MR: Sure. Well, it has been a unique one, but it definitely started as a child coming to visit my father, grandfather and other family members here at the office and my first official job at the company was the summer that I was 11 years old. I worked down at a building of ours here in Manhattan, down in the financial district that we had just converted. It was the mid nineties and we had just taken a building that was fully vacant. Not a position we wanted to be in, but a position we found ourselves in. Our tenant had gone bankrupt and vacated the building basically overnight and we had, through my father and our chief operating officer at the time, through their leadership and creativity, had created basically what is widely considered as one of the first fully wired office buildings in North America, getting ready for this new thing called the internet and so we also, one of the things we did in that building was we created a multi-purpose, multi-function space. It was called the digital sandbox and it was an event and meeting space and space that tenants or non-tenants could rent out for various purposes and functions and one of the things that companies ended up doing there was like host seminars and classes and so that summer I basically spent my days setting up and breaking down conference rooms and computers and moving things around for the various events that were being posted there. So like I said, I was 11 that summer, so didn’t really officially get a formal job offer after that. But following that, I spent post 9-11. I was a junior in high school and just coincidentally my grandfather passed away a few days later and as a way to deal with everything that was going on and cope and grieve, I took a semester off from high school and came here to really work for and shadow my dad and get a true understanding of what our business is and was at the time and that was a very eye-opening experience and very unique time to be learning about the business sort of in the post 9-11 recovery mode and figuring out specifically what could be done in lower Manhattan and then larger scale in Manhattan, New York and obviously the whole country as a whole. So that was a very incredible experience and I would say that experience really cemented my desire to come into the family business at some point. From there on, it was sort of through obviously college and internships and grad school that I refined or honed my skills. But I subsequently went to the University of Colorado and I majored in urban design and planning and wanted to have an understanding of how cities worked from an urban planning perspective. I spent a little time kind of like a minor in real estate to hone those skills and then I had internships during college at Cushman and Wakefield to understand the brokerage side of the business and then at Blackstone to understand the private equity side of the business and from that point on, I think I had one summer left of school and I kind of started working here at the company before I graduated and then after I graduated, I stayed out in Colorado for another year and a half, ultimately started a development company out in Aspen, Colorado, while also working for the family business part-time and then finally moved back to New York full-time in 2010. Sort of really started the arc of my career here at the firm then and sort of off to the races from there. I did go to grad school. When I came back, I went to NYU, to the Shack Institute of Real Estate to get my master’s in real estate development, but was working full-time when I did that and yeah, that was the trajectory in a short period of time.

DA: No, that’s great. I’m just curious, was there an expectation that you would continue in the family business? Can you imagine if you had chosen a different career path? What would that look like?

MR: So no expectation, no pressure at all. My sister is here as well. We’re co-CEOs now for the past year and a half. She took a completely different path, was not pursuing real estate in any form during high school or college or immediately after, but ultimately found herself here as well and both of us found our own ways here. If I wasn’t here, I think it depends. I would say I would use this opportunity to check the fantasy box of a race car driver or a professional athlete or an astronaut, something like that. More fun than real estate. But this real estate had a calling to me from an early age, as I shared and I don’t think there really was anything else by the time I got to the age of really considering it that I wanted to do.

DA: Right. So I will note that your first significant time spent during that semester off was right after 9-11, and you’re taking on this new role of co-CEO just after the pandemic. You’ve got good timing.

MR: Yeah. Like people always say, our business is cyclical and many ups and downs, and our business in particular and our company has weathered many, many storms and it’s just the nature of the business and you can’t choose when you’re born or when you start to work or any of that stuff or what happens when you’re entering the workforce. But I personally think that all of those opportunities have helped shape who I am and the perspective that I have and that I bring to the table and if you can see through and persevere through those really horrible times and those down times, then you can make it through anything and we’ve seen our fair share here, obviously, in New York City.

DA: I agree. So you indicated that expectations weren’t necessarily there, but at the end of the day, you still have to be the right person for the right role at the right time. So I’m just curious, what do you feel has sort of positioned you to be successful, not only in this industry, but in the evolving roles that you’ve had at Rootin? What has contributed to your success, skills, mentors, colleagues, books? What does that look like for you?

