Full transcript
There is a very accurate although
recently politicized narrative [music]
on the sophistication of criminals.
These groups are very sophisticated and
it is a capitalistic activity for them
to catch these guys. Like
the shortest answer would be they have
better technology. They they they're
more equipped. They're better funded um
than what your local police department
probably has access to.
Hello fellow data nerds. My guest today
is Garrett Langley. Garrett is the CEO
and founder of Flock Safety. Flock
manufactures hardware like license plate
recognition cameras, drones, and video
surveillance equipment as well as
software used by law enforcement
agencies. Earlier this year, Flock
raised $275 million and around that
value the company at $7.5 billion.
Garrett previously co-founded
Experience, a live events platform uh
acquired by Cox for $200 million. And
he's co-founded the car subscription ser
startup Clutch. Garrett, welcome to
World of DAS.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be
here.
I'm super excited to dive in. Now, what
is like data in the data landscape for
like law enforcement? Like what's the
state of it?
Yeah. Uh it's messy and old. So, I mean,
I'll give you a good good perspective.
Uh and I and I won't name the city
because I won't give them too hard of a
time, but this is let's call it a top
100 city in terms of population in
America. Uh, and as of two years ago,
they were running entirely on prim.
Yep.
And majority on paper.
Majority.
So imagine you're imagine you're
like in the folders like putting it in
the file folders. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
So I mean So it's funny. Yeah. But like
you would have thought the cloud maybe
that's debatable and it's deeply
debatable. Like in in a case like
Maryland, it was illegal to operate our
business in the cloud as of 3 years ago.
Illegal.
Not not like well not poorly adopted.
Illegal.
And was it illegal because like they
were just kind of technology laggers.
Was it illegal because somebody was
trying to do some sort of capture? Some
sort of other vendor was doing capture
like what was the reason why it's
illegal? Someone just got around to it?
I mean reg regulatory capture is the
most articulate answer. I think the gray
area definition was there was a lack of
clarity on whether or not the cloud or
on-prim was safer.
Now, I think that's laughable because I
think, you know, it's hard to argue that
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, pick your
cloud provider, like they're going to
have the best safety in the world
compared to, you know, an IT department
at a at a local city. That's just that's
really hard to imagine. not not out of
hard work just scale you know that can
be used
and you see all these IT departments
that get you know ransomware and other
types of things that happen to them at
the local level.
Yeah. And so so the sense in in the
local government side much of the
business is much of our customers
exhibit most of their data practices on
prim. I think the last city to go kind
of digital happened a few years ago like
I mentioned and that was a major city
that was still running on paper and so
yeah I mean to give you a sense of scale
imagine you call 911 and you want to
build a criminal investigation and a
detective has to go through filing
cabinets.
Yeah.
Like don't don't even think about AI we
get stuff digital first.
So it's pretty wild.
Yeah. And even even when they do go
digital it's not like these data sets
are connected like they may have to go
to tons of different data sets. They may
not know where the data is. They may not
have access to all the data uh etc.
That is spot on and conflated with the
issue that you know criminals don't
really respect or think about where
cities and counties start and stop.
Yep.
And so there's no interconnective tissue
from city to city, county to county,
state to state. Um there's a little bit
of work that the FBI tries to do, but
that's pretty light and sparse. It's an
opt-in system. It's not a required
system. And so you wind up, you know,
you could have quite a record in San
Francisco, but drive three hours south
and you're a nobody. You got a clean
record.
Yeah. And I assume criminals are um, you
know, they're it's not like they're
making it easy to, you know, not like
they're keeping the name the exact same
everywhere they go. They've got some
sort of obstac
to to make these make it a little bit
harder to connect these databases, I
assume. Right.
Yeah. No, I mean, I think the the best
way to think about it is we
appropriately have this thing called the
constitution that limits what we want
our government to do. Criminals don't
have to care.
There's no rules for them. And so, one
of kind of the challenges that our
customers face on the local government
side is uh they have a lot of good
rules. they have to follow actually
makes our job a lot harder because to
your point criminals will change IDs,
they'll change aliases, they'll change
vehicles, they'll change everything
about themselves city to city, but we
have to care about things like privacy
and surveillance uh as we think about
kind of the impact we have on local
government.
