All right everybody, welcome back to the

allin interview. This is where we find

the people building the future.

Sometimes a politician, sometimes a CEO,

sometimes an investor. All the time an

important discussion and one of the most

important discussions of the moment is

balancing safety and privacy. And there

is one company that has, you know, is at

the center of this. And we're so lucky

to have Garrett from Flock here, Garrett

Langley. Garrett, you and I spoke on

This Week in Startups, my other podcast

that I've been doing for 16 years. I

don't know how many years ago that was,

six or seven years ago.

>> Six or seven years. Yeah.

>> And I've been following your company.

Uh, full disclosure, I was like trying

to invest at one point. I I'm not a

shareholder, but I've always been

intrigued by what you're doing on the

margin sometimes concerned. And it seems

like you've been so successful with

Block, which does safety cameras,

license plate readers specifically.

We're going to get into all the details

today, but in the last year because of

the tremendous success of Flock, it has

been adopted in many communities. We're

going to get into that. And it's had a

really great impact at reducing crime.

We'll get into that. But there is now a

group of people who maybe are have

privacy concerns. And you and I have

talked over the years, and we're going

to get into it. We're going to go right

at the controversies and everything and

this grand debate we're going to have.

How much privacy am I going to give up

to get safety? And and it's really

interesting to me that there's been so

much energy on this recently because

when I see that kind of energy as an

investor um or as a podcast host here on

the world's greatest moderator TM, I

know there's something at stake.

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>> Tell us a little bit about flock safety

and how many communities you're in now

and then also the drone component

because people know the license plate

readers, maybe they don't know the

drones. So, let's just get that

footprint and build a mental model for

the audience here.

>> That's great. Yeah, Jason, thanks for

having me. Um, so I started the company

nine years ago with a pretty simple

mission, which is to live in a safer

neighborhood. And that was our initial

pitch. You know, if you look at our

first two or three years in business, it

was just neighborhoods. We sold a

neighborhood, so we sold a license plate

reading camera, which is pretty basic

technology. A car drives by. We take a

still image of vehicle. We read the

license plate. And the system's gotten

more sophisticated with time. We can

detect things like a roof rack or a

bumper sticker or dent or damage, but

that's at at its core what the

technology does. And if you look at like

last year, to your point, we've had a

tremendous impact on the country. um

north of a million crimes solved using

Flock. North of 10,000 people found who

were missing. And that's everything from

our grandparents with dementia to our

children. Like just last week in

Atlanta, there was a stolen car that

happened to have a 2-year-old in the

back seat. And thankfully, because of

very hard work by Atlanta Police

Department and our cameras, that little

kid was safely returned within the hour.

I don't know what that would have

happened if without Flock. A and that's

one story, but that's my own city last

week. And you [clears throat] look at

July as a, you know, as a data point,

last month it was about 1,125

missing people and over 20,000 stolen

cars. And those are the cars we use to

drive our kids to school, to drive to

work. And so we're in, you know, roughly

six, you know, just over 6,000 or so

cities um across the country. And it and

that the consequence, you know, of being

that consequential is people have a lot

of questions and people have a lot of

debates. And I think it's a it's a

worthwhile thing to talk about what kind

of society do we want to live in? I want

to live in one where we're safer. Um,

and I want to keep my privacy while I do

it. But that is hard. You know, to find

that balance is not easy.

>> I remember when we had our first

discussion, gosh, so many years ago on

this week in startups, we were talking

about it and I had brought up this, you

know, hey, well, what happens about

abuse in the system? Because once in a

while you get a dirty cop. If you watch

any kind of procedural TV, you watch Law

and Order, you watch the Sopranos, the

Sopran, you know, Tony Sopranos got a

dirty cop who's,

>> you know, you know, in the hole for, you

know, some gambling debt and they run

license plates for them, right? This is

like a trope on the news. And it's a

trope because it's common,

>> not like on a percentage basis, but we

all know that any system that records

data could be abused. We saw it at

Facebook. You had engineers there

famously stalking their ex

>> and like reading their unencrypted

messages and the industry had to make a

lot of changes. So I remember at the

time you were telling me, hey, the

settings and this is where we're going

to get really granular today. The

settings are set by the local community

and these cameras are installed by a

local community. The communities I've

lived in have had them. So let's answer

these two questions. Number one, how

does a community wind up having flock

cameras installed? What's that decision

making process like typically? And then

we'll get into very granularly what

you're recording, for how long, who has

access, the audit logs, and then what's

not recorded.

>> Yep. No, that's a it's a great question.

So, you know, one one of the reasons uh

Jason we struggled so much to raise

money as a business is because it is

traditionally and was for flock very

hard to get contracts done with local

government. You know, the the last

company to go public that serviced local

government was over 20 years ago. Um,

this is a really hard space because city

councils have the final decision

>> and so every two weeks a city council

meets and they're, you know, the city

managers, direct reports, be it a police

chief, a fire chief, uh, public works,

presents ideas, presents, uh, concepts

they would like to get approval for. And

Flock is on that list. And so I think

last year we went, we went to something

close to 10,000 city council meetings as

a business. I have a huge team whose

entire job is just going to city council

meetings explaining what flock does and

what flock doesn't do. Um and and it's

just a it's just the cost of doing

business with local government. Um so

it's really straightforward. Um and I

was actually talking to the chief our

first ever police chief down in Jersey

Village, Texas. I was talking to him a

couple weeks ago and like that video

that council vote six years ago is still

public record.

>> Yes. City council meetings are famously

recorded.

>> It's tough. It's a wacky environment.

>> It it is it is it can be particularly

wacky and but we we go right because we

want people to know what they're buying

and so they they buy the product and you

know what has been true for the last

nine years um is we we've always said

this is this data is a liability to an

asset. You should have a set retention

period and that retention period for how

long this data will be stored is going

to determine the efficacy of the

product. And so if you delete this data

in a day or two, it's going to be less

effective. It's still going to be better

than nothing. And if you hold this for

30 days, it's going to be pretty

effective. And you hold it for a year,

it'd be more effective. And we always

believed city councils should have that

final say for how long they want to

store it and who they want to share it

with. And so for the longest time, 30

days was our default. We've recently

shifted that down to 7 days. Um we think

that's a reasonable trade-off, but we

still think cities should should decide

um or states for that matter. But

someone who is democratically elected

should have the final decision of how

this technology works in their

community. But what I think you probably

agree with as a technology provider, we

have to set strong defaults. We default

matter is what we say in the industry.

