. So it's not obvious to a lot of oil and gas people, right? But they're now becoming software people because that's how they do it. And so we use the term layer zero as like a

29:53 foundation. If you have all these other companies out there that aren't connected, that's what your database is gonna look like. Silos of messy data. Physical representation is what your data will

30:02 end up, right? And so if you put the foundation out there, the job of our actual box and cables is to connect everyone. And then the software in it generates its own timestamp for the whole pad.

30:15 So that makes the containers And then we just take all the data from all those people. put them in the right container. And that way now they all share and hit that center. So wait, that's how you

30:24 get it like live. Yeah. Right, yeah. 'Cause otherwise I mean, there's not internet out at some of these locations. No, they all have internet. They do. Yeah, well they all have cellular and

30:34 satellite connection. Got it, got it, got it, okay. But we do that too. So it's essentially like you're putting internet between all these guys. The key here is that they all have their own

30:42 systems and stuff. It's just that it's a problem when you try and put it together. And the actual operation is one Right. So the physical operation needs to be represented by data and it's not

30:52 currently. So when you try and you're an oil and gas engineer or something and you're like using this fragmented messed up data to try to make calls that are gonna change something in the operation,

31:02 it doesn't line up. Yeah. Right. And so if we can just make that easy, then we can give them the data they need to make those calls and connecting all these guys, we can just let their computers

31:12 talk. Yeah. Which then gets to all automated kinds of stuff. Okay walk through a day in the life of a.

31:20 You know, of a customer of Cold War, they want to get you out there. What does that look like? How do they get started? Yeah, we call it. They, we talk to them and then they call us and say,

31:30 we understand now that they have to have a certain level of digital maturity to understand the problem because the books and most of them do now. And so they'll call us and say, look, we got all

31:38 these great companies that are service companies, the Haliburton, Slumber J's, ProFrax, Liberty's, like all those guys. They have great control systems and they do great jobs, but we need, we

31:47 can't manage all the control systems and the data. And so can you come out here and you can put your layer zero out there, make a base layer to connect all of it, and then you bring it back to us

31:56 and we'll log in through your system to see all of what it wants. And then we'll tell you what we want with it after. And you just develop that for us. Awesome. Um, you said something about, I

32:08 didn't know this is a thing, um, multifrax site. Does that mean like you're going in through one well and then you're fracking? like so that I'm picturing like vertical, vertical, vertical.

32:19 then you're going in this first one and fracking all of them, is that correct? No, so they're

32:30 kind of,

32:32 it's pretty close. So the multi, the multi-well pads just have a bunch of the vertical weld, but all the wells are, like most of these ones we're talking about, have a vertical and a horizontal

32:40 part. And no, like when you look at a patch from the top down, they'll drill out in straight lines like this, so down and then out, and then they'll kind of go around the edges this way. And

32:49 this way, it's just about getting the maximum amount of wells in that thin layer of formation. And so they drill out when they try to get older. And so, but when they're doing multi-well frack,

33:01 they'll have like one company's working on the first well pumping, and the other companies do a wire line over here. And they do it in, they do this portion, like if this is the well, they do the

33:11 end of it with wire line, they plug and perf, and then they leave because they only want to do a part of it. And then they want to pump,

33:19 And then they want to, the pumpers will unhook and then they put the wire line back in and then they'll frack the next one. And then they'll do it in sections so they get the most amount because you

33:28 can't like put a bunch of holes in the hole well and pump. It'll all go out the first hole. So you'll start at the end and work your way back. I got it. I think we need a video of best of an

33:39 animation. Yeah. Where's the boss all? Yeah, boss all. Get in your boss. Make us a video Yeah, so when they do that, so the way they made it a lot more efficient is they'll put like eight

33:49 wells in a row and then they'll start that first section and do their turn and then they'll go to the other one and then they'll come with companies all switch. It's called zipper-fract.

33:57 Zipper-fract. Yeah. That's fun. That's fun to hear. We haven't heard of that. We haven't heard of that. We know that's a new term. No. That's a

34:07 new term. There's zipper-fract. There's simul-fract. There's dual-fract. Wow. All kinds of fracks I know our glossary.

34:14 I know. So it's funny, my dad worked at Halliburton. And he created a. He was a part of making many of the tools for fracking. They actually referred to him as, I can't remember, it's like king

34:26 of frack or king of fracking, something like that, like something

34:31 like crazy like that. And it's so funny 'cause I know nothing. I'm like, dad, why didn't you teach me anything? He was the, was he a boss man at Harvard? He wasn't like in the C-suite, but he

34:43 was pretty high up. Dang. He was there for 40 years. What? Geez, that's a big time. Well, let's see if you guys are tired. He's retired here. He was hired in 2019. Oh, well, her funny

34:55 story with Halberton. I do. So

34:59 that's your dad? Yeah, yeah. Oh, you have a not funny story? I had another drilling company where I was one of four founders that we built these automated drilling rigs. This was five years ago.

