167: ‘The Battle Over Building Codes Continues’, with Scott Reynolds

167: ‘The Battle Over Building Codes Continues’, with Scott Reynolds
Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel, Scott Reynolds returns to the show to discuss the ongoing, legal and legislative battles surrounding building codes and their accessibility. When I was welcoming Scott to the show that you're just about to listen to, I said it was this third time on, but no, I went back and checked the records. This is actually his fourth time. Scott is the co-founder and the CEO of UpCodes. He comes from a background in architecture, having worked for several years in Hong Kong and New York City at firms, including both Kohn Peterson Fox and Hassell. Being a Y Combinator alumni, he has leveraged both industry and startup experience to launch and scale UpCodes.
Today, he's here to give us an update on the latest news and happenings regarding the new Pro Codes Act and elaborates on the contentious issue of [00:01:00] copywriting building regulations that impact AEC and beyond.
In this episode, we talk about the implications of restricting access to the code, the history of lawsuits, and the new push towards legislation that is currently happening.
I encourage you to use the show links in the show notes as a next step, after listening to join in the public discussion and advocacy of this important issue.
As always, I would appreciate your help in giving this podcast a boost in the vast media landscape by subscribing, wherever you listen to let me know that you're a fan.
And if you'd like to receive an email when these episodes come out with all of the links and other information from the episode itself, sign up at trxl.co, where you can also directly support the show by becoming a member. So, thank you so much for listening. And now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Scott Reynolds.
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Evan Troxel: [00:02:00] Scott Reynolds, welcome back to the podcast number three for you, and I feel like, uh, we're just on this wheel, it keeps turning, and the, and there is a similar theme that we've experienced on this podcast, uh, but there's updates, and so, I, I hate to say it like this, but like, the more things change, the more they are, they stay the same, right?
And, and through the march of 2020, Progress and technology. There's also still kind of this idea of the old guard really, really, I don't know what's right. They're clamping down, they're hanging on really tightly to the way things maybe, maybe were, or maybe just the way they want things to be, but let's introduce this, this topic and then give us kind of a, um, uh, a background on what you're doing at Upcodes so that that really kind of creates the Venn diagram of the topic that we're actually going to be talking about today.
So start with, well, let's just catch up [00:03:00] on, on like the, the new developments and, and what's, what's going on with the whole idea behind. Copywriting the law.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me back. Great to connect again and chat through this and certainly a lot of updates. Um, so yeah, it's a broad context. Uh, at Upcodes, we take a lot of the regulations and put them together into one searchable database online. Now we've gone, um, you know, added a lot of features and functionality on top of that, but, you know, at the crux of it, That's kind of what we do.
We just, um, aggregate a lot of regulations, uh, into one place and just make them freely open and available to, to the industry. Um, and I know we've covered that in previous, uh, podcasts.
Evan Troxel: Well, put a, put a scale to that because when you say a lot of regulations, like you mean a lot of regulations. So give, give an idea because there's, how many municipalities in the US and everybody's got a different concoction of coded options. And so there's just, there's a ton of stuff out there that people, that architects, engineers, building designers, everybody has to deal with, right?
And, [00:04:00] and so I, that kind of sets this, the idea of what you're actually dealing with when you're providing your service.
Scott Reynolds: yeah, absolutely. And just to talk about the breadth, um, these regulations affect you at the federal level, the state level, city level, and sometimes local, uh, county level. And we try and track as many of those as we can, generally at the federal level, state level, and some cities. So, I think we're over 75 or roughly 80 different jurisdictions, and that's a mix of what I mentioned before. But just to kind of put a number to that, in terms of the code coverage, we have over 6 million sections of code. Those could be sections from the building code, the plumbing code, electrical code, fire codes. And it's constantly evolving over time. So we update over 7, 000 sections per month on average. And actually that number is growing as the library grows.
So it's, it's both a very broad database, but one that constantly evolves. And, and candidly, that's what we spend a lot of time, um, [00:05:00] focusing on and building the technology around is the backend system. How do we actually aggregate all this data and keep it up to date going forward?
Evan Troxel: Mm hmm. Right. So, okay. So now that we have an idea of that's incredible. Six million code sections. And, and I can't, I just, the scale of updating. So why are you updating so much every month? Is that because the code is changing that fast or like, give, give us an idea of like, what's behind that.
Scott Reynolds: Right. Yeah. So it's the code changing both the base adopted codes, but also the amendments. And if you're in one particular jurisdiction, uh, you know, maybe it updates once, twice a year. If you're in somewhere like New York City, a little bit more frequently than that, and everyone's on their own cadence. But when you put, you know, 75 of these jurisdictions together into one place, those updates happen very, very frequently across, um, jurisdictions. across the U. S. So it's, it's just this constantly churning process where we're kind of, you know, it's almost like playing whack a mole. It's maybe Connecticut updates and maybe California updates and Texas and [00:06:00] then New Hampshire. Um, so it's constantly keeping this balance and using our research team to keep on top of these changes and, and track this kind of constantly morphing, um, uh, target.
Evan Troxel: That's incredible. Because as a design professional myself, right? I, I obviously have to, like, like my job is to incorporate my, Design with the building code to land that building in a particular location. And I can't keep on top of those changes. I have to like, I always joke, like with the building product manufacturing industry, where I get an email or a cold call or something for about a new product.
It's like, You're not the only, I can't even spend, if, if every building product manufacturer called me and wanted to spend 20 minutes on the phone, I would never, ever get any work done. And, and that's just one little piece of designing a building, right? There's, there's way bigger fish to fry in the sea of.
designing a building, the building code being a huge piece of that. And for me to be able to rely [00:07:00] on an updated source of information is a very big deal because I have to comply with that, right? To get my building through the AHJ so that it can actually get built.
Scott Reynolds: And in fact, that goes back to the origin of, of the product. I was working in. And, you know, you'd have a project, uh, come in and you're, you're working on it and you're trying to aggregate and pull together what the code is, like get a complete picture of, of what the code is. And we would go to the physical library, you know, get some of the books out, we'd go to the government sites, PDF saved to the company server and try to not only, you know, stitch this together, but understand did those things actually change, you know, since we bought the book and put it on the shelf or the PDF saved down to the company server.
So
Evan Troxel: Oh, we would always have the new the new slip sheets that would,
you know, there were a different color so that we knew when a new version of that page was put in and, and they would release different colors of the pages, a physical paper that went into this three ring binder. throughout the year for the, or, you know, three years, whatever the code cycle was.
