Headline speakers at industry events are the forever premium attraction to draw an audience. Who doesn’t want to hear from the nation’s top oil and gas CEOs sharing their company stories and foresight? But aside from those presentations largely scripted, one-on-one interviews can offer other takeaway gems when energy leaders sit down to address questions. And while we can’t share them all, Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest two Q&As in case you missed them. They’re worth the read.

Alan Armstrong, president and CEO of Tulsa-based pipeline giant Williams, is a familiar figure on the speaker circuit with a whole lot to say about natural gas. He preaches and teaches about the evolving role natural gas plays in today’s energy spectrum and how Williams—a company now more than a century old—continues to rise like cream at the top. In a recent Q&A with McKinsey & Company, Armstrong shared WMB’s acquisition strategy following its recent series of pipeline, gathering and processing, and storage pick-ups that add to its sprawling infrastructure network, saying “Doing deals just to get bigger is a failed strategy.”

Maybe not so much for Houston-based E&P Chord Energy, whose February acquisition of Enerplus has been wet-kissed the largest operator in the Williston and now valued at $11 billion. In a Hart Energy interview with Chord’s Danny Brown, the CEO reveals “Getting bigger isn’t always better but there’s more ways to be better if you’re bigger.” Now supersized in the Bakken, Chord operates 1.3 million net acres, reported 168.4 MBOED in 1Q, and not at all entertaining an acquisition trip out of the basin it knows best.