JB: So it’s somewhat non-traditional, I would say. I was an English major in undergrad. I had read a book called One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, who used to manage Fidelity Magellan, which at the time was the largest mutual fund in the world. And he was famous for saying, buy what you know. So if you go to Dunkin’ Donuts, you should buy the stock if you like the coffee and the donuts. I like that. And one of the other things that he had mentioned in the book is when you go to undergrad, don’t don’t study business, don’t study accounting, don’t study hard skills, be creative, spend that time learning how to think. And and I decided to go along with that. And I was an English major. And, you know, usually English majors, you know, become professors or go to law school or something like that. But I had read that book when I was younger because I was always fascinated by business and always wanted to go into business. And then I, post college, it was the mid to late 90s. The Internet was just, you know, becoming a thing. I got involved in technology, ultimately becoming a technology investment banker for early stage companies and really was involved at the tail end of the peak towards the late 90s and then lived through March of 2000, you know, in the market. Looking back, I think we would just call that a slight correction after everything we’ve been through since then. And I was really frustrated that I had put so much time and effort into being involved with those early stage companies and building them and raising money and then really having nothing at all to show after everything was done. And and real estate had always appealed to me. I always thought that I would be involved in real estate in some sense after I made my fortune, because that’s what you do after you make a fortune. You know, you have to get involved in real estate. And then I decided that I wanted to really focus on real estate and make my fortune in real estate, because it really felt like that experience that I had with technology, it will be harder for that to happen in real estate. Not that it doesn’t happen in real estate. And we’ve seen what’s happened over these cycles over the last 25 years as well. But it will be harder. You typically are not left with zero, right? Like with a technology company that, you know, becomes totally, you know, outdated over six to 12 months. And and so I decided to focus on real estate. And interestingly, I didn’t start by getting a job at a firm. I went out, I found some property, I bought it, I partnered, you know, with a builder, and we built a couple of buildings. And that’s really how I got into it. And you know, that’s where my career in real estate started. And that was about 25 years ago.

DA: Amazing. There’s so much there that I need to unpack. So but I also want to ask a follow on question. So first of all, I love the buy what you know. And I haven’t necessarily heard that. But I will tell you, one of the first stocks I ever bought was Apple. And why? Because I love the product, I use the product. And I thought this is a company I’d like to own. And you can probably figure out how that’s done for me. I hope you never sold it. A little bit over time, but I still own it today. And then just love the whole, you know, the fact that you started out in technology and investing in technology. You know, I for one do hope that, you know, at some point, my fortune will come through a technology technology company, we’re in it. But nevertheless, we’re completely tied to commercial real estate. So maybe that’s the best of both worlds. So tell me a little bit more about and then you know, I understand the journey. Tell me about arriving at Amtrust and what that looks like right now.

