Tom Scott talks about AI in commercial real estate, commercial real estate leadership, and career pivots and optionality on this episode of the InCREdible Leaders podcast. In 35 years, Tom Scott has been a part of almost every technology shift the industry has been through: building cash flow models on VisiCalc before Argus existed, helping decide where the big consulting firms would put their offshore offices, running the team that abstracted 15,000 leases when Blackstone bought Equity Office, and working on machine learning for lease abstraction a decade before anyone called it AI.

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This conversation covers his career, the cost of it, and what he would tell someone in the middle of their climb.

We get into:

▶ Growing up in LA, USC water polo, and a double major in economics and computer science

▶ Graduating into the 1988 recession and the Wal Street job he did not get

▶ Pricewaterhouse, Ernst & Young, and seven years building a practice in Sydney

▶ Why Australia and Singapore run more sophisticated real estate markets than the US

▶ His uncle's warning: getting abroad is easy, coming home is hard

▶ Building Global Realty Outsourcing to 5,000 employees in seven years

▶ How the travel and apartments in other cities actualy cost him more than dolars

▶ Why AI is a productivity story, not an apocalypse

▶ Why he believes in hiring people smarter than you

Chapters 🕜

[00:58-01:48] Welcome and the purpose of the podcast

[01:49-02:44] Little Tom: born in Chicago, raised in LA

[02:45-03:05] Why he moved to Charleston four years ago

[03:06-03:52] Al-boys Catholic school and the Carmelite friars

[03:53-05:47] USC, water polo, and deep Southern California roots

[05:48-06:23] Economics, computer science, and the USC computer lab

[06:24-06:44] Mark Sherman, shopping centers, and a lifelong mentor

[06:45-07:39] VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and building the spreadsheet that replaced Project

[07:40-08:30] Graduating into the 1988 recession and missing Wal Street

[08:31-08:59] Pension fund advisor to Kol to CBRE Investors

[09:00-09:55] Pricewaterhouse New York: JD Edwards, CTI, MRI, PowerBuilder

[09:56-10:41] His dad at Arthur Andersen, and taking a gaming company public

[10:42-11:30] Ernst & Young, Lendlease, and the move to Asia

[11:31-12:04] Married in 1997, in Australia by June

[12:05-12:58] Partner young, and a work-life balance out of control

[12:59-13:22] Westfield, Lendlease, and AMP: building the practice

[13:23-13:44] A son born in Australia

[13:45-14:56] Seven years in Sydney, and making a point to see the country

[14:57-16:37] Why Australia's real estate market is so sophisticated

[16:38-17:50] Superannuation, sovereign wealth funds, and capital chasing assets

[17:51-19:52] Singapore: expat life and an unforgiving market [19:53-20:35] His uncle's advice: getting abroad is easy, coming home is hard

[20:36-21:23] Capgemini buys Ernst & Young Consulting for $6 bi lion

[21:24-21:46] Why the big firms keep misreading real estate as a market

[21:47-23:17] The World Is Flat and the search for an offshore hub

[23:18-24:37] Why India won: graduates, English, and chartered accountants

[24:38-25:34] Global Realty Outsourcing, backed by Sam Zel, Wachovia, and Citi

[25:35-26:02] Five thousand employees in seven years

[26:03-27:16] What offshoring really buys you: quality, not just cost

[27:17-28:03] Boston, an apartment in New York, and the commute

[28:04-30:07] The cost of the career, and what came after

[30:08-31:22] Advice for people in the middle of the climb

[31:23-33:55] Figuring out what makes you happy, and why it changes

[33:56-35:06] Creating options and never pigeonholing yourself

[35:07-35:43] Thirty-five years in commercial real estate

[35:44-38:03] Is commercial real estate a technology dinosaur?

[38:04-38:35] The cycles he has lived through: Yardi, JD Edwards, MRI

[38:36-39:53] The dot-com bubble and how Proptech got its reputation

[39:54-40:48] Blackstone buys Equity Office: 15,000 leases to abstract

[40:49-41:15] Offshoring, automation, and margins

[41:16-42:30] Sri Ramachandran and machine learning before anyone called it AI

[42:31-43:49] The commercialization of AI and the frontier model race

[43:50-45:22] Why AI is a productivity story, not an apocalypse

[45:23-46:54] The genie is not getting back in the bottle [46:55-48:02] Do not be a Luddite: refusing to adopt is the real risk

[48:03-48:47] Building a company with Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail

[48:48-49:34] Operations guy or technology guy? [49:35-50:00] When is Tom most proud as a leader?

[50:01-51:15] Hiring people smarter than you, and what "bright" really means

[51:16-52:22] The humility behind a 35-year career

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Website: www.5Qcloud.com

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