Voice AI for Maintenance: Zacharie Esmili on Rail, Robotics and Founding Quintess AI

What if AI fit the way frontline workers actually do their jobs, instead of forcing them to fit the tools?

In this episode of First Builders, hosts Amber Illig and Rachel Tsui sit down with portfolio founder Zacharie Esmili, Co-Founder & CEO of Quintess AI, a voice AI platform built for maintenance technicians and the managers who support them.

Before starting Quintess AI, Zach spent nearly a decade at RATP Dev, working on rail maintenance and operations for the Paris Metro and projects across South Africa, Algeria, and China. He then moved into autonomy and robotics, helping scale technical operations and fleets at Cruise, working on autonomous farming robots at Burro, and supporting GenAI builders at Axflow.

Along the way, he came to see maintenance as “healthcare for equipment” and spotted a big gap: technicians with greasy hands and heavy tools are still expected to type structured notes into clunky systems that were never designed for how they work.

In this conversation, Zach shares:

• What global rail and fleet projects taught him about building systems that last decades
• How his time at Cruise and Burro shaped his view of AI in the physical world
• Why voice AI is a natural fit for maintenance and repair workflows
• How Quintess helps technicians capture better notes and managers see what is really happening on the ground
• The realities of selling AI into traditional industrial enterprises
• How his leadership style evolved from managing blue collar teams at twenty four to running a venture-backed startup
• Why determination and a clear vision matter more than chasing the latest AI trend

It is a candid look at applying AI beyond screens and keyboards, from a first builder who has spent his career at the intersection of rail, robotics, and the real world.

FOLLOW ZACHARIE ESMILI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharie-esmili/
Quintess AI: https://quintess.ai

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Transcript

0:04

Hey everyone, welcome to first builders. We're excited to have today's guest who has spent his career scaling the systems that move people, goods, and now information. From running maintenance for the Paris Metro to launching rail projects in Africa and Asia and deleting fleet operations that crews during the rise of autonomous vehicles. He's been building at the frontiers of transportation and technology for over a decade. And now, as co-founder and CEO of Quintus AI, he's bringing that same mindset to artificial intelligence, helping enterprises deploy AI responsibly and with confidence. Along the way, he's led scaling teams at Autonomous Farming Company Borough, guided fleet strategy at Cruz, where we overlapped, and spent time in the Y Combinator ecosystem at Maxflow. Prior to the startup industry, he spent almost a decade at RATP Dev, which is the world's largest public transport company, gaining deep industry expertise in the maintenance operations world. We're thrilled to welcome Zachary Asmili, a fund to portfolio founder, global builder, and now CEO of Quintess AI. Zach, welcome to First Builders. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Well, we'll just dive right in. So you've had one of the most global careers that we've featured on this show, starting with the rail systems in Paris and then later projects in South Africa, Algeria, and China. What did those early years teach you about building at scale? Yeah, it was like a very formative time, I would say, for me. Just getting to see like a very different context, right? Like you don't work uh in China the same way you work in France, but you keep learning. Uh and uh yeah, I uh I like essentially I learned to really adapt to my local situation and knowing that like I wouldn't know everything on day one and just go with the flow and and be fast at like delivering value. So that's that's kind of how I I dealt with that time and and um yeah, things I still uh keep uh in mind uh today. Adaptability is so important, and I'm sure you brought that with you into the startup world as well. And I'm curious too, because you made the jump from rail to autonomy, you know, first with Borough in the agriculture side, and then cruise with Amber in transportation. What drew you into like autonomous, you know, self-driving cars and robotics and things like that? Yes, that was like actually my my career with RTP. So some of the last projects I was working on were like multi-billion dollar, like very big like infrastructure, like uh like essentially building a new rail line and then operating it for like say like several decades. And I realized that like you know, it's it's a bit crazy to get those projects live. And and I thought like there has to be another solution to increase the like use of like public transport. And so that's when I got into like autonomy, and I was uh thinking of the time where someone has to bring like autonomous trains. I like that would be so so cool. But I realized that like I mean, autonomous like vehicles, like cars would come first and got very interested in that space while doing my MBA. Uh, got an internship at Cruz, that was my first exposure uh to that industry. And yes, as you mentioned, like uh I joined a fantastic uh startup in Philadelphia called Borough. Uh and it's still actively uh doing like autonomous robots for farming. It's actually one of the few success stories