JB: Sure. So prior to Amtrust, I had spent over a decade working at an ultra high net worth family office, really had a broad exposure to all the subsectors within real estate, national, somewhat international properties that we owned and operated ourselves as well as partnerships with other really premier brand name operators. So really had an incredible experience over that decade. And then about four and a half years ago, when COVID was really the dark times of COVID. I ended up being recruited by Amtrust to come in and to become president. And there’s kind of a funny story that goes along with that. Because the idea really was to come into this company that predominantly owned big office towers in big cities at a time when it was fairly common for everybody to think that nobody would ever go back to these office towers ever again. And I viewed that as, you know, as a real opportunity. And an opportunity to, you know, to come in and really, and there’s more that I can get into as to why I thought that way. But I first want to mention, I remember vividly, you know, talking to my wife about it. And, you know, again, during those times of just, you know, complete, you know, the complete collapse of the industry. And I told my wife, and I said, you know, listen, I can’t make it any worse. It’s all upside down here. And she said, you know, you’re right. You know, and I know that you’re going to roll up your sleeves and you’re going to, you know, you’re going to do your best. And hopefully it’s going to work out and the cycle will turn. And so, and thankfully, that’s really what has happened over the last four and a half years. But another component of that story was the controlling shareholders of the business had found great success in financial services businesses over the last 40 to 45 years. And so they had taken a couple of companies public, they had a company that serviced public companies. So I knew we’re talking about multi-billion dollar businesses. And so they were very institutional. And for whatever reason, the real estate company was not faring the same way as those other businesses. And the truth is maybe it’s a little unfair of me to say that because the real estate business flourished for a long, long time. And I mean, this is, I think that’s probably, this is a good segue to talk about, to talk about that. Because I think that’s important as it relates to my story and the story of the company. When they first started investing in real estate through Amtrust, Amtrust Re, they were buying big buildings and big cities like New York. There was a lot less private equity and institutional capital chasing those types of opportunities. And we’re talking about in the 90s when you had a low in the cycle and banks weren’t lending and you wanted to buy a building or you wanted to sell a building and there’s a lot of vacancy, who buys that building? And we’re seeing it right now as well. It’s interesting. It really is another moment in time that’s very reminiscent of that moment in time, which is it’s wealthy families. It’s people that don’t have investment committees. It’s people who have the ability to kind of go on their gut and they’re not going to get fired by making a bad decision since it’s their own money. And so that’s really how they started. And when I met with them, they said, hey, we want you to come in here and we want you to help us figure out what to do with all these assets. And if there’s some that we shouldn’t keep, then let’s figure out how to get rid of them. And if they’re ones that we should keep, let’s figure out how to monetize them and improve them and make them flourish. And that’s really what I did. And in addition to that, you know, rehashing the entire management team, hiring a whole bunch of people that had the way I like to say it is to have a good amount of experience, but a lot of gas left in the tank. Folks that are coming to the office every day, enthusiastic, looking to conquer the world, looking to add value. And let me tell you it’s a lot easier to say that today, three years ago, let alone four years ago. But three years ago, it was a lot harder to say that because during those times and everybody has a very short term memory. But during those times, we were already improving our assets. We were renovating lobbies. We were building amenity spaces and we were begging tenants to come and tour the buildings. And it was very challenging walking in every day with a smile on your face, with a sense of optimism when nobody shows up. So today, of course, and we can get into that also, things have really changed, certainly in New York. But that was the kind of team that I wanted to put together. And I think that we have done a pretty good job of, you know, putting a stellar team together that meets the criteria.

DA: That’s fantastic. Now, I’m just curious. So you were recruited for this position. What skills do you think they saw in you or what was the, how was you able to take advantage of this opportunity? And why do you think you were so suited for it?

JB: So I can get into some of those details, you know, without sounding too full of myself. But I will tell you what I told them. And I remind them of this all the time.

I said, here’s what you can count on from me. I’m going to come in every single day and shake the trees. I can’t guarantee you the fruit will fall down, but I will shake those trees every single day. And that’s really how I like to think of myself. I do have that sense of optimism. I do wake up every morning, you know, looking to create value. I have a very disciplined schedule. And, you know, and I have that experience, right? I’ve been doing this now, you know, for quite some time. I also had a whole bunch of the relationships, I think that they were looking for, having been based in New York City and been involved in the industry in New York City for a very long time, as well as having, you know, kind of that national exposure. So I think there was a combination of all of that. And I think that maybe what I brought to the table a little bit different than hiring somebody out of a big firm was that entrepreneurial, you know, experience, being able to come in without having, you know, the full staff of every department and being able to just figure it out. Right. And I think I tell that to my kids all the time. I tell that to people that come to me for advice when they’re looking for jobs. The can-do attitude, I can’t stress how important that is. I think that that’s one of the most important things that you can express to people that I have a can-do attitude because ultimately what more do you want when you’re hiring somebody? You want somebody that’s going to come in and try to make it happen. And so perhaps those are the reasons why they decided to give me a shot.

DA: Yeah. You know, I think the entrepreneurial spirit, even if you’re not an entrepreneur, even if you’re perhaps, again, working for someone else, I think is a phenomenal attribute and sort of an attitude that I agree is indispensable. And I can understand why they would have seen that in you and thought that would, you know, again, although you’re working to somewhat not institutionalize the company, but think much bigger and help it evolve, bringing that entrepreneurial spirit to the table every day, I’m sure is an asset. I think we can agree, and it sounds like you already saw that momentum, but, you know, the core purpose of office has fundamentally changed. You’re no longer just in the space rental business. It really is about creating an experience that will draw people into the workplace, help to make it a destination of choice. We think this transformation is clearly on the right road, the right path. And that those, you know, building owner developers that understand that, you know, they’re going to be the winners. So I’m just curious, as this transformation continues to take hold, you know, how do you see the industry adapting, responding, evolving, either specifically for you or just in general?

JB: So I think everything you said is very true. I think that commodity office will have a hard time thriving, let alone, you know, surviving. And, you know, buildings have to differentiate themselves. They have to have a raison d’etre, right, a reason for being. And what’s interesting, I think that maybe I’ll say a little bit different than perhaps what you hear, you know, from some of your other guests or what you read about in the newspapers. It seems like the press is very focused on what I’ll call like the AAA trophy towers, the one Vanderbilts of the world. And they seem to think that that is the only asset class that’s going to survive or that’s going to thrive within real estate. And so far, you know, it seems to be that they’re right, right, because there’s very little vacancy, you know, in those buildings. And it seems like it doesn’t matter how much it costs to build it. There’s a tenant that’s willing to pay you enough rent to rationalize the investment. And that’s what it seems like today. I would posit, and I would say we’re seeing it within our portfolio, that for well-located buildings that are near transportation, that have great light and air, kind of like this building that we’re in, which is a building that we own, that we’ve owned for 30 years called 250 Broadway in Tribeca, on the edge of Tribeca and the financial district in New York City. So for well-located buildings that have great light and air that are improved, that have renovated lobbies, that have amenities, that have food and beverage at the base or well-located near food and beverage as well, if you can check all those boxes, and then you also, of course, have to have renovated offices that meet the criteria for what tenants are looking for today. And most of the time, if they’re not larger tenants, you have to build spec suites, right, where you’re actually building out the office space before the tenant is committing to anything, before you even necessarily know you have a tenant. For the smaller tenants, they need to see it and they have no time to wait to build a plan, to plan or to build. So if you can do all of that, you can fill up a building and you can make a great return on your investment as well. You’re not going to get the same level of rent that the AAA Trophy Tower is going to get, but that ground-up AAA Trophy Tower likely costs somewhere between $1,500 to $2,500 a foot to build, and then they need to get $150 to $300 a foot in rent, whereas for us, we can stabilize at a much cheaper cost per square foot and we can afford to charge less than that and bring in great tenants as well. And I think this is kind of like, it’s not being talked about, but the meat of the market in New York City is not every company that’s located on Park Avenue. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I love that. I think it’s great. Then perhaps we’ll be involved in that part of the business also at some point, but the meat of the market are tenants that need to pay somewhere around $100 or less than $100 a foot. I mean, they’d be happy if they could pay $50 a foot, although I think the market has moved. And we’re very focused on that. The buildings in our portfolio, for the most part, fit those criteria and acquisitions that we’ve done recently as well. That’s what we’re looking for. And we actually think we make a better return on investment when we’re successful in making that happen.

DA: Well, I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve been saying something similar for a very, very long time. Yes, the media has really landed on this whole notion of flight to quality and that automatically equates to that AAA asset class. But I sort of look at it a little bit differently, somewhat like you, where all those things you listed that you can still do in an A or a B building to help equalize that opportunity. And I think that the driver over time could switch to actually be more about the experience that’s offered. And that experience, that quality experience, the commitment to customer service, again, some level of amenitization, again, an investment in the lobby, improvement in the physical spaces combined, whatever class of building added to this notion of delivering a great experience, that takes that competitiveness out of the equation. You’re now competing on experience and not necessarily on just the class of the building.

