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“How We Can Eliminate Crime” | Ben Horowitz and Garrett Langley

What if America tried to eliminate crime instead of just reacting to it? Not with slogans, but with staffing, technology, and strategy scaled to the problem. In this episode, Erik Torenberg speaks with Garrett Langley, founder and CEO of Flock Safety, and Ben Horowitz, cofounder of a16z, about what is happening in the cities that are trying. Flock now works with over 5,000 communities to detect crime, recover missing children, and close cases faster than ever. Ben has been closely involved in Las Vegas, where Flock technology, drones, and community policing have raised clearance rates while reducing use of force. They outline what a real national crime-reduction strategy could look like: solving the police staffing crisis, using intelligence to make policing safer, understanding why clearance rates have collapsed, and how public–private partnerships are filling gaps cities cannot. They also tackle the hard questions around privacy, criminal justice failures, and the hidden role of organized crime in everyday offenses. Timecodes: 0:00 — Introduction: The Cost of Not Enforcing Crime 1:29 — Teach for America Model for Law Enforcement 3:56 — The People Problem: Cultural Shift in Policing 8:28 — Technology Stack: Products for Crime Prevention 12:11 — Deterrence vs. Incarceration 16:15 — Intelligence-Based Policing 19:57 — Why Crime Clearance Rates Are Dropping 25:00 — Vegas Case Study: Community Response 28:10 — Private Funding for Police Innovation 34:05 — Addressing Privacy and Trust Concerns 38:53 — Prison Reform and Rehabilitation 43:44 — Crime Statistics and Reporting Issues 47:08 — Data Retention and Sharing Policies 51:52 — Organized Crime and Sophisticated Operations 54:16 — The Future of Policing: Intelligence and Precision 57:07 — Success Stories: Saving Missing Children Read the full transcript here: https://www.a16z.news/s/podcast Resources: Follow Garrett on X: https://twitter.com/glangley Follow Ben on X: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Ben HorowitzguestGarrett LangleyguestErik Torenberghost
Dec 17, 202558mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:29

    Introduction: The Cost of Not Enforcing Crime

    1. BH

      If you don't enforce crime, what you end up is with lost generations.

    2. GL

      Yeah. If I woke up in 10 years and all we had done was put a lot of people in prison, it's actually double bad.

    3. BH

      Yeah.

    4. GL

      Actually.

    5. BH

      Well, we're throwing people away, right? Like, yeah, that's the worst possible thing. So the best thing is to say, "Hey, look, if you commit crimes, you're gonna get caught," and then that kind of changes the societal incentives and the culture and everything else. I mean, look, if I can become a criminal and make-

    6. GL

      Yeah

    7. BH

      ... like 10X what I can make in a minimum wage job as an entry thing, like-

    8. GL

      Right

    9. BH

      ... you know, like, and then, then in my neighborhood, it's not even, like there's no social stigma with it. In fact, like you're looked-

    10. GL

      Yeah

    11. BH

      ... up upon if you're a criminal. The, it's just too easy, um, and it's just too much. It's a societal failure-

    12. GL

      Yeah

    13. BH

      ... uh, for everybody who's in that situation.

    14. GL

      Outside of Vegas, the national average is around 47% clearance rates, so you have a coin flip.

    15. BH

      For murder.

    16. GL

      For murder, yeah.

    17. BH

      You have a 53%-

    18. GL

      It's good odds

    19. BH

      ... chance of getting away with murder.

    20. GL

      Yeah. It's flip a coin.

    21. BH

      Yeah.

    22. GL

      Flip a coin. Ironic part is when we do get criticisms-

    23. BH

      Yeah

    24. GL

      ... from people that are less familiar with technology, I laugh 'cause I'm like, "Do you realize if the federal government wanted to find you, a license plate reader is the dumbest way to do it."

    25. BH

      Yeah.

    26. GL

      "I will just get a cell phone dump."

    27. BH

      Yeah.

    28. GL

      "And I will know your exact location and real time at all times."

    29. BH

      Which, by the way, which is what they do. [laughs]

    30. GL

      Which, y- yes, but it's way more effective. So I think for the privacy thing, it's, it's quite, it's quite false. The trust is real, though, and so if you go to some communities, they do not trust their police department.

  2. 1:29 – 3:56

    Teach for America Model for Law Enforcement

    1. GL

      Thanks for having me.

    2. ET

      So this group here is both, is heavily invested in eliminating crime, Garrett, obviously you, you with Flock Safety, and Ben, with your work in Las Vegas as well. Let's say that America declared a, a national goal to eliminate crime, and we, it was taking a multifaceted approach and asked you, Garrett, to sit on a committee to help identify what are the different levers or what's, what's the strategy, the comprehensive strategy to eliminate crime. What, what would be some of your, your main advice?

    3. GL

      Hmm. Uh, let's break it down in terms of, uh, people, uh, products, and policy.

    4. ET

      Yeah.

    5. GL

      So people, um, I saw a funny quote online that the way to solve, uh, our infertility issues is just to remove income tax once you have three kids. I was like, that's actually pretty novel.

    6. BH

      [laughs]

    7. GL

      We have a massive student debt problem, right?

    8. BH

      Yeah.

    9. GL

      Why not create a Teach for America for law enforcement?

    10. ET

      Yeah.

    11. GL

      Where you say, "Look, if you've got student debt and you go serve in your community for two years, four years as a patrol officer, crime analyst," like there's a-

    12. ET

      Yeah

    13. GL

      ... ton of roles you can have in a police department. Great, we'll retire student debt. So instead of just giving it away for free, actually go work-

    14. ET

      Yeah

    15. GL

      ... for your government-

    16. ET

      Wow.