Um, how does I mean like I I've seen
even like I I have a lot of friends in
law enforcement, married into law
enforcement, and I I've seen like where
people like get like the tapes from uh
like prison or something that they're
going through and it was literally a
tape recorder like and they're actually
pressing on the tape recorder like how
far away are we from like you know how
how how far are we from like you could
you know today you would think you
should put all that on the cloud. you
should be able to search it for, you
know, with text. Um, it should only if
they're if they're talking about things
that you're not supposed to hear, it
should automatically bleep those out,
right? Um, like how how far are we from
like just the basic tech stuff?
Pretty far. Okay. Um, so we're trying to
get there. Um, and I think we've got
compelling products that get our
customers there. And there's that old
saying, right? Like, you know, the
future's here, it's just unevenly
distributed. I think that's the case.
But I mean, if you look at the average
city,
it is closer to
MS DOS than it is, you know, Windows XP.
Yeah.
And and I'm going to say like Windows XP
is what you're describing, which would
be a more simplistic user interface of I
should be able to go in as a detective
and say,
tell me everything, you know, we know
about Joe. That that doesn't exist. Now,
we have a product that that does that
and and it's, you know, fairly well
adopted. But by no means are we at 100%,
you know, penetration. when I have seen
like certain investigators and that
could be on the federal side or
sometimes on the state or local side and
they're they're they're looking up
databases, it's like it's like a it's
like the tab world. like they have like
hundreds of tabs they have to go between
and it's like it's usually some it's not
like the investigator who knows how to
do it but there's like some specialist
in the office who's just really good at
like navigating all these weird tabs and
databases and somehow they have the
right to get into certain things but
they don't have the right to get into
others and I imagine and they have to
like copy it into like some text file
and then go back to the other tab and of
course they have this tiny little
machine that like with a tiny monitor so
they don't even have like two windows
next to each other like is Am I
describing what's normal?
It's spot on. I mean, I'll give you I'll
give you like a really good example of
like one of the breaks in the system.
So, there's a a database that we
subscribe to called NCIC. It's the it's
kind of the FBI's database of
outstanding warrants, stolen cars,
missing persons, like all the things
that you would find interesting.
[snorts]
That database, if you want to call it
that, more of a CSV file, gets updated
like once a day.
So you got like a hu So you have a huge
issue to begin with, right? Which like
this is not real time.
I mean that's not that's actually way
better than I thought.
Hold on. It gets it gets it gets it gets
worse.
Okay.
But like there's there's no guarantee of
data integrity. And so one of the bigger
issues that you know I don't have a
great answer for is let's say you report
your car stolen. That was a rental car.
So Herz calls it in
and then a week later oh actually Herz
found the car.
Yeah. that car is going to sit as a
stolen vehicle probably forever
because Hertz doesn't have that
incentive to call it in that it's no
longer stolen. The local agency then
would have to call it into the FBI and
say actually we can mark it as it's not
stolen.
Oh, so I could be driving a rental car
and like get pulled over as a stolen car
or something like that and it's like
legit.
And it's because none of these systems
talk to each other.
Oh, interesting. That's annoying. So,
one of the things that it's actually
super annoying. Um, one of the things
that we push, you know, more as like a
policy or kind of like a implementation
is like, hey, you got to check like
three different systems before you pull
someone over.
Yeah.
And that that's what leads to human
error because like all it takes is one
person, you know, to kind of skip a step
and you're pulling over the wrong
person. Um, and that's where I think
there's a gap in kind of how data flows
today amongst local to federal to state
agencies. It was like someone knew that
car wasn't stolen. this didn't get
propagated through the system. How how
do these like law enforcement agencies
share data because it it it's both like
there's like a a data um you know
there's a data integrity problem there's
there's also just a problem with joining
the data of course like there's
different levels of sharing so like
certain people may not have access to
certain types of data so like how does
this and I'm so assured like you're in
one database or you commit fraud against
one thing and how does it all get like
joined
So there's yeah there's there's probably
four layers of data sharing that you can
talk about. The first is the default is
nothing. The default is like actually
nothing gets shared. And it's one of the
reasons why it's so easy to be a
criminal in America is because there's
it's very little datadriven or
technologydriven uh kind of
collaboration.
