CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 0:44
A childhood shooting that set the direction toward public-safety tech
Michael Chime traces his motivation back to experiencing the ripple effects of an active-shooter incident when he was 12. That moment made “safety” feel non-guaranteed and planted a long-term drive to work on high-stakes, meaningful problems.
- •Active-shooter event near his school led to lockdown and lasting impact
- •Realization that emergencies can affect people you know—including you
- •Safety became a persistent theme throughout his childhood
- •Draw toward challenges that feel important, not just prestigious
- 0:44 – 2:15
From Yale to a mission: why 911 experiences still fail people
He introduces Prepared and explains the gap between fast-moving consumer tech and lagging public-safety infrastructure. The core mission becomes improving the quality and speed of 911 response—because bad 911 experiences are widespread.
- •Prepared: an AI assistant for 911 calls to improve speed and quality
- •Adoption scale: operating in 49 states covering ~100M people
- •Public-safety tech lags behind broader technology trends
- •Motivation rooted in preventing “really bad” 911 experiences
- 2:15 – 2:45
Co-founders and the first product: a school safety app becomes the wedge
At Yale, Chime meets future co-founders with similar proximity to school violence. They start by building a simple tool for schools, not initially intending to create a long-term company—then customer usage points them toward 911 integration needs.
- •Met co-founders Dylan and Neil; shared personal context (e.g., Sandy Hook nearby)
- •Initial intent: build a tool schools could use and move on
- •First product: an app used by hundreds of schools
- •School drills and incident sharing exposed the need to connect with 911
- 2:45 – 5:16
Discovering 911’s tech reality: built for landlines, hard to replace
While trying to send richer data (photos) to 911, they discover most centers still run systems designed for landline assumptions. Chime describes the shock of seeing call-takers rely on frantic, incomplete notes—yet replacement risk makes “rip-and-replace” unrealistic.
- •Legacy constraint: many centers still operate with landline-era assumptions
- •Operational reality: call-takers type stream-of-consciousness notes under pressure
- •Those notes become the basis for field response—high stakes and error-prone
- •Switching core systems risks missed calls; centers are understandably cautious
- 5:16 – 6:05
Integration-first strategy: improving outcomes now instead of in 10 years
Prepared chooses to integrate with existing 911 systems rather than forcing replacement. This architecture respects operational constraints while accelerating real-world adoption and impact.
- •Decision: fit within existing systems rather than rip them out
- •Designing around valid concerns: reliability, continuity, zero missed calls
- •A “thoughtful change” approach vs. vendor blame/oversimplification
- •Goal: solve the problem today, not after a decade of procurement cycles
- 6:05 – 7:36
Early proof of value: live video enabling a life-saving CPR intervention
Chime recounts a first-week story where live-streaming allowed a dispatcher to coach CPR correctly and revive a victim. These moments validate the product and reinforce the importance of staying close to frontline reality.
- •First-week deployment used in a CPR call to guide hand placement and timing
- •Live-streaming with speakerphone enabled real-time coaching
- •Outcome: victim revived; strong early signal of product value
- •Trajectory: scaling toward tens of millions of calls processed annually
- 7:36 – 8:37
Customer-led evolution: translation, transcription, and reducing bad information
By watching how centers actually use the tool, Prepared iterates from media-sharing into translation and transcription. A key insight emerges: inaccurate or misunderstood information can be worse than having no information in emergency response.
- •Rapid growth in usage revealed patterns and new needs (350 incidents to 60k+ messages)
- •Insight: bad information into 911 can be worse than no information
- •Manual workaround observed: copying Spanish texts into Google Translate
- •Product progression: text translation → audio transcription/translation on calls
- 8:37 – 9:37
AI to offload the noise: voice agents for non-emergency calls
Processing millions of calls surfaces systemic bottlenecks—especially hold times and human attention spent on low-priority requests. Prepared introduces AI voice agents to handle non-emergency calls, freeing dispatchers for true emergencies.
- •Two problems discovered at scale: non-emergency hold times and overwhelmed agents
- •Critical human resource spent on noise complaints/parking tickets
- •AI voice agent launched to handle non-emergency calls end-to-end
- •Adoption by major cities to offload call volume
- 9:37 – 10:08
Staying close to the front lines: field immersion as a durable advantage
Chime emphasizes that every major product launch comes from sitting beside call-takers and observing pain points. He argues many companies make decisions far from users, while Prepared treats proximity to customers as non-negotiable.
- •Product roadmap driven by direct observation of real calls and workflows
- •Chime spends 1–2 weeks per month in centers even as the company scales
- •Competitive edge: build what users are already telling you they need
- •Critique: too many decisions happen away from actual operators
- 10:08 – 13:09
Hacking B2G distribution: bottoms-up adoption by giving the product away
Investors warned him off government and 911 as slow and small, but Prepared leaned into the niche and focused on distribution as the real constraint. Inspired by bottoms-up SaaS, they removed procurement friction by offering the initial product at no cost.
- •Conventional wisdom: government sales are slow; market seen as “too small”
- •Analogy to early enterprise SaaS: procurement/IT blocks innovation
- •Strategy: get end users hooked first, then make it about technology, not process
- •First ~1,000 cities paid nothing; goal was adoption and proof of a better way
- 13:09 – 15:10
Founder growth: unlearning roles as the company scales fast
Rapid scaling forces Chime to repeatedly drop responsibilities he’s just gotten good at—moving from selling to managing sellers to building culture. He frames the hard part as accepting discomfort and learning new jobs on short cycles.
- •Role evolution: individual contributor selling → manager → culture/organization builder
- •Letting go is painful because the “old job” is familiar and rewarding
- •Founders get stuck doing yesterday’s job while the company needs a new one
- •Non-negotiable cultural pillar: sustained customer obsession at scale
- 15:10 – 16:11
Why the “hard way” can be easier: ambition attracts talent and momentum
Chime argues that building an ambitious, difficult company can be more straightforward than building an “easy” one because it rallies people. A compelling mission draws stronger talent and greater commitment—despite the discomfort and uncertainty.
- •Big missions create clarity and emotional energy for teams
- •Ambition helps recruit exceptional people willing to work hard
- •Public safety is difficult and uncomfortable, but motivating
- •Personal doubt is constant, yet urgency makes the work feel necessary
- 16:11 – 17:52
Responsibility and ecosystem impact: raising the bar for the whole industry
He closes on a sense of obligation: if Prepared stopped, safety could regress to the status quo. Even if competitors adopt and mass-distribute similar innovations, he views that as success—because the ultimate goal is saving lives at scale.
- •Belief: without their push, the space risks returning to decay and underinvestment
- •Work “raises the temperature” and pressures incumbents to improve
- •Success isn’t exclusive—broad replication is welcomed if it saves lives
- •Framing: it doesn’t have to be him, but someone must do the work
