[00:00]Brian Jackson: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Up Next series, where faculty, researchers, and alumni weigh in on the trends currently shaping the world of business.

On today’s episode, I talk with Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business and the key architect behind the school’s most transformative decade. Since becoming dean in 2016, Peter has led Rice Business through a period of extraordinary growth, doubling MBA enrollment, launching the Hybrid and Online MBA programs, helping establish the Virani Undergraduate School of Business, and expanding the alumni network to more than 10,000 strong. Along the way, Rice Business has continued to climb the national rankings and built a reputation for excellence in entrepreneurship, finance, and innovation. And in 2025, Peter was named Poets&Quants Dean of the Year.

In this conversation, we talk about the vision that connects those milestones. We also look ahead to the new Rice Business building opening this year, his perspective on AI in business education, and what he hope remains true about Rice Business as it enters its next chapter.

Dean Peter, it is fantastic to have you join me today on Owl Have You Know. Thank you.

[01:19]Dean Peter Rodriguez: It's my pleasure to be here. Of course. Thank you for having me, Brian.

[01:22]Brian Jackson: Well, I figured I would want to start where really, kind of, our relationship even began, which is the online program. Had it not been for you championing the program and making it a reality, I wouldn't be sitting here today with this microphone in front of me. So, first, I owe you a debt of gratitude and a big thanks.

[01:40]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Well, no, I mean, the gratitude is from me to you. That's wonderful. And just hearing you say that is gratifying. I certainly remember the initial thoughts on the program, how we got here, you know, the big role it played in everything we've been trying to build. And that's a good feeling. That's, kind of, why I'm in this business, is to bring people like you in and through an education like this. So, thank you for acknowledging that. That makes me feel good.

[02:05]Brian Jackson: I think of, like, the avalanche of growth at Rice. That was one of the first accumulations of snow. You've doubled the MBA enrollment. You've grown tenure-track faculty by over 40%. You then launched the hybrid MBA. We've talked about the online MBA and now the undergraduate business major. On top of that all, we have over 10,000 alums from Rice Business. So, you know, all of these milestones. What was that guiding vision that connected them?

[02:34]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Well, they're all tied together, so thank you for mentioning that. That's an awful lot of growth. If there was one overarching theme of the last decade, I think growth is it. And the question is always like, ″Well, why growth?" Or ″Growth for what?" And, of course, clearly we want growth for the good outcomes, and that good outcomes all start with pursuing the mission. We have a mission to create and disseminate knowledge at the vanguard of business and the business disciplines.

And so, that's what we really do. And when I was really looking at the job almost exactly 10 years ago and thinking about where Rice was, and where it needed to be, one of the first conclusions that was easy to draw was that it needed to be about twice as big as it was, at least, you know. And it's not that growth is all good, but why would I say that? And the thinking was, you know, in order to advance that mission, we needed more tenure-track faculty.

And they're the foundation on which more or less everything else proceeds. They pursue both parts of the mission aggressively, the research side, the teaching side. They design the courses. Their quality also bestows a lot of your reputation in the market and amongst peer schools and peer faculties. So, the beginning of any virtuous cycle for growth in national prominence really has to lead to more of them. The rub is, it's hard to double. You know, one of the things people worry about is, ″Well, who's that going to be?"

Are you going to lower quality? Are you going to just throw the door open to admissions? Will you have to lower tuition to a point that you can't really deliver, and this is too costly for you to pursue. All these hurdles are in the way. And so, when I was first having those conversations a decade ago, the thinking was, how would we pursue this growth? Good things were here. I've said it many times, Houston has amazing strategic foundations for a business school. We have so many Fortune 100, 500 companies, great entrepreneurship, a bustling, growing state, very pro-business environment.

It's perfect in that way. Also, Rice is, sort of, perfectly suited in that way. Great reputation, serious academics. But growth is not easy. And so, I remember in that first meeting bringing up online as something I thought we needed to do. You know, the technology could deliver well. I knew if we owned the program, we could make it very high quality, do something special in the market, really take advantage of the opening in Texas, a very big state with lots of great students in it, but everywhere else.

And so, it was a linchpin. You know, the online program was discussed day one. And by two years in, we had it launched, but it was an uphill battle all the way through there. And now we're finishing year eight, and gosh, I think currently we have almost 400 students enrolled right now in that program, it's the biggest piece of our growth.

[05:17]Brian Jackson: So, I mean, folks were skeptical of online and, you know, the quality of the program and I guess the other potential risk with it. How did you approach that, and how did you convince other stakeholders that this was the leap and the one worth taking?

[05:32]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, of course, you begin all conversations with explaining the “why.” I think people listen when they hear the “why.” But everybody who was really critical listened and said, ″Okay, what's the story? How would you do it?” Okay, even if you get comfortable with the broad idea or understanding, yes, that could work here. You know, the devil is, sort of, in the details.

So, “Who delivers it? Who makes the courses? How do we control quality?" Et cetera, et cetera. So, a key was, you know, being really forthright about two things. One of them was who would own the program, and the tenured faculty would own the program. In fact, we had almost all full professors, not quite, but almost all full professors, design and deliver the main courses, design and deliver the entire curriculum, so they could own it.

I knew they were great quality, so they weren't going to mess up on the curriculum or anything like that. And I think if they felt like it's all ours, they could feel comfortable. The second thing was, well, what are we going to do with any resources generated from it? Is it going to reinvest into itself? What do we do? And I said for this and all the growth we have, our primary goal is reinvesting in more tenure-track positions, which we can do.

And, in fact, our partner in delivering the online program, which is 2U, helped us on that end. And so, we got going right away, and people could see the possibilities that, ″Okay, we can make it high quality. We feel comfortable with that." We know that any good that comes of this will come back to the mission. It's not going to be just frivolous things, and we think it's going to be sustainable in that way.

You could continue to invest in the program. You can continue to provide good academic program support, all that. The case was won. And once we had the internal folks convinced, I think the rest of the university came along, too. They were also skeptical, like everybody else, but having the business school say, we are comfortable, we're willing to give it a go, it's all on us, we'll deliver.

You know, the timing was right, and President Leebron, at the time, was a big supporter. I think he wanted to see Rice at least try hard, in online, and we did. And so, we got most of that done in a little over a year. Yeah, we launched July of 2018. It was very exciting.

[07:50]Brian Jackson: And one of the best parts of the online program is that you don't have to have the physical space. You're able to have this virtual campus.

[07:57]Dean Peter Rodriguez: No, you raised a great and an important point, because I think one of the chief concerns was where would we put everyone? What's this going to do to classrooms? Is it going to change the feel of the space? You know, when do we do it? Like, what time of day? All these questions come into the scene. And then you also get questions about capacity. Do we have the capacity to do that? So, the argument was, well, actually, it's even better to do this virtually. We'll have no real threat of the space in that way.

We can provide access, and so people can double up on the weekends, evenings, or daytime if they live locally, which they could. And then when we do our residencies, well, you know, that's, sort of, specialized and we can manage that. We do that anyway. But it also meant that you preserved the feel of the physical campus in a way that gave assurance to everybody who was here. We're not going to flip a switch and change this overnight.

The challenge we have is a lot of people who are interested and qualified and would flourish here at Rice can't match the schedule or don't have the location, and that's just math and logic. Of course, that's true. It's a big state, a big world, and lots of jobs, particularly amongst the most successful people, but just too demanding to let you, one, take off a lot of work, or two, take off significant time in the evening or weekends on a very predictable schedule for two years.

So, yeah, it made good sense. And then my other benefit, which would be we learned a lot about delivering online that we didn't know. People who had maybe done nothing or only dabbled became experts and began to think about it. And I knew that would happen, is that the more they did it, the more they took it seriously, and they learned how to get better, which improved their teaching in every aspect of the school.

[09:41]Brian Jackson: So, then I think about the other growth we had hinted on, which was the undergraduate business major. One of the biggest constraints was the capacity of McNair. Could it really support that type of growth?

[09:52]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Yeah, that's right. Well, when we got to, sort of, the post-COVID environment, I think we'd learned a lot about hybrid delivery. We were hearing, we check our environment every year. More and more people who are professionals wanted access. They wanted something in between online and the programs we have. The hybrid MBA is really a modification of the weekend MBA program that allows you to come once per month, but that was going to add to the weekend, which is starting to get crowded.

Really, McNair Hall was designed for none of that. You know, it was designed for about four sections of a full-time program, maybe, and a couple of sections of EMBA on the weekend. But by the time we get to 2020, you know, when we have the online, and we're starting to think about hybrid, and we have an undergraduate minor, and we're thinking about a major, the building is being used really six nights a week, almost seven days a week, every week of the year.

It's almost completely overloaded, and we know we just can't do it. The math stopped working. So, the prospect of getting an undergraduate major approved, which we did in 2021, meant that we'd have to start thinking about a building. And it was about that time that we started thinking about a building. By the way, all throughout that period, from 2016 to 2021, we renovated parts of the building every year. So, the second floor, which I'm on today, was completely redone. We did the first floor before that. We added a west wing on the first floor.

We were doing everything we could to add more spaces. Renovated 116, which is kind of a special, nice, big flat room. All of these things, but there are just so many tricks you can pull, and then you're just out of building. And so, we started a big push then and finally got that approved. And I don't know if you can hear it now, but there's some drills and mechanized equipment and cranes outside my window today, as there have been for about two years, finishing up a brand new big, great expansion.

[11:48]Brian Jackson: You went, you know, to seek approval for a new building, coming from a place of showing that growth was possible, and actually, it fit for the current market and what folks were looking for.

[11:59]Dean Peter Rodriguez: No, I think that's right. An expansion to McNair had been considered before, I think in 2014. There was a thinking that they might get there, and the board of trustees reached a conclusion, which I would agree with. I believe if I'd seen the data, what I've seen said that, no, they didn't really have capacity constraints at the time that warranted growth. Probably through some rescheduling and other activities, you could manage that. But we demonstrated it in a big way.

You know, by the time we got to 2020 and 2021, even with a large proportion of our students being online, we just couldn't do it anymore. We had the busiest working building on the campus. In fact, if you look from 2016 to today, I'm pretty sure about 60% of the rough growth in all student populations at Rice University has been in the business school. So, that's a great deal of growth. And the university has grown too at the undergraduate space, but we definitely needed the space.

So, the seven new classrooms, the 30-ish to 40-ish new offices, and many other spaces are going to be badly needed. But we demonstrated that, and that made it easier to go to donors, other philanthropists around town, and say we could use your support to do something really good and valuable for Houston, the region, and certainly for the university.

[13:15]Brian Jackson: And so, I mean, having been in McNair, grown all these programs, seen everything. When you thought of the new building, was there a certain part of the design that was a non-negotiable, that you felt was just absolutely needed?

[13:28]Dean Peter Rodriguez: You know, that was an interesting part. Our architects are great. They know how to think through these problems and to ask a lot of questions. And so, I can remember in the interview phase and the proposal phase talking to all these firms. And the question they ask you, which always puts you on the spot a little bit, is like, ″Well, what's your vision?" Et cetera, and, ″How do you think about… What are your values?" You know, ″What is the feel?"

You know, it almost sounds like an emotional design, but it's really trying to evoke, “What are you trying to accomplish? How does this space matter? What messages do you need to deliver? You know, what does it say about the school, about your values, and the like?” And that's a great exercise. I don't think we do it enough, and it certainly wasn't something I did on my own. But the more we did that, we talked about a few things that were important. One was we wanted the building to be a place where people were very happy to come and convene.

Certainly, students, you know, people involved in business at the corporate level, at startups, all the way around. I wanted them to feel like they belonged here, that they could come to Rice. They wanted to be there. This was where the action was. There was energy, innovativeness, excitement, you know, and academic perspective on what growth in business and changes in the business environment meant for the world.

So, all that was boiled down by, you know, better people than me into, you know, a view of a much more open, lit, artistic, modern addition. So, you know, the design of McNair Hall, which is exquisite, it's a Robert A.M. Stern building. It, sort of, has this Spanish design. It's reminiscent of what you see at Baker and other places, needed to be complemented by something that wasn't quite that. You know, it might harken back to a few of those design points, but it'd be bringing much more light. It'd make a lot of space available to people that was unbooked. So, just a lot of places to sit, be quiet, be in a small group, be alone.

No need for special access. We needed food, which is key. I heard that a lot. Food all throughout the day, different types, and great coffee. And, of course, we need the standard things, classrooms, Ph.D. space. So, you know, we threw all that together. And we needed it to fit in this geography we have here, where it didn't invade the Turrell. It fit beneath the viewshed of the building. And, you know, the design reflects that.

And I can't wait for everybody to see it. It's something to see in a two-dimensional image or rendering. I think being in the space is going to make people feel very different, and I think it's going to accomplish those goals.

[16:06]Brian Jackson: So, I mean, we hinted on it, the establishment of Virani Undergraduate School of Business. I mean, that was a huge step. So, what was really your underlying vision for Rice Business at the time when you brought that into the fold?

[16:22]Dean Peter Rodriguez: The Virani School is going to have huge impact. I think the upside for it is limitless. It's going to be fantastic. Thinking about, you know, if you go all the way back where we began our conversation, I was definitely thinking about online, adding more students to the full-time and the other programs. I don't know that I had hybrid on my mind yet, but in general, that growth. You know, we've added graduate certificates in healthcare this year.

We're growing further. But undergrad was always a key piece, and there are just a few reasons for it that really matter. One, it's a very high-demand field for young students and their parents. You know, they're very interested in undergraduate business. We had a minor at Rice, but undergraduate business isn't available everywhere. I would say if you went through your, sort of, U.S. News lists and the top 100 schools, I'd say, you know, 90 to 100 almost all have it, but one to 10, it's maybe three. You know, so there is this scattering of the big Northeast Ivy schools where it just isn't present. Everywhere else it is.

And Rice was, sort of, built in the mold of some of those, plus some liberal arts colleges with which everyone would be familiar. And so, it had this idea of a presence of business, maybe, but not a major. So, my view was, let's make a case for the academic value of a major within this great university, where the major takes up about a third of your credit hours, but two-thirds you spend in the other schools, in engineering, humanities, social sciences, you know, architecture, music, whichever one you want. You could spend your time there.

And the upward value of that, having very well-rounded students who could have explored lots of interest in these younger years, but then get real depth in business and be ready to get that first job, start the career at a place that could be rewarding. And we'd have, one, terrific Rice undergraduates, they’re incredibly bright. Rice has the history and the privilege of being highly selective on who we bring in, really being, you know, choosy on the quality of folks.

And you see it when you meet our undergraduates. And then I thought they would really be able to elevate the university, too, because now you would be able to compete with, and you just tick off the list, well, the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School, of course, has a great undergraduate program. Schools like Cornell have a great undergraduate program. 

If you went to UT McCombs, or Texas A&M Mays, or SMU Cox in the state, even those schools are overwhelmed with demand from great students, especially in and around Texas. And that's what they're looking for. Some of them we'd be more than happy to have, but I think they looked the other way because I think their concern was maybe we can't get to the same places in terms of career. But we've addressed that, and it's going fantastic.

And I think an interesting anecdote to that is I think the Virani family got interested because we announced that degree program around the time their son, Faraz, was graduating. And I think he really would've preferred to be a major. But I also believe being a Rice undergraduate, he knew firsthand, and maybe better than anyone, that it would really succeed. It was really a good, smart idea, and that, you know, good things would come from it. So, we had a terrific entry point into a conversation with a really philanthropic family who got behind us in a big way at the right time.

[19:45]Brian Jackson: The one thing I think about, and I'm, kind of, like, back to my undergrad [experience]… The big difference now is having AI and having the capability at your fingertips. You know, how are you thinking about that? And, you know, as we send undergrads and then MBAs out into the world, into this new AI-driven world?