JB: Absolutely. And I would add to what you’re saying, and I would say we try to have direct relationships with our tenants and the other members of the executive management team. When they have a problem, they have our phone numbers, they have our emails, and we want to hear from them and we want to know what’s working for them. If there’s something that’s not working for them, we want to fix it. And going back to the amenities, for example, we also want to know if we’re coming into a new project, we want to talk to the tenants and find out what amenities are important to them. We don’t want to build things that are not going to get used. And I could give you an example for a smaller building that we bought about a year ago called 360 Lexington Avenue. It’s around 270,000 square feet. It’s a block away from Grand Central Station. One of the small tenants, who’s an old friend of mine, who’s been in the real estate business probably for 30 to 35 years. He runs his own logistics business today. Very successful. He loves the building. He loves the location. He said to me, there’s only one thing I would like to have in this building, a shower. Now that’s not usually what I hear from tenants. I said, what do you mean? He said, listen, the building is fantastic. I can come right out of the Midtown Tunnel in my car and I can be in the parking lot in 30 to 60 seconds. But sometimes I need to go to a dinner at night or I’m coming from an airplane or something like that. And I wish that there was, I don’t even need a gym. That’s what he said to me. I just would love it if there were a shower. And I said, oh, you mean like the kind in an international airport lounge, right? Where they have those nice showers. He said, that’s exactly what I need. And so that’s what we’re doing. I mean, it happens to be in that building. We’re going to do a small gym as well. But that was the focal point, talking to the tenants and finding out what’s important to them. And by the way, that tenant was on a sublease when we bought the building. And he’s a new long-term direct lease with us after that conversation.

DA: Excellent. Amazing. Well, I love that you’re listening and not just going out and building without any insight as to what ultimately people need or want. And I think that’s really smart. I also think it’s an opportunity, we can talk about this a little bit later, to not only build within, but connect to other amenities in and around your building that maybe don’t require you to build them yourself. That’s another thought that I had that I feel is likely going to continue to evolve over time. To your point, you build them and they’re not utilized, not necessarily the best investment.

JB: Absolutely. And there’s a lot of that that actually does go on because people, they talk to their leasing brokers and everybody knows the way the leasing business works is you have to check certain boxes in order to get on tour lists. And people want to make sure that they’re checking those boxes in order to get the tenants to come and tour the building. And I think it’s really important to be thoughtful about it and try to curate the experience. 

DA: Agreed. Agreed. You’ve got a technology background. That’s the business that we’re in. We’ve seen the disruption within commercial real estate by technology. Our customer really wants to stay really connected. We want to help to foster and improve productivity. We want to make it easier for people to work and get work done. You know, customer experience is obviously a huge driver. Just wondering what your thoughts overall on how building technology could be doing a better job to improve the experience. What’s working? What’s not working? What would you like to see improved? 

JB: So I want it all. Let’s start. I really do. And you’re right because I have that technology background. It’s something that I talk about in the office all the time. And we’re constantly beta testing different products. And we’re trying to talk to the prop tech companies that are out there and trying to figure out what’s going to work. And we’ve tried a bunch of things that really haven’t worked. But I can tell you something so simple that does work. And for some reason, I just don’t see it used as often. And that’s using your phone to get access to your building instead of carrying around a fob or a card. I’m shocked with how many people don’t use it. And I’m not sure why I do. I love it. And so we do across the portfolio, we do provide an app for every building. Of course, the app provides other things as well. So it’s a way to communicate with the building management. It’s got updates and information about cultural events and restaurants, food and beverage, things of that nature. But again, to me, the killer app, so to speak, is the ability to not have to worry about carrying another item with you and knowing that you could just use your phone to get in and out of the building. You know, in terms of where things are going, I mean, this is not necessarily about tenant experience, although it does touch it. We had an Israeli company here that showed us, I don’t know if you know or if the audience knows, some of them obviously do, how these buildings get cleaned, right? They have rigs on top of the building. I’ve seen them, you know, when you have a bunch of guys that are, you know, lowering down and cleaning the facade. Well, now they’ve got these robots. And that’s really incredible. It’s not, you know, I talk to my head of facilities about that all the time. It’s not there yet. But let me give you another use case for that as well. You want to improve the facade. So we look at these facades and we’re doing it on one of the acquisitions, actually on both of the acquisitions that were involved in the Grand Central Market, where we’re going to make different kinds of improvements to the facade, but a component of that is painting the facade. So again, a huge part of that cost is you have to put human beings up there that will be involved in applying, you know, the paint and so on and so forth. I do see a time when robots will be doing that kind of work. And I think it happens within our lifetime because the technology is all there. So, you know, those are just ideas. 

