The Ex-SpaceX Engineer Reinventing the American Home with Riley Meik (#421)
In this episode, Chris sits down with Riley Meik, co-founder and CEO of The American Housing Corporation, a company building factory-made row homes for the kind of city lots we've stopped building on.For 70 years we got great at putting single-family homes on the outskirts and basically quit building family-sized housing in the places people actually want to live.Riley's bet is that you fix that the way you'd fix any hard manufacturing problem: own the whole stack, design every part from first principles, and build the home in a factory.His first prototype went from manufactured to installed to finished in 13 weeks, and the goal from here is a home that costs 30 to 50% less than local construction.Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(01:22) The Housing Crisis Is a Production Problem(04:33) Why America Stopped Building Family Housing in Cities(09:50) The First Company and Why Selling to Home Builders Doesn't Work(14:58) First Principles Engineering: What Does a Wall Actually Need to Do?(21:39) Getting Code-Certified for a Building System That Doesn't Exist Yet(27:57) One Miracle at a Time(31:47) Three Entities, One Mission: How AHC's Capital Stack Works(37:52) 18 Months of R&D: Panel Install Time Dropped 70%(44:22) The Two-Week Build Goal(47:03) Eichler Homes and Designing for Young Families(52:24) Beautiful Housing Gets Approved: Design as Regulatory Strategy(1:00:08) Gigafactory Over Mobile Micro-Factory(1:04:40) Margin Targets, Market Selection, and the Coastal City Thesis(1:11:39) Earning the Right to Automate and Hiring for the Housing CrisisFind our sponsors:True North Advisors - https://truenorthadvisors.comCollateral Partners - https://collateral.com/powersRelay Human Cloud - https://www.relayhumancloud.com/powersChris on Social Media:X: https://x.com/fortworthchrisInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcastLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO