Nicholas Childs PART 1: From Analog Roots to Digital Frontiers

NICHOLAS CHILD

As a salesperson, I don't think of myself as selling. I think of myself as listening and trying to figure out if I can solve a problem. And what comes out of solving that problem is usually something that is a new technology that we're selling to someone. So first and foremost, the organization that I'm working with has to be ready. They have to be in a place where they're ready for change. And there's usually some kind of pain associated to that.

GREG SIMPSON

You pay tax on liquor when you barrel it.

NICHOLAS CHILD

I didn't even know that.

GREG SIMPSON

Yeah. So they have a real vested interest in it not leaking. And so they have these oak casks, all this stuff. I don't know about ... Look, I know how to drink it, but I do not. Honestly, I don't.

NICHOLAS CHILD

I did work at a distillery in college.

GREG SIMPSON

So what part did you do? What do you do at a distillery?

NICHOLAS CHILD

Let me say this. When I say I worked there, I did the social media management for a distillery in college. I didn't do any hard labor. No, no, no, no, no.

GREG SIMPSON

No, I was thinking you're like pouring up the bottles and taking time every now and again. Definitely tastes. You don't drink. You told me last night you don't drink.

NICHOLAS CHILD

I did.

GREG SIMPSON

I used to. Honest to God, I wish I've gotten to where I drink a lot less, for sure. Unfortunately, when you get in a social space in our space, it becomes kind of a drinking your hand and that's not... It's the easiest. But it's empty calories. And so you don't look like you have any issue with calories today. So I don't think you have any problem, Nick.

But hey gang, Greg here. Welcome to the Built to Suit podcast, the podcast that's built to build what's next. Now occasionally someone comes along that you just want to talk to and today you're going to find we have an excellent choice that fits the bill for sure. Nick Childs of Autodesk — I guess Nicholas is the pure name — but he is just one of those people you don't need a title to know when you are smart.

And frankly, he's one of the smartest guys in tech I know. And I think it's a real important time today for us to introduce him to you. So welcome, Nick.

NICHOLAS CHILD

Hey, thanks for having me.

GREG SIMPSON

So I'm this analog guy. You know I'm an analog guy. I grew up, I've got no hair. And you feel like you're kind of more of a digital guy, but you seem old enough to have investigated that whole analog space. So you enjoy tech. Tell me where that came from.

NICHOLAS CHILD

Good question. So it really stems from when I was a kid. I grew up in Minnesota. My dad is actually a physicist — a high molecular physicist. My mom happens to be an occupational therapist.

My dad originally was working for Honeywell and Lockheed Martin, which is why we ended up in Minnesota. He later started his own company doing chip manufacturing. That really propelled me into technology.

I was also a big gamer growing up. So yeah, it all stemmed from that.

GREG SIMPSON

You've got this career arc that obviously didn’t start at Autodesk. Talk a little bit about your beginnings because people often think you just start where you end up, but you really worked your way there.

NICHOLAS CHILD

Yeah. I started off in pharmacy school in North Dakota and then moved to Montana. Montana was changing a lot at the time — moving toward tech and management information systems.

One of my first jobs was with Square Payment Systems. This was at the very beginning when Square was just those little card readers you plugged into your phone.

They didn’t have marketing, so they hired college students to go sign vendors up. It was direct sales — knocking on doors and talking to small business owners about payment processing.

That experience taught me that technology can improve people’s lives at a basic foundational level.

GREG SIMPSON

You also worked in gaming with Ubisoft. What was that like?

NICHOLAS CHILD

That was awesome. I represented Ubisoft as one of 40 students nationwide. I helped launch games like Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance 2.

I threw events where people got to test games before launch. It changed my perspective on gaming — from isolated hobby to something social and community-driven.

GREG SIMPSON

That eventually led you to Autodesk products like Maya and 3ds Max. How did you make that leap?

NICHOLAS CHILD

I researched how Ubisoft developed games and Autodesk kept coming up. At the time, I really didn’t know what Autodesk did.

