Podcast · Business

POWERS

by Chris Powers · English · Business

Conversations with the best founders, entrepreneurs, and investors.

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 23 min
Latest: 14 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

14 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 30 minNew

Inside Hunt Companies: From Military Housing to $37B Holding Company with Woody Hunt (#433)

In this episode, Chris sits down with Woody Hunt, Chairman Emeritus of Hunt Companies, the El Paso holding company that grew out of a hardware and building materials business his family bought in 1947. Woody joined in 1968 and watched his father take the company public when he was 23. Five years later, fixed-price contracts in a year of runaway inflation cost it about 25% of its equity, and by 1977 he was the controlling shareholder. When the next big shock came in 2008, Hunt had been building cash for five years. As a fellow El Pasoan, Chris has followed Woody's journey for years. They get…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

30 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
How To Workout Distressed Real Estate Debt with Shlomo Chopp (#432)
This week Chris sits down with Shlomo Chopp, Founder of Case Equity Partners. His job is helping real estate owners get out of or restructure loans they can't pay. Shlomo got into this after an attorney told him to read the CMBS loan documents, and he read them cover to cover. Today his clients range from owners with a couple million dollars of debt to an $800 million capital stack. They get into what is actually in a modern loan document, and what a borrower should do before the lender starts looking. They discuss:• Why 2008 did not play out like the savings and loan crisis• How a…
23 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
The Art & Science of Developing Iconic Retail Properties with Terry Montesi (#431)
This week Chris sits down with Terry Montesi, Founder and CEO of Trademark Property Company, a Fort Worth developer of retail and mixed-use real estate he started in 1992. Terry was last on the show in 2019, in the middle of what the business was calling the retail apocalypse. They have closed four retail deals in the last 30 days, more than they have ever closed in a month, and Terry now says retail is the best asset class in the country. They get into why almost no new retail space got built for 17 years, what that shortage is doing to rents, and his playbook for creating value at each of…
16 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Inside the Department of Energy: Why the AI Race Has Become Physical with Adam Blake (#430)
This week Chris sits down with Adam Blake, Co-founder and CEO of Mavria. Adam spent a little more than a year leading the DOGE team inside the Department of Energy. He has been a private person for 15 years, and last week he broke his silence with a tweet that got over 2 million views. Chris has known Adam since 2004. They met shortly after Chris arrived at TCU, and the school paper named Adam Entrepreneur of the Year for the real estate he was buying around campus. One lunch with him at a Chipotle changed the trajectory of Chris' life. Adam went on to build a commercial solar company that…
9 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 3 min
Reindustrializing America: Building NOX Metals & The Future of Manufacturing with Zane Hengsperger (#429)
This week Chris sits down with Zane Hengsperger, Founder and CEO of NOX Metals, a metal supplier in Detroit he started in 2025. NOX buys metal from the mill, cuts it to the exact size a machine shop needs, and ships it out. The whole operation runs on software the company writes itself. Zane is 26, and his first job was scrubbing the floors of his dad's machine shop at 14. He went into software, then came back to run a machine shop. That is where he saw that metal was the bottleneck for everyone making parts in America. The incumbents have been around for 200 years and have never put…
E428 · 26 Aug 2026 · 51 min
Developing North Texas' Iconic Master Planned Communities with Lucy Billingsley (#428)
This week Chris sits down with Lucy Billingsley, Co-founder and Partner of Billingsley Company, the Dallas development firm she started with her husband Henry in 1978. Lucy is the daughter of Trammell Crow, who built the largest real estate development company in America. She left the family business because she did not want to be a minority vote. She and Henry built their own firm instead, and today they run it with their kids. Billingsley plays a longer game than almost anyone in real estate. They buy land 30 or 40 years before the growth arrives and hold it until the market is ready.…
E427 · 12 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 52 min
The Man Who Took Elon to Russia & Why His New Company Phantom is SpaceX's Unfinished Business with Jim Cantrell, CEO of Phantom Space (#427)
This week Chris sits down with Jim Cantrell, Co-founder & CEO of Phantom Space. He co-founded Phantom Space in 2019, where he is now trying to mass produce rockets. He was employee number four at SpaceX and its first VP of Business Development. Jim is one of a handful of people who was actually in the room at the start. They discuss:• How getting arrested for espionage in Russia is the reason Elon Musk ever called him• What a fishing trip in Florida taught him about raising money• Why he believes SpaceX only exists because the Russians said no• What Carl Sagan asked him in a traffic jam• Why…
E426 · 5 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 9 min
