Lior Elazary believes that robots are a net positive for humans. That's a good thing, because he is the CEO of InVia Robotics and offers a robots-as-a-service platform that can 5-10X productivity in shipping and receiving warehouses. And presumably, he wants to sleep at night. The question, however, remains: is Elazary right? "A lot of people don't realize how gruesome it is to work inside the warehouse," Elazary told me recently in a TechFirst podcast.

Warehouse robots are increasingly taking on the task of collecting the items you order online and getting them ready to ship. It used to take 6-8 weeks for an order to arrive - now Amazon and Walmart can get you your stuff the next day. How are online companies getting you your goods so fast? In many cases, robots are helping to speed things along! Recently, I visited Westlake Village, California startup inVia Robotics.

What happens when a serial entrepreneur with a Master's degree in robotics goes out looking for a problem to solve? For InVia Robotics founder and CEO Lior Elazary, it leads to a new army of self-learning, self-guided warehouse robots. Elazary had already helped found web hosting company HostPro Inc., and Edgecast Networks Inc., a content delivery network. Then he set out to apply the lessons from his graduate study and decided at first to focus on home robotics. "I thought there might be an opportunity in in-home elderly care," he said.