Yes. And you know if you think about the

number of crimes of a hundred crimes,

how many would and I'm sure you have

some idea of this. If we have a hundred

crimes that occurred of whatever the

nature are, how many are solved with

seven days of data, 30 days of data or

require more than 30 days of do you have

that?

>> We have a we have a good sense, right? I

mean, I'm going to give you an aggregate

data point across the whole country.

>> We think 90% of crimes will get solved

within seven days of data retention.

>> Beautiful.

>> It is, Jason. But I would tell you I I I

probably talked to two or 300 police

chiefs this week and and they remind me

and and I tell them you should tell your

city council this too.

>> Yeah.

>> The 10% we're talking about or the 10%

you read about in the news though.

>> Oh, right. It's the it's the homicide

that there was never a 911 call because

someone was killed and it takes five

days to discover the body because of a

welfare check and then it's it's a

complicated case or it's look and I'm

sorry to you know go to this topic. It's

a rape victim who felt guilt, who felt

shame, and she didn't call 911 until a

week later because she wasn't ready.

>> Yes.

>> And that's real life, right? Like I I

deal with this every day, so I'm

probably less sensitive to it. But these

victims deserve privacy. They deserve

accountability for the people who attack

them

>> to even identify the crime. So what

you're saying is now would 30 days of

the 10% remaining that you know we're

just ballparking here

>> but that last 10% how many of those

>> out of 10 would be resolved with 30 days

of data? We think the majority and look

we're not going to lose we're not gonna

we're not going to tell cities how to

run themselves and to be clear you know

there's states like New Jersey where

state law is 5 years and so every

customer holds it for 5 years in the

state of California there's a max

retention in the state of Washington you

know most states have now adopted

regulation

>> and they set a maximum limit but I think

for me Jason what's important more than

my just default is making sure city

councilor s and mayors are educated that

they have control. They can make this

choice and they should actually go spend

time with their police chief and figure

out what does he or she think is the

best for that community. And I think

look, there's some communities who are

going to push for two days or three

days. And I think that's that's so much

better than nothing because that Amber

Alert and that silver alert, which are

the things we all lose sleep over, y

>> they're still going to get solved, too.

>> I literally lose sleep over. I got one

at 2 in the morning the other day and

you know I wake up, I read it. I'm like

I'm not I don't know what I'm going to

do with this data at 2 a.m. I'm in bed.

But okay, so this seems completely fair.

Um in terms of how you're expressing it.

>> Um and to be clear, when I had you on

Twist back in the day, I was like, well,

don't you need to know who's in the

driver's seat and wouldn't you want to

get a picture of the windshield? And I

was kind of finding myself advocating in

my community, hey, I would be okay just

as Jay Cal the dad and somebody who

sometimes on the margins has some, you

know, privacy security issues. They're

not acute like for for, you know, I

don't know, Sam Alman tragically and and

what's happened at his house twice, you

know, but

>> I have my own security cameras. I use uh

Unity. It's incredible.

>> Great product.

>> And I have a license plate reader on

mine. I have facial recognition on my

semi-private property. Of course, some

of it does look out on public roads

because I have access roads. So, I am

technically able to record the license

plate of everybody who drives by the

front of my house. I think that's legal

to do here in Austin.

>> Yes, it is legal.

>> So, are there communities that are using

other systems that are not flock and

recording every single person in and

out? Because when I go in and out of

private communities once in a while, I

see there's four or five cameras. I know

I'm on camera. So, aren't people already

doing full video in their communities,

not using?

>> Yeah. No, Jason, you're spot on. I mean,

we don't do facial recognition. We don't

capture video. Um, we don't look inside

the car. Um, we don't even allow in our

system to search for people um for our

license cameras. And that's in direct

conflict with some of our biggest

competitors who do all of the things I

just mentioned.

>> And unfortunately um or fortunately,

we've been very successful. And as kind

of the industry leader, the spotlight's

on us. And and that's okay because my

hope is the changes we're making, the

changes we'll continue to make will

force the rest of the industry to follow

suit. And I hope counselors ask

questions of the systems they have if

it's not flock. And maybe they'll switch

to Flock if they want a privacy first

solution. And you guys have had a bit of

a communication challenge. People were

ripping down the cameras. There's an,

you know, people care about privacy. Not

just here in the United States, by the

way. In the UK, people are ripping down

cameras. There are a group of people who

are entitled to this opinion. And I

share it on the margins. When I had

children, it changed dramatically

because number one for me is security.

I'm willing to give up my license plate

data. If somebody knows my exact

whereabouts for 30 days of my license

plates, I'm okay with that

>> because I have children and I'm okay

with giving up that amount to privacy. I

would be a little concerned, I think,

with the um with facial recognition if

I'm being totally honest.

>> But, you know, it's kind of a moving

target. And I guess the reaction you

guys had was, and I think I I had talked

to you about this, is you called them

terrorists, like the people taking the

cameras down and you know, this kind of

thing. Where does this audience who's

ripping down cameras? I mean, they're

obviously not terrorists. Um, I think

they're like activists, I would say,

would be a better descriptor. Um, but

you guys haven't communicated this

perfectly in my opinion. Correct. So,

where are people coming to you with

valid concerns? Yeah.

>> And then how have you evolved your

ability to communicate what you're

doing? And that's one of the reasons I

wanted to have you on this is because I

looked at and I was like, I don't think

you're doing a particularly good job of

communicating this. And I also think the

people who are ripping down the cameras,

they think they're in a surveillance

state with permanent records and facial

recognition. So I think they don't

actually understand that the nuances and

contours of the product. So talk about

where you got it right, where you got it

wrong, and how you've evolved in

communication.