in in the space. So yeah, it was a pretty cool time. That's awesome. And what was it like jumping from an established legacy industry like rail to the world of early stage and growth stage startups? I mean, both of us have been inside of Cruise. It was like every day was a bit different. So every quarter, I feel like I was reinventing my whole self and mindset. Just curious how you manage that um transition and even for our listeners, like what was that like? Yeah, um, I think I mean it it's true, like rail is very established, right? Like, so you know, you are not going to reinvent how like people maintain like wheels or tracks or stuff like this, right? But in my case, because I was jumping from one country to another or one project to another, like it was constantly new. So I, you know, I you know, I stayed like less than two years on most of those roles. I was used to like things changing a lot. Yeah, like uh one of my roles with RTP was actually like starting a new operation from scratch. So it's not too dissimilar from a startup. So it's uh I would say like I I I I had some uh obviously like some aspects of my previous career that that would translate, but I think really like going to like very early stage startups. So when I joined Bureau, it was seed, and uh for robotics companies that means that like okay, they had a product. I I would say they they almost had PMF because it was very clear that like um uh customers wanted their product, but but the product was still early, right? And it's robots, so it fails. So so yeah, so there was an aspect of it that was like more chaotic, obviously, than what I had seen in my previous career, and and and and I had to adapt to that. And that was like a fantastic learning experience. Yeah. What do you think was like uh most important to be able to adapt to in that environment, like going from growth stage, which was cruise, even though it was deep tech, in some ways it felt like we were still at pre-seed, and then in other ways it was like we're a growth stage company, pre-IPO at some points. Um, yeah, I guess for anybody who is making that jump, either deciding to found a company really early stage or uh joining a company that's really early, going from either growth stage or established, what do you think is kind of the most important trait beyond the adaptability itself? Yeah, I would say like it's really like finding where you can bring value and deciding kind of for yourself and like then suggesting obviously like if if that makes sense. Uh but like I think that's that's a big difference, right? Like when you are yeah, a company like cruise, you know, thousands of people or more, obviously people stay more in their lane because otherwise uh it can't work and and it's a lot more process oriented. I I think it was kind of an in-between, right? Like as you say, like in many aspects it was very new, and in some aspects it was a bit like big tech. Whereas like uh an early stage startup, um, you know, there there are no processes. So you have to to see, okay, where where can I bring value today? Where what should I uh work on today that is going to really have an impact on the company? And I think like that's that was like super helpful to learn because as a founder, that's exactly the same mindset. Like you have an infinite number of uh topics you can tackle, and you have to be very strategic. Yep. And then at Cruz, you were leading technology or technical operations and scaling the fleet. What was it like trying to match vehicle software bring up with manufacturing output? And could you talk a little bit about what you were doing in that role, especially for our listeners that maybe aren't familiar with maintenance and repair operations or self-driving cars? Yeah, yeah, totally. So I was part of like a technical operations team at Cruise, so kind of the mainten side of the house because Cruise is a tech company. We were really working, in my case, uh not so much on like the day-to-day, but like how can we improve things? Uh so it was like you know, fantastic experience. But like, for instance, yes, we we had a software stack that we had to run, like kind of like the operating system of the car, you know, early phase of the product, it was far from perfect. Like technicians would spend a lot of time uh like troubleshooting stuff. Part of my role was like uh leading a project with the engineering team to to really significantly improve the reliability of that software. So that was one example, but like the the the whole point was we we've we had just started like commercial operations and we we had a cool product, we needed to turn it into a business, right? So if you remove the driver, but you had so many people working on the car, you don't you don't have a business, you just have a cool tech product. And so that was really about like bringing efficiency and uh and cutting down cost and and enabling like scaling of the fleet. Awesome. So now you founded Quintest AI, what was the spark for starting the company and how did your time at Cruise and Borough and RATP prepare you for building an AI? Yes, I mean um uh earlier in my career, I I really wanted to start my own company at some point. Uh actually, between uh my time at RTP and uh and my MBA, I was like, you know, I had a lot of ideas. Um you know, I had mentioned like autonomous trains, that was one. I also wanted to uh like start a service a bit like via, like uh uh transit on demand, but for North