Manufacturing, Supply Chains, and Building an Infrastructure Company with Justin Lopas (#426)
Today Chris sits down with Justin Lopas, Co-founder & COO of Base Power Company. On Monday Base announced a $1B Series D at a $13B post money valuation. Justin spent his early career at SpaceX, where he helped lead the Brownsville site that became Starbase, then ran manufacturing at Anduril. Base puts large batteries on homes, owns and operates them, and uses the fleet to support the grid. This is a conversation about speed, and about how much of it turns out to be a decision rather than an effort level. They discuss:• Why he wanted their first battery installed fast instead of right• Why he…
E425 · 29 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
Reindustrialization, Data Center Gold Rush, Death of The Allocator, National Security, & Capital Flows with Michael Levy (#425)
This week Chris sits down with Michael Levy, CEO of Crow Holdings, one of the largest private real estate firms in the country. This one goes far beyond real estate. Michael runs a major firm, but he opens on the big macro picture and works his way back down to real estate. They start with where the economy and the country are heading, and they end on what it means for how investors should be thinking today. They discuss:• The reindustrialization of America, and why national security and supply chains are driving what gets built• Getting out of the online bubble, and why travel, long-form…
E424 · 22 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 27 min
He's Raised $10 Billion For Real Estate Fund Managers. His Advice: "Don't Raise A Fund." with Jonathan Glick (#424)
This week Chris sits down with Jonathan Glick, founder of Incucap and one of the most active fund placement agents in the country. Over his career he's helped place more than $10 billion into real estate funds, and he says raising one has never been harder than it is right now. There are 600 to 1,000 funds chasing a shrinking pool of capital, real estate has lost a decade of ground to private credit, private equity and everything else, and most managers now spend two years raising a single fund. So his advice to almost everyone who calls wanting to start one is simple. Don't. They talk about…
E423 · 15 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
The World's Biggest Investors Are Buying Real Estate Again with Mark Gibson, CEO of JLL, Capital Markets, Americas (#423)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Mark Gibson, CEO of Capital Markets, Americas at JLL. He sits at the center of how capital moves through commercial real estate, which means he sees the data long before the narratives catch up. Chris and Mark get into why the world's largest investors are looking at real estate again after four years of underperformance, the signal in late 2024 that told his team the market had turned, and the wave of retirement capital that could reshape who owns real estate for the next decade. He is measured, data-driven, and one of the sharpest reads on this market…
E422 · 8 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
The Hottest Apartment Developer in America (Who Builds For 30% Less Than Competitors) with Steven Campisi, Hillpointe (#422)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Steven Campisi, co-founder of Hillpointe, one of the largest developers of attainable housing in the country. Most apartment developers design a brand new building for every project. Hillpointe has built the exact same building 800 times, which creates advantages that compound over time. That repetition plus their material and labor strategy is how Hillpointe builds across the Sun Belt for 30-40% less than everyone else. They get into their direct overseas sourcing business, how they've built their own in-house subcontractor base, how they underwrite new…
E421 · 1 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
The Ex-SpaceX Engineer Reinventing the American Home with Riley Meik (#421)
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…
E420 · 23 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
How He Built a 2.5M-Follower Media Machine with Chris Koerner (#420)
In this episode, Chris Powers sits down with Chris Koerner, a serial entrepreneur and host of The Koerner Office, one of the fastest-growing business podcasts in the world. Koerner has gone all-in on media: 1.4M on Instagram, a 270k newsletter, and a YouTube channel he grew to 600k subscribers in a year. They get into how he cracked short-form, why he thinks attention is the only moat left once AI makes any business easy to build, and the filters he uses to decide what's actually worth starting. Then they go somewhere completely different. They talk in great detail about his experience as a…
E419 · 16 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 45 min
The Business That's Selling Sunlight After Dark with Ben Nowack, CEO of Reflect Orbital (#419)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Ben Nowack, co-founder and CEO of Reflect Orbital, one of the first companies building satellites that redirect sunlight from orbit to specific spots on Earth, with the goal of delivering sunlight on demand, 24/7. Why would you want sunlight 24/7? Agriculture and farming, construction projects, rescue missions, military operations, powering solar panels closer to 100% of the time instead of ~30%, etc. Ben started Reflect in 2021. He spent the first year in a garage, $60k in credit card debt, before a $350k raise came in. Reflect has now raised more than…
E418 · 9 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 2 min
State Of The Private Aviation Industry with John Owen, CEO of Airshare (#418)