Let's call it level one, which has been
in existence now for probably a decade,
is email, which I know sounds very
silly, but like it it is very popular
where uh I'm working a case and I'll
send out a bulletin to all nearby
agencies via email. Here's a PDF about
the case, right? Here's the person who's
wanted. Here's all the information I
have. And that's like pretty pretty
good, but obviously slow.
Where it's like this type of car, it's a
silver Toyota. We got like a very a
partial plate. we have these other types
of things. There's a guy with red hair
or something, you know, in the car.
It's literally a PDF. The the kind of
third level which is gaining up some
momentum is is things like Slack or
Group Me or WhatsApp where it's now
introducing some level of real time to
it.
And so there's some very successful
Slack. There's like a like a private
chat group of cops in different cities
that are like helping each other out and
stuff.
Yeah. No, like uh I think it's in in was
it might have been Hartford,
Connecticut. Um I think they still use
Slack and and they've got a bunch of
nearby agencies, officers, detectives
are all in this big Slack group and
there's, you know, a narcotics group,
there's a nuclear crime group and like
and like doing a good job. And I think
the issue you run into there is like
Slack wasn't built for law enforcement.
So there are certain
weird data retention issues like you
might be sharing things that are
sensitive, right? And you might be
sharing things with someone who like
like it might be being stored in a way
that's actually not appropriate. Like so
there's Slack and then there's a product
that we've built called Nova which I'd
say is you know a more sophisticated
version of that where it is truly
collaboration at a case level where I
can build an investigation. I can
integrate, you know, my jail record
data, my criminal record data, uh, open
source intelligent kind of all the data
you have access to and then one click of
the button, oh, I actually want to share
this from San Francisco PD to Oakland.
Yep.
And it just gets shared and I can see
the entire workstream flock manage opens
it who like cuz like every once in a
while you have like a investigator maybe
does something bad with the data. you
could see, okay, like, oh, Joe looked at
the data and he wasn't supposed to or
something or whatever.
Yeah, there's an audit trail. And then I
think where we get excited about it is
it also opens up an ability for private
businesses to collaborate as well.
Because if you look at one of the issues
that's, you know, kind of plagued
Northern California and parts of the
country is this organized retail crime
kind of phenomena. It's one of the
safest crimes to commit. And like, well,
if you're a major retailer, you you
don't you can't arrest anyone, right? So
like how do you actually work?
You have cameras, you have data, you
have investigators,
you have all this information and today
you PDF it, put it in a zip file,
whatever may be. And now with like NOVA,
you can actually collaborate with
private entities and local government.
What? And and I assume like people have
cameras too, right? Like some of them
can contribute or how does that work?
like how the cameras get contributed to
law enforcement if you want to
contribute them to law enforcement.
Yeah. So, in a place like uh you know,
San Francisco, we keep picking on San
Francisco because they're a great
partner of ours and I think they're
having a bit of a
uh not a bit of a they're having a
really Mayor Lur is doing a great job
pushing
a like no crime allowed, which I think
is the right approach. Obviously, I'm
biased. Um so, like in San Francisco,
you can literally
He's been a guest on this podcast as
well.
Oh, no way. He's great. Um I think he's
doing wonderful things.
So in in in the case of of local
businesses, homeowners, you can register
your camera inside a flock and you can
do one of two things. You can say, "Hey,
I just want the city to know I have a
camera
and I'm like open to helping, but I want
that to be a a an ad hoc relationship. I
need you." You have to ask me for help.
I'm not just going to if there's like a
crime, then I could then decide if I
want to help.
Yep. And then there's a there's another
layer of sharing where you're like, you
know what, I just want the city to have
access 247 to the camera. I don't want
to have to be asked. And so you think
about if you're a major retailer and
you're covering a
those areas that I'm walk naked in front
of, by the way.
Yeah. It's not it's not your home. It's
literally a parking lot. And so we see
that the business community tends to
just provide kind of carblanc access to
the cameras and private individuals say,
"Hey, you know what? Why don't you just
let me know if you need help
and I'm happy to participate, but I kind
of want to be asked. I I don't want to
just have your access to my front yard
at any time to local lower authorities.
