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Alex Le Roux is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Icon Technology Inc., an Austin-based construction technology company using 3D printing, robotics and artificial intelligence to build houses and other structures in Texas and beyond.
Le Roux and his fellow co-founders have more or less been in the spotlight since Icon revealed the first permitted 3D printed home in Austin in 2018 during the annual South by Southwest festival. And they’ve been making a big splash each year with new innovations that have garnered the company attention from Time Magazine and 60 Minutes, among many other national publications.
In March, the company launched a beta version of its new AI architect where you can give the AI simple prompts and create model homes and iterate on the design features as you go. It also revealed a new robotic printer than is more versatile than any of Icon’s previous models. While the new systems and materials represent significant steps forward for the company's 3D-printing methods, the lower costs and the increased pace of production also constitute major milestones.
Icon has raised over $250 million in venture funding and is working with major homebuilders, as well as NASA and the Air Force to develop homes, bunkers, shelters and even develop a system that might one day print structures on the moon.
Le Roux shared insights about his journey in developing a 3D home printing startup as a recent guest on the Texas Business Minds podcast. The entire conversation can be heard using the player at the top of this article or on platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Below are a few excerpts from the interview, which have been edited for brevity and clarity.
On finding the right talent for the Icon team
I think we've been really lucky at Icon in that we've had such tremendous people end up working here. We've got a world-class recruiting team that reaches out to the folks who we think are the best and the brightest and are aligned with our culture as much as possible. We have a pretty strong filter on what we're looking for, which is predominantly around just technical prowess. They've got to be sharp ... and have an ability to work collaboratively with other teams that are maybe not within their their sort of discipline. So a hardware team working with a software team. Startups are notorious for having to move really quickly and an AI is no exception. And so flexibility and adaptability to change is (what) ... we look for.
On Icon's success
I think we've definitely surpassed most of our expectations. [Co-founder Jason Ballard] and I, especially Jason, like to think big. But none of us really expected that we would be able to do everything that we've been able to do so far. There's just so many potential applications for this technology. And demand for what we're doing has just been tremendous. People want us to go all around the world to build affordable housing or build infrastructure. It's been tremendous ever since we had the SXSW announcements (in March). We've just again had people reach out from all corners of the world.
On the many ways 3D printing can be applied
That's one of the things that's really beautiful about this technology is that there are so many different applications. You can build affordable housing with it, you can build some really high-rent housing and we even have the Department of Defense working with us on building barracks at a number of different military bases around the country. So the the applications are really just limitless, the way we think about it. And there are even a possible applications in infrastructure projects.
On the future of 3D home building
I hope this idea of construction at scale and 3D printing really continues to become an industry. There are material providers, there are hardware providers, there's a regulatory framework. So I hope that that continues to be the case. Speaking about Icon specifically, I envision a world in which robots and drones and software and AI are combining to create the entirety of the home. So it's kind of end-to-end robotics and AI enabling the construction of the home, which really should drive down cost and further speed up that the delivery of builds. And so we think that's a pretty beautiful idea that we just historically have not been able to consider because the tools just haven't been used to build these sorts of products. So I think that's kind of the longer term vision for Icon.
Austin employees
| Rank | Prior Rank | Company name (Prior rank) |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Tesla Inc. |
2 | 2 | Dell Technologies Inc. |
3 | 3 | Amazon |