In this episode, Chris sits down with John Owen, President and CEO of Airshare, one of the largest private jet operators in the country. Airshare started in 2000 and spent over twenty years as a regional Midwest operator before going national in 2023 by acquiring Wheels Up's aircraft management business. They get into how the business actually works, where operators make and lose money, and where the industry is headed. They discuss:• Why fractional is the one part of the industry growing• How the Wheels Up deal came together• Why new jets are booked out to 2029• The Wi-Fi arms race in the…
E417 · 2 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 23 min
From One $3M Loan to a $25B Firm - How Madison Realty Capital Was Built with Josh Zegen (#417)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Josh Zegen, Co-Founder & Managing Principal of Madison Realty Capital, a $25 billion real estate private credit firm he started with his college roommate in 2004. They dig into how he built one of the largest private lenders in the country starting from a desk in his dad's law office, and why he still thinks of himself as a businessman first and a real estate guy second. Josh got into lending almost by accident. Laid off from a VC firm at 26 when the dot-com bubble burst, he took one mortgage deal nobody else would do, saw how fragmented and…
E416 · 26 May 2026 · 1 hr 21 min
The Texas Power Grid, AI, and the Race for Data Centers with Rep. John McQueeney (#416)
In this episode, Chris sits down with John McQueeney, State Representative for House District 97 in Tarrant County, Texas and member of the State Affairs Committee covering power grid and electric policy. In the last six weeks alone, John's committee has run three interim data center hearings. He is also drafting the Data Center Responsibility Act for the January 2027 session, the bill that will set the framework for how Texas handles the data center build-out for a generation. Texas has 440 gigawatts of applications in the queue against roughly 110 gigawatts of current peak capacity.…
E415 · 19 May 2026 · 1 hr 23 min
Building a $2.2B Aerospace Business From Scratch with Bryan Perkins (#415)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Bryan Perkins, Founder & CEO of Novaria Group, a Fort Worth-based aerospace manufacturer he started in 2011 and sold to Arcline last November for $2.2 billion. Bryan didn't set out to be in aerospace. He needed a job. But once he was in, he saw a niche nobody else wanted, high-mix, low-volume, esoteric parts that go under the radar, and spent 15 years rolling up 27 companies into one of the biggest businesses most people have never heard of. His North Star from the start was TransDigm, a company he'd been studying since his 20s. Chris and Bryan unpack…
E414 · 12 May 2026 · 1 hr 23 min
The Most Powerful Land Broker in North Texas with Rex Glendenning (#414)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Rex Glendenning, founder of REX Real Estate and the man known across North Texas as the "King of Dirt." Rex is a fourth-generation Celina native whose great-grandfather homesteaded 160 acres in 1887. Over the last four decades he's brokered billions in DFW land deals, including the $130M public-private partnership that brought the Cowboys to Frisco, while quietly running a 4-broker shop out of his hometown. Chris and Rex unpack his patience-and-dirt playbook, why he believes DFW is becoming the financial epicenter of America, and how he reads a real…
E413 · 5 May 2026 · 1 hr 35 min
Building a $100M CPG Brand With Only 10 Employees - James Beshara (#413)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Rex Glendenning, founder of REX Real Estate and the man known across North Texas as the "King of Dirt." Rex is a fourth-generation Celina native whose great-grandfather homesteaded 160 acres in 1887. Over the last four decades he's brokered billions in DFW land deals, including the $130M public-private partnership that brought the Cowboys to Frisco, while quietly running a 4-broker shop out of his hometown. Chris and Rex unpack his patience-and-dirt playbook, why he believes DFW is becoming the financial epicenter of America, and how he reads a real…
E412 · 28 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 28 min
The High School That Refunds Your Tuition If You Don't Make $1M with Nat Eliason (#412)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Nat Eliason, founder, writer, and now launching Founders School, a new entrepreneur high school in New York City. Tuition is $150K a year. The promise: every student hits a million dollars in gross profit by graduation, or the family gets their tuition refunded. The first class is around 20 freshmen. The day is split between AI-driven academics in the morning and business building the rest of the day. This is also the same Nat Eliason who in his spare time built Felix, an AI agent he gave a Stripe account, an email, and an X handle, then told to launch a…
E411 · 21 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 33 min
Building a $3B Family Office From Scratch with Matthew Ogle, Co-founder & CEO of Legacy Knight (#411)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Matthew Ogle, Co-founder & CEO of Legacy Knight, a $2.8B multi-family office in Dallas, TX that he co-founded in 2019. We dig into how you build a world-class multi-family office from scratch, and why so many wealthy families out there don't actually have one yet. Matthew's path into wealth management didn't start in a boardroom. It started on a tennis court. A summer teaching tennis to a CIO's family at Cape Cod opened the first door, which led him to Credit Suisse's private bank through the GFC and then five years at the Crow family office, helping…
