In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, host Scott MacMillan speaks with Dr. Mehdi Nourbakhsh and Dr. Sam Zolfagharian, co-founders of YegaTech and co-authors of Disrupt It. The conversation highlights how their complementary strengths—Sam’s detail orientation and Mehdi’s big-picture vision—shaped a unique collaborative writing process. Rather than dividing up chapters, they worked in a “round robin” style, iterating together through multiple drafts and challenging one another’s ideas until the manuscript truly served its intended audience.
They also share how changing environments, from coffee shops to mountain retreats, helped them step away from daily distractions and focus deeply on the book. With support from Scott and his team, they stayed on track and pushed through the endless cycle of revisions to arrive at a book that equips AEC executives to navigate AI transformation. Their story underscores the discipline, collaboration, and creative strategies needed to bring a complex idea to life on the page.
ABOUT SCOTT:
Scott MacMillan serves as the Chief Strategist and Executive Publisher at Grammar Factory Publishing. While not a professional writer or editor by training, he brings over two decades of experience as an entrepreneur and business leader, having held executive, operational, and management consulting positions with esteemed organizations including Boston Consulting Group, Rogers Communications, and Corus Entertainment. Upon transitioning to entrepreneurship, Scott has dedicated his expertise to strategic oversight, ensuring that authors’ books are closely aligned with, and actively contribute to, the growth objectives of their businesses.
SHOW LINKS
Free Resources: yegatech.com/free-resources/
Get the Disrupt It Book
GUEST BIOS
Dr. Mehdi Nourbakhsh is an author, speaker, and CEO of YegaTech, a technology consulting company in the AEC industry specializing in AI strategy, governance, and implementation for AEC companies. As the author of two Amazon bestselling books “Augment It: How Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Leaders Leverage Data and Artificial Intelligence to Build a Sustainable Future,” and “Disrupt It: How Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Executives can Transform their Organizations in the Age of AI Disruption,” Dr. Mehdi co-created new frameworks for understanding and integrating AI technologies in AEC, establishing a solid foundation for innovation in the field.
Feel free to meet Dr. Mehdi via his blog posts or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Dr. Sam Zolfagharian is an AI strategist, keynote speaker, and author of Disrupt It: How AEC Executives Can Transform Their Organizations in the Age of AI Disruption. As Co-Founder of YegaTech, she advises CEOs and boards on AI strategy, governance, and innovation. With a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech and 20+ years in tech and design, Sam helps organizations turn AI disruption into sustainable, strategic advantage.
You can learn more about Dr.Sam Zolfagharian through their blog posts or LinkedIn.
CONNECT WITH SCOTT
LinkedIn (@scottmacmillan): linkedin.com/in/scottmacmillan
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Medium (@scottamacmillan): scottamacmillan.medium.com
ABOUT GRAMMAR FACTORY:
Grammar Factory is a Canadian self-publishing company that helps business leaders and entrepreneurs write, publish, and market non-fiction books to boost their credibility and business results. Their expert team guides clients from idea to professionally published book, offering editorial services to ensure high-quality, compelling content. Serving clients globally, Grammar Factory focuses on transforming manuscripts into industry-leading books that attract clients and enhance brands, with a strong commitment to supporting authors throughout the publishing process.
Episode Transcript
Please note: The transcript is produced by a third-party company from an audio recording and may include transcription errors.
Scott MacMillan:
You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast.
Announcer
Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast, the podcast that brings you practical strategies for building authority and growing your business. And now, here's your host, Scott MacMillan.
Scott:
My guests today are the co-founders of YegaTech, an innovative technology consultancy focused on building AI technologies for organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction or AEC industries. Dr. Mehdi Nourbakhsh is the CEO of YegaTech and Dr. Sam Zolfagharian is the president of the company. And together, they're also the co-authors of Disrupt It: How Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Executives Can Transform Their Organizations in the Age of AI Disruption.
Sam and Mehdi, welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author Podcast. Thank you for being here.
Sam:
Thanks so much for having us, Scott. It's great talking to you and your audience.
Scott:
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. And listen, I shared a little bit about both of you in the introduction, but I'd love it for our listeners to hear it in your own words. Could you tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and the genesis of YegaTech?