[20:04]Dean Peter Rodriguez: It's a topic we think about every day. I don't think I've stopped thinking about it deeply and actively for two years now. You know, I think there's always the feeling that I believe everybody has, which is, gosh, this is hard to keep up with. I can't see around this corner. There are a lot of possibilities everyone's happy to sketch out. It's hard to know what probabilities to put on any of the paths. There's kind of a joke that, you know what? One path is nirvana, and the other path is like the Terminator.

You know, you, sort of, are between these heavenly outcomes where productivity is massive, and wellbeing is great, and the other ones where we're just completely subordinated to this power we've created. I'm less worried than I was a year ago. I see firms adapting in ways that still leverage a lot of human capability, that still value and leverage a lot of human judgment. And, you know, I try not to be unduly optimistic, but I think that's still the path forward.

So, we've got to do a couple of things that are pretty basic. On the basic part of our mission, which is delivering an education, we have to do two things. We have to prepare people to think really critically and to be able to assess them as individuals without this incredible, unprecedented tool. That is to say, ″What can Peter do of his own accord? What does he know?" And then I have to train him very aggressively to make sure that with the tool, he's also highly capable, far more capable to do some things, and as capable as anybody in any university in the country is using the tool.

So, there's, sort of, an almost martial arts mastery. You know, you have to, sort of, like, you know, wax on, wax off. You know, learn these sort of things that are apart from the tool, and then you're, sort of, empowered. That's where we are, is trying to do that. I think going too all in for us risks… And by that I mean training students with AI aggressively at the beginning risks maybe losing some of that. An example might be I'd like you to go through your core finance course, and still have to do, kind of, the hard work.

Not that I'm going to make you do heavy calculations or anything, but I don't want you to ask ChatGPT or pick your GenAI to give you an answer, or to produce the scenarios, or even maybe to make your discounted cash flow files. I might want you to do a little bit of that first, but then I need you to learn you don't have to do almost any of that. You can empower something else, but I need you to be the chef behind the cuisine.

[22:33]Brian Jackson: You want them to be skeptical, and you want to develop their ability to judge the information.

[22:40]Dean Peter Rodriguez: I think that's right. And I think at the end of the day, we do think about the ethics in a very important way, too. Where's the boundary? No matter what is possible. And with agentic AI, I think almost more than you can imagine, it's imaginable. What's the boundary a good leader or manager might want where, you know, someone with a heartbeat is making a decision, or casting a final judgment, or intervening? And I think that's our caution right now for the world, which is, what do we want out of this?

Clearly, we can have a lot of outcomes, and we should probably shape, actively, the ones we'd really prefer. You know, another piece of our thought is we're doing what scientists and academics do, which is to think about the future and imagining and asking, what could AI do? What's it going to do to the shapes of certain industries and the jobs that are produced? What's going to be left, or what will we be moving into?

We've seen thematically at least this type of thing before. Technological change has been disruptive in job markets. This appears to be of an extraordinary scale. It may be an unprecedented scale. Certainly, that feels like it to me. But, you know, we need to think about that and imagine what that means going forward, and be prepared. Because obviously, if you work backwards, we're a professional school. We need to be able to ready people for professions. If some of them are changing, we need to get ready for that.

If some of them are evolving, we have to be ready for that. And if some of them are really going away, we should be ready for that, too. So, that's the other side. But we're at the early stage. I think two years ago, when this was just emerging, everybody, sort of, raced ahead to try to do something or at least say they're doing something.

Now you can see we're all slowing down a little bit, trying to be more thoughtful and cautious. So, I think about it all the time. It's changing, and we have to change with it. We know it's not optional, so we're trying to just stay ahead and do our jobs well.

[24:41]Brian Jackson: I had a discussion with Professor Capuano. And we were talking about, kind of, AI in her class, and she has her students use it. They use it together, but then she'll often find the pitfalls of reading an AI-generated response and not knowing that it was inaccurate or not exactly the truth. And I think she was saying those lessons, you can, kind of, see it calculate, and all of a sudden it's like, ″Okay, you need to go back. You need to know what you're talking about."

[25:08]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Yeah, I think that's right. Well, you can tell that when you're reading exams and things, and it's like any of us who have our own professions, our own expertise. Because you know it, you know when the AI gives you good output. But if you didn't know it, you wouldn't know. And you think that looks highly plausible, or that seems exactly right. And so, there is that issue where the expertise is still needed, and it's not that easy to develop. You know, if you rely, over-rely, on that crutch. So, there's that spacing and that pace. We're trying to deal with that.

You know, I think the other part, frankly, we've talked about, “How do we make sure that exams are taken honestly.” I think most of that is to assure students that their peers are operating on a level playing field. I think that can often be one of the big challenges that unwinds confidence in a program, is when you look and you think, you know, “I want to do this the right way and understand this deeply, but if everybody else in the class is using AI and getting A's, yeah, I have to think about whether or not I can go without it or not.”

So, we need to make sure that everyone feels like it's a level playing field. When we ask you to not use the AI, no one is going to use it. And when we ask you to use it, of course, you use it. And for that, we probably need to think about our processes. Five years ago, we didn't have that kind of a problem. Today, we do. We need to think about it.

[26:29]Brian Jackson: Who knew that being a dean could have so many headwinds and changes come your way?

[26:34]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Not me. I think that it's always interesting and it's always new. There are lots of different challenges. It's still fun. But, yeah, it's the wild west sometimes.

[26:46]Brian Jackson: So, in terms of rankings, Rice Business really performs well nationally, especially in the areas of entrepreneurship and finance. You know, why do you think that is?

[26:55]Dean Peter Rodriguez: You know, it's interesting. Rankings are always, I think, every dean, every academic leader thinks, I don't know where they get some of these, right? It can be, kind of, tough, and there's a great rankings business. A few things tend to shine through, though. I'd say that overall, if you average all rankings together, you start to get more signal than noise. Looking at any one individually, you tend to get more noise than signal. When you look at all of ours together, you know, I think one of the highlights you always see for the business school is entrepreneurship.

And I think there are really two big things I can think of that I'm confident about. One is we had an early start. I think we took entrepreneurship more seriously earlier than most schools, and it's largely because we had some professors here who took it upon themselves. So, Ed Williams and Al Napier maybe did the most in that regard. Certainly, they did more than anybody else, I know of in that regard. But, you know, I don't want to leave anybody out. People like Dennis Murphree and others did a lot, too, to, kind of, get that started and talk about it in an active way, treat it more seriously, give it more attention.

And, you know, they built momentum. So, that's 25-plus years ago. Not that other business schools weren't doing it, but we did it well and have kept up. So, I'll say that, we’ve kept up and done it in smart ways. And people like Brad Burke and Yael Hochberg, who do that today here, have added immeasurably to our success. But the other thing is really Houston. I think being a business school in a major urban area with high growth and high appetite for business means you just are in the environment in a way that is hard to replicate anywhere else.

If you went to Silicon Valley, they would say something similar. People have said that a long time about Stanford. They say, like, you know, ″They're really good at what they do, but so much is the environment itself. How could you not succeed?" That is really important there, and it's super important here. The other thing I always tell people is that Houston loves risk takers. It's part of the environment. It's part of a Texas thing, too. But, you know, it's going to space, drilling out in the Permian Basin or deep in the ocean, you know, putting in an artificial heart, whatever it is.

I think there's a real admiration for trying hard things and picking yourself up if you fail, and not being discouraged because things didn't go right the first time. I think there's a sense of, you know, kind of chest out. We do big hard things here, and we're proud of it. And it doesn't work every time, but we keep going. And so, when people want to engage with Rice in the business school, oftentimes the thing that they want to be most involved with is, ″How can I help somebody start and try something hard and walk them through a difficult process?"

So, it's a great business city, just a super great entrepreneurship city. The last thing I'd say about that is that's also true about the many immigrant populations that are here. I always tell people we know this. Houston's one of the most diverse cities in the country. It's a city of great diversity because it's a city of great opportunity. People can come here. There's no zoning. You can get something cheap, get started. You know, there are downsides to that. But the upside is you get a shot. You know, you get a ticket, and you can get on the ride and see if you can make it work.