35:07 And we were funding that company and we built like these 30 million rigs in all this crap and it was like a big deal. And we owned a big, I owned a big part of that company. And my partner is all

35:15 new to you guys at Halberton. And they're like, oh, we want to do this and we'll just get them to be the funders of it. I'm like, no, we don't want to have one investor. Yeah. And that's the

35:24 end of that story. So it went like a year and then that comment was over. All the night, post, COVID hit and it was grossed. It

35:31 just got banked and not. Wait, it was automated rigs? Yeah, rapidly. That would have been really cool. Very cool. Yep. So that one's like moving on, but we lost a lot of money. Are you okay?

35:44 Yeah. Are you fine?

35:47 Okay, thank you. So yeah, that's the, but now the buddy story. So Halliburton's Western has fear of president lives across the street from me. And I know that in heights, and it's moved in

35:54 there. And they're obviously a big company that we work with. And we were going to rodeo. And so I picked up a bunch of my guys and we were in the truck, went and got a bunch of beer, and we went

36:02 and bought our cowboy hats and our little boots and those stuff. How'd

36:09 Texas have you be able to love? Yeah, I love it. Right? Like they got the area, I got everything, the Wrangler. So we're dressed like the tags are still in all of the clothes. And we got all

36:15 of us dressed up like idiots. Like, we're ready to go. Cases of beer, Morgan Wallen on it, like full volume. Come around the corner in the truck and there's a bunch of people waiting at the

36:23 house to get in 'cause it was locked. And we were all having a few drinks in the backyard before we went. And so we've wrapped up in the truck, pulls out and we get beer everywhere, and we're like

36:30 dumping all the cases, like it's really gross. Like dumb and dumber.

36:35 All right, that kills all me. And there's this other guy's down in there and we start talking and he could see I have these neon lights in my office host. We have a tech host that doubles. It's

36:46 coming And he's like, Oh, I live across the street. I'm like, Cool. And he's like, I saw your thing. You're in fracking or something like that. I'm like, Yeah, we do fracking. He's like,

36:53 What frack companies do you work with? And I'm like, Oh, pro-frack. Liberty, Halbern. And he's like, Oh, yeah. What about Halbern? What do you do with them? I'm like, I don't know. Who'd

37:02 even know who to talk to with that company? We work with them, but it's a waste of time. It's impossible. I can't figure out who to talk to there. And he's like, How about the second event? He

37:11 was like, I'm your guy He was like, I'm your guy.

37:14 I'm like, oh, I put like my two cases of beer down. Yeah, I

37:20 feel like,

37:22 hello. I'll leave his name off here, but he's like a super nice guy. I mean, he's just like a really good dude, but that's the funniest thing he's like top dog. Oh, wait, that's hilarious.

37:31 Yeah, did he, was he like, unsold? Oh, no, no, we didn't even talk more about that. I did talk to my guys and I'm like, we're gonna go for lunch and then he went, we're ready. Like he's,

37:41 he's so high up that it's got to be the right thing in the right time. I'm sure he's not, he'll take me in there and go do a thing, but I gotta be prepared for it. That's kind of guy you know.

37:50 Redeem yourself. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's totally redeeming yourself. He was really nice though, like took two seconds and I was like, oh man, that's embarrassing. He's like, dude, he cares.

37:59 Oh, that's cool, that's cool. I love that.

38:03 Do we have any more questions?

38:05 Not other than our fun ones. I know, dude. Oh, gosh.

38:11 Where's Jules when you need her? The first one is,

38:16 why should we care about energy and oil gas? I guess people who maybe minus Julie, because she's from Atlanta. Yeah, but she's married to the game. Right, but as we were talking earlier, you

38:29 know, people outside of Texas, outside of the industry, why should they care? I mean, that's a good question because it's hard to convince anybody. I think if you're not interested to be like,

38:40 why should I care about when meals and you can talk to me in the face and I'm still not going to care. So that's a tricky question, but I think the one thing that's different about that, like why

38:51 do I care about soul? It just depends on what we're more inclined to care about, like the care about the environment, if I care about this, care about the other things. Where I think people could,

38:58 if you really do are interested in solar, like the environmentalist in general and alternatives or making it better. The cool thing about oil and gas that a lot of people don't know is that. It's

39:08 kind of just painted broadly as like, okay, that's the bad thing We have to get rid of it because that's what's killing the planet.