    17. BH

      Yeah

    18. GL

      ... for two to four years, and you don't have to go overseas and, and fight in a war. You can literally just stay at home, and like that would dramatically fix the, one of the biggest issues in policing, which is the staffing crisis.

    19. ET

      Yeah.

    20. GL

      And a, and a, and a skill set issue. So that's like the people side. That's the first thing I'd do. Then I'm gonna go have like a national law enforcement act for staffing.

    21. ET

      Right, and also raise the status of police officers.

    22. GL

      Yeah.

    23. BH

      So how much, how, how much of the people issue is the fact that we kind of went from a very kind of pro like police are heroes, every new show is a cop show-

    24. GL

      Yeah

    25. BH

      ... to like complete vilification of the police, defund the police-

    26. ET

      Abolish the police. [laughs]

    27. BH

      Abolish.

    28. GL

      Yeah.

    29. BH

      Abolish cop shows. [laughs]

    30. GL

      Yeah.

  3. 3:56 – 8:28

    The People Problem: Cultural Shift in Policing

    1. GL

      help their communities.

    2. BH

      Yeah. Uh, I think it's a, that's an actually very important and underrated idea 'cause one of the things that we've seen is that, uh, because of the shortage, um, many police departments have lowered their standards. So the, the kind of criticism of the police was, okay, you have... And, and it really, like if you looked into it, there were some like psychos who joined the police force.

    3. GL

      Yeah.

    4. BH

      You, they couldn't get them out for whatever reason, and then they do some heinous thing, and it taints the whole police. Well, now because there aren't enough of them, people are lowering standards to the point in Memphis where they started actually hiring criminals.

    5. GL

      Yes.

    6. BH

      Um, [laughs] and then there was a famous incident where the criminals just went and murdered a guy, um, you know, and it was funny 'cause or not funny, ha-ha, but like I was showing it to the Vegas police, the, the video of that incident, and the first thing they said was, "Oh, that's not p- police brutality. They tar- they wanted, they went to kill that guy."

    7. GL

      Yeah.

    8. BH

      Like that, that-

    9. GL

      That's homicide

    10. BH

      ... that was a homicide, yeah.

    11. GL

      Yeah.

    12. BH

      And I was like, "Oh, boy." But then you look into the backgrounds, and the guys who committed the homicide were in fact criminals who got hired to be police, which is also interestingly, um, what happened in the LAPD with the Rampart scandal right after the, uh, Rodney King incident. Um, the, they had the same kind of thing. Everybody got fired, et cetera, et cetera. They had trouble recruiting. They started recruiting people out of gangs. Um, and those gang members ended up, you know, among other things, uh, killing The Notorious B.I.G. and this kind of thing. But, you know, people don't realize, uh, what the reaction to criticism... [laughs] Uh, I think we just-

    13. GL

      Yeah

    14. BH

      ... have to be, you know, looking forward, careful about like, okay, what is the actual problem as opposed to police are bad.

    15. GL

      Right.

    16. BH

      I think that gets, that puts us in a very different kinda world that we don't wanna be in.

    17. GL

      Agree, and I think you're, you're right. When you look across the board, I think in the last year I've only been to one major city who seems to be like making a dent on staffing.

    18. BH

      Mm-hmm.

    19. GL

      But it's, like they've gone to such extremes.

    20. BH

      Yeah.

    21. GL

      Like they bought-- They'll buy you a house.

    22. BH

      Oh, wow. [chuckles]

    23. GL

      You get a take-home car.

    24. BH

      Amazing. It's crazy.

    25. GL

      Like, I mean, it's always person. I'm like-

    26. BH

      Yeah

    27. GL

      ... there's literally millions of people that could do this job.

    28. BH

      Yeah, yeah.

    29. GL

      I just-- I don't think... It, it's a cultural issue.

    30. BH

      Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, like a big thing in Vegas that we're doing is trying to kind of, uh, you know, with Flock Safety and with some of the other technology we bought and the Cybertrucks and so forth, is to try and improve the image for recruiting-

  4. 8:28 – 12:11

    Technology Stack: Products for Crime Prevention

    1. GL

      Okay.

    2. BH

      I think Vegas is a good... We can pick on Vegas because they've got a pretty good technology stack. Um, you gotta go crime by crime. So g- if you have a gun violence problem, which Vegas has some, you need gunshot detection to know.

    3. GL

      Yep.

    4. BH

      You know, majority of gun violence does not get reported. Like if I shoot you-

    5. GL

      Yeah

    6. BH

      ... I'm not gonna call 911 myself.

    7. GL

      Yeah. [chuckles]

    8. BH

      And unfortunately, I'm a good shot, so-

    9. GL

      Yeah. [chuckles]

    10. BH

      ... you're not calling 911 either. So that's a problem. Um, then you have drones. There's like Vegas has a great deployment-

    11. GL

      Yeah

    12. BH

      ... of drones. San Francisco does as well, as you saw on the news. So you need drones. Uh, you need cameras. So you've got all these sensors, right? And then what's missing historically is now this AI layer, this orchestration layer on top to say, "Wow, I've gone from no data to an abundance of data. How do I make sense of it?" Um, so we've got that. And then this third piece that we care a lot about is how do you also do this in a way that provides accountability and transparency? Because at the end of the day, the police department works for us-

    13. GL

      Yeah

    14. BH

      ... the taxpayer citizens, and you wanna know how's your money being used. Is it being done in a way that's kind of societally just and, and forward? So that's the product side. And then policy is y- you have to hold people accountable.

    15. GL

      Yeah.

    16. BH

      I mean, we've seen the social experiment in, in parts of Northern California.

    17. GL

      [chuckles] Right. You need-

    18. BH

      Yeah

    19. GL

      ... you need to actually prosecute the crimes-

    20. BH

      Yeah. And that's-

    21. GL

      ... unfortunately. Yeah

    22. BH

      ... you know, it's, it's seemingly straightforward.

