Month: October 2023

SRTX

It’s hard to convey the immense scale Sheertex has achieved in such a short time since its founding in 2017. Now going by SRTX, it will become one of Canada’s largest textile manufacturers with its upcoming 1,000,000-square-foot factory in Montreal.

Yet, the vast size of the factory, the quantity of pantyhose sold, and even their revenue only tell 1% of their story. If you think SRTX is “only” a direct-to-consumer company selling unbreakable pantyhose named Sheertex, think again.

The power couple, Katherine Homuth and Zak Homuth, are not your typical founders. Each has led their respective tech startups as CEO/founder. Together, they are building SRTX from the ground up as a software company and an advanced material company that is “disguised” as a textile company.

Check out the three products on SRTX Labs and you will understand.

Watertex – Their proprietary technical textile is crafted with one of the world’s most hydrophobic polymers that are engineered for unparalleled water resistance. Swimwear is an obvious use case. Clearly, there are more.

Cortex Software – Built to automate manufacturing operations, Cortex is a SaaS platform for running modern, connected, responsive and real-time aware soft goods and textiles factories. It enables factories to go paperless, generates meaningful insights into production and gives operators better work order control and reporting capabilities.

Sheertex – Its rip-resistant technology is already world-famous. Enough said.

STRX is rewriting the rules of textiles. This is another great example of our investment thesis:

Two Small Fish Ventures invests in early-stage products, platforms, and protocols that transform user behaviour and empower businesses and individuals to unlock new values.

Fear of AI?

Just shared my thoughts, titled “We’re wrong to fear artificial intelligence – real life is not science fiction“, on AI’s transformative impact in The Globe and Mail. Here is the full article:

As an engineer-turned-CEO-turned-investor, I’ve been involved in the AI space long enough that I can anticipate where the technology is headed and witnessed AI’s immense potential and its challenges. But remember, tech often solves its own hurdles. With AI, I see a future of superhuman abilities and new job horizons. Let’s embrace this future.

The piece is now available in full here:

Artificial intelligence has been dominating the headlines lately, and with good reason – AI is a transformative technology that can dramatically change how we live, work and play. Although many of the news stories focus on the potential risks and threats of AI, my intent is to present an alternative perspective.

For context, I was the chief executive officer for more than 15 years at Wattpad, an AI-driven storytelling company that was acquired by Naver in 2021. Now at Two Small Fish Ventures, I invest in many established AI companies, such as Ada and BenchSci, as well as emerging generative AI startups, such as Ideogram.

As an engineer-turned-CEO-turned-investor, I’ve been involved in the AI space long enough that I can anticipate where the technology is headed.

Yes, the technology will also create issues. Broadly, they cluster into three categories:

  • Security – from misinformation to autonomous weapons.
  • Job displacement – the replacement of human workers with machines.
  • Singularity – the point where AI might outwit and elude human control.

But I am confident that AI is a transformational technology that will be a net positive for society. Imposing heavy regulation or a pause today seems an unenforceable overreaction and even stifles creativity for potential solutions.

It’s a truism that novel technologies pose new challenges. Yet the remedy for these challenges is typically found within technology itself.

Take security. We’ve seen the narrative play out many times over. In the early days of the internet, people were (rightfully) very concerned about digitally sharing their credit card information. Over time, the widespread adoption of chip/PIN technology, stronger encryption and, ultimately, the birth of an entire cybersecurity industry addressed most of these challenges. Today, there are several technologies that can detect deep fake videos that would otherwise escape authentication systems. It is not hard to imagine that an uber-advanced cybersecurity industry can nullify emerging AI-related threats.

When it comes to the risk of job displacement, this is also something society has been challenged with time and time again. The Industrial Revolution ushered in both job elimination and creation. Yes, automation erases specific roles, but it concurrently births new ones. There is frictional pain and dislocation in the process, and sometimes, the new jobs go to different people in different places, but over time, the total number of jobs actually goes up substantially. Over all, society has thrived, and we’ve all become more prosperous.

AI will help turn humans into superhumans. Just like electronic spreadsheets didn’t sideline accountants but enhanced their efficiency, AI will supercharge worker productivity and output – a key element for economic growth. Plus, the fast pace of innovation will create new jobs that didn’t exist previously, like AI-prompt engineers – a job title that is less than a year old.

Among the outlined concerns, singularity looms largest, primarily because it’s an unknown frontier. But we’ve tread similar paths and crafted tools and innovations surpassing human abilities. And while some of these innovations had complete destructive potential for humanity (think missiles to bioweapons to nuclear arms), their potential for that has been mostly unrealized. In examining any threats from AI, we should be guided by evidence, not irrational fears born out of science fiction.

There will always be opposing forces and bad actors, but we can assume that humans, ironically with the help of AI, can come up with unprecedented solutions to unprecedented problems, just as we have done before.

From the agrarian age to the industrial age to the information age, society has always thrived and flourished amid disruptions. We shouldn’t expect anything different this time.