39:14 That's so not true at all, it's crazy. And so my partner, Toby Rice, who's kind of a well-known guy and well-gassed, no one else might know who he is, but he's got this big initiative that he's

39:25 one educating the market on a lot of this stuff. So I forget the exact numbers, but if there's liquefied natural gas, which a lot of people will know about, it's brand technical, but you use it

39:34 for power generation. And it's really clean burning. Like compared to coal, compared to like any alternative that we have that would be used at scale I think that was his keynote at Fuse last year.

39:44 Yes, I'm leeching, I'm American, yeah. So this is the thing, why should anybody who doesn't know what oil and gas care? If you do really want to make a difference and not just kind of go along

39:54 with this narrative that politicians are on about all the time, like it's just throwing on about, kill this and do this and do that and do that, like California, make everything electric and all

40:03 the cars. We can't even support it, the grid can't do it, it's not be feasible all this time. And how do we really actually make an impact globally? It's LNG. China and India. We can do

40:14 everything we want here, but if we focused on helping China and India have the same energy revolution that we did that made the West rich, which was like we found these fossil fuels, oil and gas

40:23 and we capitalized on the industrial revolution and we became rich. They haven't had that revolution yet. And so people don't know that really, but you go over there and you're like, You should

40:32 get on solar panels and windmills. They're like, We got what? We haven't even had our industrial revolution yet. Like, what are you talking about? We're still in poverty. Yeah, we don't have

40:42 energy at work to get rich off the same thing you did first. Then we'll talk about that, which is totally fair. But they're all burning coal still, 'cause they don't have LNG. That's, so if we

40:52 could get those huge populations just switched over to LNG. And if everyone knew this and could support this, we would become incredibly wealthy nation, really powerful. And we would get, meet

41:03 the global emissions targets, 'cause green is not by country, right? And so we could meet global emissions targets, like within a short amount of time.

41:14 Proline build the plants shut down the cold get them on lng get rich increase their quality of life and meet all the targets and No, politics but it's like 1, 000 percent doable. Wow

41:27 That's why that's gonna make a great tik-tok

41:33 Determine on

41:36 It's good You'll have people calling you out for all of it. Yeah, there's lots of there's actually a very Big like field presents. There is like people always go on there and call Colin stupid for

41:50 his ethnic videos

41:53 I know though every the whole time I'm talking when this you go back in this and later you're like I said that wrong Yeah, I didn't make that detail. I should have no said that. Yeah, that's how

42:00 you get the engagement You just go you also kind of answer to our second question because normally we ask what's the biggest misconception? So I feel like you were like two birds one stone. Mm-hmm

42:11 Yeah, that's a huge one. I mean, I think Toby's doing is honestly one of the most important things that's going on in the US. right now, but it's just so hard because politically the game is just

42:21 different if they're not really about what actually works. They're about how to keep their political party in power. There's just too much. You got to understand the global economics. You got our

42:32 sound politics. You got our sound energy. You got our stand environmental. And if you're going to put it all together, then you'll understand why and how it's all kind of going that way. But like

42:39 you said, most people just - I think that's one of our biggest missions. And me personally, one thing that I want to get better at is understanding broader energy. So I can apply that knowledge to

42:52 politics and see where they're really wrong. Obviously, there's a base layer I already know. But really understand why behind decisions and, you know, the educators. I mean, so Michael

43:06 Schellenberger, great reference. If you guys want to start reading books, He's a brilliant guy that was a Democrat that like staunch has become Republican because he's starting to unpack all this

43:16 stuff, but he talks on environmentalism on economics and it's the most educated books and discussions I've ever seen with the guys in animal. Wow, what's it called? Michael Schellenberger is the

43:26 guy. Michael Schellen. And then he has like a apocalypse never is his environmentalism book. He talks about all the fallacies of all this stuff. And then there's San Francisco, which is talking

43:36 about Democrat-run cities and why they're always the ones that are destroyed Yeah, so he gives you, but he follows Instagram too, 'cause that's a good resource if you just wanna consume stuff fast

43:47 and get a broad spectrum. Yeah, 'cause it's a lot.

43:50 It's like you gotta be trust in it. That's a lot, yeah,

43:53 for sure. Okay, last question is the fun one, your most embarrassing story in your career.

44:00 No, but you may have already put that in too. Oh, this is funny. Yeah, yeah. This is funny because I haven't thought of this in so long and it jumped to the front of my mind immediately. I

44:09 can't wait. Okay, so when I first started with at the finance place, we're going to private equity and venture capital and all that stuff. They're like, Okay, we got to build some. We're going

44:20 to teach you how to build a financial narrative for a tech company. So you get a company and you're like, this is what the company wants to do for a product and a market But what's the story you're

44:29 going to tell to get investors interested? Because that's different than the one you're going to tell your customers, right? And so building financial narratives have all these things with it. And

44:37 we do that for a while and kind of learn and you're like, Oh, okay, so this this financial narrative will look like this. And this is the size of the company with the amount of money we're going

44:44 to raise. That means it goes to a very specific type of people, like private equity guys are different than VCs or different than XLions. And so then you learn who to go to and they let you build

44:53 that. And then they're like, Okay, now we've got to raise a little bit of money And you go sit in meetings with people and you watch them do the pictures to raise the money and do all this stuff.