    23. GL

      Yeah, yeah.

    24. BH

      But a lot of the times, we decriminalize things-

    25. GL

      Yeah

    26. BH

      ... that should be criminal.

    27. GL

      Yeah.

    28. BH

      And that causes a problem. So that's what I would do if I was in charge. Yeah. A- and I think l- like one of the things that people don't think through when they think about crime, um, is like, like the ch- you don't have that many choices. You have kind of a choice of lots of crime, or if you're gonna prevent crime, there's kind of the Singaporean model, which is very harsh capital punishment. You know, we'll hang you in the town square.

    29. GL

      El Salvador.

    30. BH

      We'll hit you with a cane. We'll lock you in like an El Salvadorian prison. Um, or, uh, intelligence. Uh, and in- what intelligence does is it, um, basically makes everybody safer. It makes the suspect safer. It makes the police safer because now everybody understands the crime situation, and then you're also much likely, much more likely to get caught. And there's an old Chinese saying that says, "Certain punishment means no punishment." And that is the, the only way that you can actually achieve it in the US, uh, reduction in crime, is better intelligence. And, you know, people say, "Well, root cause," um, you know, like, "If we get rid of all poverty," and this and that, and third. Well, yeah, sure, if you create a utopian society-

  5. 12:11 – 16:15

    Deterrence vs. Incarceration

    1. BH

      like if you think about it, like if you're growing up outside of the system, um, and the most viable way to make a living is crime, then, you know, that is a career path. And so by reducing law enforcement, you create a crime per- career path, and it kind of lets us avoid creating real career paths for people in that situation. And s- so it's a cascading effect of just badness.

    2. GL

      Well, I think to your point too, the, when, if I woke up in 10 years and all we had done was put a lot of people in prison, it's actually double bad 'cause now-

    3. BH

      Yeah

    4. GL

      ... prison's already very expensive.

    5. BH

      Right.

    6. GL

      There's an economic cost of now that person's no longer productive in society. Like-

    7. BH

      Yeah

    8. GL

      ... actually-

    9. BH

      Well, we're throwing people away, right?

    10. GL

      Yeah.

    11. BH

      Like, you know, you, with the minimum sentencing and everything, y- you know, it's very hard to go to prison and come out, then you have this black mark on your, on your life-

    12. GL

      Yep

    13. BH

      ... where you can't get an apartment. You, you know, you can't get a gun. You can't vote. Uh, you can't get a job. And, you know, that's the worst possible thing. So the best thing is to say, "Hey, look, if you commit crimes, you're gonna get caught." Um, and then that kind of changes the societal incentives and the culture and everything else.

    14. GL

      Totally agree.

    15. ET

      Are we doing sort of the wrong thing by making it not clear that you're gonna get caught or, or saying that, sort of making it not, uh, the deterrence not 100%, um, you know, uh, as clear as it should be while sort of arbitrarily doing long prison sentences in- instead?

    16. BH

      Yeah. I, I mean, I think that, like, if you have great technology, if you've got a kind of a comprehensive flock deployment, then what happens is, like, you don't have to advertise that.

    17. ET

      Yeah.

    18. BH

      'Cause like the streets are watching. [laughs]

    19. ET

      [laughs]

    20. BH

      They know what to, to quote Jay-Z. Like-

    21. ET

      [laughs]

    22. BH

      ... that's, that's gonna happen.

    23. ET

      Yeah.

    24. BH

      Um, but if, yeah, if you don't enforce crime, what you end up is with lost generations.

    25. ET

      Yep.

    26. BH

      Uh, because y- you, like, like it's a pretty... I mean, look, if I can, um, become a criminal and make-

    27. ET

      Yeah

    28. BH

      ... like 10X what I can work, make in a minimum wage job as an entry thing, like-

    29. ET

      Right

    30. BH

      ... you know, like, and then, then in my neighborhood, it's not even, like there's no social stigma with it. In fact, like you're looked-

  6. 16:15 – 19:57

    Intelligence-Based Policing

    1. GL

      like stealing a car.

    2. ET

      Yeah.

    3. GL

      And you don't just change that overnight with more social work.

    4. ET

      Yeah.

    5. GL

      And I think, like I've seen programs at least where, you know, their, their phrase is more, you know, at promise versus at risk programs where it's like, if you don't wanna get in this cycle, create that path, but you still actually have to fix the root problem, which is you should be held accountable if you steal someone's car.

    6. ET

      It was interesting you brought up the, the sort of Dr. Dre, you know, "Fuck The Police," now taking a photo with, with, with police because some people say, "Hey, h- hip-hop at times has glorified a c- a certain, you know, crime, um, lifestyle." W- w- are, a- are other people sort of, uh, evolving like Dr. Dre has? Or how, how is sort of the community, um, you know, over time, you know, thought about sort of this?

    7. BH

      Well, look, I think that, um, there... So, "Fuck The Police," uh, had a real basis in it, in that there was, like if you look at the LAPD in that era, um, they w- you know, and this was the drug war era. They were like very, very, very aggressive, and it was, you know, [laughs] brutalize first, like ask questions second-