And, and it was pretty, I mean, [00:08:00] just, just the cognitive kind of, I don't know, it's not, that's not the right, the right word, but like the administrative level of, of, of, of, of, of, Constantly going in and making sure that you have this current. It was very difficult and so much so that, I mean, you're talking about providing access to the building code and I really think about the younger generations when I think about access to the building code because the older generations like you would go to.
This person who had been an architect for a very long time, and they lived in the code, and they, you would ask them, you would not go to the book first, you would talk to somebody who knew where to look in the book first, they were basically like a librarian for that, the code books that we had, and, and that was an incredible resource, and those people are far and few between in the industry now, and so when you're providing access, You're actually making it, I mean, this whole idea of what technology does, right, and it kind of gets rid of the gatekeepers of this kind of a thing over time by providing access [00:09:00] to more people so they can get into there and find what they're looking for because some of those resources don't really exist as much anymore.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And there's such a barrier to entry. If you're new to the industry, um, say your recent grad or just joining, you don't have those years of experience to jump into the building code and slowly accumulate that, that knowledge. And you end up relying on the few kind of technical leaders in the firm, and they end up getting overwhelmed because everyone's coming to them, knocking on the door and asking these code questions. And that's for a recent grad or someone joining the industry. Or you could be a veteran, but you're jumping into a new project type, you're jumping into a new jurisdiction. Historically, it's been so hard to build up and, and this, this knowledge set of that particular project type and jurisdiction and the, and the codes associated with it. And that's exactly the focus we do is removing those barriers, removing that, that friction, uh, to, to jumping into new code. And, you know, providing free and open access is, I believe, the first step and the kind of the foundation of that. But [00:10:00] what we're really interested in is going beyond that. How do we build automation?
How do we build tools, project management, capturing institutional knowledge for these firms so they can disseminate that through their whole, um, their whole firm,
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Right. So catch us up on what's happened since the last time that we talked because I, I, I didn't go back and listen to the episode, I'll be honest. I mean, too many episodes to go back
through. But, but the last time we talked, you know, there was, we talked about the whole idea of copywriting the law, and there were lawsuits that had been filed in an attempt to copyright the building code.
And so maybe you can kind of speak about that in a general, but, and then in a more specific way, like the whole idea behind copywriting, something that, and who it belongs to as kind of a foundational concept before we get into maybe the, even the changes that have happened since the last time we talked.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and this debate has been going on, you know, for literally decades for, for a long, long time. I think the first lawsuit [00:11:00] 2002 or 2004, uh, VEC versus SBCCI, which would go on to become, um, ICC. And it's it's the, uh, what we call the law publishers claiming copyright on, on the kind of content of the codes that get, uh, get adopted into, into law. Now, one of the notable things here is that a lot of these codes are written by volunteers. So industry professionals, uh, government workers coming together to actually write these regulations. Um, now organizations, um, like the ICC or NFPA, um, Convene those committees and they bundle up that code and then sell it back, you know, to the same individual, same volunteers or, you know, other folks in the industry and homeowners, uh, at a pretty substantial price.
So, um, these organizations often do north of a hundred million dollars in revenue. So kind of very substantial cash generating business, um,
and
Evan Troxel: And that's really based on the packaging aspect that you're talking about, right? So there's like a, and you tell me like how they deliver [00:12:00] that now, because I'm not, I'm not up on that, but is it a digital delivery? Is it a paper delivery? Is it a little bit of both still? Where are we at with that?
Scott Reynolds: a little bit of both. Um, so
historically, primarily it was on the physical, uh, book side, and now they've started to migrate into the digital side.
Um, so, so really nice to see that kind of progression and see the kind of advancement of this, you know, portion of our industry. Uh, so, but today it's, it's very much in, afoot in both camps,
especially on, on their side.
Evan Troxel: Okay. So that packaging is what they're then charging for. And, and, I mean, at, working in an architectural firm, there was, there was many code books in this, the office of the size that we had. And, you know, every studio had their own set of code books. And so, I mean, it was, and it was a pretty substantial cost every time they were going to, Go to a new code cycle because the entire book basically needed to be replaced at that point.
And, and that's what's leading to this kind of revenue generation for these publishers.
Scott Reynolds: Right. And, and historically, uh, absolutely the case. But even today, when it's migrated to digital, In many [00:13:00] cases, you actually just pay for access. So these things are behind paywalls and it will vary per, you know, per publisher and how they handle it. But ultimately a portion, and we can get into this, like how big is that portion or, you know, the size of it. Uh, but some of that comes from limiting access to the law. So whether that's complete limitations on, on those laws or restricted access, like not allowing copy paste printing
or for people to build tools on top of that. So it's, it's very much. a kind of monetization by bottlenecking and restricting access to,
to these, to these laws.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's kind of like, uh, It's interesting. I mean, I kind of draw an analogy to, like, uh, the music industry, right? Like, you can't, I couldn't put a backing track of some artist on this podcast and publish it without paying a royalty ahead of time and getting that agreement ahead of time.
Like, first of all, if this was going on YouTube, it would just get struck immediately for, it would get flagged. And, You know, you would probably [00:14:00] have to prove that you had somehow paid for the use of that, but you're talking about like that level of thing where you can actually, there's restrictions, limitations, or just flat out.
No, you can't, you can't even re copy paste, put that onto your drawing set. I don't know, like, tell me kind of what, what are the normal use cases that you, that people may want to do, but are, but can't do with these kind of limitations in place.
Scott Reynolds: And, and yeah, and I will say the, like, so there is the restrictions, uh, but first just to cover the analogy with the music side. Um, I think, you know, like candidly, in my opinion, that makes a lot of sense on, on, on the music industry, but very, very different from construction. The codes we're talking about are literally the law.
They're, they're
adopted into law
and it's a legal requirement. And, um, Unfortunately, uh, and I'm sure we'll cover this in more detail, but the laws, or sorry, the courts, uh, repeatedly have just decided you can't copyright the law. Now that sounds, you know, sounds obvious, but we did need to go through the legal system, needed, uh, [00:15:00] that to be said, all the way up to the Supreme Court.
And, as I said, in extremely clear terms. Um, But just to go back to the use cases and the attempted kind of, uh, uh, limitation of, of those use cases. So exactly like you're saying, um, copy, uh, pasting, putting it onto a drawing sheet or just coordinating internally. Um, so sending, um, code between, um, uh, project stakeholders inside the office, outside the office, talking to the homeowner, talking to the developer owner, uh, talking to the GC. including that in specifications. There's so many overlaps, uh, where you need to exchange this, this, uh, this information because it's just that we live, or we work in a very collaborative industry that relies on that exchange. So if
you constrict that, that flow of information, you're constricting the industry itself.