MR: Sure. Well, it’s exposure to our business and our culture and our history and that’s something that our father, my sister and I, our father shared with us from a young age and again, it was never like, you’re going to learn about this because you’re going to one day do it. It was just because that was his nature of wanting to be inclusive and sharing what he was working on and just the family history and starting to understand the less kind of tangible things about our business, really kind of around culture and the sort of the values that we promote and foster here and understanding that dynamic of why people want to work here, why people want to be, work or live in our buildings, what role we play as sort of constituents of neighborhoods or cities or an industry, whichever way you want to look at it and many people throughout my career, both family members or people at the companies and people outside the company who have impacted my trajectory or my way of learning or understanding the business and family members as well who have really shaped me and particularly my father and didn’t have the opportunity to work with my grandfather, but he was an incredibly important influence in my life and those experiences, both working in other companies, my internships, my studies, what I learned going through the urban planning process and again understanding cities and real estate from a practical point of view versus a business point of view and then those real world experiences of the two developments that I did in Colorado after I graduated college and learning the business in the world that way and again, timing is everything. When I started my career, formally started my career here, we were working on a major project that was ultimately called Greenwich Lane, a major condo development down in Greenwich Village and taking an old defunct bankrupt hospital and turning it into condominiums and the evolution of that project from the time our firm started bidding on it in 2006, we didn’t start construction until 2013 and in those ensuing seven years, we went through the great financial crisis, the European debt crisis, Superstorm Sandy happened here. We went through 200 public meetings with the community. We went through landmarks review process. We went through a rezoning. We had to find equity partners. We had to find lenders. I joke that that was like my PhD in real estate and again, it just so happened to be the timing of when both my sister and I joined the business is when that project was getting off the ground. You could not have, from my perspective, from a learning experience perspective, could not have scripted it really any better to be able to learn from such a diverse, complex, and important and large scale project as that to enter the business. So again, lots of experiences. My education was great, learned a lot in school, but I personally have learned a tremendous amount from the real world and things that I’ve done in my career.

DA: Yep and clearly it continues every day. I started this podcast in the summer of 2020, just as the pandemic was taking root, just as a way to stay connected with people and learn about what was really going on in the trenches of commercial real estate and present an unbiased view, not what the media was saying and not just, rah, rah, they’ll all come back, but really just understand what the reality was and today I just continue to be super interested in this evolution of commercial real estate. I think for a long time, it was, the industry was what it was. I think now it’s an industry that is just changing so fast, so dramatically and I think it creates so many opportunities and certainly the way we meet people’s needs and the opportunity for technology to play a role and at the end of the day, it’s all about helping to make what we call buildings, places that are destinations of choice, places where people want to be and I think you and your company believe in that concept as well. So just curious, as we continue to think about spaces and places and now how we’re no longer just in the space business, experience is really what is drawing people back to the physical workplace. What do you think is going to define sort of the future of work? How do we seamlessly integrate experience, workplace design, functionality, new amenities? What are you seeing right now? What are you thinking about most as the industry is continuing to evolve?

MR: Yeah, I mean, it really has been a true evolution and I think we started to really see it certainly pre-COVID, I’d say about 10 years ago, 2015, kind of plus or minus from two standpoints. One, the sort of the physical space that we inhabit, predominantly on the commercial side, but also on the residential side as well and how that space was programmed, what was offered to people in a building, but then also what is the technological layer that sits above, below, whatever you want to call it to facilitate or enable the use and the interaction and the functionality of those spaces and that sort of when real estate and technology, I’d say kind of collided, was that again 10 years ago, plus or minus, or started to really kind of generate new ideas and new concepts and we were developing a building in the mid-2000s in Brooklyn that really brought together kind of all of those things. Building, base building, built and operated amenities, state-of-the-art technology, a tenant app, connection to the transit services that serve the building, providing more than, again, just four walls for your company to run its business and you kind of alluded to it. Our business very much used to be, we as the landlords, sign a lease with the upper echelons of a company. We deliver you your space and whatever arranged terms and condition that the lease calls for and then you as the company go and build out your space or occupy the space again, whatever it may be. Your employees come in and you deal with the things that they want and need and help them have a better experience at work. That wasn’t our role, responsibility, interest, whatever you want to call it and something shifted. About 10 years ago, that all started to change. I think the sort of the flex office solutions that started to really proliferate at that time or in the early 2000 teens had a lot to do with it because their whole premise was you have your little office, but then you get to use all of these shared amenities and companies, big and small, all started to see the power of what that could be part of a community. It’s actually really kind of, again, timing everything. Literally four hours ago, and we can come back to sort of our tenant engagement, tenant experience journey. But four hours ago, we literally just hosted our first building-wide here where our offices are at 345 Park. We launched our tenant experience platform last year and we’ve done a lot of community-oriented events here in the building for tenants of all the companies that are here. But today we hosted our first giving back event and experience for not just we’ve done a lot of those for our own employees. But the first time that we, the landlord, were hosting one for the entire building and for anybody to RSVP for and to come to and we were making sandwiches for two local soup kitchens to hand out to their patrons and it was great. It was amazing and one of the tenants from the building, not an employee, was so excited to, and he used that exact same term, he was like, this is an amazing thing to do as part of this community and usually employees from different companies don’t have that opportunity to engage or interact with each other. We certainly as the landlord historically haven’t had that opportunity and so it’s been a huge part of what we’ve started to look at and focus on in our buildings as a model to deliver to people and it can be really, really simple things that make a huge impact and again, it’s that combination of physical, what is the space? What are the physical amenities that you’re offering? Whether it’s just soft seating, whether it’s food and beverage, health and wellness, conference and events. Those are kind of the, I’d say the big three buckets and then how are you facilitating getting the tenants in the building, the employees, the individual person to engage with those? And so again, it’s that mix of physical and digital coming together.

DA: You’ve just touched on so many points that I’d love to pick up on, but I’ll just do a couple and certainly through that articulation, it’s very clear that I think you’ll agree that the business has become more complicated. To your point, you’re not just providing that space and you’re hands-off. It’s a far more hands-on offering and so you mentioned the building in Brooklyn, which I believe I was at in 2017 at the first Cretec event that was in your building and I think you had just celebrated your ribbon cutting ceremony.

MR: That is correct.

DA: So I was there. I remember it. There was a small gathering in 2017.

MR: It was 2019. It was literally 2019. It was October of 2019 and Michael Beckerman came to me like a year before, maybe six months before, and had this concept of Cretec and was looking for a place to do it and we thought it would be a great space. Dock72 would be a great space for it and it was kind of trial by fire in terms of opening that building and then hosting an event where I forget the number, but I think like 5,000 people came through that event over two or three days and we were still moving our early tenants in and it was a lot. But I think from my perspective, I think Michael and I have talked about it many times over the years. I think it did really well. COVID happened five months later and so it kind of changed the live event industry for a number of years and obviously many things for a number of years. But that was a very exciting way to open that building.

DA: It was. I remember it well. I think I was referring to 2017, which was the first very, very small event that I went to with Cretec and I do remember now that your event at Dock72 was just before the pandemic. So it was a great opportunity to see the building, to spend more time in Brooklyn and obviously to gather with other like-minded people. So I guess going forward, commercial real estates really be having to become this one-stop seamless and personalized experience. It’s got to do so much for so many different people and certainly technology, I think is going to play a role and the technology, we need to empower connectedness. We need to both individual and collective productivity. Ultimately, we need to make it just easier for people where they work, easier to get in, get out, do the things they need to do. We obviously believe, since we’re very focused on the customer experience piece, and it sounds like you guys are pretty entrenched on that side of the business as well, understand that we can improve that experience literally if we look at it one interaction at a time. What you did today with this giving back event, that’s one moment in time that will likely have a significant impact, but it’s building on opportunities like that. So what do you think today technology either could be doing to deliver a better experience? So what’s working? What’s not working? And what do you think is missing completely from the equation so far?

