Founder & CEO Flock Safety, Garrett Langley: Tech That Makes Everyone Safer

Grit

In April, a young girl was kidnapped and sexually assaulted in Yakima, Wash., and later told police she was picked up by a stranger in a car. The case might have gone cold there, if Yakima hadn’t just installed Flock Safety cameras: The cameras were able to pinpoint a car matching the girl’s description, and picked up the alleged abductor outside an elementary school campus, says Flock CEO Garrett Langley, who says stories like this have validated his company’s mission of stopping crime in our communities.

In this episode, Garrett and Joubin discuss a “huge life hack” that Garrett recommends to every CEO with young kids, quarter-life crises and how to rediscover your purpose, the biggest problem in public safety, how Flock Safety is solving thousands of crimes every year, the politics of surveillance camera placement, how Flock cameras became a feature of political campaigns, and how the company almost went out of business before its Series B.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why Garrett’s executive assistant is his mother (02:06)
• “I had no idea that people started companies” (13:07)
• Garrett’s quarter-life crisis after two great startup exits (16:59)
• How Flock Safety helps law enforcement make communities safer (23:49)
• Solving a child abduction in Washington state (27:27)
• Why Garrett and his co-founders started Flock (31:22)
• The impact of Flock cameras on communities that don’t trust the police (36:35)
• Political controversies and community engagement (39:18)
• Making cities safer and talent drain from local police departments (47:11)
• The challenges of fundraising for a police-tech startup in Atlanta (53:42)
• “Protect the whole community” (01:00:12)
• The public markets downturn (01:03:33)

Links:

• Connect with Garrett
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [e-mail]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm