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POWERS

Chris Powers

Conversations with the best founders, entrepreneurs, and investors.

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  • 27 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 22 min
  • English

Episodes 27

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  • #414
    May 12 · 1 hr 22 min

    The Most Powerful Land Broker in North Texas with Rex Glendenning (#414)

    In this episode, Chris sits down with Rex Glendenning, founder of REX Real Estate and the man known across North Texas as the "King of Dirt." Rex is a fourth-generation Celina native whose great-grandfather homesteaded 160 acres in 1887. Over the last four decades he's brokered billions in DFW land deals, including the $130M public-private partnership that brought the Cowboys to Frisco, while quietly running a 4-broker shop out of his hometown. Chris and Rex unpack his patience-and-dirt playbook, why he believes DFW is becoming the financial epicenter of America, and how he reads a real estate cycle years ahead of the rest of the industry. They discuss: • How Rex originated the Star deal in 60 days, and why Frisco won the Cowboys instead of Irving • His foundational theory: why every American city grows north (with one exception) • 40 years of plowing every dollar back into dirt • Why he believes DFW becomes "Y'all Street" • Why he never scaled past three brokers • His read on where we are in the cycle Timestamps (00:00) Intro (05:20) Learning When to Shut Up in Business and Life (08:53) Growing Up Rural in Celina & the Work Ethic It Built (11:02) Why Every City in America Grows North (14:18) Betting on the Pandemic: $1 Billion in Deals with Just His Wife (23:38) The Star Deal: How Rex Helped Move the Dallas Cowboys to Frisco (30:23) Small Towns vs. Big Cities: The Public-Private Partnership Advantage (40:24) DFW Airport as the Hidden Engine of North Texas Growth (44:06) The H-1B Visa Pullback & Its Real Impact on the Housing Market (48:11) How Rex Thinks About Surviving a Recession (56:23) Will an "Artery Pop" in '26 or '27? (01:00:26) Why Rex Is Worth 6%: Full-Service vs. Order-Taking Brokers (01:04:43) Selling the Same Ranch 7 Times Over 40 Years (01:19:03) What Keeps Rex Up at Night: Reading the Current Market Cycle === Sponsored by: Collateral Partners Collateral Partners builds institutional-grade investor materials for private credit, private equity, real estate, and family office firms, the kind of marketing collateral that helps you close capital. Learn more at https://collateral.com/powers === Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ === Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

  • #413
    May 5 · 1 hr 35 min

    Building a $100M CPG Brand With Only 10 Employees - James Beshara (#413)

    In this episode, Chris sits down with Rex Glendenning, founder of REX Real Estate and the man known across North Texas as the "King of Dirt." Rex is a fourth-generation Celina native whose great-grandfather homesteaded 160 acres in 1887. Over the last four decades he's brokered billions in DFW land deals, including the $130M public-private partnership that brought the Cowboys to Frisco, while quietly running a 4-broker shop out of his hometown. Chris and Rex unpack his patience-and-dirt playbook, why he believes DFW is becoming the financial epicenter of America, and how he reads a real estate cycle years ahead of the rest of the industry. They discuss: • How Rex originated the Star deal in 60 days, and why Frisco won the Cowboys instead of Irving • His foundational theory: why every American city grows north (with one exception) • 40 years of plowing every dollar back into dirt • Why he believes DFW becomes "Y'all Street" • Why he never scaled past three brokers • His read on where we are in the cycle Timestamps (05:20) Learning When to Shut Up in Business and Life (08:53) Growing Up Rural in Salina & the Work Ethic It Built (11:02) Why Every City in America Grows North (14:18) Betting on the Pandemic: $1 Billion in Deals with Just His Wife (23:38) The Star Deal: How Rex Helped Move the Dallas Cowboys to Frisco (30:23) Small Towns vs. Big Cities: The Public-Private Partnership Advantage (40:24) DFW Airport as the Hidden Engine of North Texas Growth (44:06) The H-1B Visa Pullback & Its Real Impact on the Housing Market (48:11) How Rex Thinks About Surviving a Recession (56:23) Will an "Artery Pop" in '26 or '27? (01:00:26) Why Rex Is Worth 6%: Full-Service vs. Order-Taking Brokers (01:04:43) Selling the Same Ranch 7 Times Over 40 Years (01:19:03) What Keeps Rex Up at Night: Reading the Current Market Cycle === Sponsored by: Collateral Partners Collateral Partners builds institutional-grade investor materials for private credit, private equity, real estate, and family office firms, the kind of marketing collateral that helps you close capital. Learn more at https://collateral.com/powers === Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ === Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