MR: Um, you know, I think, listen, obviously, everything happens now on our phones, right? That’s where we probably spend 90% of our sort of, like, functioning time and, uh, and so, you know, figuring out how to. Enable our mobile devices to to facilitate those types of things as you were, you know, just just laying out has been a focus of ours for. A long time, um, my, our belief after looking at a lot of different solutions and platforms and offerings and, you know, many different things was that if you don’t solve access control as the sort of the 1st. You know, the 1st layer, there are too many, there are too many competing things going on in somebody’s life for them to want to use their phone. To engage with their building, if you can’t solve access 1st, if you can solve access, which everybody has to everybody, you said, everybody has to get in and get out that process, particularly as visitors can be a little painful. Um, uh, but. You know, taking out your card or your wallet, whatever, wherever you keep your access card, swiping it. Um, we thought that there was a better a better way, right? If you can board a plane. With a phone, right? I can’t you can get on a subway with a phone. Why can’t you get into a building with a phone? And, uh, and so last year, we, we, we. Embarked on a pilot with a few different companies sort of working together to enable mobile access from the phone that. Worked very well, we’ve rolled that out to our broader portfolio. Uh, and now, like I mentioned earlier this year, uh, launched a, a dedicated root in tenant experience app. Uh, and again, to now take the physical things that we’ve been doing, which we were promoting in a much more. Kind of manual, um, analog kind of way we were sending emails, but like, we have posters in the lobbies and stuff like that. Um, to now transitioning and I don’t want to say fully going to a 100% digital experience because. There are always going to be visitors in the building who don’t have our app, or they’re always going to be. People in the building tenants in the building who don’t want another app, but just still want to experience and enjoy and engage with everything that we’re doing. Um, so you still have to kind of like appease to the outliers, the, the, the, the, the, the broader, you know, the broader community. Um, and, uh, you know, but again, it’s, it’s, it’s relatively simple. It’s complicated from a technological perspective, right. Getting all these things, as you well know, to, you know, to, to, to come together and truly integrate like that. I don’t want to, I don’t want to undersell the importance of that. But once you execute on it and it’s functioning, the impact. From our perspective has been so profound with such kind of simplicity and again, there’s a lot that goes into planning events, figuring out space. Obviously you have to pay for it. You know, you want it to go well, but again, for so long, people have viewed office spaces. Like I come into work and now, now I can, you know, I can go get back, right. Like what we did today, or I can, you know, I can get ice cream one hot afternoon in the summer. Um, or get iced coffee when I come in, in the morning, you know, a couple of days a year, or. You know, we brought in a, a, a, a local, uh, a local farm from, from New York and they did like a CSA or like a, you know, a, a green market in our lobby for people to just. Take produce. It’s not like, it’s not rocket science.

DA: It’s not a rock.

MR: I always say it’s not rocket science, you know, not everybody participates. Um, but those who do, we’ve been bringing in, um, one of their like success stories. We’ve been working with a, a animal rescue group, uh, a couple of times a year. We do it at a couple of different buildings. Now they bring puppies in for that are up for adoption and people go. Like the, the, the, the, the waitlist, you know, gets created instantaneously from when people can sign up because you can only allow so many people to come at any given time. Um, and people just love it and like, we’ve had really amazing stories where, uh, you know, a tenant in a building, you know, who, you know, had just gone through a, you know, pretty traumatic life event, you know, adopted this dog and like, you know, found happiness and, and, and, and joy in, you know, being able to bring that dog into her life and, you know, would never have like been afforded that experience if we hadn’t done it in our building and she hadn’t been a tenant and she hadn’t gotten the notification, you know, all these things that like, you know, you look at one off and, you know, uh, are, are, are, you know, it’s kind of separate, but then you think about it and again, it’s just simple things of creating community, you know, being more at the human level than at the corporate level. Um, and just giving people and that, you know, should in turn help our, our, our, our corporate customers, our tenants be better at their job, you know, and, and I always say like their success is our success and vice versa and that’s what, you know, we want to be doing and enabling for our, our, our, our, our tenants and our buildings.

DA: You know, when we first started selling our platform, we, we were, we were very different in terms of our language and our speak and we were rather than selling technology for buildings, we were very much about technology for people and I think you’ve just, again, you know, really hit that on the head that it is really about the people in your buildings and you’re just creating, you know, more unique opportunities for them to feel a part of, you know, not just to your, again, your earlier comment about four walls, a silo, you come in, you come out, but feel much, you know, part of a much bigger community and we believe that buildings are very much a part of neighborhoods and cities, and there’s an incredible opportunity to blur those boundaries, blur those lines and creates all kinds of kinds of opportunity and you continue to echo that same sentiment. I’m just curious if, you know, I think we both in agreement that commercial real estate is going through this unbelievable time of, of change and evolution, if budget and resources. So this is the question I get to give you where you don’t have to worry about money. Isn’t that great? I’m like giving you a pot of gold.

MR: Wave a magic wand.

DA: A pot of gold and without giving away any secrets or anything proprietary, but is there anything that you’d love to think about or do or undertake that could position your business for success in the future that, you know, maybe, you know, again, with the unlimited resources, time and money, you know, that you think would be really impactful to the industry, to your business specifically?

