Live from the opening day of the 2026 Baker Hughes Annual Meeting in Florence, Josh Lowrey and Richard Rodriguez sit down with Laura Van Beers and Aravind Yarlagadda to unpack Baker Hughes’ “Energy Equation” and the real challenges behind scaling digital in industrial operations.

From the shift toward problem-driven solutions to the role of AI in modern operations, this conversation explores how companies are building trust in digital systems, while keeping humans firmly in the loop.

00:00 Live From Florence

00:29 Show Energy And Passion

01:19 Meet Laura And Aravind

06:24 IT Meets OT

08:50 From Products To Problems

12:16 Services And Domain Context

14:16 Human In The Loop

18:24 Bridging Generational Change

19:34 Training and Change

20:01 Integration Without Tool Sprawl

21:05 Two Product Paths

23:17 Breaking Data Silos

25:14 Contextualizing Asset Data

27:29 Innovation With Safety

29:07 Hype Versus Reality

31:32 Experimenting With New Tech

33:47 Scaling IT Into OT

36:33 Trust and Closing Thoughts

AI is not the advantage anymore; execution is.

From Upright Digital Media Studios in Houston, hosts Josh Lowrey and Richard Rodriguez welcome back Robby Gulri, Head of Advanced Technologies at Intelisys.

The conversation explores the gap between AI hype and real execution—highlighting why successful AI strategies start with strong data governance, clear business outcomes, and cyber resilience.

Gulri also breaks down practical AI use cases, rising cybersecurity risks, and why companies must shift from selling products to delivering solutions.

00:00 Podcast Kickoff

01:18 Meet Today’s Guest

03:51 Robbie’s Origin Story

04:51 Career Path and Role

07:09 Entrepreneur Roots

11:03 Why AI Is Mostly Hype

14:05 AI Governance and Guardrails

19:49 Consumer Expectations and CX

22:31 Real World AI Examples

24:49 Three AI Use Case Buckets

30:09 How LLMs Actually Work

31:54 AI Slop and Hallucinations

34:03 AI Email War Story

36:45 Energy and Social Costs

38:25 Security Implications Ahead

38:46 Phishing Gets Personal

39:30 AI Powered Cybercrime Markets

41:53 Zero Trust In Real Life

43:53 Security ROI For CEOs

46:55 SMBs Under Constant Attack

49:01 Cyber Resilience Mindset Shift

51:33 Cloud Shared Responsibility Reality

54:57 CIO Evolution And Misalignment

59:55 Is AI Really IT

01:01:41 FinOps Ownership Debate

01:04:55 Writing The SKU To Solution Book

01:10:06 Wrap Up And Where To Connect

Can today’s power systems handle data center volatility?

From the Thrive Energy Conference, The IT Crowd Podcast hosts Josh Lowrey and Richard Rodriguez sit down with Brian Uhlmer, CEO at EKU Power Drives, to break down what it really takes to manage extreme, real-time power demand.

They dive into OEM-agnostic controls, mixed-asset integration, and why flexibility—not standardization—is becoming the key advantage in power-as-a-service.

00:00 Welcome From Vegas

00:33 Why Piper Sandler Matters

00:52 Meet Brian Olmer

02:45 Brian’s Career Journey

06:56 What EKU Builds

07:32 Data Centers Need Control

11:15 OEM Agnostic Power Mixing

12:55 Genesys and Maximus Stack

14:13 Integration Timelines

16:01 Controls as Growth Bottleneck

18:16 AI Demand Debate

20:01 AI Adoption Stories

24:39 Cybersecurity and Data Flow

26:03 Cybersecure Power Controls

26:51 Nuisance Trips Explained

27:12 Uptime Penalties Reality

28:47 Droop Logic And Sync

30:01 Why Grid Falls Short

32:26 Beyond Data Centers

33:30 Conference Target Customers

35:12 Founder Owned Funding

37:47 Standardizing Gen Sets

41:19 How To Find EKU

41:48 Stuttgart Speed Record Story

43:36 Wrap Up And CNBC Call