DA: Great examples. Great examples. You know, this reinvention of the commercial real estate has been going through, continues to go through. Clearly, it represents a significant opportunity for the industry. This is a bit of a dream type question. But if budget were not an issue, if I could give you a bucket of gold, what new initiative would you undertake in your business? One, two or three things would you do to position your company, your business for success over the next three to five years? Again, with no constraints, no resource constraints, no financial constraints. Anything you could share?

JB: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. Well, I think first and foremost, I think education, you know, in terms of the entire staff here, education, education, just making sure that everybody is fully up to speed within their core competency that they’re providing here at the company. And I know that’s like probably a little bit different than the answer that you were looking for. But I’m thinking practically. That’s something that I always talk to the people in the company about. If you want to go and you want to further your education somewhere, we want to pay for it. You know, we want to assist you in that because I think that the ROI on those types of activities, it’s just huge. When we think about, you know, when I think about what I can do, yeah, when I think about a night, let’s get a little more interesting in terms of the dream, you know, I would love to over-amortize all these buildings, right? Because that is something that we do think about, right? There has to be an ROI and that’s why we have to curate it and be careful about it. But I’ll give you a good example. We put a gym as a tenant into one of our buildings here downtown. It’s Club Studio, which is a new chain owned by LA Fitness. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but they’ve signed a whole bunch of leases in the city and they lease 36,000 square feet. And it was a really cool project. We actually had to excavate part of the building after we signed a lease with them. We signed the lease and we leased the space that had never been leased in the history of the building. So basically this, and this is during, you know, this is two and a half years ago and things have still not come back yet. And the chairman of LA Fitness came and he was walking spaces to his credit. He was out there doing deals at the best time when there were very few people that were doing deals. So we discovered this cellar space in the basement of the building. And I said, Hey, look, this, this could be, you know, a gym, this could be part of your gym. And, and it costs us a fortune to basically have to, we have to excavate in a million square foot building that was occupied at the time we had to excavate to create the egress so that, you know, we would meet code in order to put the gym there. But for example, in that one, he wanted to put in a swimming pool and that would have been, that would have been amazing. But you know, the, the, the numbers just, they didn’t, they didn’t work because all of these things, you want to do these things. And by the way, I know, again, it’s a little bit off your question, but we start out with the dream. Every time we look at the building that we’re going to be improving, we start out with the dream and then we kind of cut it back, right? Say, what is our dream? If we had all the money in the world, how would we improve this building? And then we kind of pull it back. I put in another thing that I would do, which is phenomenal. One of my tenants, one of my buildings has an executive dining room, which is something that I think is kind of from the past, right? You know, that’s what, you know, the, like the big financial firms used to do that. This is a big financial firm. I’d love to figure out ways to provide, again, interesting food and beverage that changes every day that I could provide to the tenants, you know, for free, right? Because that’s what we’re thinking about. We want that experience to be as, you know, as, as, as, as, as wonderful as possible. So that when you’re, I know, again, it’s a little cliche to talk about the hospitality approach, but that really is what it is. We want you to, we want you to want to come to the office. 

DA: Exactly. 

JB: You want you to be excited to come to the office Okay.

DA: That’s a great segue to a question that we will pick up on after a quick commercial break.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

DA: And I’d like to welcome back to the show, Jonathan Bennett, president of AmTrust Re. Jonathan, I’m loving this conversation, really appreciate all the insights that you’re sharing, and I know that our listeners are going to love it. Picking up on where we left off just before the break, this notion of hospitality, I’m a big believer that, you know, certainly from a technology perspective, where we started out more focused on just helping to automate, facilitate great tenant experience, we’re now thinking more around the idea of being a hospitality operating system. How do we help our building partners draw more from the hotel and restaurant industry and bring that approach, that mentality, that dedication to customer service and experience to the table each and every day, and deliver that not just to the person that signs the lease that maybe used to be perceived as the customer, who we talked to every five years when we needed a lease sign, but now the reality that each and every person that enters our building is our true customer. And we’ve got to be able to deliver that customer experience not just, again, every three to five years or 10 years, but every single day, every moment of the day to every single person that enters our building. So we think about that, you know, literally every minute. That’s really why we exist. And I’m just curious more, you have touched on it, but, you know, do you think commercial real estate as a whole is going to continue to respond and take advantage of this new way of thinking? We’re seeing some, but we’re also seeing a lot thinking that it’s going to be like the old days and it’s just going to be building and they will come. And we don’t think that’s going to happen.