Africa. So I had like some ideas like this, but it felt like hey, I'm probably not the right person to start these kind of companies. Anyway, I so I was really thinking of okay, at some point I want to start my my own. And after cruise, I joined a very early stage YC startup founded by two uh uh cruise engineers. We were essentially providing a tooling suite for people building with Gen AI, so startups like Quintus. And so suddenly, me being on the business side, I got exposure to like hundreds of startup founders who were building uh like still like pretty early on in this whole journey, like early 2024, and realized like everything that we could do, like it was a bit of a crash course. You know, uh I would say cruise was a bit like more like the traditional AI applied to autonomous vehicles. Uh Gen AI is, I mean, there are a lot of similarities, but uh it's it's still different. And so I got to learn like everything that we could do. And um, you know, at some point it was time for us to to think of like a pivot. And so I had like hundreds of ideas of things I would do, like how I would leverage uh this technology to like really help my previous life, right? Like uh help maintenance leaders, and that's that's uh that's when I started to you know like start Quintess last year. Wait, so how did you get from a hundred ideas to Quintess? Is Quintess would you say that it encompasses a lot of them, or that it was one where you felt like that one had better potential than the others? Yeah, um, so indeed I I would say like the vision for Quintess of like really like boosting uh the efficiency of maintenance operation, especially like industrial scale maintenance, like cruise or ARTP. I think all of my ideas were kind of around this. Uh so the problem space. But then it was really like, okay, where do we start? And and specifically, like our long-term vision is to become like some kind of like central operations for for those companies, like really like controlling all aspects of their maintenance operations. You need to gain permission, right? Like a big company is not going to let you do that on day one. Yeah. And so, yeah, we we started thinking about the system of record. So, me and my co-founder Julien, who is a great friend from my engineering school, and so they are very central to all those operations. And so we wanted to start like a new like AI system of record for maintenance. Realized that it's a very high bar to ask people to switch to a new system of record. Um, and so we continued iterating a bit on the idea and landed on uh our our current product. Uh so it's uh it's a voice AI solution for technicians. It helps them like essentially do their work reporting in in no time and like really remove all the burden. And on the other side, for managers, it gives them really like the clarity that they need in their data to know what's going on in the field. And so that's I think value prop was simple enough that it's something you can explain to your first customers and get them to adopt. And we don't ask them to um, you know, like migrate from a system they've been using for 10 plus years. Yep. Um, and as you mentioned, like you're tackling basically enterprise adoption of AI, which is very challenging. What do you think? What do you think are some of the mistakes that are being made in the industries right now that you're touching? Or maybe I should say like the the lost opportunities, and what what should be on your customers' minds as they're looking at all these potential solutions being pitched at them in the AI space? Yeah, so so I think obviously enterprise companies like they they're a bit like saturated with like all the pitches that they get from AI companies, so there is a bit of that. And I think like the reaction to that is thinking, is there immediate ROI for me to decide that this project is uh is valid? And then I think that's kind of like overreacting a bit because in a in a lot of scenarios, like yes, there is a uh some immediate ROI and for our solution too, but like what is a lot more interesting is like the product vision and what what we can build uh together uh over a longer period of time. And so I think like there is a bit of that risk of missing a great opportunity, something that is really going to boost uh their their productivity just because they they focus just on the immediate like next three months, right? And how do you think about like building that, right? Because I mean obviously it's gonna take time. Um it requires trust from their side to you and all of that as well. Like, you know, how do you think about building that like with the technology and the vision and then all the stakeholders? Yeah. Yeah, so I I think the the key, at least for us at this stage, is is to adapt our solution to like what is really top priority for them, right? Like essentially we come with some idea of what what could really uh help their operations, but they are closer to the ground and they know perfectly what is like really tricky for them to solve. And so I at least that's what we do today is like really adapt our solution to their workflows. So this way they get faster uh value, and then we can identify together what are the next steps, right? Like not like the two, three years roadmap, but more like okay, in the next six months to a year, what do we want to achieve? What do you want to see? And then we build that. So it's like in a in a sense, like we you know, we try to narrow it down