Evan Troxel: And so that flow of information is cut off. Like you can't, is that, is that part of the terms of use is that you cannot do that kind of thing?
Scott Reynolds: Right, exactly. And it'll [00:16:00] vary by publisher. Um, But that's what we see and limiting, um, uh, the, the flow and, and the kind of reproduction of it. Uh, but also hold another category, which is building tools. So it's, it's limiting, um, Kind of third parties or people to go in and, and build automation or workflow tools to actually help with that, uh, that process. And we could draw analogies to other industries like, like lawyers who have just a huge variety of tools that they can, and products they could put in their, in their tool belt to actually do their day to day job. So it's, it's not just the kind of the, the baseline access to the codes, but also the adjacent tools and, and workflows attached to those that get limited.
Evan Troxel: Could you give an example of kind of the, you know, just what are you talking about here? Like the, and I don't know if it, if an example of something people wish they could do, but they can't or some, or some examples of things that people have tried to do as far as these automations and tools go.
Scott Reynolds: [00:17:00] Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so one example, someone had reached out to us saying, you know, how do you do what we do? Cause we do a lot of automation and project management, um, in this, in the space around codes and, and their idea was around fire sprinklers. So they wanted to do a calculator that would determine how many fire sprinklers you needed for a building, how far apart they should be and starting to help in the schematics so you could start to lay that out and, and, and plan. So it didn't need to be, you know, very manual. Uh, process, but in developing this, uh, he, you know, was, was threatened by, um, a lot of these publishers saying like, Hey, we're going to, we're going to sue you out of business, like stop what you're doing. Uh, don't develop with that. Don't release it. And, and unfortunately that's exactly what happened.
He stopped working on it and it never saw the light of day. So that's the kind of innovation that I think gets suppressed when you don't have that open access to, to a lot of these laws. Yeah.
Evan Troxel: And, and what was the reason behind why they couldn't do that? Like, what, what are they accessing [00:18:00] there that was deemed inaccessible?
Scott Reynolds: Well, I believe the stated reason was just the reproduction of the laws themselves. So in
that calculator, there was references saying like it, this sprinkler needs to be, you know, this distance apart. And here's the code section. That actually
determines that, so you could,
you know, have some transparency in terms of that process. So it's the reproduction of those actual sentences. We're not even talking like, like, you know, chapters or, or different, uh, codebooks. This is just excerpts from that that they
didn't want to reproduce. Now,
that's the stated reason. I think a secondary reason is probably some nervousness around the automation of some of these things. Um, I think there's just a little bit of discomfort with some of the publishers when you start to build sophisticated tools. On top of the, the regulations,
Evan Troxel: And that's the case then with what you're doing at Upcodes, right? Like that, that discomfort about building on top of and displaying and making accessible information that otherwise is behind a paywall.
Scott Reynolds: right? And, and [00:19:00] we just fundamentally, uh, disagree with the fact that you need to pay, uh, to see the loss. We, we believe that everyone, no matter who you are, industry professional or homeowner, should be able to see the legal requirements that, uh, control and, and set up the constraints around your building. Um, but you can build a business model around the tools on top of that. So the free and open access is the foundation. You can build automation, project workflows, educational content that sits on top of that. And that helps the, you know, the power users, the industry professionals, the homeowners kind of navigate through the code.
So
we have a very kind of bright line rule where you don't, or we believe you should never charge people to see and understand the laws. But, but you can create products and workflows that, that, that, yeah, help them navigate through that, that
Evan Troxel: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Interesting. So you said that there, this has gone all the way to the Supreme Court about not being able to copyright the law and that that's been very clear. So maybe just lay out that that process for everybody so that they know what it's [00:20:00] taken to get to this point. And then we can talk about the twist that that has recently happened.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. So, so I think I mentioned before, but that, that original case of VEC first SBCCI happened in 2002 or 2004. But since then, there's another eight cases that have happened. So a total of nine cases, um, in all different parts of the country. And one of them went all the way to the Supreme court. But regardless, every single case. Publishers brought has not succeeded. And
Evan Troxel: And were those always initiated? They were always initiated by the publishers, I
Scott Reynolds: correct. Right, right. And in every single case, the judges all came down to the same analysis that you can't copyright the law. Now they inspected it through a bunch of different lenses. Does it, you know, um, does it risk the, the kind of the ongoing operation of some of these publishers? They looked at that in extensive detail. They obviously get. Um, all the information behind the scenes and document discovery and see their financials and it all determined it, it was not, um, a [00:21:00] risk to the ongoing operation of publishers and that ultimately people needed open access to the laws.
So in all nine, the, the, um, the judges and the legal system have just reinforced the fact that you can't copyright the law. And. And in fact, that is a direct quote from the, um, Supreme Court who looked at one of these cases. And I, I believe it was, um, I, I, I, I think maybe Justice Roberts. Yeah, it was Justice Roberts said, no one can own the law. And that is a direct quote. And, and there's many really good quotes through that, uh, decision. But ultimately, all nine have, have come around the same thing, saying, you can't, um, copyright these, these building codes.
Evan Troxel: And so, so tell, tell us about this, just what U. S. copyright protection is. Like affords somebody who, like, so as an architect, my drawings are, are copyrighted, uh, just through the creation of them. So that, because those, somebody is paying me to [00:22:00] produce those, right? And therefore those plans then are then used as an instrument to build.
One building, right? It's not like it's, it's actually in, in the, the contract, but as, as well as just the copyright law of the drawings themselves, they can't just be taken and applied on some other location and built. I mean, Because I know architecture, I also know that that would be very foolish, right, because utilities don't come in in the same place, the building's not oriented the same, the soils are gonna be different, like, there's all kinds of reasons there, but it has happened, like, people have tried to just take this and plunk it down over there, and copyright, in my opinion, for me, means something.
I think it means something maybe a little bit different here, but can you just explain like why they're going for copyright protection beyond just limiting who can build tools on top of their, on top of the laws?
Scott Reynolds: Right, yeah, and it's a great question. And I think it [00:23:00] highlights that these cases and this kind of argument is a very thin kind of slice of industry. This is just talking about the regulations and the law. So are you legally bound? And is this literally the law that that is, that is kind of setting these constraints? And that would be very, very different from, um, like the drawings you do, the creative work that, that people, um, do. Um, doing these, in these drawing sets, uh, and then also like the music, uh,
example that you brought up.
