1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Joshua Posamentier of Congruent Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Going a bit to your first example of investing in this robotics technology, one thing that I’m monitoring is we are probably going towards an accelerated pace of robotics adoption in factories.

We’ve just gone through a tremendous shock where factory workers can’t get to work. That creates tremendous supply chain disruption, so the people who own those factories are going to accelerate their moves to as much automation as possible and removing that risk of people not being able to come to work.

Coupled with that, there’s going to be a supply chain reorientation where countries are going to try to bring in more self-sufficient supply chain within their shores so that they don’t have to depend so much on China. There’s quite a bit of disruption.

How do you resolve the sustainability question on this? In one sense, it becomes more sustainable as in the supply chains can be disrupted less readily. On the other hand, it also accelerates the employment issue where automation replaces humans.

Joshua Posamentier: I agree with your analysis that this crisis is shifting people towards more automation. In addition to AMP Robotics, we have another company called Fox Robotics, which makes automated forklifts.

In much the same way, they both experience dramatic labor challenges. Picking recycling off of a conveyor belt eight hours a day is an awful job. Granted, some people have to do it, but they have huge issues staffing those roles. People won’t stay in them. They’re not doing them very well.

You have to ask yourself what’s the point of having a person do those jobs if they’re turning over that quickly. Maybe there are some things that robotics are more suited for.

Nobody’s going at these with an eye for specifically removing people from the equation. They’re going after them because they can’t find the people. This is happening in agriculture as well. There aren’t enough people to pick those crops. There’s just a massive labor shortage.

With Fox Robotics, automating forklifts is much more a safety feature. There’s not numerically that many forklift drivers in the world. It’s one of the most dangerous things you can do. By automating that, you make it a lot safer.

It’s the same thing for automotive autonomy. In the US, 40,000 people are killed in traffic accidents. If you could reduce that by half, what’s that worth to society?

Can we slow the shift to automation for manufacturing and logistics? I don’t think so. We’ve been on this automation march for at least the last 50 years. Ultimately, it drops the cost of manufacturing. That trend is happening. We’d rather see it in the most sustainable way possible. Hopefully, not erode jobs but improve existing worker productivity. 

Sramana Mitra: From an entrepreneurship and venture capital point of view, manufacturing and supply chain is one of the greatest money-making opportunities for the next decade. I don’t think entrepreneurs or investors are going to hesitate on that one. They should not hesitate on that one.

The bigger philosophical question is much more complex. My Man and Superman series covers that.

Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Joshua Posamentier of Congruent Ventures
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