like you can't boil the ocean. So just like focusing on on what brings value in the medium term. Yeah. And how do you manage from customer to customer? Like if two different customers have different high priorities areas. Um you find that if you build one for one customer, eventually the other customer is gonna need it, it's just not their priority right now. Like, how does that kind of translate as you're building a platform? Yeah, yeah, totally. I think like where we have an advantage is because I've spent like close to 15 years in that space, I kind of have all those building blocks in my head. I know where we want to go. And so I'm like thinking, okay, well, if customer A is asking for this feature and I know that we were going to build it, it's just like you know, uh, it's kind of like rearranging a bit of our roadmap. So I know that other people will uh will have the same need because I had that need. So and and at several companies, so that's how I I think about it, and and then within the like maintenance, obviously you have verticals like rail being one, but then you have also like a specific set of customers who have like very similar needs. So we try to at first like stay within a few customers who have like very similar needs. So this way uh they all benefit from uh yeah, and I feel like I mean, hearing you talk about this, you're selling yourself short in terms of what I my question earlier on how you build trust with the stakeholders, like clearly all of your experience and understanding what your problems were when you worked in this, like that's giving you such a great like framework and insight with um you know with the customers that you're serving today, also with Quintess. Yeah, and I I would say like uh you know it's always good, like from you know, time to time I reconnect with uh folks at Cruz, and you know, they're like, oh yeah, like you're really like building the product we we wish we had, right? So so like this kind of feedback is is always awesome. And and I think like with customers today, um it's really, you know, I I can't be an expert of all subsets of of maintenance, but uh, but I I do understand very quickly what they are talking about, and and I think that that gives us an edge. Like they don't need to translate their um internal jargon or their practices. Like I'm there for that. And I do that translation with our tech team when needed, although like everybody is also like uh getting up to speed. So so yeah, that's that's a pretty strong advantage for us. That's really fascinating because I I think a lot of new founders and new investors kind of underestimate the sort of niche uh cultures that exist inside of these industries and companies, even tech companies, the bigger they get, like the more jargon there is, the more there's a way that they do things, and you kind of everyone who works there learns how to work in that nuanced environment and that nuanced industry. So it definitely adds a lot of credibility if you can even leapfrog past like 20% of it. So that's cool. Yeah, and and I would say like uh sometimes I because I speak the same language, I don't realize that it's jargon. Right. And then and then I talk to my team, and uh and some stuff that is obvious to me is not necessarily obvious to the rest of the team, and so that's when you realize that okay, I need to do some translation. Yeah, this is the nuance, this is the thing to think about. Yeah, this is a good issue. Or like some, you know, they they are also like business constraints, operational constraints that are obvious to me, but but they are they can feel arbitrary otherwise. Totally, yeah, totally agreed. Awesome. So we'd love to kind of hear a little bit about like especially for our listeners who are not aware, and you know, frankly for myself as well. Tell us a little bit about the day-to-day of the maintenance worker. You know, do they like talking to the voice AI? Are they getting used to it? Is it still kind of new to them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's uh yeah, so for sure it's new to them. But so I yeah, so like a typical like maintenance worker, so where they they work on a self-driving car or in a more like traditional industry like rail, so they they do their work, they have to report their work at the end of their shift or at the end of the task, preferably. Um, and they hit some hurdles in between. And so that's like when you know they they have an issue, they have to escalate to somebody, like their manager or some engineering team, and then they go back to work or they don't have the parts. So there is a lot of like, especially when you do repairs versus like preventive maintenance, there are a lot of like unknowns and things that can happen. So that's kind of the life of uh maintenance, and it's it's you know, some aspects are like similar to like a software engineer, like troubleshooting code, same type of steps. Um, and um today our our product is focused more on like helping them like with the work reporting so that the notes are perfect, and when they say they escalate to their engineering counterparts, the engineering team understands what needs to be solved and can help them faster, or like the manager has a much better idea of what are the problems that people are facing on the ground. But we also want to help them with those troubleshooting steps, right? Telling them like when they are stuck, instead of having to wait for whoever has the knowledge