MR: I mean, if money is no, if money is no object and, you know, the constraints of reality are, are, are opened up a little bit, you know, I think it’s, it’s, again, it’s this, you know, merging of technology and, and, and physical space and it’s, would be like creating spaces that can very seamlessly, easily just change or morph to, you know, accommodate whatever the need of the day is, or the event of the day is, because at the end of the day, we only have so much space that we can, you know, that we can operate with, or that we can allocate to amenities or, you know, sort of multipurpose, multifunction. But the kind of like the programming is almost endless in terms of what you can do within spaces and at the end of the day, we can’t dedicate all of it to, all of it to amenities. We need to have tenants pay rent. So I would say, like, create a space that, you know, can very easily, you know, change, you know, at the, you know, with a couple of keystrokes of, you know, again, this is the decor, it’s, you know, a breakfast meeting, or, you know, it’s a fitness class, so that you can, you know, still prioritize the, you know, sort of the, the rent, you know, sort of generating space. But have a really amazing, kind of all-purpose, all-purpose space at the same time.

DA: Flip a couple of switches and the space is just re-re-reorganizes itself like a retractable roof on a, on an outdoor sports dome.

MR: Exactly.

DA: Very cool. Okay, I’m making a note. That’s something we’ll talk about on a future call. Okay. Keep it under wraps until we’ve figured it out. Yeah, don’t tell anybody. Let’s take a short commercial break, and we will be right back.

MR: Okay. COMMERCIAL BREAK

DA: And I’d like to welcome back to the show, Michael Rudin, Co-Chief Executive Officer at Rudin, one of the largest privately owned real estate companies in New York City. Again, I’m thrilled that you could be with us today.

MR: Thanks, David.

DA: All right. So again, we’ve talked a little bit about this, but I know from experience, you know, guest after guest, particularly since COVID, have echoed this same sentiment that, you know, they used to be in the business of just literally that their core customer was the person that signed the lease. You mentioned that earlier. They were the most important person. They were the customer. However, all that has changed and now today, every single person that enters their building, for whatever reason, is now someone that they think about and they’re concerned about, and they want to make sure they have the best experience. We’re seeing more and more commercial real estate operators, daily office, think more or draw more influence from the hotel and restaurant industry and really begin to up the level of hospitality. Even as we look at our own technology, as we continue to sort of define how we present ourselves, we’re starting to use this notion of being a hospitality operating system, that that’s what our tech enables. So I also, one other thought, I just want to get your thoughts on as well, but I don’t necessarily think this is exclusive to Class A properties and I think that as Class A, you know, the supply of Class A continues to go down, I think, you know, good quality B, not necessarily yet for C, but good quality B, I think there’s a huge opportunity there and I think that technology can be an equalizer, because maybe every building doesn’t have all the amenity space built in, but perhaps those amenities are available within the neighborhood, within the community and we can, you know, still have that offering, just not necessarily under the same roof. So as I like to think, you know, that we need to, again, pull from hotel, restaurant, and that, you know, maybe the new currency of office is this notion of hospitality. Maybe that’s the business we’re now in. Just want to, again, get a little bit more of your thinking around that concept.

MR: Yeah, well, first of all, it sounds like you’ve either bugged our conference rooms or have been sitting in meetings with us. This is something we talk about all the time and then, first of all, the hospitality thing, 100%, right? Like, that’s a big focus of ours, both from the connection and what we know about the individuals coming into our buildings to the things that we offer them. Right, again, it’s, we’ve talked about, it’s not, we’re not just connecting to the head of real estate or the CFO or the facilities manager, whatever. We’re starting to make and build these connections with the individuals as well, which, again, is a very hospitality kind of oriented thing.

DA: That’s right.

MR: So, you know, that is a big part of what many in our space and industry are doing. In terms of, like, where you can apply it, you know, I sort of alluded to this before, right? Like, each building does not warrant or necessarily have the ability to have physical amenities.

DA: Right.