    8. ET

      Yeah

    9. BH

      ... you know, kind of culture of that police force. So he was making a real comment on a real thing, um, you know, and Ice Cube and so forth. Um, but the answer to that kind of policing is intelligence plus community policing, right? Like, like that's the right way to police. You need... And I, I give you an example. So the, what the Vegas, uh, police say, said, you know, kind of if you look at it before the drone program, before Flock, okay, so if you don't have Flock, what happens? You get a call. There's a, you know, 1988 Toyota Corolla, uh, that was stolen, um, and you know, it's blue, and it's driving, you know, this way. Okay. So then a guy gets pulled over, over, not the right guy. [laughs] Um, I'm getting pulled over for the police.They're highly suspicious, they're nervous, um, and I'm like, whatever, I'm a Black man, so I'm already, like, trained to be wary of this. And so now you can have an incident. Whereas... And, and if it's a Flock camera, you know that's the guy. [chuckles] That is the guy, and so now you're not sending in one police officer, 'cause you know it's the guy. You're sending in a team, you're gonna apprehend them safely, uh, you know, at... You're gonna take your time 'cause you know, like, you don't have to move on to the next one. It's a totally different situation. And then you can start to build relationships in the community because you're not, like, falsely arresting people and that kind of thing. And so if you look at, you know, V-Vegas has the highest murder clearance rate in the country, well over 90%. Why is that? You talk to them, it's 'cause any time a murder is committed, somebody knows who did it, and in most cities they don't talk to the police.

    10. ET

      Yep.

    11. BH

      Um, and so by doing community policing, they're able to get that information, they're able to clear the murders, they're able to make the community safer. And mostly, by the way, people should understand this, the victims of crime are poor people, by and large.

    12. ET

      Yeah.

    13. BH

      You know? And so when you go defund the police, we're not gonna enforce law, da-da, you're basically terrorizing the poor community.

    14. ET

      And this is what, what's called the Ferguson effect, right?

    15. BH

      Yeah.

    16. ET

      Like, crime actually went up.

    17. BH

      Yeah, no, of course.

    18. ET

      But, but, yeah.

    19. BH

      Of course it did.

    20. ET

      Yeah.

    21. BH

      And it, and it's, uh, you know, people just don't think these systematic problems all the way through. They, they just go to the very first thing, like, "Police are bad."

    22. ET

      Yeah.

    23. BH

      Well, like, the system hasn't been working, so let's fix the system as opposed to vilify any individual.

    24. ET

      Yeah. Garrett, can you say

  7. 19:57 – 25:00

    Why Crime Clearance Rates Are Dropping

    1. ET

      more about why sort of the, I don't know if it's the clear-clearance rate or just-

    2. GL

      Mm-hmm

    3. ET

      ... the sort of rate at which we catch-

    4. GL

      Yeah

    5. ET

      ... murders or so- or solve crimes has, has been dropping and, and-

    6. GL

      Yeah

    7. ET

      ... you know.

    8. GL

      Yeah. Well, I think I'll provide one positive reason why clearance rates are down, and the rest is very negative. On a positive side, our expectations of a society to arrest someone have gone up, which is, which is good, right? I think a, the number of people who you hear about getting released 10 years later 'cause now we have DNA, or 10 years later because now we have video evidence, like, that's actually a good thing, right? It should be harder to put someone in jail for life.

    9. ET

      Yeah.

    10. GL

      That's one reason.

    11. BH

      Yes. [chuckles] Definitely.

    12. GL

      Right? Like, that's-

    13. ET

      Yeah

    14. GL

      ... that's a, that's a good thing.

    15. ET

      Yeah.

    16. BH

      Yeah.

    17. GL

      And some of that's from TV. You know, you watch-

    18. ET

      Yeah

    19. GL

      ... NCIS, NCIS-

    20. ET

      [laughs]

    21. GL

      ... and you're just like-

    22. BH

      Yeah

    23. GL

      ... there's cameras everywhere, kinda.

    24. ET

      Yeah.

    25. GL

      So that, that's one. The second is, and, and Ben mentioned this, witness cooperation is gone. I mean, what's the personal benefit of testifying in a homicide besides putting your own life at risk?

    26. ET

      Yeah.

    27. GL

      So, so no one shows up, which is a huge problem. Um, societally we've given up on pretending like we're gonna help you. So that, that's the second issue. Third issue is a pretty big mix shift in crime. So if you think about the '60s, '70s, '80s, majority of crime was domestic.

    28. ET

      Hmm.

    29. GL

      You, you would kill a partner, you would kill a s- a, a girlfriend or boyfriend. So it was, uh, it was a not randomized crime. Now the majority of homicides are random. Um, it is a drug deal gone, gone wrong. It is a gang rivalry over territory. It, that is the predominant type of crime.

    30. ET

      Hmm.

  8. 25:00 – 28:10

    Vegas Case Study: Community Response

    1. ET

      Let's go deeper on Vegas as a, as a case study, Ben. W- what has most surprised you in your, in your work, um, w- with Vegas? Or, or what do you think other cities can learn from the, the work that you guys are doing?

    2. BH

      Well, I think that the most surprising thing is, uh, t- to me is just like how much the actual community likes it. Like we've got criticism in the press and the-

    3. ET

      Yeah

    4. BH

      ... uh, and whatnot, of course, you know-

    5. ET

      Which is nice

    6. BH

      ... surveillance, Big Brother, like Ben's a penguin, all that kind of thing.

    7. ET

      [laughs]

    8. BH

      Uh, but the community, you know, everybody who lives there, and Vegas is kind of a unique city in that like it's got crime tourism.

    9. ET

      Yeah.

    10. BH

      People fly in, uh, like-

    11. ET

      Do some crime. Yeah

    12. BH

      ... "Yeah, let's do some crime, and then fly out."

    13. ET

      Do some crime and then leave, yeah.