uh inside their company or outside, and sometimes it's like a supplier. Um, if they could just ask a quintess as a first step, that's like fantastic, right? Um, so that's what we are working on today. Uh, and yes, so from the point of view of like just getting used to voice AI, um, we we see like um pretty good adoption, even like sometimes from like older folks who we you would think are are less receptive. Um, and I think part of it is because we we flip a bit the narrative here. Uh typically you are you're trying, like, I mean, we are bringing a new technology, right, to to a world where people are very set in in their practices, but at the same point, they are today asked to use tools that are really not suited for their uh work. So imagine like you have greasy hands or you are using some heavy equipment, and now you have to remove your gloves, probably like go to a wash station, and uh and then finally go to the computer, it's far from ideal. Yeah, and so like talking to the AI, even though it's new and all, it fits better in the in the workflow. And and that's what our insight, having been there, like that like voice is so much better suited for that job. So yeah, I would say you know, we face like you know an adoption curve just like any new technology, but we benefit from the fact that our technology is uh better suited. Yeah, no, it's so fascinating too. I've actually discussed this with Amber before, how um it has parallels to how doctors use like their scribing AI and how it just it fits the workflow a lot better. Um they also need their really important structured clinical notes, you know, in the HRs. And so, yeah, when we were even discussing this deal early on, that was one of the things I was like telling her, I was like, oh my gosh, like because I come from the healthcare background. So I was like, this is very interesting from like a parallel like workflow perspective. Yeah, and it's go ahead and well I was just gonna say it was also interesting because in healthcare we see that type of deal a lot. Like there are a lot of voice AI agents, but there aren't as many in maintenance and repair. So it was actually really interesting that like in some sectors it's really taken off and it's almost like overdone, and then in others it's completely, you know, hasn't even existed yet and is a really interesting entrance point in. Yeah, uh and and obviously there are reasons for that. Uh one of them is I mean, you have to deal with like big enterprise customers. Yeah. Uh it works out once you're in the door. Yeah. So but uh but I think like uh it's interesting because to me, maintenance is you know, like it's I mean it's healthcare for equipment, right? Yeah, it's exactly the same thing. And I mean coming from maintenance, I see it the other way around. Like to me, going to the doctor is just maintaining my body. I love that analogy. So it's not too surprising that you have like similar needs in those two industries, and they are both like um like record keeping is huge in both cases because you know it's safety, it's yeah, very, very similar in that aspect. In the long run, because uh we tend to like our solution is used in in a context of more like many-to-many interactions where you have many different technicians working on many different um assets. There is there is an even more of a need of like coordination in in large companies on maintenance. So I think like you know, the first problems are similar. After that, we have some very exciting stuff that that we can solve that are probably harder to solve in in the healthcare industry. So, anyway, yeah, I'm very bullish for uh you know like the application of AI. to to the maintenance world. Yeah. I love that you touched on like that large coordination required within companies for maintenance because I think a lot of people that haven't worked in a a physical operation in one of these industrial sectors or ever seen maintenance may not realize how massive of an industry that is just because even when I worked in manufacturing for consumer electronics at companies like Apple, it would be like there's an entire team just for one product for iPhone, there would be an entire team just focused on identifying all the equipment, assigning an age to each equipment, each piece of equipment that was going to be used to produce the iPhones, and then designing like a preventative care and maintenance plan for which essentially is the maintenance plan for those pieces of equipment. So every piece of equipment has like a recurring you know healthcare plan if you will. Exactly. So it's it's very similar and it is huge. It's massive. So and these pieces of equipment are really expensive and they all have you know depreciation timelines and end of life and if you can extend that life you can save a lot of costs. So it applies to everything from like rail to equipment inside of factories to defense like there's all sorts of stuff. So I appreciate you kind of sharing the the insight on like how it looks for the maintenance worker as well. Yeah and I I would say another big uh aspect of maintenance is avoiding downtime. So if it's a manufacturing line it's super obvious but it's the same way like you don't want the plane to be down when it has to take off with hundreds of passengers. So there are a lot of high stake aspects of maintenance because of that. Nobody wants uh the assets to be down. Yeah definitely um so I'd love to switch gears a little bit and uh