Sam:
So my background is architecture, engineering, and construction. I used to be a construction manager and designer back in time. I studied structural engineering and back in Iran, I'm originally from Iran, back in Iran is really common that when you design, you also be involved in construction process as well.
So I was like designing and also visiting the construction site, kind of acting as a project manager. And I saw like how challenging it is, how old fashioned everything is. And it triggered me to go for higher education and learn more about how technology can help this industry and how we can benefit more, we can increase safety, we can be more productive.
And that's one of the main reason that I decided to leave Iran and go for higher education. I went to Georgia Tech, I studied a PhD in design computing and construction management. And through that program, my PhD was kind of funded through multiple projects.
One of them was like how we can manage data flow throughout the whole project, construction project. And Autodesk was interested in learning more how this could be beneficial for the manufacturing industry. And I started my career in tech as a product manager at Autodesk.
I was leading multiple platforms, including Forge now is known as Autodesk platform services. I was also involved in how we can use AI for personalizing users experience, the way that if they use our products back in time, and also how AI can help us to be more sustainable. One of the projects that I was involved was how we can design airplane components, making them lighter.
So as a result, we can use less fuel. And that could be beneficial for the environment as well, because it means that airplane can be more, can have less carbon footprint as a result of lighter components and being lighter. And Mehdi and I, we've seen like how big companies are taking advantage of AI power.
And we're like how we can bring it to smaller companies who don't have the budget, who don't have this opportunity. And this is the main reason that we started Yigatech. And at Yigatech, we are helping AEC architecture, engineering and construction companies with their AI strategy, making sure that they understand AI and they can see where it could elevate their business, it could elevate their client's experience.
And so far, we've trained over 9,000 people just within this industry.
Scott:
Wow, that's amazing. Amazing. Mehdi, how about you?
What background do you bring to all of this?
Mehdi:
Well, almost the same. I'm also a structural engineer working construction, did my PhD at Georgia Tech in the School of Building Construction. I also got a master's in computer science at Georgia Tech when I was doing my PhD, which I don't recommend, too much work.
And through that, I was introduced to the world of artificial intelligence. And so I was part of a team that introduced AI to Autodesk. And I was actually doing research, I was part of the research team, really looking into how AI can change the way we design things, buildings, airplanes, trains, physical objects.
And over the past 10 years, I've been involved in many different AI projects and, you know, work on a project that is based on fast company was the first AI design car back in 2015. And now, you know, it's very common. So through that engagement, through working with a lot of different firms, I started seeing why some of the AI projects are successful, and why some of the AI projects fail in enterprises.
And I created a framework in the first book, which was called augmented, published that with an amazing publisher, Grammar Factory. And the second book, you know, we, we worked with Sam on that, and really was trying to address this big question of how can we get started for a lot of companies?
Scott:
Yeah, and let's talk a little bit more about, about the new book, Disrupt It. Disrupt It, it speaks directly to the executives, is that right? And that's a little bit how it differs from from augmented, which, as you mentioned, was the first book in the series.
Why did you feel that this book needed to be written now? And specifically for this executive audience?
Mehdi:
I can answer that first. I remember, we were doing a keynote in Savannah, Georgia, and the target people were the IT directors and innovation leaders of different firms, some of the big firms, some of the smaller firms in the country. And one of the things that we started discussing was about kind of leadership mindset.
And, you know, this AI is not a technology initiatives and more like a transformational initiative and importance of buy-in from the board and executives. So one of the things that emerged from that conversation was that the innovation leaders, the IT directors, and those people like, oh, we're all in, but our CEO is not, but our senior executives are not. They don't see this as a transformational opportunity.
The board is not. So as we're kind of reflecting back, and I remember in the airplane, Sam and I were talking about maybe the next book should target specifically the executives and board members and helping them to understand how should they prepare their companies for the age of AI.
Scott:
That makes total sense. And it sounds like there are blind spots. What would you say are the biggest blind spots or perhaps sticking points that hold these executives back from fully embracing this type of AI transformation?
Sam:
I would say one thing that might be surprising is some of them, they think that it's a hype and they're like, it's kind of a distraction. It will go away. Let's focus on our business, our day-to-day work.
And there are some cases that the executive, they even don't want to talk about it. They're like, don't bring it up, go and do whatever they want. And that's kind of concerning because AI is not a tool.