And for many people, that chance is all they need. And we see that over and over with entrepreneurs who have come here, you know, who are born here and are drawn here to succeed. So, that environmental feature and a good start with pioneers has made the difference. And that's something we can't lose, really, you know, unless we're really silly and make bad choices, which we're not going to do. But we're fortunate, and that's where that comes from, and that's why it's so strong. I think it's even stronger than recognized sometimes, but that's why we're so good.

[30:42]Brian Jackson: And I think you've nailed it. This environment of Houston itself, that ecosystem, brings out so much opportunity. I think the other thing that Rice Business has tied into it, you know, this integration with LILIE and Rice Alliance to The Ion. So, what made that kind of coordination and growth possible through those?

[31:03]Dean Peter Rodriguez: You know, those are the key elements of our entrepreneurship delivery system, and it's growing still and doing well. On the internal side, you know, I go back. Yael Hochberg comes to us. Great background. She's been everywhere important, you know, Stanford and Northwestern and other places, leading an entrepreneurship program. She was brought in to be the head of the entrepreneurship initiative at Rice University by David Leebron, joined in 2015.

A little bit later, we get LILIE, which is essentially the heart of entrepreneurship education at the university. It delivers all of our credit-bearing courses to the students here, I think, save one or two, and it does just an amazing job. So, it's meant to be exactly what you need, a place that's not just a classroom, but kind of a living community for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, particularly our students who are graduates and undergraduates, and they do a famously good job of that.

Before Lilie, we had the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, which performed a lot of those duties and now more focuses as, I think, kind of a platform for the launching and the commercialization of ideas from outside of Rice that connect into Rice or from the laboratories. In some ways, we all play a role in that, and they do. And nowadays, and I think Brad Burke has done a great job there, particularly with the Rice Business Plan Competition. There are many things I could point out.

But if I were to call it one, it'll be the world's largest and richest business plan competition, which is, you know, it's the March Madness of entrepreneurship at colleges and universities. We always get Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, teams from the best universities, and all universities come to compete. It's fantastic. It's unprecedented and great, and that's made a big difference. That team is now running the programming at The Ion, which is a Rice-sponsored space designed to scale that presence into the city and beyond. And that continues to grow.

Even today, you know, we recently added startup garages, if you will, at The Ion through what we call the Nexus. And there are going to be more wet labs and dry labs put out adjacent to The Ion and graduate housing. So, this investment around this entrepreneurship ecosystem is designed to grow Rice and commercialize Rice ideas and IP and original research, and to expand the opportunities of our students. So, you know, we're upping the ante on anybody who wants to try to compete with us for that, and I think that's been terrific for us.

But we work together on all of that. I think this entrepreneurship ecosystem is essentially unmatched. I think it's superb, and we're continuing to do good work and collect good people to do it.

[33:46]Brian Jackson: So, I'm sure when you were interviewing to become the dean of Rice Business, you were in front of a committee sharing your vision, talking about your experience. You know, from sitting there and what you thought the job was going to be to today, 10 years later, tell me what you couldn't have understood before really stepping into this role.

[34:04]Dean Peter Rodriguez: So, I had run programs at a school for about five years, and before that, I had been heavily involved in some other dean work at a dean level. And I could imagine what it meant to design and deliver MBA programs, what it meant to think about business programs in general, and to do most of the inside work. I could do all the inside work. I'd say I knew what it was like to, sort of, run the organization and the key leaders, like the head of the career center, the head of admissions, the head of Exec Ed, the folks who do student programs, tech, all of that.

That's different when you're really in charge, you know, when you're the final say on a lot of that. I think it's the outside work I couldn't quite imagine as much, and I think it was harder to, sort of, see year-by-year challenges. Like, how do you keep momentum? How do you stay ahead? How do you deal with headwinds? And a lot of that's the outside work, too. By the outside, I mean working across the university with other deans and the leadership, namely the provost and the president, and then working in the broader community to raise money for the school.

You know, a big part of the job is philanthropy, but also to be the ambassador of the university and its business school into the corporate environment, into the business environment. That, I think, was a little bit new and different to me, and I've loved it. You know, it's really interesting. But I remember thinking, “What should I do here? What's the call?” But, you know, some of those are, for example, universities school by school tend to be very different. We share a lot in common with peers, but I'm not much like the music school.

And I'm not much like the School of Natural Sciences with labs and heavy reliance on grants and a very different profile and a very different, you know, set of professionals. In some ways, equally interested in academia, highly trained, of course, but different. And so, coming up with and talking about policies, for all of this, matters. And then, of course, there are some trade-offs. If you think about an undergraduate program, that's not a win for everybody in the university, or isn't seen as one.

I think that's a hard thing to think about, you know, when you're just in one school, like mine, or just in somebody else's. We, of course, had different, you know, tough issues, like Hurricane Harvey, and we had the freeze in '21, and we had COVID, which, of course, nobody was thinking about that. And I think that's the part where you get the exigent sort of leader questions, and you're like, ″Okay, what do we do here?" You have a role to play, and you have to do it. The other piece on the outside, on the philanthropic side, I've really enjoyed. It's really the public relations side, maybe put differently.

I love talking about the school. I like being involved in different civic organizations and getting to know people. I think getting to know people and getting to know how they thought about the school from the outside was a great benefit. But I hadn't done enough of that before I got here, so that felt a little bit different for sure. Then there's just the usual stuff. You know, there's people in organizations. Those are always challenging.

So, you learn more about yourself, and you learn how to live your values a little bit better and what you care about. But it's been a lot of fun. I mean, I've learned a lot from it. It's been terrific.

[37:24]Brian Jackson: So, Dean Peter, one of the things that recently I was fortunate enough to do was volunteer and speak to recently admitted students to the Full-Time program. One of those students was, kind of, on the edge in considering an Ivy League East Coast school or Rice Business. His thoughts and concerns were around, kind of, the energy world and looking at a career pivot into commodities. Could you, kind of, speak about Rice's vision in connection to energy, and, you know, are we hedging purely to renewables? Are we split between that and conventional?

[37:58]Dean Peter Rodriguez: That's a good question. I think the presence of energy in the minds of everyone in the world are much larger than they have been only a few years ago. And there's two reasons for that. I think the first reason is one that's been around for a while, would be concern about climate change, a concern about, you know, a transition into renewable sources. How fast should that take place? How do we do it? We've talked about that a lot, and we've committed a lot of resources to understanding that.

But the second, and the one that is, I think, dominating currently, is the massive energy requirements of the data revolution in AI. I think any forward projection for the energy demands of the future has to be all of the above. It isn't because people and governments may not have a preference, but because meeting those demands will require different types of energy sources, because they're not completely substitutable for each other.

And being the energy capital of the world, Houston thinks about all of those. We, of course, have a very longstanding, deep, deeper than anyone else's, you know, as a business school, fossil fuel understanding through companies like Chevron and Exxon are great examples. But also, deep connections to all of the resources dedicated in companies like those and many others in renewable spaces for wind, solar, geothermal, of course, natural gas, and all those other types.

If anyone had an interest in energy, there's no question, you know, this is a slam dunk. You should be at Rice, because we think about it that way. It's not that from the ivory tower, whatever, we're thinking the world should become this. We, one, you know, take the environment as it is and talk about, well, what's the phenomena taking place, and how is it being shaped?

And, of course, we always talk about the pros and cons of each pathway forward. And I was just having a conversation with one of our professors today on this very topic. Rice needs to prepare leaders to be ready for all of those paths forward. And I would bet today that we're going to need a very broad set of energy sources for the future, including, you know, more renewables, more fossil fuels, and everything we haven't yet discovered or produced in sufficient quantity.

[40:08]Brian Jackson: And I think the way your view of the conversation… That's why when you walk the halls of McNair now, you see a mix of companies representing that.

[40:17]Dean Peter Rodriguez: We do. And we have companies that are deep into the renewable space and companies that are hedging, and we have, of course, traditional fossil fuel-based companies.

[40:26]Brian Jackson: So, recently, we celebrated 50 years of Rice Business, and now we have the new building on the horizon. What's next in this chapter for Rice Business?