  • #412
    April 28 · 1 hr 28 min

    The High School That Refunds Your Tuition If You Don't Make $1M with Nat Eliason (#412)

    In this episode, Chris sits down with Nat Eliason, founder, writer, and now launching Founders School, a new entrepreneur high school in New York City. Tuition is $150K a year. The promise: every student hits a million dollars in gross profit by graduation, or the family gets their tuition refunded. The first class is around 20 freshmen. The day is split between AI-driven academics in the morning and business building the rest of the day. This is also the same Nat Eliason who in his spare time built Felix, an AI agent he gave a Stripe account, an email, and an X handle, then told to launch a business overnight. Felix has done $60+K in sales since. Nat has not touched the code. They discuss: • Why the "game of school" is kayfabe and what's finally breaking it • The 16-year-old flying out to California to run short-form video for Al Pacino's new movie • The Munger inversion behind Founders School's curriculum: "why would these kids fail?" • What businesses a 14-year-old should and shouldn't build (and the $500/month software budget) • How Nat masters a new domain every two or three years, and why his $35K smart-contract loss accelerated him faster than caution would have • Felix, what "zero human" actually looks like, and the rules Nat set up to keep himself out of it • The day Anthropic shut off Open Claw and Alpha students reverse-engineered a proxy workaround in hours • Why the founding fathers wrote the Declaration in their early 20s, and what we forgot about teenagers Timestamps (00:00) Intro (05:55) What Alpha Does Differently From Conventional Schools (11:48) Playing the Fake Game of School (21:46) How Nat Masters New Domains (32:18) Open Claw Deep Dive (43:50) Building the Founders School Entrepreneurship Program (51:43) Freshman Year Structure at Founders School (1:00:23) How Students Can Pitch for Equity or Debt Funding (1:04:08) Why Establish a New York Location for Year One (1:11:15) Nat's 10-Year Vision (1:15:11) AI as a Force Multiplier for Teenage Founders (1:16:15) How Alpha Students Quickly Reverse-Engineered a Workaround After Open Claw Went Down (1:24:13) Teen-Parent Conflict as a Symptom of Infantilization === Sponsored by: Collateral Partners Collateral Partners builds institutional-grade investor materials for private credit, private equity, real estate, and family office firms, the kind of marketing collateral that helps you close capital. Learn more at https://collateral.com/powers === Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ === Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

  • #411
    April 21 · 1 hr 33 min

    Building a $3B Family Office From Scratch with Matthew Ogle, Co-founder & CEO of Legacy Knight (#411)

    In this episode, Chris sits down with Matthew Ogle, Co-founder & CEO of Legacy Knight, a $2.8B multi-family office in Dallas, TX that he co-founded in 2019. We dig into how you build a world-class multi-family office from scratch, and why so many wealthy families out there don't actually have one yet. Matthew's path into wealth management didn't start in a boardroom. It started on a tennis court. A summer teaching tennis to a CIO's family at Cape Cod opened the first door, which led him to Credit Suisse's private bank through the GFC and then five years at the Crow family office, helping transform it into one of the first true multi-family offices in Dallas. He opened Legacy Knight's doors in October 2019 with $2.5M of operating capital, 14 seed families, and a contrarian bet, that the new generation of sub-50-year-old entrepreneurs hitting their first liquidity event needed something the bulge brackets couldn't offer. Six years later, Legacy Knight manages over $3B and was named the fastest-growing RIA in Texas. Chris and Matthew go deep on what it actually takes to build a multi-family office the right way, the technology, the hiring, the legacy conversations with families, and why Matthew refuses to grow by acquiring other books of business. They discuss: • Why every hire at Legacy Knight comes out of the family office world, not from the bulge brackets • How most $100M+ families are still running their wealth on a Google Doc and a handshake with their accountant • Why "do nothing in the year after a liquidity event" is half good advice and half terrible advice • The most creative things Matthew has seen ultra-wealthy families do with their capital • How Matthew thinks about his own kids, legacy, and when to start the wealth conversation Links: Legacy Knight: https://legacyknight.com/ Matthew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-ogle-ab11873/ Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:01) Matthew's First Exposure to Wealth Management (07:58) Joining Credit Suisse (Pre-GFC): Why the "Bulge Bracket" Mattered, How the Private Banking Associate Model Works (13:08) Why Credit Suisse Failed to Serve Ultra-High-Net-Worth Families (20:07) The First Client Meeting: Soft-Tissue Questions (28:57) Tax Timing and Mitigation Strategies (37:57) The Founding Thesis: People and Platform (Building Legacy Knight) (44:46) The Decision to Launch Legacy Knight Independently (54:43) Fundraising Lessons: Managing Expectations and The Importance of Pitch Order (01:01:18) The Full-Service Family Office Model (01:06:24) What a Vertically Integrated Family Office Actually Includes (01:09:07) Proactive Investment Sourcing (01:13:02) Next-Gen Engagement and Family Legacy Planning: How to Involve Children Appropriately (01:21:46) Matthew's Hiring Philosophy (01:30:05) Time as the Hidden Cost of Unstructured Wealth === Sponsored by: Collateral Partners Collateral Partners builds institutional-grade investor materials for private credit, private equity, real estate, and family office firms, the kind of marketing collateral that helps you close capital. Learn more at https://collateral.com/powers === Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ === Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

