
Hosted by collide. · EN

Everybody chases the drill bit, but the real money can hide in wells that have produced for years. D.J. Snyder left drilling and completions to chase what nobody wanted to touch: production. His company Vannevar builds downhole tools that squeeze more oil out of wells already in the ground, using a marginal gains mindset borrowed from F1 and the Tour de France. Chuck gets into frac plugs, pumper routes, why nobody shuts in a well to fix it, and how AI could give operators one source of truth.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 Meet D.J. Snyder01:05 From drilling to the overlooked world of production02:47 Old tech, new problems: gas, sand, and horizontal wells06:24 Physical widgets and the marginal gains mindset08:32 Why there's no one size fits all13:00 Heresy: actually watch and fix your wells16:57 The AI promise of one source of truth18:43 Rethinking the pumper's daily route22:57 War stories, the Bakken, and naming tools25:18 ROI, payback, and how you really sell it28:25 Who to call, what it costs, and building a company36:03 How AI reshapes the work itself38:16 Robots, drones, and the future of the field40:14 Why boards say yes and value beats cheap44:53 Wrap up and where to find DJhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

You can own the dirt under someone's ranch without ever setting foot on it and still collect a check every month while an oil company does all the work. Karl Brensike of Harvest Mineral & Royalty Partners calls minerals the single greatest asset class on the planet, and he makes a pretty convincing case for it. Chuck digs into how regular folks can finally get a piece, why people really decide to sell, and the apple pie scheme that squeezed a million bucks out of Chevron.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 - Mineral versus royalty, explained for mom1:23 - Why US mineral ownership is uniquely American4:28 - The first oil lease and the Far and Away land rush8:11 - Splitting estates and why mineral owners keep multiplying9:25 - Karl and Chuck's history and the 2014 Thanksgiving crash10:43 - Why people actually decide to sell11:55 - The early days of investing in minerals14:46 - The Caritas run and the perfectly timed 2008 hedges22:17 - Buying ahead of the drill bit with Haymaker23:33 - Why everyone should own some as an energy hedge26:08 - The four kinds of buyers and the grassroots game27:22 - The thesis behind Harvest44:46 - Crazy mineral stories from the field48:09 - The Toby Bean apple pie storyhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

What if you could stash a barrel of oil in a digital bank account and drop it in your kid's Christmas stocking? That's the wild idea Wil Harris of Energy Substantiation is chasing, building the stablecoin of oil. He breaks down how WTI coins work, why nobody had ever banked a barrel before, and Chuck puts on his critical investor hat to try and blow the whole thing up.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 - The barrel of oil coin on Chuck's dresser2:08 - How Wil ended up bridging crypto and oil4:03 - What a stablecoin actually is, explained for mom10:05 - The minus 37 dollar day, USO, and True Tracker12:21 - Banking a barrel: minting, redeeming, the bank of oil19:25 - Critical investor mode: what protects your money24:08 - Credit reviews, unencumbered barrels, and ABLs28:50 - The reverse Dutch auction and the trading platform32:16 - A brand new form of capital for producers36:06 - Crypto adoption, 700 million accounts, and the Yeezys story38:34 - Selling the company, line fill, and credit over time45:59 - Who they want to hear from and WTI as the world standard48:34 - Still early days and how to reach them https://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Running data security for Candy Crush during a pandemic turns out to be solid training for almost anything, and Sam Texas brought that hard earned paranoia to Collide. From flipping thrift store suits on eBay to keeping the world's biggest mobile game alive from Sweden, his road to oil and gas was anything but typical. He breaks down defense in depth, SOC2, and why locking down AI inside a company becomes its own arms race once the machines start fighting the machines.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 The Candy Crush guy comes to Houston02:07 eBay suits, semiconductors, and a detour to Sweden04:50 How a LinkedIn DM turned into Collide07:13 Going all in on Claude and chasing SOC209:40 Security explained, Fort Knox style12:42 What's set in stone, what's in flux14:29 The AI versus AI arms race15:04 The Mythos model and real reasons to pay attention16:32 Big brother advice for adopting AI safely20:00 Data exfiltration and what keeps him up at night22:30 The next 30 to 60 days at Collide24:39 Securing the bleeding edge for an industry that skipped SaaShttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Cority has been quietly building environmental, health, and safety software for forty years, and Amanda Smith runs the strategy keeping up with AI that changes every six months. She and Chuck get into why a system of record beats raw AI on life or death calls, how a 600 page permit went from months to minutes, the stat that 95 percent of employees are already using shadow AI, and the PDF problem that has every energy company stuck.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 The Cority story and 40 years in EHS software2:30 How the software shows up on a rig and in the office5:45 The SaaS apocalypse question and why context beats raw AI9:30 Amanda's family mining history and why this work is personal11:00 Recruiting AI talent to Houston and the six month change cycle15:00 Shiny objects versus solving real problems18:00 Auditability, HIPAA, and the black box problem19:30 Where Collide is heading as an operating system23:00 Employee resistance and the friction point playbook27:30 Six hundred page permits, 3000 filings, zero mistakes30:00 Agentic workflows as the new source of record34:30 Correlation, causation, and the shale revolution lesson37:30 The PDF problem and using 2 percent of energy data41:30 Learning to drive as the AI adoption analogy43:00 What we are not talking about today that we will be in five years48:30 Ninety-five percent of employees are using shadow AIhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Jon Slominski, Founding AI Engineer at Collide, sits down with Chuck to break down what it actually takes to build AI that works inside a real oil and gas enterprise. From agent hierarchies that read and write across legacy systems, to a mapping interface that lets you chat your GIS data into shape, Jon shares what he's building, what wakes him up at 4am, and why the biggest unlock might still be the 90% of oil we haven't touched yet.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 - Intro and Jon's background1:30 - How Collide has evolved since Jon joined4:00 - Agent hierarchy explained6:10 - The hard part: taking AI from POC to production9:30 - Auditable search and why citations matter10:00 - What Jon is most proud of11:20 - The mapping interface coming to Collide13:50 - What keeps Jon up at night16:50 - Using AI to unlock the 90% of oil still in the groundhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Most energy companies buying billion dollar assets get handed a stack of hard drives and have zero clue what's on them. Clay Branch, Technical Staff at Collide, joins Chuck to break down the unglamorous but absolutely critical work of document categorization, data extraction, and why clean reliable data is the real foundation of any AI strategy in oil and gas.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 Clay's background and how he ended up at Collide1:34 The reality of energy data: hard drives, banker's boxes, and chaos4:47 Building document categorization tools from scratch8:52 Handling duplicates and the shared drive problem13:57 Why data reliability is the foundation of AI17:21 The last mile: getting from 80% to 100% accuracyhttps://twitter.com/collide_aihttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

TCU's energy internship program is back for round two and the results are kind of wild. What started as a summer experiment with business students who knew zero about oil and gas turned into kids giving no-notes presentations on legacy well economics in just ten weeks. Nikki Morris, Executive Director of TCU's Ralph Lowe Energy Institute, and Ryan Haggerty, Owner at RHR Oil and Gas, break down the field trips from Diamondback frac sites to 70 year old vertical wells, how AI is changing the game for young talent but still can't replace the crusty old timer making the final call, and why the industry's biggest problem with 150,000 orphan wells in Texas might need a proactive solution before Washington forces one.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 0:00 Intro and field trip recap from Riot's bitcoin mining site to Corsicana2:45 First impressions of the oilfield and the stiletto boots story5:22 How students connected the dots seeing wells in person8:21 Why basic energy education is missing from schools10:30 Overview of TCU's energy programs and student workers13:00 How Ryan and Nikki connected through the Fort Worth chamber17:32 AI vs tribal knowledge and the great crew change debate19:07 The HEB data scientist story that shocked an operator21:48 Ryan's legacy well project and what the students discovered25:14 The pyramid of problem solving and where AI fits28:40 What's next for the students and the upcoming TCU Energy Symposium30:52 Nuclear energy gaining traction with SMRs and molten salt reactors34:02 The orphan well crisis and incentivizing proactive plugging37:28 Where to find Ryan and Nikkihttps://twitter.com/collide_iohttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

Canisius Rozario left a multi-billion dollar company managing 300 people to become employee number 12 at Collide. The CTO role at a seed-stage startup came with anxiety, stress, and constant noise about every new AI tool dropping daily. But it also came with the opportunity to build something real in an industry that solves actual problems, where bad answers don't just cost money, they kill people. Chuck and Canisius break down what it actually takes to go from a ChatGPT wrapper to enterprise-grade AI infrastructure, why oil and gas professionals are more impressive than tech bros, and how they're building models trained specifically on petroleum engineering exams. The team went from six months to build a pilot to days, and they're just getting started.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - How Jimmy's dad helped recruit the CTO03:25 - The recruiter pitch that almost missed the mark05:27 - Why a 2.5 hour Sunday call changed everything08:21 - Learning AI by building it in the hardest vertical11:27 - The most important hire Colin ever made13:09 - Recruiting AWS, Microsoft, and Candy Crush engineers17:03 - From miniature model to actual infrastructure19:15 - Why clients ask "what's your software stack?"21:14 - The upside-down map incident on day three24:02 - What startup anxiety actually feels like27:05 - Why shiny object syndrome kills execution29:07 - Six months to a month to weeks to days31:22 - Oil and gas people are the best on the planet35:25 - Controlling drill bits thousands of miles away37:33 - The rubber meets the road next three months40:15 - Building platforms clients can build on43:00 - Principal-to-principal sales versus employee sales47:13 - Team breakdown: the superstars running 100x faster51:20 - Jazz and the haunted Skirvin Hotel story53:32 - Training models on petroleum engineering exams55:36 - Zero critical vulnerabilities on penetration testinghttps://twitter.com/collide_iohttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters

Most companies talk about AI strategy but freeze when it's time to actually implement. Collin McLelland shares how one E&P CEO cut through the noise by focusing on small, tangible wins—like automating regulatory filings that saved 1200 engineering hours. The real insight? Stop chasing sexy AI projects and start with workflows that deliver immediate ROI. Once teams see quick wins, adoption spreads fast and sophistication builds naturally.Click here to watch a video of this episode.Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.Apply today at collide.ioClick here to view the episode transcript. 00:00 - The AI strategy question every executive is asking00:45 - Why big companies struggle to start with AI01:39 - Start small: the $1M savings approach02:20 - Real example: automating regulatory filings saves 1200 hours02:39 - Why companies chase sexy AI projects instead of practical wins03:07 - How sophistication builds through successive applications03:58 - Reimagining workflows: focus on outputs, not processes04:58 - The foundation: get your data house in order first05:50 - Pattern recognition: where the real home runs happenhttps://twitter.com/collide_iohttps://www.tiktok.com/@collide.iohttps://www.facebook.com/collide.iohttps://www.instagram.com/collide.iohttps://www.youtube.com/@collide_iohttps://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.socialhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters