The past is an indicator of future need, the financial crisis, pandemics, climate change, the aging population, and the crisis of wellness all shape the future. Will tomorrow’s biggest companies be today’s most resilient solutions? The benefit of hindsight tells us that fast, cheap systems produce short-term illusions of profit that eventually crash under their own weight. We’ve learned this over the ‘00 Tech Bubble, the ‘08 Great Recession, and now across the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, and the COVID pandemic. The bay area thrives on innovation but the success of this appetite has largely been a mix of economic benefit and failure with aspirational but limited social benefit.
Investors have sometimes but not always invested in software and technologies that build resilience into the lives of people and organizations. Good or bad really depends on where you are standing — in some cases good for some is not good for all. So I’m not advocating for impossible outcomes — just an opportunity to promote businesses with long-term capitalist benefits as part of their goals. The desire to do well while doing good. So many examples exist but a simple case many folks identify with is Uber’s progress. Good for many, not good for all — often great of the consumer, not great for the Taxi industry. Great for businessmen, potentially risky for others.
With this in mind, as I’ve reflected on health and wealth, and well being, and food in my community — I’m imagining a new type of venture fund focused not exclusively on maximal short-run profits but on maximized benefits over both the short term and the long. Investments with broader strategic goals of overall sustainable and social good as a halo effect of such business operations in communities.
Certainly one dimension of changing such systems is being open to new types of entrepreneurs, other types of leaders than historically been invested in. This would mean more first-time founders, more people from across the world with different age, gender, and status identities…folks with alternative perspectives who see the possibility of generating more wealth than other ventures AND doing good as compatible.
As a hypothesis, if I wanted to help the community and create. funding vehicle, I believe that certain sectors fit this profile of “resilience.”
FinTech: Fintech companies are innovating across broad categories — in banking, lending, insurance, real estate, and investing — both on the customer-facing side and in core infrastructure. The combination of mobile, digital money, machine learning, and new data sources offer startups a unique opportunity to leapfrog outdated infrastructure and compete with incumbent financial institutions to reimagine the way we manage our finances.
Therapeutics: Early-stage seed investing focused on DNA sequencing technology, gene editing, CRISPR, agricultural biology, and molecular diagnostics. These technologies have the ability to reinvent HealthTech as we know it, with enormous growth potential and the ability to impact the lives of millions.
Blockchain and crypto assets: digital assets and blockchain models are revolutionary technologies. Areas of investment focus might include blockchain tech, defi and new ventures focused on progressive decentralization. These technologies will be more secure, fast-growing, and will change and disrupt our society in exciting new ways.
SaaS: I use a broad definition of SaaS. I’m interested in horizontal and vertical SaaS solutions. Using web services and the cloud as infrastructure has proven to be the very foundation of capital-efficient, scalable, and agile software operations. What existing inefficient processes can be made scalable in the cloud?
I have more to consider, and I want inclusivity to be a part of my emerging views on community. Discovery Bay is a world apart from “Sand Hill Road” the home of the vaunted venture funds like Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins. Perhaps Discovery Bay can find a way to participate in an effort of funding innovation? Maybe folks in the community are already thinking this way.
In “Designing, planning, and managing resilient cities: A conceptual framework.” Desouza and Flanery find “Resilience in terms of cities generally refers to the ability to absorb, adapt and respond to changes in an urban system. However, it is argued here that resilience shares much with other key contemporary urban goals such as sustainability, governance (Tompkins & Hurlston, 2012), and economic development.”
Maybe there is no need to talk of sustainability, governance, and economic development in Discovery Bay — maybe a town with the motto “live where you play” might see the economic energies of funding innovation an invasive plant talking root in its native delta waters? I’m interested in exploring this idea further. Done right I imagine a new, hungry, group of others engaging the community in fresh perspectives to revitalize everything from the community garden, to the schools and outbuildings, to the town center’s urban design, to the banks and health systems and employers that might take root as well.