  • April 14 · 1 hr 21 min

    #410 - Austin Tunnell - Founder of Building Culture - The Power of Developing Beautiful Buildings

    In this episode, Chris sits down with Austin Tunnell, founder of Building Culture - a real estate development and design-build company based in Oklahoma City specializing in structural masonry construction and walkable, mixed-use urban infill. Austin's path to real estate is one of the more unusual ones we've had on the show. He grew up a football player in the suburbs of Houston, went to work at KPMG out of college, hated it, and joined the Peace Corps. A chance meeting with a master mason in Panama changed the trajectory of his life. He returned to the US and apprenticed for two years laying brick by hand for $12 an hour in rural Oklahoma while his wife cleaned houses to support them. Today Austin designs and develops some of the most beautiful residential and mixed-use projects being built in America, including an 18-townhome, live-work, and mixed-use commercial project currently underway in downtown Edmond, Oklahoma. Chris and Austin go deep on Austin's philosophy of beauty, the case for building things meant to last hundreds of years, and the policy, financing, and culture obstacles standing in the way. We discuss: - How a chance meeting with a master mason in Panama changed the trajectory of Austin's life - The difference between veneer brick and true structural masonry, and why almost no one in the US builds the real thing anymore - Why Austin believes beauty is real, beauty is important, and beauty "connects us to the divine" - Five simple brick details any developer can use to make a veneer building look dramatically better for almost no added cost - How fire codes, building codes, and Euclidean zoning quietly destroy neighborhoods and push developers toward the same ugly apartment complexes - Austin's long-term-hold model for funding new construction infill, inspired by Moses Kagan and ReSeed - Missing middle housing, walkability, and why a 30-unit townhome neighborhood can feel more like home than any class-A apartment building About the guest: Austin Tunnell is the founder of Building Culture, an Oklahoma City-based real estate development and design-build firm focused on beautiful, durable, human-scale neighborhoods. Building Culture specializes in structural masonry construction, walkable urban infill, and mixed-use development. Links: Building Culture - https://www.buildingculture.com/ Austin on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@austintunnell Austin on X - https://x.com/austintunnell Austin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-tunnell-2a41894a/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:33) - Austin’s journey with the Peace Corps and how that led him to Masonry (00:12:26) - Why we moved away from Masonry and toward wood frames (00:15:19) - What drew Austin to Masonry (00:19:34) - Learning the craft (00:24:25) - Why humans gravitate toward humanely built things (00:26:51) - What people can do with brick to get more value from a home (00:31:23) - What to ask architects when looking for a Mason (00:32:39) - Training Masons (00:33:28) - Austin’s project in Edmond, OK (00:38:17) - Defining beauty (00:50:03) - The impact of over regulation in construction and zoning (00:55:50) - Austin on scaling his business (00:59:38) - Local, state, and national policies that need to change (01:05:03) - Interior beauty in Austin’s world (01:09:30) - Tax incentives and capital structures (01:16:52) - Building a media business in Real Estate (01:18:05) - Live-work real estate Support our Sponsors Collateral Partners: https://collateral.com/fort Chris on Social Media: Chris on X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch POWERS on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