I blindly applied. After I got hired, my boss told me he knew I lied during the interview — but he hired me because he saw how badly I wanted to work there.

That was my entrance into Autodesk.

GREG SIMPSON

You also worked at a drone startup.

NICHOLAS CHILD

Yeah. Startups are wild. I think everyone should do one at some point.

I joined 3DR when Autodesk launched Forge, now APS. The idea was to connect drone data into Autodesk environments.

At the time, drones had serious limitations — flight time, battery life, camera capability — and there were security concerns when integrating with third-party hardware.

But what I learned was huge: people in construction and surveying work incredibly hard, and technology can fundamentally change how they work.

I remember giving a 70-year-old survey manager an iPad after a drone flight. Before that, he wouldn’t touch technology. Afterward, he couldn’t put it down.

GREG SIMPSON

Now you focus heavily on cloud technology at Autodesk. What does “cloud” really mean today?

NICHOLAS CHILD

For us, cloud is the connected data environment that removes hardware restrictions and democratizes collaboration.

Ten years ago, opening large models required powerful hardware. Today, the cloud creates shared spaces where everyone can work together.

And now AI is beginning to layer on top of that.

GREG SIMPSON

You still have a lot of firms on-premise today. How do you help organizations adopt cloud platforms?

NICHOLAS CHILD

I don’t think of myself as selling. I think of myself as listening and trying to solve problems.

Organizations have to be ready for change, and usually there’s pain associated with that change. Sometimes it’s security. I’ve seen companies get hacked, lose access to files, and realize their systems aren’t resilient.

That often becomes the catalyst for transformation.

GREG SIMPSON

Do you think the pace of change is accelerating?

NICHOLAS CHILD

Absolutely. The changes ahead are non-linear. We’ve digitized so much information already, and now we can layer intelligence on top of that data.

Instead of manually processing PDFs and documents, systems can generate entirely new applications and workflows automatically.

Companies are now listening more closely to users and building faster than ever before.

GREG SIMPSON

What’s the biggest thing in AEC that people still aren’t fully seeing?

NICHOLAS CHILD

Convergence.

The separation between manufacturing, fabrication, and AEC is disappearing. In the future, project schedules and fabrication timelines will be tightly integrated and highly accurate.

We’ll know true manufacturing lead times and responsibilities in ways we never have before.

GREG SIMPSON

Software moves faster than people.

NICHOLAS CHILD

It absolutely does.

By the time I teach someone 100% of a product, there’s another 30% added. We’re all constantly trying to catch up to technology.

GREG SIMPSON

So this really becomes about behavior change and collaboration, not just software adoption.

NICHOLAS CHILD

Exactly. Owners especially have struggled because they didn’t know what to ask for. They would ask for everything instead of defining the actual problem.

What we’re trying to do is help organizations ask smarter questions and define real business outcomes.

GREG SIMPSON

What does being “digital” actually mean?

NICHOLAS CHILD

It’s about tools, processes, and storage.

You can have digital tools but still run highly manual processes. If people are walking sites with paper notes and manually re-entering information later, you’re not truly digital.

And if you’re storing information in file cabinets, you’re definitely not digital.

GREG SIMPSON

Where do most firms sit today on digital maturity?

NICHOLAS CHILD

Most companies are around a 2.3 out of 5 on the digital maturity scale, which is actually much better than five years ago.

The biggest limitations are repetitive manual tasks and disconnected workflows.

Every manual drag-and-drop process lowers maturity because it creates inefficiency and friction.

GREG SIMPSON

So where should firms start?

NICHOLAS CHILD

Start where you’re bleeding money.

Find the process causing pain and improve it first. Don’t overthink it.

Especially in architecture, design review workflows are often extremely fragmented and inefficient. If you streamline those workflows, you free up time, resources, and profitability.

GREG SIMPSON

That’s what we do. We engineer things.

And we engineered Nick Childs to come back again. Next time we’ll talk AI and what’s next.

That’s the Built to Suit podcast — the show built to build what’s next.