chat through kind of how your leadership has evolved right you know you've gone from managing maintenance teams um especially like on the rail side and obviously at crews and such as well and then now running a venture back startup. Yeah how do you think like your style has really evolved um yeah uh yeah very interesting like very different I would say you know like uh yeah I started my career in a very like blue collar environment where on top of that I was like 24 and the manager and it's kind of funny right like when you you manage people who could be uh your parents essentially so so I I think it's kind of the same thing of like being like like adapting your style to uh the the environment so I I I learned very early on to be humble like I I was managing people who knew a lot more than I did about the work like in in this case like they knew everything about uh the the equipment that we had to maintain and then like moving more into tech it was obviously a lot less uh hierarchical more like managing by influence right uh specifically when you work with engineering like product teams that are not you know even in the same hierarchy so so that was like yeah an aspect where I had to really change style and then like yeah early stage startups it's a whole new beast right uh like it's really about like creating a team selling the mission explaining very clearly why we work on on something and things keep changing and priorities are changing every day and explaining all of that. At least that's my philosophy I'm I'm still like learning right I don't pretend I I know everything about uh startup leadership but I I think because it's it can be a bit chaotic and uh yeah it's important for for the leadership to really explain what's going on and and why we are doing uh what we do. Yeah and regarding that chaos like you've worked on three continents across industries most people never get to touch and and at company sizes that are quite different. So what kind of grounds you outside of work? Oh yeah uh my family I would say like uh and and I'm very fortunate I think you you need to have like some stability in your life and uh I think it was also like part of me of when I decided that oh yeah that was really the time is when I had some financial stability and really like uh a perfect life on on the the uh private side and and so I think that's really important. I I get a ton of support from my wife I have a beautiful daughter it it helps uh when I get like super stressed about the future of Quintess and uh and all the customers and all of that it's really important to have that. That's awesome. Yeah and and I would love to hear also I mean obviously like you know the the personal life and having like a lot of the stability there but is there anything that like about you whether it's like a passion or a habit or anything else that doesn't usually show up in your founder bio that you want to share with our um listeners here? Yeah I'm a man of few hobbies so I don't have like a ton to share here but this is the hobby right exactly the company takes up all your hobby time. I uh I enjoy like running and cycling uh and just um you know being in nature I think like I live in San Francisco we have uh beautiful nature around and that really helps me I I take some of my meetings as like walking meetings in the park and that that really helps by the way it just and there there are other studies too that show that if you're actually walking while having a meeting like you're just way more creative and way more yeah just like calm and tranquil and and everything else as well. Yeah and I I do that a lot with my co-founder also because we've known each other for now close to 20 years. So he knows me he doesn't need to see me on camera. Yeah I totally agree with you like it it's uh it helps us being creative um and and thinking about how we we solve some of the hardest challenges. Yeah what me what keeps you motivated when you're building in spaces that are uncertain, high risk and often under scrutiny? Yeah um for me it's really like I think I have that one opportunity to build something that I would really have wanted back then in in like my whole career right like and and I I think it's very unique. First, you know many people start uh their their company like right after school or something like this. I have that opportunity that I faced a lot of challenges for most of my career that was just how things were right like there was nothing you could do about it. For instance technicians would complain all the time that they hated doing their reports I would tell them hey like I need to say that please do it right like there was really no answer to that problem. Or the answer would be like some clunky uh mobile app that is not helpful in any way. And um and so like that's just an example you know everything that essentially all the challenges I faced or like searching for parts for like hours because it's very hard to find or stuff like this that we can now solve with our solution I mean that's really exciting. And then like sharing that vision with customers seeing that yeah they've seen the same problem that they also want to solve it and working together yeah that's fabulous. So yeah that's really what what keeps me motivated. That's awesome. And what do you think is the most underrated skill for founders? Yeah I would say um determination and like I mean I don't know if it's the most underrated but some something that we tend