$390M acquisitions, collapsing UK confidence, and robots quietly lining up to take real jobs.

In this week’s Bricks, Bucks & Bytes episode:

🚨 AECOM buys Consigli for ~$390M and the industry can’t agree if it’s genius or insanity.

📉 UK Construction PMI crashes to 39.4, the steepest downturn in 5.5 years.

🤖 Robotics funding heats up as labor efficiency hits a hard ceiling.

But that’s not all:

  • Dustin DeVan dissects why AECOM may have overpaid by nearly 200x revenue.

  • Martin Piekarz questions whether $390M could’ve built the same product twice over.

  • And Owen breaks down the hidden politics of “buy vs build” inside giant consultancies.

🎧 Listen now for:

  • Why public companies buy instead of investing in R&D (Wall Street optics exposed)

  • The real danger for startups after hyperscale acquisitions

  • Why AI “king-making” is warping startup valuations

  • What the UK downturn really means for contractors on the ground

  • Why robots, not software, are the only path to double-digit productivity gains

Watch the Full Episode

🗣 Bonus: Some personal highlights

  • Dustin closed an investor breakthrough at a coffee shop run by ex-convicts

  • Owen chose his house based on walking distance to a pub (elite site-selection logic)

  • Martin lives minutes from the Thames and Hyde Park (but denies all royal ambitions)

  • The team reveals the Great LLM Debate, a UFC-style AI showdown now in motion

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