    14. BH

      And all that kind of thing. And then there's like a lot of people go bananas-

    15. ET

      Yeah

    16. BH

      ... uh, in Vegas, so it's, it's way beyond any criminal motivation. It's like mental health and, and that kind of thing, or mental health combined with like hard drugs combined-

    17. ET

      Yeah

    18. BH

      ... with, you know, Vegas. Uh, so, so there's a lot of that. And, but the, for the people who live there, you know, the, the, all the hospitality workers, you know, the people who are working for tips and all that kind of thing, um, the fact that, you know... And we already had a very good police department in terms of community policing and the right, um, uh, you know, the right culture. You know, adding the technology to that has kind of made the community go, "Wow," like, "I am, I'm proud to be here. I feel safe. I know that if a crime gets committed..." And we always say [chuckles] in the, like, "You can commit a crime in Vegas, you can't get away with it." Um, and people really, really appreciate that. I've gotten, you know, so many people come up to me from all over the city saying, "Hey, thank you. We really see the difference and appreciate what you're doing," and so forth. So I, I didn't think it would be that visible that fast.

    19. GL

      I think the other thing, too, and you, I don't know if you actually know this, but the model of, of what Vegas is doing is caught on more nationally, where this public and private partnership is picking up speed because the pace of government innovation is quite slow.

    20. BH

      Yeah.

    21. GL

      And private enterprise, whether it's an individual or a company, has mutual incentives to be safer.

    22. BH

      Yeah.

    23. GL

      So think about like who's the largest supporter of the Mooresville Police Department? Lowe's.

    24. BH

      Yeah.

    25. GL

      'Cause Lowe's is based there.

    26. BH

      Yeah.

    27. GL

      And they have thousands of employees that live there.

    28. BH

      Yeah.

    29. GL

      And so to, for Lowe's to spend a million dollars is very small for them-

    30. BH

      Yeah

  9. 28:10 – 34:05

    Private Funding for Police Innovation

    1. BH

      in the 911. 911's a very stressful job.

    2. ET

      Yeah. Oof.

    3. BH

      It takes 12 months to train somebody. It's all this kind of thing. Um, and, you know, they've, everybody was quitting. They, five-minute call waits for 911. Imagine waiting on hold for five minutes on 911. Um, and you know, I, I was like, "Well, what's the problem?" And they're like, "Well," [chuckles] you know, "like the work conditions are hard, like there's no ice machine." Like that was literally it. So I was like, "Fuck that. I'll buy that..." So I bought an ice machine, an espresso machine.

    4. GL

      Costco. Yeah.

    5. BH

      We, we put in a gym.

    6. GL

      [laughs]

    7. BH

      Um, and now the call waits are less than 30 seconds.

    8. ET

      Wow.

    9. BH

      And so, you know, just like that tiny investment-

    10. ET

      Yeah

    11. BH

      ... uh, can change everything.

    12. GL

      But I think to your point, and like, uh, in Atlanta, um, I'm on the Police Foundation board.

    13. BH

      Yeah.

    14. GL

      I think we contribute about $30 million a year to the police department.

    15. BH

      Yeah.

    16. GL

      And I'll never forget, this is a couple months ago, the head of the like SWAT team came in.

    17. BH

      Yeah.

    18. GL

      And was like, "I would like new equipment." I'm thinking-

    19. BH

      Yeah

    20. GL

      ... "How bad can it be?"

    21. BH

      Yeah.

    22. GL

      And he walks in, and it's like, I mean, you would be embarrassed.

    23. BH

      [laughs] Yeah.

    24. GL

      Can you imagine? It's like your job is actually to go-

    25. BH

      Right

    26. GL

      ... into fire, like the line of fire.

    27. BH

      Yeah.

    28. GL

      It's like-

    29. BH

      Yeah.

    30. GL

      And he was like, "I would like a million dollars to get all new equipment for our SWAT team." It's like-

  10. 34:05 – 38:53

    Addressing Privacy and Trust Concerns

    1. ET

      Uh, yeah, it seems like some people are, are scared about a, a world in which there's so little trust in, in the police that basically everyone is getting private security, you know, all this neighborhood, um, security.

    2. BH

      Well, that's the irony of defund the police.

    3. GL

      Yeah. [laughs]

    4. BH

      It's defund the police for poor people.

    5. GL

      For poor people.

    6. ET

      Yeah, yeah.

    7. BH

      To privatize the police for rich people.

    8. GL

      Yeah.

    9. ET

      Yeah.

    10. GL

      Which, you know, has failed in many countries.

    11. ET

      Yeah. Yeah.

    12. BH

      Yeah. And that's, uh, not a good idea, by the way. [laughs]

    13. GL

      Yeah. No, no, no.

    14. ET

      Yeah. And then, and then, and say more about w- why that is.

    15. BH

      The crimes are committed, like, n- 98% against poor people.

    16. GL

      Yeah.

    17. BH

      Like, the, that is who are the victims of crime, and so you take away the public funding of police for poor people, um, then you basically end up with a completely degenerate society. You basically turn whole neighbors in, uh, into the Third World, which we, by the way, have in the United States in a f- really major way. Uh, and you know, you just have to put yourself in the position of somebody who is trying to raise kids in that environment. It is crazy that that-

    18. ET

      Yeah

    19. BH

      ... happens in this country.

    20. GL

      Yeah.

    21. BH

      It, it, it's just absolutely insane.

    22. GL

      Yeah, I mean, if you look at the core premise of America is economic mobility.

    23. ET

      Yeah.

    24. GL

      I wanna do better than my parents. I want my kids to do better than me. You have to have three things to do that. You have to have food, right? And to Ben's point on, on privatizing, like, you look at one of the biggest issues in poor communities, it's a lack of-

    25. ET

      Yeah

    26. GL

      ... s- sourced food. Second is you have to have a shelter, okay? Third is you have to be safe. If you don't have a bedrock of safety in your life, nothing else can be done.

    27. ET

      Mm-hmm.

    28. GL

      Nothing... Everything will oc- And your entire mind becomes occupied by, "Can I actually walk to school?"

    29. ET

      Yeah.