45:00 And eventually the day comes where you got a, you're the one that you're going on your own. And so that first pitch I ever did was for a really cool company, but I went into the boardroom and it

45:11 just happened to be that I called a big PE firm and they lined up a pretty full room, which you don't really want.

45:19 For the reason you're about to tell us. Uh-huh,

45:23 and you want more like one or two guys at a coffee shop, so the first 20 is what I learned. But my personality is like, I'm just going straight to the top, I'm hitting a home run, first one. So

45:32 imagine like, it wasn't this, but imagine like a JP Morgan Chase top floor with like a table with 20 chairs, and it's full of bankers. And 'cause it was a good deal, right? I won't say the name

45:42 of the deal, but it was a big deal, like to do a satellite to cameras and all this stuff. But, and multiple people were working on it, but, and so they were interested, they had heard of it.

45:51 But I was the Goomba that was going there to talk to 'em. And so, I went and did the whole like talk about the cameras, is all good and they're all interested and then they're asking questions.

46:01 And I'm dressed like, I still had those suits for it. It looks like you're going to a court date instead of going to a business meeting, they're too big. It's like square.

46:12 Ties like in the little tiny knot that's just tight. And did my thing. And they're like, okay, this is great, Brett. So what, like how much money you looking to raise and all that? I'm like,

46:20 I've been raising 5 million in the first round. Very legit. I'm just remembering all my numbers, like 5 million in the first round And our evaluation is 20 million for this company. And it was

46:33 like dead blind.

46:35 And I'm like, oh, no. And they all kind of start closing the books. A bunch of guys just get up and leave. One of the guys comes over and grabs my hand like this. He's like, we know this is

46:44 like one of your first ones we were early on this, but it's valuation, not evaluation. You evaluate to give a value

46:56 You like, thanks for coming in.

46:59 I'm like. Wait, I probably would've said the same thing. Everyone knows. You got that far. That was it. Did you feel like you nailed it too? Like you said it and you were like, I got it. You

47:10 knew. I knew it. I was like, so just go out and say I came in or - I'm just gonna jump. You're like, where am I gonna jump out

47:22 of the window? Yeah, keep the panel up. Taking this. The most mortifying thing in my life. Were you like, beat red? Yep, it was very embarrassing. I was like, whole pity party that night for

47:29 the whole night on the set of games That's when we came over and was like, you know, like, helter, you know. Honey, honey, so cute. That was great, okay, never give up. A little tip for you.

47:40 There's a thing. You're an idiot. Don't get discouraged, you're great. Oh, I love it. These keep getting better. It's my favorite part of every episode. My favorite is to watch people, like,

47:51 you can see a story come into their head immediately. And they're like, oh, wait, I can't tell that Oh yeah, they're like a little tell that.

48:00 Yeah, no. This is a judgment-free zone. Oh man, this is like, there's, we've been doing, if you've been doing this long enough, there's like, I could go, there's 50, 000 other failures.

48:10 There's like, you're basically just a failure.

48:14 If you're an entrepreneur, you're listening. Until you're not. Yeah, no. Until your business. That entire not that day is like one day in a slicker sometime. Eventually. Yeah,

48:21 eventually. Eventually. Maybe. You just get used to it. It's not a thing anymore. Yeah. You don't fail at that. Learn. Right Yeah.

48:31 This is a really fun episode. This was a good episode. Why don't we have Coming Up? What do we need to plug?

48:37 Well, this will come out probably on energy-type night in the day, so. Oh, great. So tonight

48:48 is energy-tech night in Finland, but we have one more Coming Up Oklahoma City, August 10. Yes. I think that's it. Cool. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Love it. Thanks. Thank you very much. Wait,

48:58 should we say where to find you?

49:02 I'm on the internet I'm on the internet. It's easy to find. I'm annoying on there. I have everything everywhere Yeah, Google, kobor, kobor, technologycom Instagram LinkedIn.

49:12 I'm all of it. Yeah, kobor puts out some really good content like y'all are killing it with the content game Other company should definitely be awesome. It's fun. We just like doing it. Yeah, I

49:23 love y'all's team like John and Lee I saw them they came to energy check night in Houston and they were telling you we need to get one Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, they're so good. You're such good

49:33 people. Yeah. Yeah, cool Oh, check them out. Bye. Bye. Bye.