>> Yeah. No. And look, I'm far from

perfect. And I've made my fair fair

share of mistakes over the last year and

good god, over the last decade, I

couldn't even I tried to write it down

one time and the list got pretty long

and I was like, this isn't helping me

move forward. I'm just going to I'm

going to keep focus on what I need to do

in the future. I mean, to your point on

vandalism, it's pretty sad because these

individuals are getting kind of um

amped up from on TikTok and on Instagram

to go take action. And I don't know if

they realize they're committing a

felony,

>> you know, and and I saw this individual

who just got got arrested in I think it

was either Ohio or Illinois. And Jason,

he he's he's facing like 15 to 20 years

in jail.

>> And I'm thinking I I feel horrible,

right? It's like I I don't think he I

hope maybe he realized it, but what if

he didn't? And and the person who's on

TikTok or Instagram that's pushing this,

they're not they're not the ones cutting

these things down. They're not the ones.

They're just they're they're doing this

for likes and views and you know that I

I don't like. Right. Because when that

camera is cut down and there's that

Amber Alert, it's not going to work.

>> Yeah. And and that and that, you know, I

still don't have a lot of space in my

heart for people who choose to commit a

felony versus go to city council and and

scream and fight for what they believe

in. That that is

>> they join. They could join city council.

And there have been uh a number of

cities that have decided to take flock

down. Am I am I correct? And the

backlash has caused that. And you're

okay with that if that's the community's

choice. I would assume.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's obviously

disheartening when a city chooses to be

less safe. You know, that that's tough

to to hear when there's so many other

options to reduce the efficacy of the

product versus just take them out. Um,

you know, to me, the individuals who

only look at privacy or only look at

safety are both on the wrong side of the

equation. Like, we've got to find a

common ground. That's the the point of

the democratic process is common ground

on complicated problems. And I think

safety is up there on Marlo's hierarchy

of like things we have to do for our

community.

>> It's one of the most fundamental things

that I believe our government owes us is

an equal level of safety. And today,

depending on the color of your skin, the

and your wealth level and your race,

sorry, and your sex determines how safe

you feel. Women feel less safe than men.

That's a fact.

>> Sure.

>> But minorities feel less safe than you

and me. That's a fact. If you live in a

a less affluent city and a less affluent

part of a city, you feel less safe. And

I think our government has an obligation

to make us all safe. And that's what

we're trying to do. And you'll notice

>> what are the what are the privacy folks?

Where do you find common ground with

them?

>> And where do you feel obviously

vandalism is an easy one. Okay,

>> that's an easy one. Yeah,

>> that's an easy one. But there's a nuance

here like, hey, I didn't opt into this.

I don't want my license plate in there.

Is there an ability for them to opt out?

And

>> what is the max um now for the the

amount that's saved? And then really,

this is a very nuance point. What's the

audit trail here? If there's a dirty cop

as described who's into Tony Soprano for

a hundred dimes for his betting on NFL

games and he wants to give the mob or

somebody like a bunch of license plate

data from flock, what's to stop the

dirty come? What's to stop

>> this and do false matter? But also like

>> yeah,

>> what's the largest window people can use

today on Flock?

>> Let's let's let's hit on the abuse thing

because I think that's something that

you know I was called naive. I

[clears throat] I would say maybe

optimistic. You know, I grew up in

Atlanta. I trusted the police. I've

always trusted the Atlanta Police

Department. And you know, over the last

year, I've spent a lot of time talking

to people who don't like Flock.

>> And I I finally got to the bottom of it

because I was like, why do you why do

you hate this company so much? We sell a

camera.

>> Um and I realized this woman was like,

Garrett, I I don't trust the police at

all. And I was like, ah, that that's the

root issue. And I was like, but why? And

she was like, "They lie, they cheat,

they steal. I don't trust any of them."

And I'm like, "Okay, man. What if you're

what if you're right, I'm wrong." Um,

and so,

>> and that might be the case for her.

>> Yeah, she's right. There have been many

cases of police departments that have

subverted, you know, even the wearable

cameras. They turn them off. I mean, we

have ICE agents wearing masks and no

numbers. So, the public,

>> this is rightfully concerned.

>> It's rightfully concerned. and they're

bundling you as their partner. Now I get

it.

>> Now that's where they have a valid

concern.

>> Yes. And so we said, you know, it's

interesting and I think if you make it a

more macro topic, anyone in a position

of power, there's a higher likelihood of

abuse. Look at CEOs, look at elected

officials, look at police. When you're

in power, abuse tends to follow not too

far behind. And so when we met, you

know, six or seven years ago, we had the

audit log. And my assumption was like,

this is good enough. This is what most

police systems do is they have this

audit log. But what I didn't realize is

he was meeting with a large agency in

Southern California and they've got

something like a thousand officers a day

that use Flock and imagine they're doing

five or six searches a day.

>> And imagine on once a month someone one

person is supposed to review that log.

>> Yeah. So they're going to spot check 10

or 10 or 20 searches which is the best

they can do and then move on. And so we

built four months ago, we built this new

tool called audit assistance because,

you know, we solved a million crimes

last year. So we have a pretty good

pretty good sense for what normal usage

looks like. And then we had about, you

know, just under a dozen abuses over the

last eight years that we had detected

and said, but we also kind of know what

abuse looks like.

>> Tell us what does abuse look like?

>> So here's a good example. Um, this is

the easiest one. Let's say you're an

officer and you'll say you're trying to

stalk me. You would look for me. You'd

say, "I'm looking for Garrett's car.

It's ABC124." And you'd search for it

and kind of figure out where it is. And

then the next day, you'd search for me

again. And then the next day, you'd

search for me again. That's very

abnormal. If you were truly trying to

find me because I committed a crime, you

would have put my tag on the hot list so

that anyone else in the police

department would have been also notified

because you might be asleep, you might

be off shift because I'm a criminal. So,

everyone has a right. Everyone's trying

to find me. If you're stalking me, you

don't want anyone else to know what's

happening.

And so that's maybe that's the easiest

one we can flag. But so we built this

tool four months ago. We kind of put it

out there not knowing is it going to

work well? How how how how good is it?