It's kind of, we're looking at it as a transformational, as another revolution that is like a train back in time. And it's going to change the way that we work and the way that we communicate, the way that we deliver our services. And it's not something like a tech initiative that the IT or director of innovation can lead by themselves.
They need the executive support, especially their CEOs. Otherwise they can't go that far. And it's going to be difficult for them to get buying across the whole ecosystem, their company and organization itself.
And back to your question, the missing point is they see it as a hype, but it's not a hype. It's going to be here, it's going to change the way that we work. And if we don't embrace it, if we don't act quickly, it might be a little bit difficult.
We don't want to get in this spot that Netflix and Blockbuster, they were back in dot-com bubble. Like Blockbuster was looking at it as like a bubble, as a hype, but eventually Netflix could pick it up, take advantage. And let's see where Netflix is versus Blockbuster, sorry.
Scott:
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think people who think of AI as kind of an isolated technology tool sort of missed the point of how revolutions like electricity entirely changed how business works. Obviously the internet is another example of that.
The printing press, if you go way back, these are all foundational capabilities that entirely changed an industry. What was it like for the two of you writing this book together, especially given your complementary perspectives, how did that collaboration take shape?
Sam:
We have similar background, like structural engineering and tech, and we've been working for the same company, at least in the US. Even though we weren't part of the same team, our focus and products were totally different, although this is a big company. And the complementary side is like, I'm kind of like detail-oriented, Mehdi is like the visionary in the big picture.
And that's where we could fill the gap itself. And the one style that we have not only in writing books, but also the way that we run the company itself is doing round robins. Someone takes the lead, do stuff, and the other person check it out, elevate it.
And we kind of divide and conquer the work, but we work like doing the round robin in order to elevate the work. That's one way that we work. And the other aspect that was super helpful for us was changing the environment.
And I even think if you're a single author of a book or doing something, it's really helpful to change the environment itself. Every other time we were going somewhere, even a coffee shop or going somewhere in mountains, we spent lots of time in Sierra, just focusing on the book and getting disconnected from the business itself, the work that we were doing, and just be focused on the book itself. And I see changing the environment was super helpful.
And the third aspect is I'm not going to be like a pop-up ad here, but I'm super thankful to you and your team, Scott. It was my first book, Mehdi's second book, and we've seen his experience with you throughout the first book. And for me as a first-time author, as the first-time author, it was really helpful.
You keep us on plan. And I love that. Otherwise, I don't think we can.
You know it's never enough, and you don't know when it's done. But working with you, having the timeline, the schedule, and your team, they're wonderful. That helped us to make sure that we can get the book out on time as on plan.
Scott:
Oh, well, I really appreciate you sharing that. And I agree entirely the idea of pulling yourself away from all of the day-to-day distractions so that you can focus on getting the book written. For those listening on, last week, Mehdi and Sam and I were trying to get this podcast recorded, but I was up at the cottage, and the internet was very spotty.
And for those who are regular listeners of the podcast, you'll know that in lieu of this episode last week, I recorded an episode about getting away and dealing with the fact that your internet might not be all that great and how you can use that time to focus on deeper thinking and things like writing a book. So anyway, all of that came together nicely. And the other nice thing is, this is our 100th episode.
So you guys have the honor of being our 100th episode of the Entrepreneur For Author podcast. Anyway, that was a bit of a diversion. Yeah, yeah, it's exciting.
It's exciting.
Sam:
I'm just curious, Mehdi, what are your thoughts? You may have a different perspective.
Mehdi:
Oh, yes. So what was the question? Oh, okay.
So about the collaboration, challenging. Well, I will say that there are two ways you can, like two authors can work together to write a book. So one is often there's a main author, and they kind of lay out the different chapters.
And, you know, they said, Okay, you're responsible for this chapter, you're responsible for that chapter. And as long as this chapter is about love, you know, whatever, we're okay with that. But, and that's, I think is relatively easy compared to what we've done.
If you look at the first four drafts of the book, each draft is a completely different book. We started, we really wanted this book to answer the most critical questions that senior executives have. And we started from kind of governance and privacy issues and things like that.
Over, we wrote it, you know, we, you know, sit on it for two weeks, and we read it again. And it was like, Oh, no, that's not good. And rewrote that and rewrote that.
