Meerkat Companies’ Zach Rapaport on Using AI to Make Employees Feel Safer in Their Jobs

When Zach Rapaport's father handed him a broom instead of a project management role after college, it sparked an unlikely journey from sweeping construction sites to becoming Founder & Principal at Meerkat Companies — and managing 150,000 square feet of development projects in just its first year. 

 

In this episode of The Future of Construction, Zach tells Chloe how he feeds complex land ordinances into AI "cauldrons" to qualify development opportunities in minutes rather than hours, his surprising success with Gen Z employees who consistently arrive at the office before he does, and why he rejected the venture-capital model to build a sustainable company that prioritizes employee psychological safety over rapid expansion. 

 

Zach also shares the transformative moment when he saw families enjoying a restaurant he'd built, cementing his passion for hospitality construction over warehouse development.

 

Topics discussed:

 

• Using AI to rapidly assess land ordinances and development opportunities, reducing decision time from hours to minutes by efficiently processing complex regulatory documents to get faster thumbs up/down decisions.
• Successful strategies for hiring and retaining Gen Z talent in construction, focusing on flexibility, site visits that showcase tangible results, and creating an environment where passion is contagious.
• The tangible rewards of construction that transcend generations and give the visceral satisfaction of transforming spaces and seeing people enjoying environments you helped create.
• Creating sustainable growth models focused on revenue-driven expansion rather than venture capital infusion, prioritizing employee stability and psychological safety.
• The shift toward strategic partnerships between smaller firms rather than mergers and acquisitions, allowing companies to maintain sovereignty while collaborating on larger projects.
• Modern approaches to project management, including remote collaboration with design firms globally, leveraging tools like Zoom and 3D modeling services to break geographical limitations.
• Emerging construction tech innovations, including Adaptive (financing for smaller GCs), Sites (retail space marketplace), and Pillar (development site platform for identifying optimal locations).
• How time saved through AI tools is reinvested in organizational efficiency, creating psychological safety for teams, and building sustainable business operations.