How much signal noise? And so you've

seen the headlines over the last few

weeks. We've caught a lot of bad cops

and and a ton.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And it's it's a ton. It's it's

more than I ever would hoped. Um, and

you look at my home state here in

Georgia where, you know, some of our

customers have been with us for years.

And I have to give those chiefs an

applaud because they're not hiding

behind it. They're publicly saying, "I

fired nine officers today, which is

which is the the most severe offense in

Georgia for for abusing the system.

They're out of my police department. I

don't want them."

>> Wow.

>> And I think that's good. And like we

should be we shouldn't be criticizing

those guys. We should be saying thank

you. And who's next? Like who else wants

to have a clean police department? And

so we we now are requiring that as a

mandatory. It's not even a default. It's

a mandatory feature. You have to have

turned on. We have to find these bad

cops and get rid of them. They shouldn't

have a badge. Amazing. And so this is

very interesting, I think, because if we

assume that, you know, let's just pick a

number, 1% of cops do bad things. Some

people might think it's all cops, some

people might think it's 10%.

>> I'm just gonna say 1%. It it's a very

small percentage, but as a in a in a

city with 30 or 40,000 police officers

like New York City has, I believe, and I

think Los Angeles 10 15,000 cops,

>> 1% all of a sudden becomes 100 or 300.

That's a lot of bad cops. And you have

set in a way a honeypot for those bad

cops.

>> And you know, they probably don't know

that this is being tracked. My question

to you is when I make a request, I'm a

rank and file cop and I go do this. Why

should rank and file cops be able to do

this? Shouldn't there be like a higher

level person who they put the request

in? Or maybe there could be like a

supervisor and that supervisor. So it

says, I'm looking into this case. I

explain why I'm looking into it. And

then a senior person like a sergeant on

duty. They have to say okay, you can run

that search. And then a third person has

to look at the sergeants okays and they

put a note on it. You could also build

that into the system which is

>> you know I think like a double key

system

>> where two people have to say okay to

this which now you're a dirty cop you

got to find a dirty

>> job. Yeah.

>> No I think what you're describing um we

have I can show you the screenshots of

what it would look like and how it would

work and it's definitely something

that's on the whiteboard for how we

continue to curb abuse. I think the

challenge we face um and you you've

dealt with this in your software

companies. We have some customers who

have thousands of employees and we have

some who I was just on the phone with

the police chief in Texas with 20

employees.

>> The burden of what we you and I just

described would be pretty pretty big for

him. Um with just 20 officers, he's also

not using the product every day. He

doesn't need to. There's only count of

2,000 people.

>> So the audit log is very slim.

>> Audit log is slim. So he doesn't need

any of the things we're talking about.

And so I do think this this is where

defaults do matter and this might get to

a level of nuance where okay for big

cities this is these are the rules for

medium cities these are the rules and

for small towns you have different rules

no different than theirmies to become a

police police officer in New York City

is harder it's a longer academy than to

be a police officer in a small town

because there's just different

expectations so yeah you're spot on

we're not done like I think abuse is a

problem that's industrywide it's not

just a flock thing

>> yeah And you look at like California,

you know, there was 7,000 reported

abuses of their state database last

year. 7,000

>> 7,000 of the state database. Yeah. Which

means you should have some percentage of

that in your system. And I saw the

Washington Post did a story on this. And

so the company's evolving and reacting

to that. And so you are responsible now

as a technology provider with the worst

behaviors of your customers. And so the

lesson there is even if you want to say

hey we just sell a tool the reality of

running this company since it is uh you

know people have to give up some level

of privacy to get that security you

actually have to own it there's just no

choice and I think previously your

approach was hey it's a tool do with it

what you will you made that choice

>> which is not exactly an unreasonable

thing to say people sell laptops and

cameras and guns to a local police

department they send tasers to a local

police department. We don't say to the

taser company, "Hey, you're responsible

when somebody gets tased." And it was an

inappropriate tase. It was an

unjustified

>> taser. But here we are. This is

different. This is qualitatively

different because America and Americans

really value privacy.

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[music]

to your point, our our I think our view,

my view of our responsibility has

evolved.

>> Um, now I would prefer if every elected

official understood how all this

technology worked perfectly

>> and made decisions that represented

their community values. I don't think

that's a reasonable expectation because

that means they also need to know

everything about data centers. They need

to know everything about water works.

like they're relying on their police

chief

>> to tell them what is best

>> and that chief's relying on me to

educate him on what I think is best.

>> And so I do think the responsib

responsibility falls on us to give those

strong defaults and then allow them to

pivot against it. Um and still respect

the democratic process but focus on the

defaults.

>> Yeah. And as the lead candidate, you're

going to take the arrows. But there's

other people. My friend Jamie Simonoff,

who's an incredible entrepreneur,

>> great entrepreneur

>> and a dear friend of mine for many

decades. He has Ring famously, and

during the Super Bowl, he did this thing

like, "Hey, with Ring cameras, and I

guess I don't know if they're considered

your number one competitor because they

sell to individuals and then allow the

data to be used by police if people opt

into that, which is an [clears throat]

individual's right."

>> They were like, "Hey, we can find a lost

dog." And and people lost their mind

over that because they were like, "Hey,

>> if you can find a lost dog, then you

can, you know, have somebody stalking

what whatever people's valid concerns

are." And they had to turn that feature

off is my understanding after releasing

it.

>> Yeah. Know, I've I've I've known Jamie

for a long time as well. I don't think

they're a competitor. I'd say they're a

friendly. We have the same mission,

which is to build safer communities in

America. and and I think him and I have

learned a lot over the last year of you

know maybe underestimating people's

concerns with how technology could

impact them um and needing to maybe go

slower in some cases like we you know we

haven't gotten into the AI topic but

it's an area where I think we're doing

it smarter now because there's a version

of flock where we would have just ripped

and launched AI feature after AI feature

and said this is awesome and we're going

intentionally really slow

what is the opportunity and the concern

with AI give us the practical, you know,

um, you know, in if we were in a police

state, if it was China and they're using

this like the CCP has a a literal police

state, that's very triggering for

Americans because they see that then

they see flock on this end and ring on

this end and they say, "Hey, what's the

distance between these two?"