JB: So, you know, there’s a lot there to unpack. And I think what I would start off with is I would say we have to learn and we are learning to think like the hospitality industry. A hotel room is perishable inventory. A restaurant seat is perishable inventory. That’s how those operators are always thinking about their businesses. Because the night is gone, you lost that hotel room, you’re never getting it back. You know, that dinner shift, you had empty seats, you’re never getting it back. So those operators are constantly thinking about who are my customers? What are their names? What are they like? How can I, what can I do to make them feel like this is the place that they need to be? I think that has started to spill over into our business. And I think also what has helped with that is the WeWork and the industrious of the world. That have really, you know, filtered down, you know, into the whole industry. And the truth is I’d go back even further since we’ve been talking about technology. I think about the first time I heard about companies providing free food and dry cleaning and massages in the office. And the company that pops into my head always is Yahoo, which, you know, we remember. I don’t know if all the other customers will know who that is. But really the Silicon Valley companies, they’re the ones I think that kind of started introducing these things that you’re going to provide. And they were the tenants doing it on their own. The employer to the employees. But I think people started to learn from that. And then they started demanding it also that instead of them providing it, although many tech companies still provide those, you know, those services. But that this is something that needs to come from the building. Right? Yes. And so I think all of those things, you know, combined, you know, that’s how we’re supposed to be thinking about our tenants. We’re not supposed to be thinking about our tenants like, you know, like, well, we signed the deal. I’ll see you in five to ten years. Right. I don’t think that’s how it works anymore. And the truth is, I would say, for the great operators, they probably never operated that way. Meaning just putting the lease, you know, in the drawer. And I’ll see you in five to ten years. I think that for those types of operators, the business may have worked for them, even though they weren’t thinking about things, you know, the way that we’re talking about today. The business still kind of worked because of the way business used to work. I think that’s moving. We’re moving away from that. And in addition to your offices, you know, not being able to be commodity offices anymore either. Neither can your relationships, right? Your relationships also have to be part of that experience. And you need to know who your tenants are and you have to have communication with them. And it’s become easier, of course, with technology. But, yeah, you know, that’s really where the industry, you know, has landed.

DA: I agree. You’ve hinted at it that a lot of this did start, you know, even before buildings started to take this approach, that it was happening with certain large, you know, Fortune 500-type companies, particularly technology companies, particularly in the Silicon Valley. I’ve also, you know, been sort of promoting the concept that I think building operators and your occupiers need to be collaborating, not just getting to know them better, not just building a better relationship with them, but actually be collaborating on what that experience looks like and find opportunities to, you know, have those boundaries blurred between the physical limitations of an office within a building and the building itself and look for those opportunities to just offer that enhanced experience. So I think that’s another, you know, a future way that we can, again, make buildings a destination of choice, a place where people want to be and be more collaborative. Absolutely. I’m just curious, you know, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We both agree that the opportunity for office and the future of work to continue to evolve, what haven’t I talked about or what haven’t we discussed that you think, you know, is super relevant? So we’ve, you know, you know, we’ve talked about, you know, and we’ve got these acronyms that we use. We’ve got ESG, we’ve got IOT, we’ve got this whole notion of driving more ROI. We’ve got the opportunity for M&A, but what else are you thinking about that’s really top of mind?