  • April 7 · 1 hr 49 min

    #409 - Jason McCann - CEO @ Vari - How a Simple Product Became a Global Brand

    Today I sit down with Jason McCann, Co-Founder and CEO of Vari - a company that started when his business partner stood at a cardboard box complaining of back pain and turned that moment into a brand that has shipped millions of desks and transformed over a thousand offices. Jason built Vari direct-to-consumer in an industry that had never seen it. He bootstrapped the company while every instinct in the market said raise capital and burn cash. He became the fastest-growing company in Dallas, survived COVID after just putting $15 million into a TV campaign and opening 12 showrooms, and came out the other side as a fundamentally different leader. We go deep on what it actually takes to innovate legacy product categories, how he recruited the former Chief People Officer of Southwest Airlines over a cup of coffee, and why an introvert had to learn to over-communicate when hundreds of families were counting on him. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Links: Vari - https://www.vari.com/ Jason on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-mccann-vari/ Support our Sponsors Collateral Partners: https://collateral.com/fort Ramp: https://ramp.com/powers Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:29) - How Vari was started (00:08:42) - How entrepreneurs should think about product development (00:11:24) - How Jason approaches AI (00:24:07) - Developing the standing desk (00:36:53) - Jason’s approach to manufacturing (00:47:16) - How Vari develops new products and services (00:56:59) - Bringing on the head of people of Southwest Airlines (01:04:31) - How Vari thinks about innovation vs. leaving products alone (01:14:55) - The future of work in 2026 (01:19:50) - The reindustrialization of America (01:23:36) - Jason’s unique leadership style (01:28:47) - Why Jason only wears black (01:31:52) - What a week looks like for Jason (01:40:46) - How vari runs exec meetings Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch POWERS on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

  • March 31 · 1 hr 43 min

    #408 - Jordan Levi - The Largest Cattle Feeder In America

    In this episode, I sit down with Jordan Levi to explore how he’s built a unique edge in the cattle industry by combining deep analytical thinking with real-world market experience. Jordan walks me through how he approaches cattle trading, the key biological and financial variables that ultimately determine profit and loss, and how he developed his framework without growing up in the business. We spend time unpacking how the cattle market actually works, where volatility comes from, and how operators think about risk across the cycle. We also dive into how he’s embracing AI tools and building custom workflows to stay ahead in a fast-moving, data-heavy environment. We discuss: - How the cattle market works and why volatility creates both risk and opportunity - The key drivers of profitability including feed efficiency, average daily gain, and out weight - The difference between biological intuition and building a data-driven edge in cattle trading - How Jordan processes daily reports and market data to inform trading decisions - How he’s building AI agents to summarize information and streamline his workflow Links: Vote for Jordan to be inducted into the Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame - https://cattlefeeders.org/poll/2027-cattle-feeders-hall-of-fame/ Jordan on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-levi-b107182/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:16) - The Belted Galloway (00:03:51) - The Kosher Cowboy (00:08:05) - Pulling value of the futures forward (00:11:43) - Learning cattle trading (00:16:48) - Daily average gain in cattle (00:18:20) - Jordan’s eureka moment in the cattle industry (00:21:08) - What does trading in animals actually look like? (00:27:05) - How Jordan defines his ROI in trading cattle (00:31:17) - The cattle curve (00:33:37) - The state of the cattle market (00:42:10) - Buying the largest cattle feeder in the world (00:46:09) - Grass vs. grain-fed cattle (00:49:15) - Predictions for the cattle supply over the next 10 years (00:50:54) - The international market (00:53:17) - Trading frequencies and macro thesis (01:00:27) - USA beef vs. international beef (01:05:21) - The cattle supply chain (01:07:32) - The future of auction yards and ranchers (01:09:40) - AI in AgTech (01:12:52) - The biggest problem facing the industry (01:14:42) - Livestock as a commodity that dies and how that impacts trading theory (01:20:51) - Is there a market for new entrants into cattle? (01:21:41) - Beef prices and the impact of a closed border on the industry (01:24:39) - Jordan’s biggest ideas for the industry (01:26:49) - Philanthropic efforts (01:31:24) - A day in the life of Jordan (01:26:42) - Risk management in cattle (01:41:17) - Does what you do show a leading indicator to the broader health of the American economy? Support our Sponsors Collateral Partners: https://collateral.com/fort Chris on Social Media: X: https://x.com/fortworthchris Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch POWERS on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/ Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

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