>> And AI's the obvious one because they're

tracking people with facial recognition

and they're watching their behavior.

They're like, "This person littered.

this person raise their voice like it's

>> pretty gnarly. Yeah, it's very

different. So tell us about the AI

features and then what the detective

wants most because the detective wants

to close cases

>> reasonably

>> and then what you're saying like o gosh

that would close the case but maybe it's

too much of a privacy concern.

>> Yeah. I mean let's talk about a simple

one that's kind of in debate right now

which is 911 systems. Um, today, you

know, when you call Delta, maybe you get

an AI agent, maybe you get a human, but

you're booking a flight, so the risk of

kind of hallucination is pretty low.

Maybe they book you on the 7 p.m.

instead of the 4pm, and you're like,

"What just happened?" But it it's fine.

>> Imagine someone broke into your home and

you call 911 and we've now switched over

our 911 system to an AI bot and it

starts talking to you about what you had

for lunch.

>> Yeah. No good.

>> No good. and and the risk the risk is so

high and we have no idea how these

things work and there's no good way to

control them. That's a I think that's

pretty well in sap. And so you see

cities due to budgetary reasons and due

to staffing issues kind of leaning in

pretty aggressively and there's been

some bad cases where the AI's gotten it

really really wrong.

>> And so I think there's a smarter way to

do it. Like the smarter way to do it it

would be okay look we're going to we're

going to have AI but AI is only going to

pick up when the phone lines are fully

busy.

>> Yes. Okay.

>> So it's like okay that's smarter but

that's not what's happening. like

there's a reckless way to do it which is

just flip a switch or maybe you start

with just

>> do you handle 911 systems?

>> We don't the ind the indust we don't do

911 calls but I'm watching this unfold

and I'm going man this is a like this is

a huge risk. Um I look for

>> I suppose you could use AI to look at

patterns and say these are abnormal

patterns for this car. This car is

slowly driving up to this house, then

driving away, slowly drove up to the

next house, drove away, and it did that

six times.

>> Is this somebody delivering a lot of

burritos, or is this somebody casing the

joint? Like,

>> that would be what the detective would

be like. Hey, yeah, let's get pregs

here, precognition from Minority Report

to predict a crime.

>> Yeah.

>> Because somebody wants to join. Yeah.

>> Yeah. That I don't want to do. Like I

think we've been really we've been

really consistent that um we never want

to be a company that defines suspicion.

>> Um that's really dangerous.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh yeah. But it's it's a it's an

interesting kind of like happy hour

topic of like what does that world look

like?

>> But for us I think there's it's really

valuable that there's a human in the

loop when it comes to public safety.

We're talking about people's lives.

We're talking about pe people's like

it's it's really important stuff. So

>> we always want to have a human in the

loop. I think there is some some

products that we could build but the

difference is like it you know looking

at knowing the cost of getting it wrong.

You have to deploy this with third party

proper attestation that it's that it's

working as expected. It shouldn't be up

to me. It shouldn't be up to my

customers. Someone who actually doesn't

want this to work should come in and

say, "Well, guess what? It it does

actually like this is actually really

good and it's making officers more

effective. It's making officers more

objective, less subjective. Like that

should be our end goal is that AI is

used in a way that increases the number

of crimes they can solve and decreases

the likelihood if they get the wrong

person. That that's an easy ideal state.

And I just don't think we should rush

there. I think we should be really

deliberate about how we get there.

You've lost, I think, dozens uh of

cities of the 6,000. So, some cities are

now saying, "Hey, this isn't worth the

trouble." Or too many people protested.

Take me through what's happening in the

last year with those I think it's 60 or

70 cities maybe out of 6,000 if I got my

numbers correct. 1% have said, "Okay,

this isn't for us."

>> Yeah, it's tough, right? Because uh I

want everyone to be safe. That's why I

started the company. Um, and I know what

they've had and I know the results we've

had. And unfortunately, the majority of

the time they're making a decision off

of misinformation. Um, I remember

vividly the one of the first customers

that chose to walk away did so because

of facial recognition. They went online

and googled ALPR facial recognition.

They saw one of our competitors website

and said, "We're getting rid of this

flock thing."

>> They didn't realize they were looking at

the wrong person's website.

>> Yeah. And that's tough because like

that's on me, right? That's on me to

better communicate to to these decision

makers that like here's what we do,

here's what we don't do. Um that's been

the bulk of it. I think the other thing

that uh has been tough to see, Jason, is

>> I saw this one city in in Washington

just just it's so sad. They turn the

cameras off. The next weekend, a little

boy gets shot,

car drives off. It's gonna be a cold

case. And luckily, the city next door

still had Flock cameras, found the car,

made the arrest, and look the that the

kid that didn't live, which is horrible.

>> At least their family knows justice was

served.

>> And so, I think we're making really

consequential decisions on on inaccurate

information, and that's tough. And I

just we have to do a better job as a

company like communicating to our

customers and their customers customers

which would be the community about what

this technology does and what it doesn't

do. And and for me at least when I when

I speak to let's call it 99 people out

of 100 and explain the facts they go

like why is this a debate?

>> This feels like we have control as a

city. We can set limits. We can set

guard rails. I want to be safer than I

feel today. I've never met someone who's

like I want to be less safe. I predict

as you explain this and you change the

defaults and the audits get in place and

the dirty cops get, you know, taken out

of this that you'll see some number of

those cities, you know, and the city

councils readress this when things cool

down a little bit. And, you know, this

happened here in, you know, where I live

now in Austin, Texas. Austin canled

flock or didn't renew whatever in 2025

according to my notes. Then we we you

know people have guns here. I I have a

gun. I carry a gun. Everybody's got

guns. And so we had this uh crazy uh

shooting with a bunch of kids. Uh and it

was a similar situation to what you're

describing. They were committing these

crimes in Austin proper.

They drove out of Austin and Manor

Police Department did have flock. They

picked it up and 28 hours later the

three teens were arrested and they were

like juveniles 15, 16 and 17 here

according to what I'm seeing. And that

was the wakeup call here and that

brought it back to the front and now

everybody's debating it again in Austin.