to forget is it's never easy. So you really have to push through and I think like some people kind of expect like super early success especially like now in the AI world where like you think that of course everybody wanted your product and and you will you know like I I think specifically when you bring AI to like more traditional companies that like work at their own pace and so on and so on. Just knowing that hey you you you know what vision you have you know that it's shared by many customers and you need to just execute on this I think it's it's very powerful because you know otherwise you can just you know decide to pivot to the next idea right like a or copy like you know like oh yeah this company has been super successful with voice and sales let's do this right so so I think like being very very clear on why you are doing it and and sticking to it is is very powerful. Awesome. Well now we're actually at the point where we're gonna transition into our rapid fire playbook. So we have a few questions for you. Just you know feel free to answer with like the first thing that comes to mind for you and um I will let Amber kick us off. What's one tool or habit that you rely on every day? Yeah I'm a big fan of tasks. So I mean for me uh specifically as a CEO I think like you know you can really be overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done in like very different buckets and so I just have all my tasks on my calendar and it's uh it's uh really good for me to to keep track of everything. Yes there's nothing like crossing those off when you've got like so many work streams. It feels the best way to do that. Yeah. What's one book, podcast or mentor that shaped how you lead yeah I think um mentor definitely my my first mentor when I I joined RATP so a long time ago right really uh helped me lead with uh while being humble and uh yeah I think that's uh just uh something that you can keep wherever you go and it it was as I mentioned like particularly needed when you are a young uh engineer managing like very experienced folks but uh but that's has been useful since then. And what's one thing you used to believe about leadership that you no longer do? I think I used to believe that leaders would have things figured out like you when you are on the other side it seems like oh yeah they're so good. And and then obviously when when uh at a company things become more chaotic you you see that even like the best leaders uh can fumble and so yeah uh and now obviously uh being in charge like I know that I don't know everything but that I'm doing my best and and trying to learn uh as much as I can to to lead the company in the best direction. That's awesome. That's a really good one. Awesome. And then if you had a magic wand what's one thing that you'd fix let's say you get three wishes. What's one thing you'd fix for yourself one thing for Quintus AI and then one thing for the broader AI ecosystem? So for I'll start with Quintess I would love if all maintenance leaders in the world knew about us because when I get inbound I love it so much. So so you know and and part of it is just that product discovery right like uh we are small and so people don't know that there is a solution to their problems. So that's one for for myself I mean yeah I I wish I had a little more time to run more just like time is limited and exercising is is really good. And remind me what was the last one? The broader AI ecosystem. Yeah that's a tough one I mean well if we could have significantly better uh financial models that would be great so I mean you know like I think when you you apply AI to like like really like uh the physical world you hit limitations faster I would say yeah I wish AI understood better now I mean that's part of our craft right but we we really have to know what to tell the AI uh without uh overloading it like it's not yet that uh AGI stage or we're very far from that. Yeah yeah so still exciting. Yeah absolutely is there anything that you wish like investors just appreciated more about realities of building an AI today? I mean I I think investors are um uh pretty aware by now right like they've spent enough time to to to see a bit uh all of that no I I mean I I'm like very fortunate to like meeting investors who actually are interested in like applying AI to the physical world and uh come with an open mind uh with that so yeah um not so much to fix on the investor side that's awesome yeah and Zach thank you so much for joining us today where can people follow you and stay up to date with Quintessai uh yeah so people can uh follow me on on LinkedIn like um uh at quintess.ai yeah I I try to to post more uh about our journey uh yeah we are also hiring at the time so if there are like uh great engineers who want to work with us in San Francisco that'd be awesome. That's awesome and we are super thrilled to be on board as an investor in Quintess AI. It's been awesome to watch you guys grow. And fun fact for all of our listeners is that this is the first investment that we made out of our fund too. So very high conviction to rip off the band-aid with that first one. So yeah we are very happy to to have your support and uh it's been very fun like working with you guys. I always love doing this with portfolio founders because we get to hear more from them than we typically do on like short update calls and things like that. So learn more about you as a human as well. So yeah awesome thanks so much for being