JB: So, so I think one of the things that we’re capitalizing on here at AmTrustRE, we talked about a lot of characteristics that are required of buildings to attract tenants. One of the ones we did not talk about is having a landlord that has a strong balance sheet and that can demonstrate that they have a strong balance sheet. I think more than ever after coming out of the chaos that we’re still not completely out of, the values kind of still not being clear with upside down, you know, loans, defaulted loans, you know, real estate is a slow lead. It takes time for everything to work through the system. And then, and then, and then for those, for the, for the lenders to be willing to either take control or force a sale and then a new owner to come in and make the improvements and so on and so forth. So tenants that have gone through that experience, they think a little bit differently when they think about where their next office is going to be. And they ask those questions and they want to know that the landlord has experience, has been around, has staying power, has demonstrated that they’re doing the things that they say they’re going to do. And so, and so I think that that reputation that goes up today, it goes a very, very long way. And again, we we’ve seen this happen where some of the acquisitions that we’ve done recently, we reach out to the tenants and they say, you know, we were not going to renew in this building, but now that we’ve heard that, that you are, that you’re buying it, let me hear what your plans are because we love the location, right? We love the location. We just had a bad experience with the previous landlord and we’ve been very successful in retaining and attracting new tenants. After we make that presentation and have that conversation.

DA: I think that means that buyers are becoming more savvy and they’re, they’re right. They’re becoming more discerning and not just looking at the space in isolation of who owns it and manages it.

JB: Absolutely.

DA: That’s great.

JB: Which becomes, it becomes a little bit harder, I would think for entrepreneurs that are trying to get into the business, so to speak. But, but again, I think there was, there will still be opportunities for those entrepreneurs, but they’ll have to partner up, you know, with, you know, strong sources of capital. And but, but again, some of this stuff, you know, it, there’s nothing new under the sun, right? Some of this stuff that we’re talking about, like this particular issue, you know, I think that there were always tenants that that felt like that, but after you’re coming out of what we just came out of, there were a lot more.

DA: You know, it’s very interesting. And it relates directly to my business being a technology business. When we first launched Hilo, we thought we’ll just build it, you know, and they would come license our software and, you know, 12 months, we look for the renewal. And what we learned very quickly and is also a way to differentiate from others in the marketplace, that actually what defined our company was the support and service that we offered. So you got to have the great tech, but the fact that we support service and partner with our building partners has been a huge differentiator. You know, we work with them, we meet with them weekly, biweekly, monthly, throughout the engagement and offer that unparalleled experience, not only in terms of how they use the tech, but in terms of the relationship with us. And I think that’s the differentiator likely for any business.

JB: Absolutely. It’s funny. I’m thinking about two things when you’re saying that I’m thinking about a real estate technology company that I, that I’m, that I’m involved in as an advisor that, that it’s called Agora. They provide like a platform for real estate investment management. And somebody was asking me about whether he wanted to make the, he wanted to make a move to the platform. And I said to him, the number one thing you need to know is that their customer support is unbelievable. When you reach out to them, somebody answers, you can call, you can email, you can WhatsApp, somebody’s going to answer. I think that that’s something that’s critical. The other thing that I’m thinking about is I spent a little bit of time. I left that part out of my background because it was only a couple of years. I was at American Express for a couple of years, you know, before I got into real estate. And when you go into American Express, I don’t know if they still do this, but everyone used to have at their desk a blue box, a picture of a blue box. And I don’t know if you know this, a lot of people don’t know, but I don’t know if they still do this on the cards. There’s a blue box behind the American Express logo. And there would be, and there would be, and it would say on the sign, blue box values. And it would talk about what kind of values you have when you work at American Express. And I said, why do you do that? They said, because we sell air, we’re selling service. It’s air. Nobody can touch and feel that all we have is who we are. Right. And so, so that idea of, you can count on me and I’m going to do life for you. I mean, I think that’s critical to any business.

DA: I agree. And that connects to the whole notion of a brand. You’re building a brand. I think commercial real estate is landing on this concept relatively more recently, this notion that you’re building your ownership, your portfolio can actually represent your brand and offer a consistent experience across the portfolio. American Express knew this from the get-go. I think commercial real estate is just arriving at this conclusion. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity to continue to build brands behind great real estate owner and operators. And you’re clearly on that path. Jonathan, our closing speed round is an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better. So let’s jump into it. Looking back, what is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you before you started your career?

JB: So it’s interesting. I, I, I used to work with a guy called Joe Nakash. That’s the high, ultra high net worth office. He was the founder of Jordache Jeans and he’s a tough guy. He’s a tough guy. And I don’t mind saying this publicly because he’s very, very successful, but he would always say to me when we had, you know, if we had a meeting that might’ve been somewhat adversarial, he would always say, be nice, be nice. And I think that that’s really critical. People don’t realize how important that is. You don’t have to be a jerk to make it. In fact, it probably is going to work against you most of the time.