Okay, the ACL ACLU wants 48 hours I

think is their proposal. Okay, that's

the ACLU.

>> That's reason. Yeah, that's their that's

a reasonable stance. This is the privacy

organizations, privacy organizations,

civil liberties. We get it.

>> You know, most cops probably want 30

days. Communities are going to set it at

seven or 14 days. That's it. You have

competitors. Tell me about like the

competitors approach here and how you

deal with that as an entrepreneur.

>> So, are they just saying, "Hey, we're

just going to sell you the technology

and we're not going to and we're just

going to keep our heads down and we'll

be the uh do they go in and sell

themselves as a we're flock without

limits?" So to your earlier point, yeah,

we've had close to 20 cities already

turn their cameras back on.

>> Oh, interesting. Yeah,

>> because they realize like they are now

less safe and they have an obligation to

their constituents

um to to be safer. And it is it is it is

tough as an entrepreneur because you

want to you want to build as big of a

business as possible, right? But you

also want to do it in a way that when

it's all said and done, your kids go,

I'm so proud to be that guy's son or

daughter. So you have to make decisions

that you you you you're going to be

comfortable with 10 years later. And I'd

rather lose, you know, I had a lot of

concerns about requiring, you know,

accountability for all of our customers,

knowing very well that I was going to,

you know, upset a lot of customers

potentially. And I said to myself, look,

if a customer doesn't want to be held

accountable, I don't think I want them

as a customer. And they can go to one of

my competitors who doesn't have these

tools, doesn't have these requirements,

and that's okay with me because this is

just business, right? I it's it's just a

business. Um now it's a business I think

serving a very important mission but I I

want to sleep at night and I do today

and our competitors to your point yes

they run more reckless they run without

these tools without the scrutiny and I

think it's going to catch up to them. It

will catch up to them eventually.

>> Yeah. I mean as you are willing to lose

customers who want the un you know

tethered system without you know proper

uh constraints. Yeah. You'll lose some

of them, but I don't think you want them

as customers anyway because it's going

to blow back on you. San Francisco

famously with these ALPRs. Automated

license plate something. Automated

license plate reader. Yeah.

>> So, the ALPRs you said earlier, you're

also keeping if there were dents in the

car or the color of the car or like a

the make and model of the car. Is that

right?

>> Yeah. So, it's pretty it's pretty cool

technology and pretty effective because

if you think about what happens on a 911

call, most people don't instinctively

look at the license plate and remember

it. They see the thing that was unique

about the car. Oh, it had it had a

damage on the right side. I remember so

vividly we had this homicide case near

me in Atlanta and all the person could

remember was that the back right tire

was missing a hubcap. M

>> and so the detectives would go in and

say, "Okay, show me all the cars in this

15-minute window that did not have a

backright hubcap." And that's the

beginning of an investigation. It's not

the end of an investigation. That's just

the the way to get started. And that's

all they had. And because of that great

detective, he's like he's I've got to

know him pretty well because he's like

he's very good at his job. He worked his

butt off and and found the found the

person. Um but that was the start. And

so yeah, so he's like San Francisco. And

I I love I saw a tweet uh the other day

uh which was you know the flock effect

and it's like crime is down, stolen

vehicles is down. And look at we we we

are one small part of a very big

transformation that's happened in that

city including stronger elected

officials, stronger enforcement of the

law, a strong police chief, a strong DA,

a community that demands to be safe.

Like but that's what that's what should

happen. If you live in San Francisco,

you deserve to be safe. It's one of the

best cities in the country. And San

Francisco

has a lot of problems and people are

very libertarian, privacybased, live and

let live based. It is kind of the

problem having lived there is that

people are so openhearted from the

summer and it literally comes from the

summer of love and the fact that it was

a mining town like they just have this

you know live and let live attitude.

Obviously, you know, a lot of the

culture that's emerged there is, hey,

let your freak flag fly. Do what you

want to do. Even to the point of, hey,

you know, if people are stealing, um,

why are they stealing? Like, what

happened in their childhood and and

people there have had enough. the fact

that San Francisco um and I and I think

this is the correlation. Do you have the

ability and do you have the entitlement

to say I don't need to worry about this

because I have security at my house. I

have a security guard. I have a personal

driver. I have personal security. Which

by the way, a lot of rich people have

now some combination of these things at

a minimum. Like I just described I have

cameras, I have people, you know, all

this stuff. And so, you know, you start

painting that picture. It's it is you

you have to be extremely aware of your

own privilege.

>> Yeah.

>> That you don't have to deal with crime.

And man, my brother was a cop during the

stop, ask, and frisk era in New York.

>> The statistics during stop, frisk, and

ask, which was a violation of the fourth

amendment,

>> like you're stopping people based on

like they're hanging out. So, it

definitely was a little step too far.

But New York in the 70s and 80s was

dangerous as hell. Like there were a lot

of guns on the street. My brother took a

couple of guns off the street. Cops were

in a really tough situation. The people

in the poorest communities were the most

in favor of stop ask and frisk. They

always leave out the ask because they're

like, "Oh, we're just going to stop you

and frisk you." No, they would stop and

say, "Hey, what are you up to?" And uh,

"Hey, you're hanging out in the corner.

What's going on?" And you know, they

just try to get a read on people, which

by the way, if you ever go to Israel or

you go to some countries, they ask you

20 questions. Why are you here? Hey, uh,

you know, where you staying? Like, they

want to get a read on you, whether

you're going into Israel or Tokyo. They

might ask you a couple personal

questions, which would be offensive to

Americans. But the correlation was

really people who experience crime are

in favor of it. People who live in Pack

Heights, they don't need to worry about

this, man. something goes down in Pack

Heights, there's 20 cops and 50 private

security guards, you know, rallying

around one homeless person, one vagrant,

you know, one person who's in a car that

doesn't look like it should belong

there. It's like they're going to get

swarmed in Pack Heights.

>> Yep. No, I mean, you hit the nail on the

head and it's not spoken about as much,

but it's worth looking at who is so

against what we do and who is so for it.