So like very kind of, these are polar opposites and, and I do agree with you, like that is a good thing for people to have protection over the creative work and, and that works really well for, for the industry. I think what we're talking about here is, is just the legal requirements and in, in a democracy, can you or can you not copyright the law? And that, that now is kind of cleared up, but, um, but yeah, very different worlds, I would say. To answer your questions about the, the incentives and motivations, um, unfortunately, I think it, it just comes down to revenue generation that you look at these organizations and it, they make [00:24:00] a shocking amount of revenue from the attempted copyright of, of these regulations.
Like I said before, some of them, uh, north of a hundred million in revenue, often their CEOs are paid over a million dollars. Um, I think ICC's CEO is nearly 1. is 10 times the national average of a nonprofit CEO. So when you look at the tax filings in the 1990s, it looks a lot more like a for profit company than a, than a nonprofit.
Evan Troxel: So what's happened since, I mean, I assume that the Supreme Court ruling was the last one in the kind of that series. Is that how it went? It kind of culminated there in that, that one case that they looked at.
Scott Reynolds: Well, you would, you would think so, uh, but there's been cases since, uh,
there's a recent one in Texas that, I mean, again, like followed exactly the same reeling is, is, um, the Supreme Court, but believe it or not, it, the, the cases continue now, you know, I'm like, or like years ago, I was [00:25:00] like relatively new to the legal system and, and how it works, but, uh, unfortunately it does seem the case that you can quite easily Continually launch new lawsuit after new launch. Even if you lose that argument, you can launch it from new jurisdiction or you can slightly change it. And I think it's, it's a lot what people refer to as, uh, Lawfare. So it's, it's, it's a way to weaponize the legal system, to impose distraction, impose cost, uh, to uh, to other people. So. You would think so, and I would have thought that the Supreme Court would kind of be the bookend for that, for that argument. And in fact, it probably was in terms of the argument, but you could still launch more lawsuits just to its kind of imposed cost.
Evan Troxel: Okay. So, so, okay. So there's definitely that side of it. I, I assume like launching it in different jurisdictions is also strategic in a way to try to get a favorable ruling, right? Because it's a different jurisdiction than maybe the previous ones were launched in. So there's, there's that hope, but there is kind of this weaponization through, I mean, how much are these lawsuits costing [00:26:00] these different companies?
It's gotta be incredible.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, I mean you can look at the publisher's tax filings, like it's very illuminating when you look through the numbers, but I, I think it was the ICC in one of their initial years when they launched a lawsuit against us, it was multi million dollars per year. Um, spent on the litigation law firm. So it, these are massive resource drains, especially, um, on, on their side.
So it, it is kind of a very, unfortunately kind of a very destructive, um, uh, like endeavor for, for both sides.
Evan Troxel: Yeah, wow. Okay, so those were unsuccessful as far as the attempt to copyright the law, and, and it's been deemed nine times now that you can't copyright the law. So what's the new twist in the story since we talked last time?
Scott Reynolds: Right. So, so I think now that we're accumulating a mountain of case law on one, one side of this, this fence, um, a lot of the publishers have now turned towards Congress. Going to [00:27:00] Congress to introduce a bill that would, in effect, try to, um, be like a runaround through the, uh, around the legal system. So a bill saying, um, uh, giving copyright on, on the, uh, on the, on the base codes for, you know, the same, the same argument.
It may be slightly different here, but, um, yeah, but, uh, but effectively trying to do a runaround, uh, the legal system and go through, go through Congress.
Evan Troxel: And so, I mean, this wasn't done in the beginning, right? I mean, this, this, there was no law introduced when building codes were being formed early on. So, is it, is it purely just so that, because they can't win in court, or so it seems, nine times now, this is just a new tactic, right? To give it, realize their goals.
Scott Reynolds: Right. Exactly. And when you rewind to. 2002, 2004. There was just the one ruling, you know, and I maybe, you know, like the people perhaps didn't know exactly the way, you know the courts would rule. [00:28:00] But by the time you get the second ruling, the third ruling, the fourth ruling, the fifth it, it starts to paint a pretty clear picture.
And that's where we, um, saw the publishers start to do the lobbying efforts, start to spend millions of dollars going to D. C. trying to influence individuals there to get this, this bill passed. But we saw that introduced towards the, you know, the back half of these, these nine lawsuits. So I think when the case laws started to pile up and it became pretty, pretty clear in the legal system, they really looked for a, for a plan B.
Evan Troxel: Mm hmm. Okay. So, so talk about the, the, argument that they're making there because there, there is a website that you can go to and you can read the, the argument that they lay out about why this would be beneficial, right? Uh, from, from their side of the fence, for sure, right? So can you, can you list kind of what the benefits they're stating in the, in this legislation would be?
Mm hmm.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah. And I think it, it boils down to one primary argument. Kind of argument or, or a [00:29:00] claim and it's that they need to retain copyright, um, to fuel and fund the development of the codes going forward. So that's that by and large, that's, that's the big claim they make now for a couple of reasons. We don't think that's the case and, and also the courts also don't think that's the case. So a lot of these courts, um, have kind of examined that exact argument, but also equipped with their financial statements. They go through document discovery and, um, and testimony to, to look at that exact argument. And none of the courts have agreed with, with that argument. Seeing the kind of money generation and a lot of the services and revenue that actually does not come from publication sales. So when we talk about that side, like where does the revenue come from
for these organizations? If you look at ICC, for example, 88 percent of the revenue comes from things that are not selling the code. So it's things like consulting, Certification, Training, and Product Evaluation. So they're, [00:30:00] uh, the vast majority of that revenue actually does not come from, um, uh, selling access to, to the codes.
And that varies, of course, by, by publisher. Um, but I think that claim is, is perhaps like a little bit misleading, considering such a small fraction of the revenue actually comes from publication sales. Especially looking at just the. Uh, rather kind of bloated nature of, of their, you know, uh, compensation packages being 10 times bigger than the national average.
So I think there's a little bit of, of optimization they can do and they don't need to exert, um, kind of restrictions and bottleneck, uh, on the codes to generate revenue from that side.
Evan Troxel: Interesting. Interesting. So, so what other kind of nuances to the argument are they, are they making that are different than what you've seen before, or maybe the same as what you've seen before?
Scott Reynolds: Well, it's, it's the same. Yeah, I mean, that argument is exactly the same that they've been making, uh, through these lawsuits and, and that's why the, the, uh, legal system and the judges had an [00:31:00] opportunity to inspect that, um, uh, inspect that argument.
Um, I mean, in fact, looking at the VEC versus SBCCI, just to, just to quote the, uh, the ruling there, they said, it is difficult to imagine an area of creative endeavor in which the copyright incentive is needed less. So
like the, like these, these rulings are really illuminating when you read the actual language. The judges come in pretty strongly
to, to to really suppress that and, and, um, and I think it's because they get such a transparent x ray through the organization and understand like what it, it looks like behind the scenes.
