Podcast: The Check Engine Light for CRE, with FTL President Clayton Callander – Commercial Observer
Clayton Callander is the founder of FTL (Field Technologies), a diagnostic platform built to give commercial buildings something like a check-engine light, closing the service gap for the roughly 95% of properties that enterprise vendors like Honeywell and Siemens can’t economically reach. Before founding FTL, Clayton spent seven years maintaining nuclear systems aboard a US Navy submarine, worked at SpaceX, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. He built FTL for the people fixing America’s commercial buildings because he used to be one of them, and the tool he needed didn’t exist yet. Clayton is based in San Francisco, CA.
(00:00) – Intro: Why Six Million Commercial Buildings Have No Real-Time Data
(01:10) – Meet Clayton Callander, Founder of Field Technologies
(02:40) – The Telephone Game: What Happens When an HVAC Unit Breaks
(05:50) – Zach’s Take: Preventative Maintenance’s 20-Year Elusive Goal
(07:10) – It’s an Access Problem, Not a Technology Problem
(09:40) – Why Building Controls Stay Complicated and Expensive
(13:10) – What FTL Does
(16:50) – Pricing FTL at a Fraction of Traditional Controls
(20:20) – Why It’s Called Facilities Triage
(22:20) – Which Asset Classes Are Ready for FTL
(25:00) – What 60 Site Deployments Taught FTL
(26:30) – Unlocking the Other Six Million Buildings
(29:30) – LoRaWAN Explained: Why Not Wi-Fi
(32:30) – Proprietary vs. Open Systems: A VC’s View
(36:00) – Collaboration Superpower: Immanuel Kant (Wikipedia) and Ding Huan (Wikipedia)
🏙️ Learn more:
–Visit FTL
–Clayton Callander on LinkedIn
🏙️ NYC Real Estate Week:
-CTO Exchange & Hackathon: 3-in-1 event on Oct. 19 featuring C-suite roundtables, a hackathon and the Power AI & Tech Awards reception (invite-only). Email ecohen@commercialobserver.com for info.
🏙️ CRE Events coming up:
–Institutional Investors & PE Forum: in NYC on 9/16
–South Florida Capital & Development Forum: in Miami on 10/15
–All upcoming events
🏙️ Connect with Tangent:
-Edward Cohen on LinkedIn
-Zach Aarons on LinkedIn
-Tangent on LinkedIn
Disclaimer: Commercial Observer Tangent podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained on our program constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by Tangent, Commercial Observer, MetaProp, or any third party guest to buy or sell any securities, public or private, other financial instruments or funds.