And it's typically people who don't have

any other way to protect themselves,

who need this, right? who want this. And

and for those who have a gate and have a

guard and have cameras and have a

security system and they have Jaime's

incredible doorbell camera, right, and

they have all these products and these

services, they're like, "Why does why

does anyone need to feel any safer?"

It's like, "Because most people don't

have any of this stuff and they don't

feel safe when they go to bed." And

yeah, it's it's it's quite telling.

>> I'm rooting for you to get everything

right and to continue making communities

safer. I'm also rooting for communities

to make their own decision. 100%.

>> I think that is the key part of this

that people need to embrace as well. If

you have a if you've chosen to live in a

gated community, you have made that

choice for security in all likelihood.

And if poor people or people who don't

get to live in a gated community and you

were to ask, you know, people with a

family, hey, would you like to live in a

gated community or would you like to

live with not in a gated community? Like

a hundred out of a hundred people. I I

mean maybe it's 95. I think if you

offered like the average Joe or Jane,

hey, would you like to live in a would

you like your community to be gated with

three gates and there's a security

guard? They'd be like, heck yes, but I

can't afford that. How much is that

going to cost? So, this is where, you

know, I think people with children,

people with homes, they they just have a

different view of this than maybe when

you're younger and you can afford to

say, "Listen, I don't have kids and I

care about my safety. I care about my

privacy, not my safety. Yeah. And and I

understand it. Like I I don't want the

government to have like a national flock

database. I don't want the government to

do facial recognition. I find that like

a bridge too far.

>> The license plates for two weeks or 30

days. I kind of feel okay with it. I'm

sorry if people are disappointed in me

for that, but uh as a parent and a you

know, somebody in a community, I'm okay

with my community having license plate

readers for up to 30 days. That's that's

the decision I came to.

>> Well, you know, and Jason, I think to

your point, I I had this interesting

conversation with um an elected official

in Illinois who was one of our largest

antagonists, very anti- flock and really

sad, really scary. She was the victim of

political violence. Um someone shot at

her house and the police used a flot

camera to find that person

>> and lo and behold, to her credit, she

changed. But she did change and she's

now one of our largest advocates because

she realizes you don't get to pick when

you're the victim of violence. You don't

get to pick. Sometimes it's random.

Sometimes it's intentional, but everyone

wants justice

when something bad happens. And everyone

wants to know that they're going to be

safe. And so I think you're right that

my my hope is that this is these kind of

conversations actually lead to fruitful

debates about how we have both um and we

don't let you necessarily allowed

minority uh dictate you know us moving

towards a less safe society. That'd be

pretty sad.

>> Yeah. And listen you have been in what I

would describe as a PR disaster the last

year over this. How far through the PR

disaster are you? You've changed a lot

of the communications. Yeah.

>> And it is this something Flock can

recover from or is this like,

>> you know, company killing? Like, oh my

god, we're we're screwed. Like, just be

honest with us about like the PR

disaster of the last year, how that's

affected you and how that's informed how

you, you know, run the company and how

damaging has it been? You know, I think

the biggest damage is the internal

morale, right? Because you go on to X or

you go on to Reddit and you go, why why

are people so mad at us when we've been

doing the same thing for nine years? And

and why are they so mad at us for things

we don't do? And we just we just want

people to be safe. And that's tough,

right? It's really hard for your your

your work to be challenged so

viscerally.

I think the the interesting part is it's

brought us closer to our customers, you

know, because we're because they they

they have a job to do, which is to keep

their community safe and they see this

as one of the the most, if not the most

critical part of of how [snorts] they do

their job.

>> Like there was a chief who was like this

is the best thing since DNA.

>> Yeah.

>> In terms of fighting crime and I agree

with them. So that's on the good side.

And I think you know the business is in

good shape. You know, we raised we

raised more money at the beginning of

the year. Uh company's still growing. We

could be growing faster if we used to

have zero churn. Now we have, to your

point, 1%.

>> Okay. Well, I would like to be back at

zero. And I'm going to fight as hard as

I can to get the right message out

there. To your point, communicate

better, listen more. Um, and I think if

we do that, we're going to be just fine

because at the end of the day, everyone

wants to be safe. That hasn't changed.

And that will probably never change.

Just like everyone wants to have food,

everyone wants to have a roof. Uh, those

are just these core needs.

>> As Maslo's hierarch needs, safety is up

there. And it's, you know, I think for

your company, like you're going to just

have to lead and you're going to have to

be ahead of these things. And I, you

know, I look at Zuckerberg and Facebook,

>> they've always been playing defense and

catchup on the impact that, let's say,

Instagram had on young teens and eating

disorders and addiction to social media.

uh X and Twitter had like political, you

know, nonsense and like people trying to

subvert democracy. Like all of these

social networks had a a serious downside

that's now been quantified, etc. It

would have been so much better if he was

ahead of it and said, "Listen, I have

kids.

>> I understand where you're coming from. I

think there should be an age gate." And

he just wrote that manifesto last week

and I'll give him credit because I think

he was looking at it saying there are

obviously selfish business needs. he

wants to be part of the AI revolution,

but I think he was also identifying and

trying to get ahead of and show some

empathy for, hey, yeah, you you could

lose your job because of AI. Here's how

I think if you use the tools, you

wouldn't lose your your your job. And if

you have open source and it's available

to everybody, not just the rich, and we

give you agents and free AI that other

people are paying thousands of dollars a

month for, hey, maybe that levels the

playing field. And I think that's what

CEOs have to do right now in this media

saturated.

>> You know, a story can just go viral so

fast and you got to just get ahead of it

and anticipate these things and own them

and just be frank about it. Tucker

Carlson demolished you last week. Have

you have you reached out to Tucker to go

on his pod?

>> No, I don't you know I don't know if if

if that's something that's in my my deck

of cards, but uh no, I appreciate it. I

I like that. Uh you know, I do like

t-shirts, I guess, is what I'd say. Uh I

wear t-shirts. I I got I put a polo on

for you. I thought a collar would be

appropriate, but

>> I wear a polo, too, in the hot.

>> Yeah, you look you look great. Yeah, you

look great. But no, I think look, we we

want to we were on the Today Show this

morning. We're on Good Morning America.

We want to go to places where the

community listens and we want to have

meaningful conversations and uh yeah,

we're not done. We got a we got a long

road ahead of us and I think, you know,

we didn't get to drones yet.

>> So, how did they Yeah, that's how they

drones. So drones is probably our

fastest growing business unit right now.

You know, our LPR business is just under

50% kind of of our forward-looking

revenue. Um, so it's a big part of our

business, but we've got drones, we've

got live video cameras, we've got some

really cool software. And you know, I

think the story I share with you about

drones, which is one of my favorite

stories, is so these drones live um in a

kind of a HVAC control box, a dock, per

se, on top of a roof, typically like a

police precinct or a fire department.

And when a 911 call happens, instead of

sending an officer first, you can send a

drone. And so there's this really

interesting case not too far from you up

in the Dallas Fort Worth area where a

woman, you know, at late at night at a

gas station called 911 and said,

"There's a man walking back and forth

with a gun. I don't feel safe." Um,

which obviously it's not illegal to to

garnish a weapon in the state of Texas,

but she was scared. Right. And

>> well, you can wear one, but you can't be

waving it around.

>> Yeah. And he was fair enough. Fair

enough. Yeah. And and so she called 911.

And normally what would happen, right,

is like one cop would have heard that,

flip on the blue lights, race down

there, their hearts racing, he's got his

gun ready, and someone's about to die.

>> Instead, they launch the drone. The

drone's at 400 feet, flying 60 miles an

hour, so it gets there in under a minute

>> as the crow flies.

>> Yep. And it's got a 40x optical zoom, so

it zooms all the way in.

It's not a gun. It's a lighter. It's one

of those toy like lighter things.

>> Yeah.

>> That call the woman back and say, "Hey,

ma'am, it's just a lighter. You're

okay." And I share that story because so

much of my businesses have related

around solving crime, but it's more than

crime. It's about safety. It's like,

"How do we help the community feel

safe?" And this is an example where like

we demitated, we mitigated what would

have been a really bad situation for

everyone. And we have thousands and

thousands of stories like that where

communities are safer now with our

drones. They're safer with our cameras.

And to your earlier point, we just got

to do a better job communicating how it

all works. And we got to teach our

customers how to do that, too. Um

because we're only one company. We got

thousands and thousands of customers. We

we need their help too and telling the

story.

>> Yeah. I think that the new tool you're

talking about with the audit trail, um I

think that has great potential. I think

a third-party auditor, so if you sell

the system, it can come with thirdparty

auditing. You know, people use Ernston

Young or whatever to audit books. What's

the equivalent here of an auditor that

would say, "Hey, the drone got launched.

this isn't a dirty cop sending a drone

to stalk their ex you know spouse uh or

you know break somebody's privacy and

we're just going to review in real time

slash whatever every drone flight

because that's now you start sending

drones Tucker's going to look at that or

ACLU is going to look at that and say

okay so now you're like peeking in my

window so there's got to be massive

safeguards on the drone getting deployed

is it only deployed if there's a 911

call is that the

>> this is the next big like chapter for

law enforcement is is doing a better job

implementing drones than they've done

with historical products because you

look at something like body cameras and

I'm not sure how much you follow this

there was massive outrage on body

cameras and now it's like wait a second

this actually really good it's a better

tool and and same with non-lethal

weapons um and so no we we there's still

more work to do there and to your point

on the third party auditors you know one

you've got a city manager

>> that is effectively his or her job is to

hold the police chief accountable

>> and they can the audit logs. They can go

in there themselves.

>> They can see all the logs. Yeah. They

can see the audit logs. They can also

see the flight patterns. So, most of our

customers have a transparency portal. It

has the audit log. It has how many

cameras they have. It has their drones.

It has their drone flights. Now, there's

a lag, right? We want a delay. Um,

chasing to the crime,

>> an active criminal investigation. Yeah.

So there's a lag, but I I look at that

in and what's going to be hard for our

customers is getting comfortable with

this ever growing expectation of both

transparency and accountability.

>> Yeah.

>> And we're going to push them. We're

going to push them hard, but the

community is also going to push them as

hard.

>> And some of these things are like 911

calls in many jurisdictions are public

>> public record.

>> They're public record. And same thing

with uh radios, although some places

don't have those as public record. They

don't have the they have the radios

encrypted. So drone flights is one where

like you know should drone flights just

be on the website like here's all the

drone flights that occurred and here's

the 9/11 calls that are with them or

people doing that or your does your

software do that for them?

>> We it would be possible. We've never had

a customer asked to do it. We have this

concept of like a spectator mode which

would be available for, you know, city

officials and and command staff. But I

think that your question is the right

one. And

>> I think as an industry, you know, we're

going to have to make these decisions

sooner than later of what that default

is because we have a default now, but

there's very little state regulation.

There's zero federal regulation outside

of air safety, which is important, but

but [clears throat] nothing yet on state

regulation or city regulation for the

>> Yeah. So the short so you've got you got

New Hampshire at three minutes

>> and then

>> three minutes for license plate reading.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. That's

>> that's New Hampshire. That's New

Hampshire though. So die. Okay. Got it.

>> And and then the next New York state is

21 days.

>> Interesting.

>> That's the state of Washington. So

>> Okay. Well, here here you are folks.

Like if you want to really live off the

grid in privacy,

>> New Hampshire. Live the live free or

die. Garrett, I appreciate your

candidness and um good luck being in

such a controversial space and getting

ahead of these things. I wish you great

luck with it and uh we can agree, I

think, publicly for everybody to agree

and disagree on the margins about these

things, but it's up to the community to

make these decisions. I think and I

think that's the high order bit here.

And I think that's what you're starting

to really get right is, hey, this is

your community choice. You don't want

it, turn it off. You want it for 48

hours, put it at 48 hours. We're going

to have some reasonable caps on this. I

wish you great luck with it and uh thank

you to everybody for tuning in to the

All-In interview program. Bye-bye.

>> I'm going

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all in.