So by the time we got to like draft five, we're like, Oh, okay, I think we have something here that really speaks to our audience. And yeah, so it was quite challenging, because the way that we wanted to do it and round robins and discussions and things like that. But all of those were in in line with how we can serve our audience the best the readers of the book the best way.
And if you put our hats on John's hats or Jill's hat, what will they say about this book? Is it useful to them or not? And yeah, so that's why we spend a lot of time in mountains, writings and readings.
And I guess how many drafts we have?
Sam:
Yeah, and I still have the prints is kind of like that tall. And I feel bad to throw them away. It's kind of like a memory.
Yeah, we were just printing the chapters, and we were reading them, reviewing them, leaving comments, and then we're like swapping and say, Okay, how do we want to address that? But it's Yeah, it has memory in it.
Scott:
Yeah, absolutely would. I love that. That's a really collaborative process.
And I love how you talk about that back and forth around Robin approach. What are your goals for the book? And I guess by that, I'm interested in understanding how you're using the book.
And I've observed that you guys seem to be employing whether it's a bulk purchase strategy or basically getting large volumes of books into the hands of folks that I assume are your clients. Could you share a little bit more about your strategy for deploying the book within your business and within your business ecosystem?
Mehdi:
All right. So the strategy, there's no strategy, Scott. So basically, what is happening right now is that even though we wrote the book for AEC executives, but other executives and to give the audience what this book is really about, you know, is, you know, is how you can prepare your company for this, the age of AI.
And we look at it from three lenses. One is your culture. Another lens is your business model.
And you can how you can create more value for your clients. And the third lens is your operation or your operating model. How should you start collecting and nurturing your data in a better way and in a more wise way?
What are the things that you need to do to make that happen? And even though there are some examples related to architecture and construction executives, but anyone else outside of this industry, when they read it, they're like, oh, yeah, this was why did you only write it for this industry? We got a ton of benefit out of that.
So what is happening right now is that as people are reading it, they're recommending it to others. And these bulk purchases that you see is coming is basically organizations are saying, we want our members to have this. Can we order like 300 copies, 400 copies?
Scott:
Wow, that's incredible. That's really exciting. Yeah, go ahead, Sam.
Sam:
In addition to what Matthew shared, people are like reaching out to us and they're helping their clients with their journey, with their AI journey. And they just send us like a thank you note that, oh, your book helped me to help my client. And even though it's not a direct connection between us and their clients, we enjoy seeing that our book is helping someone else to help someone else that needs help and helping them with their business and growing and having a framework.
No strategy for that, as Matthew mentioned, but people are reaching out. They're sharing their experience and saying, oh, your book helped me to solve this problem for my clients. And that's a heartwarming for us because we are like, oh, the book has this impact for others.
Scott:
Yeah, that's amazing. Because even though you say that there's no strategy behind it, it is a very effective strategy. And I often find that authors sometimes focus on trying to make single sales of their book to one individual, particularly when the book has relevance for large enterprises or large businesses.
There's a real opportunity to get the book into the hands of an entire audience within an organization in hundreds at a time. So it's wonderful to hear that that's happening organically for you. But for those of us, for those listening who maybe haven't thought about bulk sales, enterprise sales, I think there's a lot of inspiration that they can take from what you guys are doing.
You discuss leadership mindset in the book as a critical ingredient for transformation, AI transformation. What are some of those mindset shifts that AEC leaders and perhaps leaders generally need to make if they want to stay competitive in this new environment?
Mehdi:
I can start with that. So one of the things that we hear over and over is that, yeah, we are on our way in our AI journey. We bought 10 licenses of copilots and now it runs in our business.
So we're good. But oftentimes, if you think about this, you as a leader is doing this and so as many other companies. But what is really the thing that can give your company a differentiation in the market?
How you can leverage this tool in a way that no other companies are thinking about it? So one of the mindset shifts that I think needs to happen is that the leaders needs to see this as more transformational initiative in their companies and to transform their companies. What are the new directions that they can take their companies into?
How should they think about the next three years plan, the strategic plan that they're creating for their companies? How technology and AI can play a role into going into new markets that they haven't been able to reach. Just as an example, and this is also we mentioned that in the book, there's an engineering company that is leveraging AI to reduce the cost of one of their services.