on TAC. Thanks. That was such a fun conversation love having portfolio founders on. Amber what stood out to you from today's convo yeah it was a great one. I I think number one uh I love how niche his focus area is and obviously I like it because we invested in it but one of the reasons we invested in it was you know he's picked a nuanced space that only he could understand at at Quintess and there might be a few others that that could do it but very few people have spent so long in the industry that they're tackling and you know understanding maintenance and repair operations and having worked in multiple industries where that is a major factor goes a long way especially in him being able to speak their language. And then the other thing that stuck out to me was his deep dual experience. And what I mean by that is as you and I talk about all the time Rachel we're looking for founders not just with venture scale tech experience and having been inside of tech companies but also with experience inside of legacy industries. And it's really hard to get two because some people spend their entire careers in one or the other. But we've backed founders who have like grown up on farms and then they end up studying machine learning and working at tech companies. But I just think Zach is like the perfect example and it's hard to find somebody that's done so much of both in one career. But you know he spent like a decade you know working in maintenance and repair most of which was in the rail industry and then a decade in tech still working in maintenance and repair. And I just think it's important because if you only have experience working inside of tech companies, you might build something really cool but have a lot of trouble selling it into the customer base you're trying to target if you're going after these industrial sectors. And then if you've only had experience in the industrial sectors, you know, you might end up building something too small or not be thinking big enough in terms of the venture scale opportunity. So and of course you can do things to adjust if you have more of one experience or the other but it was just really interesting with Zach it's like 5050 you know truly fits the model we're looking for. Yeah no definitely I mean I think like he talked a lot about the tie-in from the tech world to the physical world throughout the conversation and just even the practicality of voice AI just given his experience um in working so deeply in this and when he talked about like hey like you know these people are working um with like heavy machinery or they have dirty gloves they would have to go and take off their gloves wash their hands and then input something into a computer or into some mobile app or something like that. And so voice AI just naturally becomes like the the right product fit for this type of workflow. So you really kind of only get that insight when you have that lived experience I think. Totally and then the last piece that you know we don't we actually don't talk about often but I've thought about uh multiple times is sort of what's going on for these operators turned founders. It's sort of a different experience and different life that they're living than a founder that might have just graduated college or just dropped out of college to start their startup. And I think um because we've kind of glorified you know a small group of founders like Mark Zuckerberg who just went straight into founding Facebook while he was at Harvard and and did great. I think sometimes people get in in their heads about am I too old to be a founder? Do I have too much experience to be a founder? And even investors are like, should I only go after these like you know people who just graduated college because they've have all these fresh ideas and they can take a risk because they're so young. But it's almost like these operators that spend 10 plus years building as an operator inside of a company and then go found a company, get the second wave of like risk taking ability where it's like they have their you know certain things in their life that feel settled or their financial stability. But they feel like these things are in place. So now I can go take that big bet on myself. And it's just a little bit different than the bet that you would take on yourself, you know, if you just graduated college and and you're gonna be couch surfing and taking that bet on yourself. But I think the type of founders we back because we look for first builders um you know they just have a different set of super skills. They've got a deep network they've got lots of insights that are super niche in the areas that they're building in and they've got you know the financial stability to be able to bet on themselves in a different way. So I thought that was interesting he mentioned it just briefly. Yeah yeah no definitely I think there's definitely some tie-ins where if we look across our portfolio founders and um the type of first builders that we've been backing. Yeah and I mean even you and I I mean this is first time I've worked here myself like over 10 years into my career. So very cool. Yeah yeah same thing here. So well if you've enjoyed this episode feel free to leave us a review share it with a friend and subscribe to first builders wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to subscribe to the council newsletter for more founder stories and insights delivered straight to your inbox. See you all next time