What if building a home was as fast and seamless as assembling a car?

In this episode, I sit down with Alexis Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Cover, to talk about his company's bold efforts to reinvent how homes are built and the slow-motion disaster of LA's permitting system.

Alexis shares how Cover is rethinking every step of the building process—from design and engineering to manufacturing and on-site assembly. We explore how they set a new record for the fastest ADU ever built in Los Angeles (3.5 months from contract to occupancy), and why the biggest bottleneck he faces is bureaucracy.

We talk about why the current permitting system is broke and why real reform means deleting entire layers of red tape, not just “streamlining” bad processes. We also talk about how much potential California has left to grow and what it would look like to house 1 billion people. We also explore the deeper political and cultural shift needed to spark a true pro-housing movement in California.

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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVNumolJuKvqJScBEnhe8hQ

Chapters

00:00 – Intro

05:29 – Cover’s Long-Term Vision

08:23 – 1 Billion Californians

14:01 – Cover and California’s Identity

17:04 – Why Build in California?

20:17 – LA Fire Rebuild

24:17 – Policy Levers to Create More Housing

32:14 – Building a Pro-Housing Movement

35:00 – Hope for the Future of California

Keywords

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