14 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
#410 - Austin Tunnell - Founder of Building Culture - The Power of Developing Beautiful Buildings
In this episode, Chris sits down with Austin Tunnell, founder of Building Culture - a real estate development and design-build company based in Oklahoma City specializing in structural masonry construction and walkable, mixed-use urban infill. Austin's path to real estate is one of the more unusual ones we've had on the show. He grew up a football player in the suburbs of Houston, went to work at KPMG out of college, hated it, and joined the Peace Corps. A chance meeting with a master mason in Panama changed the trajectory of his life. He returned to the US and apprenticed for two years…
7 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 49 min
#409 - Jason McCann - CEO @ Vari - How a Simple Product Became a Global Brand
Today I sit down with Jason McCann, Co-Founder and CEO of Vari - a company that started when his business partner stood at a cardboard box complaining of back pain and turned that moment into a brand that has shipped millions of desks and transformed over a thousand offices. Jason built Vari direct-to-consumer in an industry that had never seen it. He bootstrapped the company while every instinct in the market said raise capital and burn cash. He became the fastest-growing company in Dallas, survived COVID after just putting $15 million into a TV campaign and opening 12 showrooms, and came…
31 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 43 min
#408 - Jordan Levi - The Largest Cattle Feeder In America
In this episode, I sit down with Jordan Levi to explore how he’s built a unique edge in the cattle industry by combining deep analytical thinking with real-world market experience. Jordan walks me through how he approaches cattle trading, the key biological and financial variables that ultimately determine profit and loss, and how he developed his framework without growing up in the business. We spend time unpacking how the cattle market actually works, where volatility comes from, and how operators think about risk across the cycle. We also dive into how he’s embracing AI tools and building…
24 Mar 2026 · 2 hr 56 min
#407 - JB Mauney - The Greatest Bull Rider That Ever Lived
In this episode, I sit down with JB Mauney to unpack the mindset, discipline, and resilience required to become one of the greatest bull riders in the world. We talk through the realities of competing at the highest level while constantly dealing with injuries, and how mental toughness separates the best from the rest. JB shares how he approached his career with a singular focus, what it meant to fully commit without a backup plan, and how he navigated the abrupt transition out of the sport. This conversation offers a raw look at what it takes to pursue excellence in one of the most…
17 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 26 min
#406 - Carl Edwards - From a $1,500 Race Car to the Hall of Fame (and Why He Walked Away)
In this episode, I sit down with NASCAR legend Carl Edwards to explore the unlikely journey that took him from a dirt track in Missouri to the highest levels of professional racing. Carl shares how a childhood fascination with his father’s racing career sparked a relentless pursuit that eventually led to NASCAR success. Along the way, we unpack the strategy behind racing, the persistence it took for Carl to break into the sport, and the pivotal moments that defined his career. We also discuss the surprising decision to walk away from racing at the height of his career and the deeper personal…
10 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 32 min
#405 - Christopher Zook - Founder of CAZ Investments - Building An $11B Alternative Investment Platform
Today I sit down with Christopher Zook to explore how he built and scaled CAZ Investments into an $11B alternative investment platform. Christopher shares the early vision behind launching his firm at age 31 and the philosophy of investing his own capital first before inviting others to participate alongside him. We discuss how a chance confrontation in a country club locker room ultimately forced him to rethink capital formation and marketing, transforming the trajectory of the business. Christopher also breaks down the strategy behind GP stakes, the evolution of private markets, and why…
3 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
#404 - Chris Huckabee - Founder @ MORE Group - From Founder-Led to Private Equity Backed
Today’s episode is with a great friend of mine, Chris Huckabee, Founder @ MORE Group. We unpack his company's remarkable private equity journey and why it was so successful. Chris shares how the unexpected loss of his business partner pushed him to rethink the future of his company, leading to a strategic shift, a private equity partnership, and rapid national expansion. We talk candidly about valuation surprises, building trust with employees during major transitions, and what makes a great private equity partner. Then we pivot to education reform, AI’s impact on schools, and the deeply…

About POWERS

Conversations with the best founders, entrepreneurs, and investors.

POWERS is a English business podcast from Chris Powers. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Chris Powers
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 23 min
Latest episode: 14 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1410549811
Rights: 2026

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