1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dennis Joyce of Alliance of Angels (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Given what you just said and if you’ll then look back on the deal flow that you have seen, I have a different question which is slightly off-center. Obviously we are at a time in history where there is a huge number of people who are unhappy and struggling and under tremendous stress. Their livelihoods are going away because of a lot of the things we’re doing with technology. Are you seeing deal flow with interesting concepts in addressing some of their pain?

Dennis Joyce: We see interesting products all the time that are addressing social issues. One is an app that helps with drug addiction and smoking cessation. Using software to help with those types of issues is an interesting concept. The other thing is with mechanization or robotics technology, I have a company that’s using real estate technology to help with the issue of affordable housing in some of our cities in America. That’s one of those things where it’s a big problem. It requires a lot of thinking.

Sramana Mitra: How would technology address affordable housing? Is this building technology or finding affordable housing technology?

Dennis Joyce: Building technology. One is a software company that helps real estate developers find great plots of land to develop products using AI. I have another company that’s in my portfolio that provides temporary housing solutions or factory-built housing solutions, which is geared towards tackling some of the affordable housing issues. We’re not solving this problem overnight. This is a long-term problem. I think that as an investor, these are things that are very important to me. I’m always looking at where should we be in 40 years, because that’s the timeframe I think about when I’m looking at an investment.

Sramana Mitra: In that timeframe, my read is we’re going to have a gigantic sustainability problem when it comes to jobs and livelihood. What happens to this huge population of people who don’t really have a sustainable livelihood in this wake of tremendous automation? I’m very curious about ideas that entrepreneurs are thinking about to mitigate that.

Dennis Joyce: It’s something that I’m thinking about and we’re working towards. You still need humans to control the automation. In the companies that I’m working with, the ones that are really thinking about automation, they have to hire a lot of people to work at that company that is actually automating.

Sramana Mitra: Maybe now, but that’s not going to be the case in 40 years. If you look at SoftCon for instance, they had 150,000 people and they go rid of 60,000 and replaced them with robots. That’s an enormous displacement.

Dennis Joyce: Definitely. I need to think about that a little bit more.

Sramana Mitra: If it’s a topic that interests you, look at my Man and Superman series on the 1M1M blog. You’ll find lots of food for thought. Feel free to engage and I’ll be able to dialog with you on the blog.

Dennis Joyce: That sounds awesome.

Sramana Mitra: I think we’ve got a sense of what you want to do and what you are doing. Do you want to add anything as parting comments to the entrepreneur community that is listening?

Dennis Joyce: I would. Investors are optimists almost to a fault. When I see problems in society, I try to see how we can fix those because I’m a very optimistic person. The advice I would give to entrepreneurs and people that are interested in innovation and technology is, when you see things that occur to you as important, try to see if you can solve those problems because the greatest ideas that we have are the ones that occur to an individual as important. Then they go after it and try to solve that problem and build a team to tackle those types of issues. I’m a big believer in providing opportunities for entrepreneurs that are looking to make a difference.

Sramana Mitra: On that note, thank you.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dennis Joyce of Alliance of Angels
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