[40:37]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Well, I don't know where to put us along our overall timeframe, but you could certainly look at the first 50 years as sort of birth through adolescence. I'd say in that 50 years, we didn't quite reach 10,000 alumni, but the statistic I like to give people is in the first 20 or so years, we had fewer than 1,000. So, the easy math is we averaged less than 50 students a year for the first 20 years. We have a relatively small alumni base at our origin and a much larger one today.

So, I think we've really come into our fullness, and I think we're really much more of a national competitor, and we've put into the workforce lots of great leaders. The next 10 and 20 years are going to see us have an unprecedented and high number of leaders of top firms and organizations in traditional firms, you know, corporate America, in startups, in firms that have yet to be created. So, that's incredibly exciting for us and for what our future holds.

I think we're going to see that maturity and that, sort of, full benefit come back to our professional programs at the graduate level in ways that we haven't yet enjoyed. And so, for those schools, you know, traditional East Coast schools that have had alumni bases that are large for 50 years, we'll finally be toe to toe. And I really look forward to that sort of flowering and emergence on the graduate side.

You know, in addition to all the curricular enhancements we'll undertake for those programs, we'll have that, and we'll start to see the undergraduate program really come into national prominence in a way it hasn't yet. You know, when we started, you had to overcome the basics, which is getting students in high school to think, well, I am interested in, say, a finance degree or a marketing degree, but I know Rice doesn't do that, to now think I should consider them alongside everywhere else.

And so, we'll see the Virani School elevate relatively quickly, and we'll see how we fuse these cultures together and bring in even better faculty and more great students. So, the next 10 to 20 years are going to see that. And then I'd make one more prediction, which I think will be true at many places, is I believe, strongly, that we will integrate more deeply with the rest of the university and a lot of our programs..

That you'll see combinations with social sciences, humanities, in the STEM fields, maybe even other universities. I think that's the work ahead for universities, is how we take the best of and give students even more choice and options. So, I think that's really coming soon, and I think we're going to add strength to the university and vice versa.

[43:15]Brian Jackson: It's all so exciting. In anticipation of us talking today, I asked the Alumni Association board if they had any questions they'd want to ask you. And one of our volunteers, Kim Denney, proposed asking, ″As alums, what would you like to see us do to help the school?"

[43:31]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Oh, that's a great question. So, thanks to Kim, and thanks to you for asking Kim's question. The number one thing I always want is for people to stand up and speak up for Rice wherever they are, in the firm you're in, in the community you're in. Make sure people know you're from Rice. Get the swag, wear the swag, put the stickers on, whatever it is, and mention us when the time comes to look for talent or to look for opportunity. We haven't had enough of that.

The other one is: Get involved. I think so many students, there are missing cohorts, missing classmates, where they get involved with each other, maybe or not at all. But we need them more involved in the Alumni Association than they are. We will be a lot stronger when we do that. So, if you haven't, make it a point. Do something. It could be small. Come to a reception, come to a reunion, get back in touch with someone, but be more involved, because that presence builds and it amplifies.

And without it, it doesn't really matter as much, the rest. So, once you get involved, you'll see great opportunities to help our current students, to help yourselves, and to help others by connecting and building this much stronger network. That's such a key factor for business schools and slow scale, low diffusion, low participation, those are the death knells of a great network. We want higher scale, higher participation, high engagement.

And so, all that means is, you know, get involved. You're going to like these people. You liked them before. You'll enjoy it. You'll have a space to come in that you'll like. But, yeah, get more involved and speak up for Rice. Those are my big, big requests.

[45:07]Brian Jackson: Thank you very much, Dean Peter. I really appreciate you joining me today and for the conversation. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the new building and seeing what's ahead.

[45:17]Dean Peter Rodriguez: Thank you, Brian. Thanks to all the alumni. This has been great. I look forward to it, and I can't wait to welcome you to the new space. You'll like it.

[45:26]Brian Jackson: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcast. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Brian Jackson, and Maya Pomroy.

[00:00]Brian Jackson: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Pivot series, where guests share stories of transformation in their lives and careers.

Today’s episode features Scott Deans, Executive MBA Class of 2022, co-founder and CEO of BeONE Sports, an innovative sports tech startup using AI and data analytics to help athletes to perform better and stay healthier. Scott’s journey is anything but linear. From division one athlete to architect, to senior analytics later at bp, and now entrepreneur. He’s built a career at the intersection of performance, data, and design.

In this conversation, we talk about what inspired his pivot to Rice Business, how BeONE Sports was born, and how his partnership with Rice athletics is helping redefine athlete performance.

Oh, hey, good morning, Scott. Thank you for joining me on Owl Have You Know.

[01:00]Scott Deans: Yeah. Hey Brian. Thanks for having me.

[01:02]Brian Jackson: Of course. Well, you've got such a colorful background, and I saw that you were previously a D1 athlete. So, what sport did you play, and do you happen to still play it?

[01:13]Scott Deans: I don't still play it the way I used to, but it was football. Played all through high school and college. I was a kicker and a punter, and in high school I was a quarterback, and pitcher, and broke my elbow pitching. So, that kind of ended the quarterback career, but went on to be a scholarship to athlete, and after that had a short attempt at the NFL, and the point came when I either had to continue following that dream or sort of make a new one, and it ended up going back to finish my architecture degree. So, that was sort of the formal ending of the football career.

[01:52]Brian Jackson: What was that moment like, where you're kind of like, "Okay, path, two choices." Both don't seem like the wrong one, right?

[01:59]Scott Deans: Yeah. It was painful, to be honest. I mean, my intention as a little kid growing up was three letters: N-F-L, N-F-L, N-F-L. That was it. And when that, you know, it became clear that that wasn't going to happen, or at least it wasn't the path that I thought I should take, it was a decision that wasn't easy, but, in retrospect, a good one.

I certainly play a lot of sports now, just not organized football. And so, that competitive nature doesn't go away. That's really what has stayed with me through my sporting career. And so, I think, you know, athletes who are in competitive sports are given this opportunity to learn an environment that is not typical, and that actually transcends later in life, whether you're in business or a corporate world or a job that really has nothing to do with sports. You can bring those things with you.

[02:55]Brian Jackson: So, you went back and did your master's of architecture. What drew you into it? You know, I was thinking about your background and as in high school I did architecture drawing and I had a teacher named John Stupka and I just remember sitting out in his classroom and having the drafting table and it was like the best hour and a half period because it was quiet and you had your ruler, you had your pencil, and it was just perfect.

[03:20]Scott Deans: Yeah, no, I agree. So, I think a little bit of the interest in architecture started from art, I have a grandmother and mom and great-grandmother that were all artists, and in some fashion or another. And I think I got a lot of that, but also, having a lot of time by myself as a kid, I found myself diving into art, and so drawing and painting, and making things was just something that I did as a kid.

And then, when I learned about architecture and learned that there was sort of this combination between art and science, and you're solving problems that allow you to express yourself and come up with crazy ideas. And I think I got drawn into that concept. So, architecture, you know, it's funny, you talk about coincidence or serendipity and those sort of things, but the reason I chose architecture, honest truth, I was sitting in a hotel room on my visit to Portland State University for football, and they said, "You know, you need to pick a major."

And I took the catalog and just went [inaudible], and landed on architecture, and I was like, "I'm going to get into architecture." And lo and behold, that was like the thing I was supposed to do, but the way that I arrived at it was completely coincidental maybe.

[04:45]Brian Jackson: Yeah, but sometimes leaving it to chance and just letting things happen, right? It puts you where you're supposed to be.

[04:51]Scott Deans: Yeah. I think, you know, I've always been somebody who's sort of, let life unfold in front of you, while you can have serious goals and intentions and objectives. It's almost more powerful, in my opinion, to let things occur, be observant of it, and then adjust and pivot and move to those goals and objectives that are facing you.

So, that was a case of how I ended up in architecture. It was a tough road being in an architecture school and a scholarship athlete. Which, I found out later, I was the very first scholarshipped athlete to graduate in architecture.

[05:33]Brian Jackson: Wow.

[05:33]Scott Deans: It took six years, because the first two years, you know, you're 100% focused on sports and athletics, but architecture's very demanding in terms of studio time, and I just wasn't able to be successful the first two years. So, when I decided to really focus on it. I just had to turn it on and go 100% into that. And that's where, you know, things kind of kicked off from there.