MR: That doesn’t mean the tenants know that those buildings don’t deserve those amenities or aren’t looking for those amenities as they, you know, figure out their next space needs. So how do we figure out how to deliver something to them where there’s not a physical amenity or there’s less of a physical amenity, whatever the case may be, than what we may have in a building like this building where it’s 2 million square feet and we can allocate a pretty good amount to physical amenities for the tenants to be able to use. So, and we have everything in our portfolio from, you know, 250,000 square feet to 2 million square feet and we talk about all the time, what does it mean to be a root in tenant? End it there. Not a root in tenant at this building, not a root in residential tenant, not a root in office tenant. What does it mean to be a root in tenant? And what are you able to tap into as a tenant in our portfolio? You know, on the residential side, you know, maybe you live on the Upper East Side, but you spend every day working downtown, but you don’t have a physical office. You’re more remote or a freelancer or whatever your situation is. Would it be beneficial for that person to have a place to stop at in one of our office buildings downtown? Maybe, probably, stuff that we’re trying to like learn and figure out and understand from our tenants and our customers, if those types of things would be warranted. They have a cluster of office buildings here in Midtown, again, ranging from 2 million square feet to, you know, a few hundred thousand square feet. If you’re a tenant in one of those smaller buildings, regardless of what you’re paying in rent, like, would it be a value add and help leasing to afford access to the tenant-only amenities here in this building? Which, generally, from what we’ve seen, no matter how much you plan and strategize as to sort of the how much a space will be used, they generally never get used as much as you think they will be. So, why not just defer some cost and create a better experience for somebody at a building that doesn’t have the ability to host those spaces internally? And so, again, it’s like, you know, I think it’s become a theme now, this conversation. That mix of what does the physical space allow for and what is the digital or technological, like, facilitator that allows somebody from a building a few blocks away to come, you know, to, A, understand what’s in the space, what its availability is, what its cost might be, and then book it, engage with it, come visit it, whatever, you know, the use case is, but so that it’s as seamless as an experience as possible.

DA: Yeah, and I think that’s the power of the portfolio and the power of creating that single brand is when there’s an opportunity to look at clusters of buildings. Why build the exact same amenities in three buildings when they’re literally a block from each other? So, we’re seeing that as well. We’ve got a portfolio of buildings in downtown Montreal, three buildings all in proximity, and there are shared facilities amongst the three, you know, all accessible through a single platform. So, makes a ton of sense. Just a final question before our closing speed round. You know, we all bring such different backgrounds and perspectives and areas of expertise to this whole, you know, world of office and the future of work, and just before, you know, we wrap up, I’m just curious, what else are you thinking about that I have not asked you about, but you think is worth noting that’s really, you know, something that we all should be talking about as we, you know, in terms of making sure that buildings still play a critical role in this much larger workplace ecosystem, and, you know, we’ve got ESG, we’ve got IoT, we’ve got, you know, concerns around ROI and opportunities for M&A. What else are you thinking about that I haven’t touched on?

MR: I mean, you just alluded to it. I mean, first of all, I think, a firm believer, office space isn’t going anywhere, right? Like, probably biased, given what I do and the business that I run, but a true believer in the need for people to have a space to come to work at and I think, you know, COVID threw a whole, you know, sort of wrench in what people thought about that. But now that we’re, you know, multiple years sort of out from that, I think it’s pretty clear in what we see here in New York City, and what we hear elsewhere, is that, generally speaking, most people believe that as well and so, you know, continuing to meet the demands of our customers, what those demands are, they’re quite varied. But, you know, again, it’s the physical, it’s the digital and I think, you know, you just touched on it a little bit, you know, for us, sort of building operations and efficient building operations and sustainable building operations are a key component of what we do, and something that we think is really important, but also really resonates with a lot of corporate companies, is becoming more and more important to, again, the individual, and figuring out how, what is out there, again, from an offering perspective, from a functionality perspective, what can we bring to the table for our corporate customers and their employees for them to sort of contribute to the sort of sustainability goals or initiatives that a building may be trying for, a company might be trying for. I still think there’s, you know, we as a building owner, there’s a lot of products and services and companies out there for us to more effectively and efficiently operate our building. I haven’t quite seen it get to the next, I’d say two levels down, one being the corporate user, and then the individual user. So I think that’s sort of like an area for, you know, still much needed improvement or innovation, because it really does every kind of stakeholder in that circle, or, you know, is important in making an effort.

DA: I agree. I think that makes a ton of sense. Something we think a lot about, that the boundaries between the building, the occupant and the occupier, the occupier and all of the occupants, that, you know, the technology needs to begin to blur. We don’t need separate platforms, technologies, apps, websites, portals that users use, that the occupant uses, that the building uses, and tremendous opportunity, I think, for a more holistic solution over time. Our closing speed round, Michael. Looking back, what is one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you when you first started your career?