DA: Jonathan, I absolutely love that and I agree wholeheartedly with it and I’m going to remember to use, I mean, I think that way myself and sometimes I get off a call or I come out of a meeting and I think, wow, they’re stuck. There was an opportunity for that person to yes, be demanding. Yes. Have high expectations. Yes. To, you know, demand the world. But at the end of the day, they could have just been nice and it was all unfolded the way they wanted. I love that. Is there a favorite book or podcast that you listened to or have read that has positively affected your approach to work or life?

JB: Oh boy. Well, there’s going to be one that I would have to talk about, you know, I am an Orthodox Jew and I do something called Dof Yomi, which is essentially we learn a page of the Talmud every day. The Talmud is a 2700 page text that’s filled with all kinds of ancient Jewish law as well as Jewish wisdom. And so part of the discipline of doing that every day is you’re constantly having the exposure to all kinds of interesting advice as you, as you get through those pages. I mentioned that for two reasons. I mentioned that because it is a book and, and, and, and, and part of that is it’s also a discipline. And so it, that’s not for everybody. And, and it takes seven and a half years to complete it. Like I said, it’s not for everybody, but it certainly inspires me. Especially I, I, I do it with a group of other, of other, of other people. And it’s inspiring to see how people can take the time out of their day to dedicate to this activity. And, and you, you really learn a tremendous amount.

DA: And you do it and create a sense of community at the same time. 

JB: Absolutely. 

DA: Yep. I love that. Listen, commercial real estate is continuing to evolve. I’m curious. Do you think the skills required for people in the industry and or for owner developers in the industry that they’re going to want to bring into their organization are changing? And if they are, what skills do you think we’re going to be looking for down the road?

JB: Great question. I think that for us, everyone, everyone is talking about AI, no question about it. And figuring out ways to do things faster, more reliably using technology. If I think about the activities that we have to do every single day, that seems somewhat ornery or, you know, difficult putting together decks, putting together investment presentations, putting together, all those presentations should be easy to put together. We have the data, the data’s in the system. So with AI and we’re not there yet, but how great would it be if you could basically talk to your computer and tell ChatGBT or the like, I need a deck that’s going to show me the following analysis. And then it just spits it out for you. So if, so in terms of skill sets, folks that, you know, that have the ability to understand how to use that technology, I’ll give you an example. My daughter actually graduated recently with a degree in computer science, still doesn’t have a job by the way, because everything you’re hearing about is true. Very tough, you know, for, for, for those folks. But she got a, a degree, a certificate in prompt engineering. Who knew there was a thing called engineering. It’s a skill set to know how to tell the AI what to do. And I think that’s just one example of that’s going to, that’s something that’s going to become more and more prevalent.

DA: Listen, it’s the old, you know, it used to be with computers, it was garbage in garbage out. Right. And so now, you know, the quality of the prompt you’re right is a hundred percent going to dictate the quality of that output, that response. Fascinating. Jonathan, if you were not doing what you’re doing right now, what would you think you’d be doing instead? And this could be dream or fantasy, you know, I’d be playing music and writing books. Okay. Is there a particular, what’s your favorite? Is there an instrument?

JB: Is there a, I play the guitar, but it’s all the creative stuff that, you know, I still try to, I still, I still try to have that part of my, you know, as a component in my life. And, and I, and I, I probably should spend more time doing that too. 

DA: Right. Amazing. Jonathan, I cannot thank you enough for joining me on the program today. This was a fascinating call. I learned a lot, not only about the industry, about your business, but more importantly about you. Thanks for being so generous with sharing your thinking, your insights, your approach to business, a great episode. And I look forward to continuing our connection and, you know, continuing to connect and talk more in the future. Thank you so, so much.

JB: Thank you for having me. 

DA: Okay. 

DA: That’s a wrap on today’s episode of 10. I want to thank Jonathan for joining me on the program. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review. It helps others find the show. Thanks for listening. And until next time, I wish you all continued success in building community where you work and live.