And by doing so, they can provide their services to smaller cities and municipalities that don't have the big budgets for their premium services. So they've been doing this for a long time. And they said, OK, you know, instead of we continue serving our, you know, top tier clients have big budget, big municipalities.
But at the same time, there is 90% of the market that is small. And if we can leverage AI to penetrate that market, we can triple up our revenue. So these are new ways that leaders need to start thinking about how AI can help them create new value for their clients, enter a new market, and they need to put that into their strategies.
Go ahead, Sam.
Sam:
Yeah, it reminded me of 3M. And we talk about 3M in the book as well. And 3M has been listed for the last few years as a top innovative companies.
And what you know, 3M is famous as like a duct tape and post it that that's what they do, how they can compete with like those big tech companies and be listed as a top tech firm. The way that they're doing it back in time, William McKnight, he joined as a bookkeeper assistant in 1907. And he was really doing well that he was promoted as the president and CEO in 1927.
And one rule that he said around 1945, if I'm not mistaken, was giving space for innovation to his employees. And they even have it listed on their website today. It's called 15% policy.
And what it means is their employees, they can spend 15% of their time on innovation, research, learning. And it doesn't have to be like paid for that time, because when they go and learn something, you don't see the direct ROI, but it has the long term impact after a while. And through that, this is one of the reasons that they're listed as top innovative companies like that posted is the outcome of that 15% innovation and 35% of their revenue is coming from that 15% time for innovation.
And this framework, this style has been followed and mimicked by Google, Uber, Amazon, many other tech companies. And like Gmail is the outcome of that space for innovation. I think for Google is like 20% of their time for innovation.
And what's missing, especially in AEC, architecture, engineering, construction, is that space for innovation. So now we're going, like, as Matti mentioned, through that transformation. And that's a big change.
If we don't let give that space for innovation, learning to our employees, and just think about our day to day work and projects, we can't go that far. We need to make sure that our employees can step back and do some research, do some work, learn what's happening. And besides that, we need to rethink our incentives.
So our incentives can be based on time our employees spend on a project. It should be different because right now, if they use AI, they can get the job done faster in less hours. So does it mean that they're not productive?
Not really. They just have, like, augmented their work with AI. So one thing in terms of the mindset that you asked, Scott, is they need to change the way that incentives are set because they're based on the old traditional approach, not the new approach that we have.
And that incentives could be based on new ideas that they bring forward. It could be just, like, being recognized during a town hall session or all hands. And, like, something that make it motivational for employees to be part of that change and make the change happen.
Scott:
Oh, I love that example. And that, you know, the 3M case study that you talk about, that's a great example of the types of case studies that you elevate in the book. And so I really encourage people to check that out because there's, you know, tons of examples like that that are really, really relevant, not just in these industries, but in many industries.
Listen, this has been a fascinating conversation. I want to thank you both. For those who want to learn more about the book or the work that you're doing to support EAC leaders, where's the best place for them to go?
Mehdi:
Well, they can go to our website, www.yegatech.com. And then in that page, there is a book section that two of our books are listed there. And we also have a lot of white papers and free resources and workbooks.
And so even if you, you know, there are free chapters you can download and read, there are free workbooks that you can download and start implementing some of the concepts in the book. And also we have white papers around, like, environmental sustainability and, you know, how we have a role in that. That's a topic for another podcast with regards to AI.
And yeah, there are lots of resources and blog posts available for readers to check out.
Scott:
Wonderful. Well, we'll put that link in the show notes so that it's very easy for people to access. Mehdi and Sam, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your time and your insights so generously.
It's been a really thought provoking conversation. And I know that our listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of what real transformation looks like in the AEC space. And look, I appreciate the work that you're doing and the clarity that you've brought to a complex, fast moving moment in the industry.
So thank you so much.
Sam:
Thank you so much for having us, Scott. And please RSVP a spot for us in your list of authors because we want to work on the third book and we just want to make sure that we are going to have your help as well.
Scott:
Wonderful. We love working with you guys. You know, the books just keep getting better and better.
Mehdi:
Thanks. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate that.
Scott:
As we wrap up this episode of Entrepreneur to Author, remember this. Now is the time. Time to write, time to publish, and time to grow. I'm Scott MacMillan. Until next time.