    30. GL

      "Will I make it to 18 years old, 21?" And so if you look at that, you go, uh, by privatizing, you remove a core tenet of economic bil- mobility, which is what you see politically, politically where we start to say, "I don't believe in the American dream anymore, 'cause it's, it didn't work for me." And that's, I think, the fundamental risk is actually, like, that-

  11. 38:53 – 43:44

    Prison Reform and Rehabilitation

    1. ET

      Yeah. Ga-Garrett, why don't you say more on the, on the policy side in terms of are, are there certain cities where certain policies are, are much more effective that others should learn from or?

    2. GL

      Yeah. Well, I mean, I think on the, to, to Ben's point, just to close that out too, I mean, there's evil in the world.

    3. ET

      Yeah.

    4. GL

      And Flock nor any of us are gonna fix that, and so we will always need some place to deal with them. Um, then the question is to the ninety-nine percent of criminals today who are not evil, and they're more capitalistic or opportunistic criminals. So I think t-to your point, like there are some interesting activities, particularly around non-violent, either juvenile or young adults, where putting them in prison is the worst thing to do. They will go from non-violent to violent in months. They will get stuck in it for their entire life. And so we're seeing more and more-

    5. ET

      Yeah

    6. GL

      ... cities say, "There's a better way to do this." You know, you can go to two places, three places, right? You can go to work, you can go to school, you can go home. It's way better than jail. It's cheaper for the city. It's actually now teaching them to become a productive member of society. And so I think for us, like that's probably the most important kind of policy change we're starting to see is less of a mindset that, "Oh, we should throw these people in jail." I think the other thing we're looking at, and we actually, we had a great conversation with the DA here in, in San Francisco, uh, J-Jenkins, of just like there also needs to be some technology and either Flock's gonna build it or someone should to make that part of the process go faster. Um, so I was in Shelby County in, in Tennessee, so Memphis, and there's, you know, thousands of people waiting for their trial. What do you think is happening in that place? I mean, it's-

    7. ET

      Yeah

    8. GL

      ... they're becoming criminals. And so there's also an, an effort of like we actually need to speed up the judicial system, and I don't think more humans is the answer. So-

    9. ET

      Yeah

    10. GL

      ... also seeing more and more cities adopt technology to speed that up.

    11. ET

      Yeah.

    12. GL

      Um-

    13. BH

      Yeah, actually, so in Vegas they have-- Ju-just to show you how, like fixable this problem is, they have this... So there's an anti-recidivism program called Hope for Prisoners, which basically, you know, teaches prisoners coming out of jail how to get back into society, and then it helps them get jobs. The Vegas prosecutor will, if you're like an 18-year-old kid, and you commit a first-time offense, and it's not violent, they'll send you-- They, they won't prosecute you. They'll send you to Hope for Prisoners, and you go through the rehab. They are close to zero percent recidivism on that program.

    14. ET

      Wow.

    15. BH

      Um, just because, you know, a lot of the times it's like, well, how do I get... People become criminals sometimes because that's, that is a career path.

    16. ET

      Yeah.

    17. BH

      Um, and so if you create an alternative career path, nobody wants to go to jail. Nobody, uh, you know, like unless you're insane-

    18. ET

      Right

    19. BH

      ... or you're like a, a real psycho, that's not the path people want to be on. It's just a path they end up on. And so, you know, creating other avenues, um, is really good, but, like you have to also disincentivize the criminal career path.

    20. ET

      Yeah.

    21. BH

      Like e- those go together.

    22. ET

      I, um, Delancey Street Restaurant also ano-another example. Is that an, is that a successful example that you followed there with?

    23. BH

      Yeah, no, of course. Yeah.

    24. ET

      Yeah.

    25. BH

      Definitely. Definitely.

    26. ET

      Where it's, yeah, it's a restaurant, and they take people who've previously been in prison and give them sort of, you know.

    27. BH

      Yeah, no, like I think that businesses, you know, hiring people, particularly out of, uh, and I think Delancey Street hires a lot of people out of juvenile, juvenile hall. Um, you know, taking kids-

    28. ET

      Yeah

    29. BH

      ... out of the system early is very, very productive. It's, uh, look, once you've been in prison 10 years or 20 years, it-it's really hard to adapt-

    30. ET

      Yeah

  12. 43:44 – 47:08

    Crime Statistics and Reporting Issues

    1. BH

      lot of the politicians who wanna defund the police have massive private security.

    2. GL

      Yeah. It's a-- Yeah, if you've got three guys walking around with you all the time, you feel fine.

    3. BH

      Yeah.

    4. ET

      Yeah.

    5. GL

      But I also think, like, for me at least, our expectations of safety should only go up.

    6. ET

      Yeah.

    7. GL

      Like, j-just like we expect information at our fingertips, w-why shouldn't we feel safe everywhere we go-

    8. ET

      Right

    9. GL

      ... all the time? Like-

    10. ET

      Yeah. They say like, "Hey, living in a city's dangerous. You know, that's what you signed up for." I'm like-

    11. GL

      That's the, that's the only-

    12. ET

      Yeah

    13. GL

      ... I've only gotten into one argument with an, an antagonist who I said, you know, "I just don't think crime should exist." And he, and he was like, "I think it's just a part of living in a big city."

    14. ET

      [laughs]

    15. GL

      And I was like, "That seems horrible." Like-

    16. ET

      [laughs]

    17. GL

      ... it's like trash too? Like, I don't know.

    18. ET

      Yeah.

    19. GL

      Like clean streets? Like-

    20. ET

      Yeah

    21. GL

      ... these are not, not unreasonable things to ask for.

    22. BH

      Yeah. It seems like a very odd, uh, perspective. But I, you know, I, I... I mean, like particularly if you're a young person, I could see, uh-

    23. ET

      Or they worry about-

    24. BH

      ... how you might think that way

    25. ET

      ... overly, uh, you know, uh, enc- uh, end up, you know, putting people, too, too many people in prison or for the wrong crimes, or they worry about a militarized police or-

    26. GL

      All those seem like reasonable concerns.