MR: I think be patient. We’re not in a fast-moving business and, you know, things take time. Really good things take time.

DA: It’s a marathon, not a sprint, right? Yeah. Is there a favorite book or podcast that has positively impacted your approach to work or life?

MR: I’d say something that I read in the last six months that, maybe nine months, I guess it was the end of last year, that I really enjoyed was called Solve for Happy by a former, you know, top executive at Google and I heard him on a podcast talking about his book and read the book and really, really enjoyed it.

DA: Very cool. I’ll share one with you. Are you familiar with Will Guadera? Yes. Okay. Have you read his book?

MR: I have not. I know his name, but I have not read the book.

DA: It’s a must-read. It’s called Unreasonable Hospitality and given our conversation, I think you’d really enjoy it. It’s a fun read and a great read.

MR: Okay, cool.

DA: Name one way in which technology has improved how you live, personally, you live or work.

MR: Oh, you know, I’d say this is a double-edged sword or coin, whatever you want to call it. But, you know, connectivity, I think it’s got pros and cons, allows me and us and people to be more flexible with where they work from, obviously. But that comes with downsides as well. You know, time with family can be compromised or interrupted more easily than it certainly was when, you know, I remember my dad working. There were no cell phones when I was my kids’ ages and so, you know, when you left the office, you left the office. But yeah, I think there’s, you know, many upsides to that and, but some, you know, some negatives as well. Right.

DA: You know, as commercial estate continues to evolve, are there any skills that you think the industry is going to need that it perhaps didn’t have in the past? Like, what either skills or roles do you think you’ll be drawing upon in the future, versus maybe the more traditional roles that were needed to be filled in the past?

MR: Well, you know, I don’t know if it’s a skill necessarily, but a proficiency, an understanding, a, you know, willingness to embrace AI, I think is, you know, listen, I think it’s obviously a very, very hot topic, you know, right now for the last, you know, year plus in many different industries. I think it’s largely yet to impact real estate in a significant or meaningful way. I think that’s going to happen over time and I think, you know, the sort of the future workforce, I think they will, but it’s sort of like, you know, we’ll have to understand what, you know, what the use cases are and scenarios are for AI and real estate, and then how to function with it and how to work alongside of it.

DA: Right. Our normal last question, you sort of answered right out of the gate. I normally ask, you know, if you weren’t doing this now, what would you be doing? So you answered then, you know, a race car driver, professional athlete, still sticking with that?

MR: I’m going to still stick with that. Yeah. Yeah. Those are, I’d say, what I remember, you know, saying I wanted to be when I grew up and, you know, I’d still, I’d say, now I just turned 40, I’d say I’m still sticking with that.

DA: Yeah. Well, I, for one thing, you’ve still, you’ve still picked a pretty exciting industry. You know, I started a bunch of years ago in commercial real estate, completely different sort of angle, but I pitched in one Brookfield place here in Toronto as my first client. That’s where I fell in love with the built world and commercial real estate and helping to create community and helping to deliver great experience and I’ve, I’ve stuck with it. It’s been a long time.

MR: I could throw in one more thing. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. A Lego designer. Ah, but that goes in that, I think that ties in. Cause I’ve, I’ve loved Legos from a very young age. I still love Legos. I built a lot of Legos with my kids. Yeah. Like that would be a really cool place to work.

DA: Whenever I’m in New York, I always go by the Lego store and take a picture of whatever they newly designed in their windows. So I think it’s time for Rudin to maybe sponsor one of their windows and build something special.

MR: You can’t see it on camera. I don’t think, but I have a, a Lego model of this building that somebody friend, two friends got me 10 years ago for my 30th birthday. So amazing. Very much like an activity and a hobby that I find a lot of joy in and do with my kids, like I mentioned and I think it’d be a really great place to work that, you know, brings together a lot of really cool disciplines and interests. So I would say maybe I’d apply for a job at a, with a Lego group if I was not here.

DA: It’s all about building, right? There’s a close connection. I totally get it. Listen, Michael, thank you so much for joining us today on the program. A lot of great learning, a lot of great insights and just more important, just a really enjoyable conversation.

MR: So thank you very much. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

DA: Thanks. That’s a wrap on today’s episode of 10. I want to thank Michael for joining me on the program. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.