But they, they are very clear, uh, on, on that point.
Evan Troxel: Interesting. Very interesting.
Let's just talk about kind of how this process has been going, where it's at in, in the legislation. Like, what, where, where are they in the submission and, and the process along the way to get, uh, legislation passed?
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, so, so, and candidly, this is very new to me, um, you know, the, the, uh, [00:32:00] the whole system of how a bill progresses through the House, to the, to the Congress and onwards, um, is new, so I'm also getting up to speed, um, but just from a very high level, they've been, uh, working on the bill for, I think, three years, you know, millions of dollars deep in, in trying to push it. Um, it was in the House, and I think it was just a couple weeks ago now, uh, maybe the end of last month or so. So, then it went to suspension, actually it went to a vote that moves the bill from the House to the Senate, and the vote failed, so in that kind of attempted pass it, it did fail. I think a lot of people started to get word of what this bill actually meant.
It seems to be somewhat of a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Um, so, so the bill failed in that regard, but I think People are still, or the publishers and the lobbyists are still going to push it towards the end of this year. And who knows, they've been working on it for three years. Um, the session ends this year, so they'll have to [00:33:00] reintroduce the bill next year if it, if it fails. Um, so we assume they'll, they'll probably try that. But, um, but yeah, so fortunately it did fail that vote. Um, but we, we imagine they'll try and mount another vote and, and bring it to, bring it to the floor again.
Evan Troxel: Is there any precedence for these actions anywhere else? Are there any other jurisdictions worldwide that, that do ha provide copyright protections for legis for, for the law like this?
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, great question. So, um, so I, so it's funny you asked. So, so the most recent ruling was in Texas. And I think that actually had to do with Canadian building codes. Now,
you know, it's kind of odd. I don't understand why the nuance and why they were doing it, you know, litigating it here in the US and in Texas.
But, um, but lo and behold, they agreed the same thing. You can't, um, you can't copyright the law. And this was, this was Canadian building codes. Now, that being said, I don't want to, like, disparage all of the Canadian building code regulation. I know one province, [00:34:00] I think, rescinded the copyright and apologized for having charged for access to the building code.
I forgot which province had done that. So they seem, uh, like, progressive on that front, um, but still working their way through it. So I know there's that, um, uh, precedent in Canada. And, uh, in, in Australia, interesting. Interestingly, the, the, uh, the government actually pushes for innovation. So they're approaching different startups.
Like we, we had engaged with them, um, saying like, Hey, here's our building codes. Can you develop tools? Can you, can you build technology to help our industry and, um, kind of progress, uh, the, the innovation forward. So they were very, very forward looking, not only making it available, but also encouraging people to, to operate on it.
Um, you can look at Singapore who, um, I mean, this goes back to the nineties. I forgot the name of it. Core, Core, CoreNet, I think was the name. Um, they, they tried to do automated compliance through the building and planning department. So for, and, and [00:35:00] fully government funded where you, for no fee as a developer or an architect, you could submit your plans or your BIM model and, and they would assess it, they would, you know, do a scan of the model, like a spell check, and then give you back compliance. Uh, report, kind of like a plan review, but really, I think, kind of amazing to see a government spend millions of dollars trying to, to, to build the tools themselves to give for free to the industry and help them along that progress or that process.
So, yeah, so we've actually seen a lot of movement, I would say, internationally, uh, which is, which is inspiring in these, these different countries.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. I, so I was expecting you to say, yes, this country has protected the building code and people do have to pay, but you gave opposite, the opposite examples of what I thought you were going to do, because it seems like, okay, well, there's got to be precedent somewhere that they're following here to, to use as like a, an example of, of what would be a successful outcome for them.
But no,
Scott Reynolds: Uh, no, [00:36:00] we don't, no, we don't, we don't see them pointing elsewhere. I think, um, Um, you know, I'm, I'm obviously a little bit biased here, but I think the, uh, internationally we've seen this kind of discourse move forward a lot faster. And it could come down to the way the American legal system works and the fact that you can, you know, do this nine times.
You can, you can
launch lawsuit after lawsuit and I, unfortunately, I think that really, uh, slows down the progress in an
unfortunate way. I think other countries kind of have got to that conclusion a lot faster than, than we're getting
Evan Troxel: Interesting. Interesting. Wow. So, so where does it go from, from here? Like what, you said that it did not pass the vote, right? In, in the house. And so you said they could reintroduce it again next year. So is that, is it dead for now until potentially next year? Or, or where do you see the, this leading?
Scott Reynolds: So, so unclear, they, they could try to mount it again in a month or two, uh,
as a final, like, last gasp of, of air before the end of this session.
So that's a possibility, uh, they could introduce it [00:37:00] again in next session, which starts, uh, early January of, of next year. Um, but in terms of what's next, we, we're just trying to shed as much light.
I, like, I think it's a, uh, I think it's a really important topic for the industry and why don't we just want to have, you know, people decide on both sides, but it should at least be something, uh, that, that people are aware of and talking about, um, and and fortunately, I think it's starting to go a little bit more, more mainstream, like I know Forbes, um, Forbes had covered this, they had a great piece called the threat to justice. The Pro Codes Act would copyright the law and we've seen a lot of online forums and, um, areas starting to discuss it, which I think is very, very healthy. It just needs to be in the public discourse, scientists, uh, discussed and, and, and moving away from kind of behind the scenes operation where there's a lot of, of money spent by private entities trying to, you know, create the law and, and, and have that happen.
Yeah. Again, behind the scenes and in the shadows. So we're, we're just trying to put a light on it. [00:38:00] Let people talk about it, give their opinion, and then also reach out to the representatives. There's been a massive wave of people, I think, when they kind of became aware of this, starting to reach out to the representatives, to their congresspeople. Um, uh, to, to kind of give their opinion to talk about, you know, being a homeowner or being an industry professional and the impact that this would have on them going forward. So we've seen that start to happen in a pretty significant way, and we hope that kind of continues over the next couple of months, just so the elected representatives are just as aware as people in the industry.
Evan Troxel: I believe that Forbes article was kind of coming at it from a different angle. It wasn't, wasn't. architectural or from the building industry, right? Like that perspective was offered because it seems to me like this would, could set a precedent if it were to pass, obviously, to be applied to a lot of different laws
Scott Reynolds: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. yeah,
Evan Troxel: of the, the, the, danger, the potential danger from the [00:39:00] author's perspective of that becoming a law.