    27. ET

      Yeah, that's a steelman, yeah.

    28. GL

      I guess, I guess the, the thing for me is, you know, who's gonna decide how many homicides is okay?

    29. ET

      Right.

    30. BH

      Yeah.

  13. 47:08 – 51:52

    Data Retention and Sharing Policies

    1. GL

      Yeah, I mean, so, so there's probably two, there's two big levers that a city can pull.

    2. ET

      Yeah.

    3. GL

      So one is retention. So we were, before Flock was started, there were other companies in this space, and they would historically store location data in perpetuity. And my philosophy starting the company was like, that seems more of a risk than an asset-

    4. ET

      Yeah

    5. GL

      ... 'cause it's just, just a lot of data. Um, and so we store it for 30 days, but you can flex that up and down. So in New Jersey, they store it for five years. That's the state law.

    6. ET

      Yeah.

    7. GL

      That's not our choice. That's just the law. California, there's a max of 90 days. We have some agencies in California that store it for seven days.

    8. ET

      Yeah.

    9. GL

      I mean, you could store it for a day. Now, the efficacy is probably linearly correlated by the retention period, 'cause like how often do you call a crime the same day it happens? And actually, not every time. You're away, your car's stolen, whatever it could be. So one is data retention, and the second is data sharing. Like what other police departments do you wanna work with? Criminals don't really care where cities start and stop, but cities do by design.

    10. ET

      Yeah.

    11. GL

      And so you can control where you share. So in some states, like California, the data can never leave the state. And Virginia recently adopted a similar bill. Uh, Illinois, Colorado, more states are saying, "Hey, you know, we, we trust our state." I think that's an okay approach. I, I worry about, you know, Ben, maybe you know, does this, do criminals ever leave California to Nevada? Like, I think they do.

    12. BH

      [laughs]

    13. GL

      So like it's-

    14. BH

      It's so crazy

    15. GL

      ... it's, it's, it is crazy but it's-

    16. BH

      By the way, so this, this is one of the things we ran into on the, uh, Tupac case, by the way, uh, was the LAPD [laughs] did so much stuff to foul that case in Vegas, um, which is why that murder went unsolved for whatever it was, like, uh, a-almost 30 years. Um-

    17. ET

      And why'd they do that?

    18. BH

      Well, in, in that case, the LAPD was corrupt [chuckles] and the-

    19. ET

      Yeah

    20. BH

      ... well, there were literally criminals in the police force protecting the-

    21. ET

      Wow

    22. BH

      ... criminals who, uh, killed Tupac. And, you know, w- s- thankfully, we kinda, uh, reopened the cold case and we caught the guy. But it's, uh, you know, like when you think about it in terms of the actual victim-

    23. ET

      Yeah

    24. BH

      ... and how bad it was that, like, one of the great artists in the half-century ended up being portrayed as, like, this weird criminal victim of a crime 'cause we never solved it. Uh, like, that's what happens when you don't share information. Like, that's the, that's a real issue.

    25. ET

      Yeah.

    26. GL

      But yeah, so I mean, for us, you know, we've got some agencies, you know, some of the most liberal cities in-

    27. ET

      Yeah

    28. GL

      ... the country, huge fans of Flock. They-

    29. ET

      Right

    30. GL

      ... tweak it to their likings.

  14. 51:52 – 54:16

    Organized Crime and Sophisticated Operations

    1. ET

      do we have a big organized crime problem in, in this country or w-was-- You, you mentioned it earlier.

    2. BH

      A big disorganized [chuckles] crime problem.

    3. GL

      Well, I will, I will say, though, the, the, the sheer, sheer sophistication of-

    4. BH

      Yeah

    5. GL

      ... of some criminal groups is actually astonishing. There is definitely low-level crime, but you've got-

    6. BH

      Yeah

    7. GL

      ... th-there's... It's become somewhat politicized, but there are truly a large number of Eastern European and South American gangs-

    8. BH

      Ah, yeah

    9. GL

      ... operating large-scale businesses, and I call them businesses 'cause while they commit crime, they don't run sloppy. And so I'll give you an example-

    10. BH

      Yeah

    11. GL

      ... like in logistics space. So Ben and I are two buddies from Eastern Europe. We go and buy a freight forwarder, a legitimate company. We start receiving semis full of product, and guess what? They just disappear.

    12. ET

      [chuckles]

    13. GL

      And then after about a month, we shut the company down and disappear, and we've taken tens of millions of dollars of goods, and then we flip it on Facebook Marketplace-

    14. ET

      How did we get-

    15. GL

      ... and all secondary places.

    16. BH

      Yeah.

    17. GL

      And it's clean. No one gets shot. And everything looks clean on paper.

    18. ET

      Wow.

    19. GL

      And, like, this is obviously not easy to... Like, you have to-

    20. ET

      Yeah

    21. GL

      ... be sophisticated, but, like, this is large, large scale, and it works.

    22. BH

      And by the way, this, so this is what happened. You know, I, I have, uh, when the crime went really crazy in San Francisco, I, I had a long conversation with Mayor Breed about it, and, uh, one of the things that... So in San Francisco, right, like, the whole political movement was people are hungry, you can't arrest them for shoplifting and so forth. So as soon as we did that, what happened [chuckles] was massive gangs [chuckles] took everything out of the stores. They ended up, right, shutting down-

    23. ET

      Yeah

    24. BH

      ... the big mall. Like, there's no shopping in San Francisco whatsoever anymore. Um, and so all the citizens got punished. But, like, it wasn't hungry people. It was, like, organized crime systematically selling the goods, um, secondhand. It, it was that kind of thing.