[05:56]Brian Jackson: Well, and you ended up at BP, where you spent about a decade, where you were planning, analytics and performance. This is a bit of a pivot from architecture.

[06:07]Scott Deans: Yeah. And the reason I got into it was during the oil spill or the incident, Macondo, and I was actually brought into that emergency event, because the person who sort of recruited me was looking for someone who thought like an architect. And I said, "Well, wait a minute, what's the job?" And my whole family for about five generations is military background, and so I must have that sort of DNA in me.

And emergency response has a heavy kind of connection to militaristic thinking, incident management, and all those things are very structured. They're very architectural in my mind. There's things that you do. There's line of command, there's all these things that I resonate with. So, I went to the incident, and we ended up working that for about a year.

And after that, BP said, "Well, we'd like you to come to Houston and work on some other things." So, I decided to do that and moved right into the performance management world, where I could actually start to combine really the artistry of organizational thinking or strategic thinking, because the community of engineers and physicists and those folks, in the energy world, I think welcomed a little bit of that artistic thinking, which may have been an anomaly in the environment.

So, I found myself drawing diagrams on whiteboards all the time with, like, a group of people, and I'm trying to, like, convey a message, and I think part of the success in that was, it was just a completely different way of thinking about a problem that they were solving. It ended up working out really well, learned a lot, not only about the energy industry, but large corporations. Ultimately ended up being the director of performance across the upstream, which is a massive organization with many components of the business.

And my job was to basically tell the executives what the performance data is telling us, to help them make decisions. And that came with a lot of data and analytics. It came with visuals, it came with conveying messages through graphics or whatever else. And throughout the 12 years at BP, it went from sort of paper or classical ways of showing information.

Excel spreadsheets and charts and graphs, and that sort of thing. And like, you know, reports on paper. But the digital transformation that occurred in probably 2008 to 2012, I started leading, like, digital product development to do those same things. How do you make it faster? How do you make it simpler? How do you create tools where people can do it themselves? You know that sort of thing.

So, that was kind of the latter years of working there. In my mind, it was a combination of how being an architect meets engineering and energy. And so, yeah, it was really, really a fun time.

[09:33]Brian Jackson: And it's challenging too, like communicating really complicated information to executives. Like they need to know why. What is the impact they need to make decisions based on it? At the same time, like you were saying, technology was changing, and the ways of communicating information were changing. I don't know, any tips or tricks you learned kind of through the evolution that you could share?

[09:56]Scott Deans: I think, always try to ask better questions, and this has been a mantra of mine since I was a little kid, I think. Because you know, there's always going to be answers. You can always find a solution. But is the solution the right one? And is there a better question we could be asking to really achieve an impact or a positive outcome that you're looking for?

But sometimes that leads you to, you know, a lot of rework or pivoting and changing. And so, it creates a mindset of constant flux. Like you're in constant change. And that's not an easy mindset for many people. So, some of the advice I would give is, if you're a structured thinker and a structured person and you need step A, B, C, D, E, F to kind of operate, that's great, and you're probably really good at that because you've been working in that modality, but test yourself.

If all of a sudden A, B, D occurs or W shows in from the side and, you know, like, what are you going to do? And that, that could be in like, technology exploration. That could be in completely changing your strategy because you found a better question to ask. And so, being nimble and being agile, I think, is a really powerful skill in anything that you do.

So, yeah, that's kind of what I... The big things that I've taken from my experience, and 100% deploying all those things today in my new venture, which is challenging. It's challenging and great at the same time, but it's something that I think is really important, to make sure that you're kind of tackling the most powerful thing you can be and not being afraid to say you're wrong and scrap it and come back to something new. Just do it fast, reiterate, or iterate many times. That's a really powerful thing.

[12:06]Brian Jackson: Absolutely, and I feel like being afraid of asking questions, some folks feel like it's an admission of not knowing, then it's an admission of inadequacy, and that fear stops you from these possible iterations like you're talking about, and these other opportunities because you're straddled onto A, B, and C.

[12:25]Scott Deans: 100%. And it is something that you have to wrestle with, I think internally a little bit. And it starts to speak to, you know, what kind of a leader are you? And I think I try to practice vulnerability and transparency, because I'm learning too. I'm learning every day. So, yeah, being willing to say that you were wrong or you could do something better is often a healthy thing, I think.

[12:52]Brian Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. It builds the culture of openness. Right? So, I guess your next kind of phase I think of is your Rice MBA. What made you decide that, you know, an MBA was something that you wanted, those three letters at the end of your name?

[13:06]Scott Deans: Yeah, well, a couple of things sort of again pushed me into the decision. One, my time at BP was coming on the back of a COVID year. So, a remote year, we were actually doing a massive project on reorganization and changing everything. That was kind of the way things worked. And the remote environment just started to create some disconnect, and I found myself wanting more.

And so, I figured what… I have an extra, a lot of extra time here, and I'm starting to really get excited about the business side of things. So, I applied the MBA program at Rice, along with a few others, and had a decision at the end, fortunately of where I wanted to go. And Rice is a quarter mile from my house, you know, obviously one of the best programs in the world.

And so, yeah, decided to go for it and of course, wanted to do that simultaneous with working and maintaining a full-time job. So, got in. And then that was sort of the first day of a big new chapter coming, which happened about a year later, halfway through the program.

[14:23]Brian Jackson: When you sat down that first day, did you go, "Okay, right decision," or "What am I doing?" What was the feeling?

[14:32]Scott Deans: To be honest, in the beginning, because our first year of the program was also remote because of COVID. So, we were like the first class ever doing this Executive MBA, full-time, remotely. So, you know, our cohort was pioneering something brand new. So, I kind of thought that was interesting and fun.

But it also made it pretty challenging because, you know, part of the real interest in the program was the people, and we didn't really get to meet each other for a year. Lots of Zoom calls like this, so you, you know, you're meeting people and creating relationships through a screen, which ended up working out well, and to a really cool, actual meeting of people one year into the program.

And so, the beginning was kind of what I've… what I expected. I expected to be challenged to learn new things, to find what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, and you know, the neat thing was it was just, "We're doing it. It's 100%. I don't care what shows up, we're going to go," and that was the kind of mentality going into it.

[15:43]Brian Jackson: Yeah, I was, uh, online program, we're the, I think the second cohort. So, we were really the initial pioneers on the online space for the business school. But it's tough to go through a computer screen and build relationships, and a lot of the value of your MBA, it's your classmates and networking, and learning from each other.

But also in 2026, most of the new calls I have with potential customers or opportunities, it's over Zoom. Like this is where you build relationships, and this online kind of persona that you have to build is ever more important, you know, than it was 10 years ago.

[16:21]Scott Deans: Definitely.

[16:21]Brian Jackson: So, at one point, the MBA program, I guess it dawned on you that, you know, entrepreneurship was a pathway, and then it seemed like a real legitimate pathway that you could take. What was that kind of realization like?

[16:35]Scott Deans: It was really just a confirmation, rather than a new realization. I'm an only child, and I grew up on a boat, a small boat in San Francisco Bay.

[16:44]Brian Jackson: You're kidding.

[16:46]Scott Deans: No, so-

[16:46]Brian Jackson: Wow.

[16:47]Scott Deans: ... I was secluded and by myself a lot of times. So, I was an entrepreneur of a very young age. I think, at my first business, I was nine years old. So, I've always had an entrepreneurial kind of process and mindset, but I didn't know it. I didn't know it was entrepreneurial kind of thinking, or that I should have probably done this sooner.

But, at one point in the MBA program, when you're going through Al Danto's class at the time with pathways to entrepreneurship, and you're going through leadership training, you're going through all these different internal processes of like, "Who am I and what do I want to do with my life? What's the purpose of what I'm doing with my life?" All those things.

I was like, "Wait a minute. I'm supposed to own my own business here." And that happened pretty quickly, actually. And so, maybe after the first semester, I was already working through ideas. And in fact, I went through two ideas before BeONE Sports at the program. And one of them was through the energy world, because I thought maybe I would do something in energy.