Scott Reynolds: Exactly, and I think, um, that's why it's getting a little bit more into the public realm,
um, for exactly that. And I think the author brought up the example of tax law. So, like, we all have to fill out our taxes, and that's, you know, governed by the law. But can you imagine if that was copyrighted? We're
not allowed to see the tax laws that, you know, that govern how much we have to pay the government.
And it's a very similar analogy, and that's what the author was talking about. Like, it's a very, very dangerous precedent and slippery slope. Whereas if you give copyright to a private entity in one area of the law, can, why can't you do that in other areas of law?
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Right. Right. It seems like it would, it would kind of snowball. So Okay, so it's, it's interesting to see how this is developed. I, I'm curious to hear now, um, what people, you mentioned a little bit about what people could do about it. There's another subject that I want you to address specifically too.
So, um, [00:40:00] maybe I'll save that one. You talked about people can, can reach out to their congresspeople. We'll put a link in the show notes, um, that, and, and I believe that, that some of this is being driven through the EFF, is that correct?
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, there, there's actually a lot of organizations like the American Library Association, association of Research Libraries, the EFF, like you said, Wikimedia Foundation,
um, foundation for the Blind. There. There's a lot of public interest groups kind of take, like putting, putting foot forward and, and stepping into the ring.
So EFF is is one of the prominent ones, but, um, but there, there's a lot. And, um, but yeah, you're right. EFF would probably be the right, uh, right link to share.
Evan Troxel: It's an avenue, right? That, that, that kind of. preloads some generic verbiage about why you may or why you would support sending information to your congressperson about how you feel. But then I thought one of the interesting things about that was it actually says, you know, did you add your own?
Perspective to it. Did you add your own words to it?
And if you try to say yes, even if you didn't, it's [00:41:00] like you need to add your own, you need to add your
own thoughts to this. And I thought that was great because it actually does kind of personalize it and, and make you think, I mean, to me, it's, it's like, how many form letters have you signed in your life?
Probably a lot, right? And, and it's because you agree in principle with. Um, but I think it, it's a nice reflective moment to say, no, like, why do I actually care about this? And, and add my own perspective as a design professional, in my case, to, to why I think what, what I think about it before I send it off.
But it makes it easy to send it to the right person so that hopefully they're going to read that and, and understand what their constituency thinks about this proposed legislation.
Scott Reynolds: And you're right. And the tool is also really good to determine who is the right person. I think you put in your postal code and it looks up who your representatives and the
Congress person is. And like I was mentioning before, like I'm very new to this and I didn't know who exactly the person was. I know, you know, the, the names [00:42:00] in the area and in the state, but, uh, like who is that one person that you should, should be talking to?
It, the tool does a great job. You just throw in your. And it says, here's their email address. Here is like the three people. Um, and then, like you said, like suggest some verbiage, but, um, you can change it. I also just got on the phone with them because, um, so I could describe it a little bit more, you know, describe my background and like the impact it would have from, from both a homeowner's perspective, but also an industry professional.
So, um, yeah, there's both avenues to go.
Evan Troxel: Well, that's a good segue because you've said several times now that you are biased right in this and, and you, you're have a company called Upcodes and Upcodes is designed to provide access to the code, as you stated in the beginning. But can you just talk about your business model? Because I think, you know, I've heard several times, you know, free access to the business model.
The laws and regulations that are governing what gets built and how it gets built, right? To protect the health, safety, and welfare of the general public. And so, can you talk about your business model and [00:43:00] how UpCodes works? Because I, I don't want people to expect that everything that you do is just, It's for free, like you're, you're not building this business to just offer access to the codes for free, you're building on top of the codes to provide a modern service in a, in a very particular way.
So lay that out so that this is totally transparent with, with how this goes.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, for sure. And maybe I'll actually rewind a little bit back to when I was working, you know, day to day in, in, in the architecture offices. So, so how, I was so surprised that when it came to codes and regulations, there's so little tooling and, and, and software built for, for that workflow. And like we mentioned before, you know, the, the updated inserts in the books and PDF.
So really the ambition when we started was to get this information together to one place. Make it available, but then build those structured workflows and build those tools and, and, and see what we can use, look at other industries and, and get inspiration from the, the tools that they had. And the former [00:44:00] CEO of, of Google, um, Eric Schmidt had a great term.
It's called combinatory innovation, and it's looking at the changes in technology and what opportunities are available when you combine these new changes, often looking at other industries and put it into your own industry. Yeah. Sorry, I know that's a little bit abstract, but to answer your question more specifically, in this case, um, it was building search, it was building project management so you could start to save the code sections, you could comment on it, you could collaborate with your office internally, um, you could collaborate externally with other folks, educational content to understand what does the code actually mean, how do you actually, um, uh, you know, parse this very dense language and give visuals and details and assemblies. And then more recently getting into the AI side, like we mentioned before, there's such a broad base of, of information over 6 million sections of code. So actually, how do you as an individual kind of parse that? How do you start to understand, okay, I'm building a [00:45:00] high rise building in, um, let's say like Virginia.
What, you know, what's applicable to me and,
and instead of manually and tediously going through every single book and potentially missing sections, Saying let's, let's leverage LLMs and AI to, to tie that together. Now it's not going to, you know, it's not, it's not a fully automating way that, that process by any means, but it's a, it's a much more sophisticated starting point where you could get a high level overview and kind of be like a router.
So it'll start to route you out to the places you should start to look like here's a couple of sections in the building code, here's a couple in the fire code, here's an electrical code. And then again, bringing in the collaboration. So you can save that down. You can start to comment and then bring different people in. And, uh, into the project. So from a very high level, the foundation is free and open access to the codes. And then the paid service or product built on top of that is those workflows, is that automation and project management.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. I, I think one of the misunderstandings in the general public, definitely not, I, not for the listeners of this podcast. I think people who listen to this [00:46:00] podcast are, are deep in the industry and they understand that the code is not. necessarily prescriptive, right? It doesn't tell you if you're building a building here in this location, in this jurisdiction, here's everything you need to worry about.
Here's exactly how you should do these things. It's actually not like that at all. Right? So the general public point of view is that I think the code is really prescriptive and it's saying, but, but we know it's not right. Like I know that if I have several different options when it comes to construction type of a building and occupancy and side yard setbacks and.
All of these different things that then influence decision making along the way to create the ultimate final output of that process, right? So if I choose, Type four, type five construction, type three, like whatever that, whatever I'm going to go, that actually sets me on a different course right then that I could have.
