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In this episode of Mala’s Podcast, Mala sits down with Duncan Grazier, a seasoned technology leader who has helped scale companies from early-stage teams to major exits, including ShopKeep’s $550M sale to Lightspeed Commerce and Weedmaps’ public-market journey. Duncan is now Chief AI Officer at BuildOps, a unicorn transforming the commercial contracting industry with software and AI.
This conversation goes deep into what it actually takes to scale engineering teams, build trust in AI, and bring automation into industries that still rely heavily on paper-based workflows. Duncan shares how BuildOps is helping electricians, HVAC technicians, contractors, hospitals, data centers, and large commercial operators move toward smarter, faster, AI-enabled operations.
Mala and Duncan also explore the future of the Chief AI Officer role, why every leader will eventually need to become AI-native, how AI can improve billable hours and reduce operational errors, and why small language models and edge AI may be the next major shift.
This is a practical, honest conversation for founders, operators, product leaders, CTOs, AI builders, and anyone thinking about how AI will reshape the physical world.
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Timestamps
00:05 Duncan Grazier’s startup journey
00:40 Scaling ShopKeep to a $550M exit
00:51 Taking Weedmaps public
01:27 Becoming Chief AI Officer at BuildOps
01:44 What BuildOps does
03:00 Internal vs external AI transformation
03:18 Getting traditional industries to trust AI
04:09 AI product opportunities in commercial contracting
05:19 BuildOps as CRM, dispatch, invoicing, logistics, and compliance
06:28 Selling AI through outcomes
07:25 Proving AI ROI through the bottom line
08:39 What breaks when teams scale
09:31 Hiring, trust, and growing leaders internally
13:04 The future of the Chief AI Officer role
17:12 Agents, small language models, and the future of AI at the edge
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🔗 Connect with Duncan Grazier → https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsmeduncan/
🔗 Connect with Mala Ramakrishnan → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malaramakrishnan
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