Another one was actually a food and beverage concept to solve a problem that I found in that industry. And even went through customer discovery for both of those things and had people interested and all this stuff. And I was like, "You know what? These things aren't really scratching the itch." And I sat back again and went back to, "Okay, where is my passion?" Not, "Where is my experience?" or "Where is my, you know, current knowledge base?" "What's my passion?"

And it always goes back to sports. It always goes back to that competitive moment with learning and struggle and, you know, what happens in the world of sports. And so, I was like, "Okay, that's it." So now, I start taking in my experience and my knowledge and all that from competitive environments, the data and analytics side from my previous jobs, the art and architecture, all that stuff combined into what is now BeONE Sports.

And that's what's really neat about that process of finding what you want to do with what you can do and then working simultaneously between those things. I think that's why I am still at it here, you know, in our fourth year at BeONE, because I am truly waking up every day and doing what matters to me and what matters, I think, to the people that we work with and provide solutions for.

So, I sometimes imagine if I had chosen the other, one of the other companies, and I was like… There's no way I'd be here after four years, grinding through the trenches as they say on something that didn't matter to me. So, yeah, I think that's a huge, huge point in any entrepreneurial journey — that it has to matter to you, otherwise you're not willing to compromise and go through all the pain in order to make it successful.

[20:03]Brian Jackson: That's, I think, fantastic advice. So, Scott, BeONE is pioneering this thing that’s called comparative training technology. Could you explain kind of what that is?

[20:15]Scott Deans: Really simply in a nutshell, in sports, you are learning all these different movements and actions, and those movements and actions lead to success in the sport or success on the field or on the court. The perfect example is like being a quarterback. A quarterback in football, there's a lot of mechanics that go into playing that position successfully, whether it's your foot placement on a drop back or your throwing mechanics, or you know, even just being in the right body position to scan the field and read the defense, there's biomechanics and body movements that can be trained.

And so, what comparative training does is basically give you an option to learn from somebody who's already achieved a level of progress or a level of greatness. And so, the concept around, you know, when you're a kid, and you're learning from a coach, or nowadays you're watching YouTube or something, and you're trying to understand what to do, and then translate that to your body while you're on the field training.

And there's a massive disconnect between watching somebody do something great and then try to mimic that on the field for yourself. So, the technology that we developed is just a way to make that simpler and faster, and more consistent. And so, we use computer vision technology that tracks what your body's doing.

And through a variety of algorithms and pieces that we've added to the technology, it basically allows a subject with some other subject to be seen in the same space and time, which allows us to create all sorts of calculations that are supposed to be what we call metrics that matter. And through those metrics, a person can actually learn faster.

So, in a nutshell, if I want to learn to be a quarterback, like a collegiate athlete or a professional athlete, then we provide that comparative, that athlete in the system, so you can see yourself against that athlete, and it actually creates the calculations and tells you where on your body and when you're producing errors.

So, the whole technology is about learning, and the whole process is about how do you make it simpler, faster, and more versatile for everybody to use.

[23:03]Brian Jackson: Just thinking of an example, so let's say I am a golfer. You record me with my swing, you would then get the metrics from a comparative, let's say, Tiger Woods. You would put that over my swing, and then it would give me metrics that matter, which show, kind of, the differences and potential movements I could make in order to achieve a better swing?

[23:23]Scott Deans: Essentially. Yep. There's components of this, right? So, each movement can be broken down into micro actions. And those micro actions are things that we've developed and embedded into the artificial intelligence. So, they're called AI recognition models for sports. And so, we train models to find these key moments in any movement.

Now, the trick is, Tiger Woods, for example, if you're actually using Tiger Woods, then you have to have license to do so if you're going to commercialize that product, right? So, that's been one of the hurdles or barriers to the concept, although I think we now have 220-something comparative athletes in elite sports, so we've solved that issue.

Now, of course, Tiger's not in the system because we haven't quite gotten there yet, but maybe someday, he just would get excited about training kids around the world without doing anything. And that's the value proposition to the comparative athletes that, you know, there's so many athletes out there with 10, 20, 30 years of grit and tears training their craft.

And we've created a technology where they can now pass that on to the next generation without doing anything. So, the concept has really been for every athlete that we've spoken to who has a desire to give back in some way but doesn't have the time and effort to do it. It's been really positive because their skillset is there, and we're just finding a way to unlock all that talent and pass it on to everyone else.

[25:13]Brian Jackson: Oh, you're solving a huge issue for players and coaches, right? Like, you're giving them this example that would otherwise not be available.

[25:22]Scott Deans: Yeah. And the kind of trick I think behind it is having the example be relevant to the person, right? Because I mean, there's tons of examples out there. You can go watch pretty much any athlete, probably on YouTube, and you're just watching it. But the real innovation here is that it is lined up to what the subject athlete is doing.

Otherwise, you're always trying to say, "Well, what's that guy doing and what am I doing?" And there's a disconnect. That's where the real sort of technology innovation exists. And that's really where we're on the cutting edge of producing this. And now, we've patented that process. So, we think we can really enhance on it for quite a while.

[26:09]Brian Jackson: And that only sports people I know are golf people, and I'm also just not very good at sports, but like you're saying, matching to the right athlete for, you know, a comparative, that makes sense. So, you wouldn't necessarily have Tiger Woods match with me, maybe John Daly or Bubba Watson. Like their swing, their form, for whatever reason, it hits metrics, it makes more sense for me. Right?

[26:33]Scott Deans: That's right. Yeah. So, everybody's different, whether it's your skillset, your maturity in the sport, or the movement, or just your physiology, right? Your anatomy, all of these things, make everybody unique and different. Your style could be different, but that's kind of the beauty, and the way we've built this is we don't attempt to fit everybody into a single athlete or a single comparative.

We're creating a catalog of elite athletes because they, too, are different. You can be a professional athlete, you know, in the hall of fame, and look and swing a baseball bat very differently. One, because your just anatomical ability is different. Your physiological ability is different, but your style might be different.

So, we create this massive catalog of learning opportunities, and then that way, when an athlete who wants to learn fits a certain style, or it fits a certain anatomy or physiology, we can match them up. And say, "Hey, we've recognized you're moving like this person or these top five or whatever, consider using these."

So, it's really about just providing the largest catalog of learning opportunity possible and then kind of matching people up based on movements and things that we recognize or find. And that's kind of the sort of concept that really anybody can use this, and anybody can learn from it, and then you have fun in the process, sort of training with your heroes.

[28:12]Brian Jackson: That's incredible. And you were, you were able to co-found BeONE with another Rice MBA alum, Jason Bell, and also a former Rice student athlete, James McNaney. What did each of you bring to the table? I mean, I feel like partnerships, there's like elements from each of you that matter so much.

[28:30]Scott Deans: Oh, definitely. So, another big piece of the program at Rice was really focused on, like, building a team. And I've been a coach for a long time. I've been part of teams and built teams, so teams are, in my opinion, the linchpin, you know, really the basis for a product and, you know, a business and all those things.

But part of that process is everybody's recognizing what they're good at and what they're not good at, and then where you have gaps. You need to find people who are strong in those areas. So, I recognize really quickly the areas that I'm not strong at, and Jason, basically, from a business side and many other sides, filled those perfectly.

And so, when we started working together in the early days, we were able to really sort of look at everything we need to be doing and saw that, "Okay, between the two of us, we really can cover all the bases," but there was one side that was not covered, which was basically the data science side behind what we wanted to produce.

Now, interestingly, Jason and I, across the two of us, probably have like 45 years of collective experience in data and digital products. However, the data science component of this, the machine learning component, and building artificial intelligence, the actual nitty-gritty behind this, is what we needed to get.

And so, we had the opportunity to hook up with James, and he is a wiz in that regard. But also happened to be training for the Olympics at the same time that we found him. So, we were like, "This is amazing," you know, collision with sports competitive knowledge, and data science. So, you know, we really started working heavily with James, and he showed a deep interest.

So, you know, we quickly, the three of us, got hooked up and been building ever since. You know, James is really, now we think of him as a Technical Founder. His name is on the patent with mine. So, it's like a really important side of this because it's the basis of, kind of, what we're doing.