And so a tool like yours, I think this is something that we talked about years ago, [00:47:00] Scott was like, okay, now that maybe it even says. Here's what you could choose, and it's kind of like a choose your own adventure, right? It's like, okay, well, if you choose this, it means A, B, and C. And if you choose this, it means D, E, and F, right?
And so, now you're making an informed decision based on this question. Kind of cause and effect that if you were to choose this in the code, then it means you have to follow this path. And if you, if you choose this in the code, you could follow this or this path and it starts to open it up. And I think what was so exciting for me talking to you years ago was like, it gives access to people who don't know how to decipher that because it is so overwhelming when you look at that code book sitting on the desk, where do I even begin?
And, and the, the decisions that afford you different options that could be extremely or extremely advantageous or disadvantageous to you when you're designing a building on behalf of your client, right? [00:48:00] So it's like all of these things that like you learn to dance with the building code. And it is not saying you need to do it exactly like this.
I mean, a lot of times, great architecture comes with great workarounds in the building code, right? I mean, it's not prescriptive on purpose. And, and to me, having new tools built on top of this existing, uh, You know, database, as it were, of code gives people the ability to learn how to dance with it at a much earlier level in their career.
And I think that is absolutely fundamental to the profession going forward, right? Because, I mean, we've complained for years and years and decades, right? Of, we don't learn this stuff in school. Architects don't learn how to dance. Use the building code in school. There may be some schools that have some course and construction methods that may force you to do that, but some of them don't as well, right?
And, and a lot of this is learned [00:49:00] by doing in practice once you graduate. And if you don't have that that amazing resource of a person who's been doing it for 40 years and they can point to the section that you need to go to, then you don't have that. Where do you go? And that to me is where innovation actually makes a huge difference when it comes to using tools like this and technology for, it's not just for new people in the industry, right?
Like, let's be honest, but, but this, it can be useful for just about anybody, but search alone is a big deal in the building code, right? To, to really boil it down to a most basic level.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, and you're absolutely right. So the, the, the barriers there are in a couple of different ways. And I think historically this code research happened often by the senior person and it would happen in a project. Yeah. The next project you do, you reinvent the wheel. Maybe it's the same person doing it, maybe it's a new person doing it, but a lot of what we do is trying to capture that institutional knowledge, like what were those decision points?
What was that code research? And what were the downstream implications of different trade offs, like your [00:50:00] construction type or occupancies? So capturing that in the project management. So when that person who's, who's new, or, or, or maybe you're just cribbing off a historical project, you can actually, um, duplicate that, that project, migrate it into a new jurisdiction or a new code year.
It automatically changes all the, um, the code sections and, and calculations for that, that new project. But it's a way to recycle and kind of build like, and compound on your, your, your code knowledge personally, but also in your firm. So
you're, maybe you're in the New York office, but you're. So if your, your Washington office, uh, had done a similar project, you can, you can crib off that and you, you can kind of, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants, you can, you can, um, uh, kind of start, uh, from a very progressed, uh, starting point. Now, just to touch quickly on another thing, you mentioned the downstream implications, you make one little change and you're doing this dance with the code. So we work a lot on code calculators and it's a way where you can, you can have these inputs and kind of dials and knobs where you. [00:51:00] You have a construction type, you have your occupancies, and a lot of these decisions that have very big code implications. But you can model that out really quickly, and you can make one quick change, and within seconds see the downstream implications. Okay, here's, um, you know, maybe this worked really well in heights and areas, but not in travel distance or in fire ratings. And the system will start to flag and give you warnings. But like you said, the code is not binary, you know, it's not prescriptive, and it's not, um, exact in its language and there is room for interpretation. So those warnings have to be kind of more like guardrails. Like we're not making the decision for you by any means, but we want you to be informed.
So you can make a little code change and we'll flag it like, Hey, you know, uh, based on what we think this, this is, this is an area for concern and you're going to want to address this. Probably something to discuss with your, uh, plans examiner or the inspector, but, but starting to raise that automatically. So people understand very quickly. What are those downstream implications of
[00:52:00] each small decision?
Evan Troxel: That's a huge deal. So back to this business model idea, I mean, that's kind of what you're, this institutional knowledge capture and proliferation, like building a library is, is a big piece of your revenue, right? Like, that's how you work to, cause you're, you're providing maybe, and maybe you can just be really specific about this.
You're providing access to, uh, Is it all the codes, some codes, at what level, and then, and then, and then maybe your business model actually turns on when it comes to, okay, bookmarking things, saving things, collaborating with other people. Can you just lay all that out?
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, yeah, so so all the the codes and regulations we bring together on the site You can go on there and see for free and in terms of coverage We're just costly expanding bring it up more and more jurisdictions and more codes over time The the library today looks a lot different than it did four years ago or five five years ago So it's just costly It's constantly expanding, but to be very explicit, that, that is not where we [00:53:00] generate revenue.
That's not, uh, we don't charge for any of that. That's just put on there, um, and, and kind of offered for free. We do integrate things like local amendments and that's also, um, offered for, for free. Where we, uh, start to monetize is more on the, um, on those product management tools like we were talking about, like those code calculators, the diagrams, capturing the knowledge and, and, and those decision points, um, is, is, uh, Yeah.
Kind of where we, where we draw the line. So all of that functionality built on top of the open access.
Evan Troxel: And so, I mean, there's a value there. I, I'm curious just to hear what people find in that value, because that, to me, is, is. That's kind of the magic of upcodes, right? And so maybe you can speak to just what, what that is, give you, give you a moment here to get on your, your sales pedestal and just talk about like, what, where the, the value is that people are finding using a tool like this.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah. And I think it's, it's a lot of those same guardrails. I, you know, I think we have a lot to go and a lot to build, but fortunately [00:54:00] I think we have fulfilled some of that original ambition to give the guardrails when doing code research. So cribbing off of your, your, maybe your more senior or technical leader in the and having caught that person's. Knowledge and leveraging that yourself so you can jump in there, get up to speed yourself. And I think the, where we are the most, um, kind of excited is when we hear those stories where a person who's maybe not as familiar with the code or, or jurisdiction or project type can, can get up to speed, can teach themselves, can, can look at the prior work the firm had did and then be very effective, um, you know, without, um, you know, having to constantly knock on the door of, of the more senior person.
So, so I know that's a little bit wordy, but basically if I had to boil that down, it's just empowering each individual in the firm with the tools so they can confidently navigate through the code and then also look at their firm's knowledge.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Empowering is a great word. I mean, that to [00:55:00] me is, so there's different areas of the practice of architecture, specifications, building codes. There's right where it's like, I didn't go to school for that. Like, I, I want to design buildings. Well, you've, you've got to do this stuff to get to there. And, and there's special, there's specializations in firms and then there's the generalists.
Right. And I think, Yeah. Providing early access lets you understand, to the building code in particular, lets you understand why you need to do something a certain way, or why you decided to do something a certain way. And that to me, and the ability to kind of save this information and make it easy to find later, like why did we decide to do that?
Um, I think in traditional projects that was very difficult, unless somebody was really specifically doing that so that they could. You know, pull it back up later. I think, I think that rarely happened, right? So now if, if I actually can go back and kind of see the breadcrumb trail, uh, because that happens all the time, right?
Somebody's like, [00:56:00] why are we doing it like this? And maybe they're new on the project or they haven't been involved or they, they missed an email or something. It's like, well, okay, now we can actually walk them through that because a lot of an architect's job is doing that. It's like justifying why things turned out the way that they did.
So many times the, the, there's a fluidity to the team who is on the project, right, whether it's on the the production side, the design side, or the, even the client side as well. Right? And so, um, that, that definitely is a, a necessary part of it, I think, and, and it was lacking for so long. It's like, well, Okay, now I'm going to try to remember, or I'm going to go try to figure out why we decided that, um, and, and this gives us a way to kind of bookmark and create a, a breadcrumb trail of, okay, we made this decision in September of 2018, and that's what started us down this path, and then we built and built and built on top of that, because that's how the nature of our industry works, right?
We have to make if not millions of decisions on every project, right? So, [00:57:00] um, having a way to access even that. pathology along the way is, is incredibly useful. Um, anyway.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, and just to draw a point of comparison here, so when we jumped in early days at Upcodes, I was doing software development, probably not that great, I think every single line of code I've written has since been removed, but we had to start somewhere, and it was eye opening to me when I was learning how to write code, how robust the communities online were, and
how easy it was to teach yourself, and the resources were there, the communities were there, and every single question I ever had. For every nuanced little piece of code or challenge I had, there was somebody else who had asked that question online and
was answered in a really thorough way. And just the, the resources and, and also just like online courses and in addition to these, to these forums were just absolutely incredible and very, very vibrant and robust. And it just doesn't exist to the same extent in architecture or
[00:58:00] construction. It's a shame because if you're, you're trying to get more familiar, like, where do you start? It's so difficult. You graduate from school, um, you realize that maybe, you know, you didn't learn actually how to put a building together.
You learned maybe how to, you know, do some, some fancy designs, and, and that's great. But, you know, the, the, the reality of putting something together is very different, at least what I, than what I learned in school. And there, I, I was hungry for that information, but could not find it. And, and I had to try and, try and get it from, from my colleagues.
And, um, I, I was just so inspired seeing the, the software, engineering side of, of that process online.
Evan Troxel: It is interesting to think about, right? Like the whole, think, think of software development without stack overflow. Like what, where would we be? Uh, or, or GitHub or, you know, these communities that, that do exist, these repositories. Uh, it's it's absolutely incredible. And the entire world runs on software now.
Right? Like that's what, If you, if you want to think about it, like think about the device in your pocket, think about this thing [00:59:00] that we're talking through right now, it's all running on software and it's all running on software that gets developed. I mean, I hate to, I'm not a software developer, so I shouldn't say software gets developed quickly, but, but in like the timeline of architecture, software goes very, very fast, right?
Architecture takes. It takes a long time to do one project and this idea of not having to start with a blank page in software development because of the resources that you just cited, right? As far as like, like understanding that they exist is fundamental to that working and for the proliferation of amazing software.
And it does not really exist in architecture, and that is, I mean, and architecture has suffered because of that, and this reinvention, this starting with a blank page on every project is, it's a very difficult concept to have to be forced to deal with. I mean, when we're thinking about our industry, it's kind of a sad, sad state of [01:00:00] things.
Scott Reynolds: And if you look around at different software, it all looks very different. You know, it functions and the aesthetics look very different, but a lot of the building blocks behind the scenes are the same. And they're more often than not, they're open source packages, uh, different repos you can, you can find online.
And then you, you kind of bring them together again, choosing from a pretty wide variety. So you
Evan Troxel: It's like a, it's like cooking a recipe in the kitchen, right? It's like you've got access to all this stuff and how you put it together. Right. You get a different output because you put a different combination of it together. But that's, that's kind of what you're talking about. You're talking about these chunks that already exist.
Like anybody who spools up a new WordPress site does not have to code the thing from scratch,
Right.
They, it's, it's really, it's really foundational in the way that, that technology works today.
Scott Reynolds: And, and, and it's really nice in a way because you don't have to focus on and spend time on the things that are the same in every site. So user account management, login flows, those are all the same. And there's nothing that will set you apart if you spend a lot of time innovating in those areas. [01:01:00] But what will make a difference to, to your end users and to the industry is if you spend all your time innovating on the areas that, that are unique to that industry, unique to, to that workflow or to to the end user. In this case, you know, obviously like architects and. Homeowners and GCs and governments, but, you know, get all those building blocks together, like the recipe, like you're saying, and then that, that remaining, you know, 40 percent or whatever it is, 30%, that's where the magic happens. And I think that's where you start to adapt these things specifically for those, those workflows.
Evan Troxel: Yeah, absolutely. So what's the call to action here? Is it to reach out through the links that we'll put in the show notes and let your voice be heard and tell your representatives why this matters to you?
Scott Reynolds: Exactly. I think just the more open dialogue there is, uh, people can share their perspectives and opinions and just getting in touch with the representatives. Because at the end of the day, that's what the representatives are for, is to be the, the, the kind of vocal point and broadcast, you know, what their constituents care about.
Um, [01:02:00] so it's, it's, it's really just educating them on, on how you feel and how it impacts your, um, your day to day. So I think, yeah, it's exactly that. And I think the EFF link would be a great, great place to start.
Evan Troxel: Yeah, we'll include that. We'll include the link to the Forbes article so you can see another perspective on, on the, you know, somebody, somebody's thoughts about what the potential outcomes of something of legislation like this could be, um, across multiple industries, uh, and if there's anything else, I will throw it in there that you can throw my way, Scott.
But otherwise, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation and to expose this information to people. I think. Everybody's so deep buried on their projects. It's, you know, it's difficult to know everything that's going on, but this is a big issue for the building industry. And so I think it's something worth being educated about.
So thanks for raising the flag and saying, you know, let's expose this information so that more people can be a part of whether it passes or not.
Scott Reynolds: Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's great to [01:03:00] share and put a little bit of a spotlight on the topic. So I really appreciate it. So
yeah,