    25. ET

      Yeah.

    26. BH

      And so you get... Now, the people that they deployed were low-level criminals, right?

    27. ET

      Yeah.

    28. BH

      Like, you can just pick, have a kid go rob the thing for you, and you pay him.

    29. ET

      Right.

    30. BH

      Um, but that's, that's not what's going on.

  15. 54:16 – 57:07

    The Future of Policing: Intelligence and Precision

    1. ET

      Garrett, talk about what the world looks like in a world where Flock achieves its goal. Like, what's the future of policing? You know, a Fl-Flock camera on every block.

    2. GL

      Yeah.

    3. ET

      Like, talk, talk about that.

    4. GL

      Yeah. I think the word Ben used was intelligence.

    5. ET

      Yeah.

    6. GL

      And so much of that shift is starting to happen.

    7. ET

      Yeah.

    8. GL

      I would add to the intelligence precision.

    9. ET

      Yeah.

    10. GL

      And, like, I'll paint for you a, a picture of a recent success story that to me is the future, and it just hasn't happened in every city yet.

    11. ET

      Yeah.

    12. GL

      So there's a individual, um, who leaves the hospital mentally unwell, um, and shoots someone in a drive-by, just driving by and starts shooting people. This is a real story. Um, because all the police departments in the city worked, like, and the neighboring cities worked together, they put out a hot list entry for, "Hey, we're looking for this vehicle, armed, dangerous, mentally unwell."That vehicle pulls into the largest commercial center for one of the cities. It's a big mall. The mall is also a Flock customer, so the police department gets a ding on that camera and says, "Hey, we found this guy." Now let's pause. Traditional response is you deploy SWAT, and it's gonna take about 15 minutes to get everyone ready. They're gonna come in hot, and someone's gonna die. It's not clear who, either a citizen, an officer, or the suspect's gonna die. But let's assume someone's gonna die, and then just as im- not as important, but just as a matter of fact, that mall is also gonna see a dramatic decline in attendance.

    13. ET

      Yeah.

    14. GL

      And it could lead to probably the end of the mall, which is not good too for that city.

    15. ET

      No.

    16. GL

      Okay, let's un-pause. What happened? Sitting at a comfortable desk like we are here, a real-time crime center operator clicks a button that says Launch Drone. The drone is at the mall in about 40 seconds. From about a half mile away, we can zoom in, find that the individual has a tattoo. Um, we pulled that 'cause, uh, we have a product called Nova that when an LPR hit comes through, we can say, "Oh, wow, this person's been arrested six times. Is there any inter- oh, there is interesting information. This person has a very distinguishable forearm tattoo." So we spot the tattoo half a mile away. This guy has no idea we're following him. We don't see a gun. Two plainclothes officers walk up. The whole time they know they've got overhead protection. They're being helped, just like you were in the Army. They take him down. No one has any idea.

    17. ET

      Wow.

    18. GL

      And I then present this to city council.

    19. ET

      Yeah.

    20. GL

      And city council was like, "We need drones everywhere."

    21. ET

      [laughs]

    22. BH

      Yeah.

    23. GL

      "We need drones everywhere."

    24. ET

      Yeah.

    25. GL

      It's safer. It's more precise. There's a level of intelligence. And so when I look at this police department, they've got all their data integrated. They have all their sensors integrated, and it's just happening. And I think for us, when we think about a kind of agentic layer on top of that, where now you can start to reduce some of your staffing problems, but some of these jobs-

    26. ET

      Yeah

    27. GL

      ... no one wants to work the night shift.

    28. ET

      Yeah.

    29. GL

      No one wants to... Like, the, some jobs are just, like, not fun. There's a way to do it with software.

    30. ET

      Yeah.

  16. 57:07 – 58:21

    Success Stories: Saving Missing Children

    1. ET

      Just quick last one. Sorry. Don't you have a couple stories of, of, of you actually saving, like, a baby?

    2. GL

      Oh, I mean, we, we helped return-

    3. BH

      Oh, yeah

    4. GL

      ... over 450 missing children this year.

    5. ET

      Oh my God.

    6. GL

      And that's the f-f- the-

    7. BH

      Yeah

    8. GL

      ... I know it's not funny, but-

    9. ET

      Yeah

    10. GL

      ... that funny aha, where it's like people are like, "Oh, we should, you know, ban Flock."

    11. ET

      [laughs]

    12. GL

      And I'm like, "Until your child is stolen."

    13. ET

      Yeah. Oh, yeah.

    14. GL

      'Cause I've got three kids.

    15. ET

      Yeah.

    16. GL

      And I wanna know that if anything goes, happens wrong with them, Flock is there.

    17. BH

      Yeah.

    18. ET

      Yeah.

    19. BH

      And this is like, you get carjacked-

    20. ET

      Yeah

    21. BH

      ... and your baby's in the backseat, and they take the baby, and then, like, that kind of thing.

    22. GL

      We know it happened. I mean, there was a case down in San Diego this year where, to Ben's point, it was at a mall.

    23. BH

      Yeah.

    24. GL

      Just hops in. There's a kid in the back. Like, obviously wasn't, none of that wasn't a part of the plan-

    25. BH

      Yeah

    26. GL

      ... but became a part of the plan, and like, thankfully, you know, they've got a lot of Flock cameras in San Diego, and, and we were able to get the individual, but that happens. Doesn't happen every day in your city, but it happens every day in the country.

    27. ET

      Well, Garrett, you're, you're doing heroic work, and one of the most inspiring things about working at a16z is, is working with you, so thank you for the work that you do.

    28. GL

      Thank you.

    29. BH

      Yes. Thank you for your service. We appreciate it. Thank you. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 58:22

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