[30:50]Brian Jackson: And those partnerships, I mean, I think Rice brings a ton to the table. That's one part of it, is that access. And you had an additional partnership with Rice University's Office of Innovation, and also the Athletics Group, Rice Athletics, you know, could you tell me a bit about that and what the goals are for that partnership?

[31:06]Scott Deans: Yeah, so the, the first partnership was with Rice Athletics, and that was mostly because we were basically showing something new, and they were very willing to test it out and help us and use the product, generate data. And that partnership was really great in the beginning. Now that we're moving the software to the next version, we're going to sort of redo and kind of re-up that partnership, because the technology has advanced, the use cases for the technology have advanced.

And so, now we can do even more inside of Rice Athletics. The Office of Innovation was actually based on our goals and sort of interests in applying our technology in the military. And so, once we learned that we actually had a lot of use cases inside the military or the Department of Defense, we started connecting with the Office of Innovation who also has a group and a team and an effort who does the same thing. And so, we built a little team with Office of Innovation, created a partnership and an agreement to tackle a couple open RFPs for technology.

And we ended up actually getting a contract in the Air Force together. And that Phase 1 contract was an amazing first time working for the government. And, you know, we sort of combined our efforts to produce a Phase 1 solution. We proposed the Phase 2 solution, which would've been a massive, massive contract, and we fell just short of getting the Phase 2 contract, but the opportunity still sits there, and there are so many opportunities in that space that we really, we really want to continue building that branch of the company and continue to enhance that partnership.

Our challenge right now is focus priority and human resources to do all that. Because we have to keep our company objectives clear, which is sports right now. But the moment we are able to grow a little bit and have the ability to start continuing that military and Department of Defense use case, that's where we're headed.

[33:42]Brian Jackson: Wow. I guess I'm really interested, you know, how are Rice Athletes using your technology during a season? What does that look like?

[33:50]Scott Deans: I think currently they're probably not using it because we're in between 1.0 and 2.0. So, 1.0 was just a mobile application. It was really kind of a beta on the whole concept, what we had eventually patented and everything. In the initial days, it was all functional movement, mobility use cases. We had a lot, like, focused on speed and agility, so you know, how athletes are sprinting? What their form and technique looks like coming off of the line? What their mobility patterns look like?

And baseball, soccer, tennis, I think golf is going to start here pretty soon. So, lots of applications within the department. What I think we're hoping to do for 2.0 is go 10x on the use of the technology throughout the different teams. Partly because we've now built a platform that will allow coaches and athletes to do that. But there's also this piece where, which it's not just Rice. We're seeing it across the industry where companies are creating technology sort of on a curve like this.

And the people using it are sort of at a more flatlined use of it, partly because technology is advancing very, very quickly. And it's advancing faster than people know what to do with it. But also, there's a customer adoption piece that we have to sort of grow with our customer base because a lot of coaches and athletes, one, don't even know the technology exists, but two, don't know how to use it.

And then three, don't know how to adapt what they currently do to the new way, potentially of using technology to inform decisions. So, all three of those things lead to how well this is being deployed across the industry. And so, those are some of the challenges, and we see that really with all of our customers.

[35:58]Brian Jackson: So, then how do you deploy it? I mean, are you going to conferences, kind of, road shows? Are you, you know, directly going to university sports athletics programs and presenting? Like, what does that kind of pitch look like?

[36:11]Scott Deans: Yeah. There's a lot of thought that has to go into your go-to-market strategy. We've mostly focused on creating organizational relationships. However, the product is actually designed for the mom or dad in the garage training their 12-year-old, and what… The challenge for that is there's quite a bit of difference in your target sectors or your customers that you're actually designing for.

Because whether you're shooting an organization in the NFL level or the MLS level or whatever, versus an individual user, that's like both ends of the spectrum. The real trick is building something that works across that entire spectrum without requiring the company to do things vastly different, and that has to go across marketing, that has to go across product design.

And so, it is a bit of a challenge, but at the end of the day, we're really building contracts and relationships with organizations, with schools, with clubs, but also with private trainers, and individual users who want to use the technology. So, we're building quite a versatile model to allow any of those relationships to occur.

[37:34]Brian Jackson: Wow. So, I guess as a founder, what's one assumption that you had early on that now you look back, and you're like, "Ah, that was completely wrong?”

[37:42]Scott Deans: There's a few that I would say. One of them is the commitment of your closest people. So, your family, your friends, they will absolutely be affected in an entrepreneurial journey. They'll be affected financially, emotionally, they'll be affected just by your presence or lack of presence. So, you have to really think about everyone that's close to you in this journey, and are they up for the challenge as well? Because you need that support.

You can't be fighting that area, otherwise the meaning behind what you're doing changes. So, there's a component of compromise. What are you willing to compromise in order to be successful? And then, you have to ask them, what are they willing to compromise in order for you to be successful? That's something that I was not appreciating at the beginning, but something we learned pretty quickly. And I'm fortunate to have such a strong support structure with my wife and my kids, and family. So, that's a big one.

The second one is double whatever time you think this journey is going to be. So, if you think, "Oh, this is going to be a two, three year thing and I'm just going to build it and sell it or whatever," double it, and then take your current salary at your current job and reduce it to 10% across that doubled time, then say, "Okay, do I want to do that?"

Because that is more than likely the reality. You know, they always say in school and everywhere else that you've got to grind through the trenches and you got to be tough and you got to keep going and all that stuff. That doesn't mean anything to anybody until they're in the trenches, and you're not truly in the trenches until all those things have occurred, like, you're broke, you're tired, nothing's working, you have no customers, you know.

It isn't until then that you're like, "Holy moly, I'm in the trenches." And so, you just have to be prepared for what you're about to put yourself through. And then lastly, it's assess and reassess where you are. So, as a founder, you have to be the one that is leading. You have to be passionate. You have to be the one that's like driving inspiration, like "We're doing the right thing, all these things are great," but you also have to be the very first one to look at everything and say, "This is going to fail, and we need to stop."

Which is a really challenging thing because if you're just the person saying, "Rah, rah, rah, let's go, let's go." Then you're just going to spend a decade, ruining what you may have built. You have to be the first one to also say, "Okay, it is time to cut the cord and bow out. And you know, chalk it up to a failure."

So, it's a really, it's a really challenging and important place to be. And again, it all gets back to internal transparency and being able to assess things objectively.

[41:04]Brian Jackson: That's great advice, and I feel like if it's something you're passionate about too, knowing how to temper the passion a bit to say, "okay, time out. We got to pause this. It's not working," is probably the hardest decision to have to make.

[41:18]Scott Deans: Yeah. Because you're, like we were saying before, you're not just telling everybody you were wrong. You're telling yourself that, "Well, wait a minute, maybe my passion is a little bit skewed," or "I'm being overly ambitious," or "I'm naive," or whatever. But, at the end of the day, I love it. You know, I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. There's always going to be products, always going to be solutions, always going to be ways to solve problems, but are you doing it in a way that matters? And I think that's the biggest key.

[41:50]Brian Jackson: Yeah. The one last question I had, the Winter Olympics are happening now. What's your favorite sport to watch?

[41:57]Scott Deans: Oh, that's a tough one. Well, first of all, every time I see the Olympics or major sporting event, I get really jealous, especially if we're not there. Because I sit there and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, there's so many uses for BeONE technology in this sport and all of these things." I mean, obviously, in winter sports, I love the snowboarding and the skiing.

I actually really like speed skating. I'm a hockey player. I still play hockey, but the form and technique in speed skating would be absolutely perfect for what we do. But I think those opportunities will come. We have some interesting connections going. We know a few athletes that are competing. So, maybe the next one we'll be, we'll be there.

[42:46]Brian Jackson: Yeah. Well, Scott, it has been fantastic speaking of you this morning. Thank you for joining me. I greatly appreciate it.

[42:53]Scott Deans: Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me. We'll do it again sometime in the future.

[43:00]Brian Jackson: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcast. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Brian Jackson, and Maya Pomroy.