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Where
where are we
like I mean, you know, the the drone
stuff you're doing is super cool, right?
To be able to like follow just like
follow someone who does something right
quickly. Like I imagine like that will
help
uh uh uh allow us to find a lot of
criminals and and and apprehend them.
Yeah.
Uh where where where are we going in the
drone world? Like how do we start seeing
that uh um long term?
Yeah. So I think the first thing I'd say
is uh on the drone side, the hero story
and the one that everyone jumps to is
definitely let's go chase bad guys.
Yeah.
Um which has multiple societal benefits.
Like high-speed pursuits are one of the
most dangerous things that happen in a
city. Yeah.
Law enforcement dangerous for innocent
civilians, dangerous for the criminals.
like it's not good for anyone.
Yeah.
So like that that's a no-brainer use
case which we see day in and day out.
I think what I get more excited about
longer term is the impact it has to fire
and EMS as well. So you think about this
today like one of our most successful
case studies in a place like Vakavville
is related to fire not crime.
Yeah.
Um as you know in Northern California
like forest fires and fires in general
are a huge problem. Imagine if you could
have within 30 seconds eyes on a fire
that this is actually roaring and it's
it's about to get out of control versus
this is this is actually a false alarm.
Yeah, that'd be really helpful.
So to me it's more of thinking about
drones as just a camera that can fly.
Yeah.
And so like where would you want to
and you can get there quickly too,
right? If you don't have traffic or you
have you know if there's tree in the
road or you know there might be a lot of
scenarios where it could be hard to get
to there.
Yeah. And so for us, we look at that and
go, you know, people are expensive.
People are very valuable. We should
always try to use technology where we
can and use humans where we think there
is a need for a kind of subjective
component to it. And so when I think
about that use case, every 911 call,
whether it's fire, EMS, or or safety,
should deploy the drone first. And
that's what we're seeing, you know, in
places like San Francisco, places like
Elkrove, Vakavville.
Um, that's what we're seeing already.
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there's this public perception that you
know um you know of crime it's not
always related to actual crime like um
how are those things like how do those
things move in tandem and how
[clears throat] do those things like
change behavior for both like the crime
fighters and also the people committing
crime? Yeah, there's a there's some
interesting research on the topic
because I think as a kind of outsider,
my previous assumption was we should
just dramatically increase the penalties
and like these are logical people and
therefore they will make a logical
decision and they don't want to go to
jail for 100 years.
The data shows there's just no
correlation between the severity of
penalty and the likelihood of a crime
happening.
Just just to double click on that, like
I used to live in San Francisco and I
know in San Francisco there are many
streets where one side of the street is
federal and the other side is San
Francisco County. And then on the
southern side, one side is San Francisco
and the other side is Sanonteo County.
And I I've seen stats where like the
cars get broken into on the San
Francisco side but not on the federal
side. So these are like they seem like
smart criminals. Like they know better
to do, right? you know, the likelihood
of being held accountable and that's
been the issue.
So, not necessarily the penalty, just
the likelihood of getting caught is the
key thing, not the penalty.
Yeah. And so, what you saw in San
Francisco,
so any punishment would have been it's
really the fact that they weren't
getting punished at all, not that the
punishment itself needs to be more
severe
because whether it's a year or 5 years
or 10 years,
you're making a boolean decision. I'm
not going to get caught, therefore I'm
going to do it. Correct.
I am getting caught. So you look at some
of the counties and cities we work with
where we've had multiple years of 100%
clearance rate, which means like right
there's 100% chance you're getting
caught if you if you hurt someone.
Yeah.
And violence in those communities is
down dramatically.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Of
course.
You're not going to do it there.
Yeah.
Um and you even saw this, I don't know,
we we we we highlighted a a podcast
recently where fairly famous criminal in
the Bay Area was like, "He's out of the
game." He's like, "It's too hard between
the license plate readers, the cameras,
the pros.
It's just it's not working anymore. The
economics do something else.
He's going to go get a job. I hope like
that's great. He's a capitalist chose to
be a criminal instead of, you know, like
you and me and build companies." But so
I look at that and I'm like,
"Mayor Larry's doing the right thing in
San Francisco highlighting, you know,
that he he had a post last night on some
of the the for the ATV kind of takeover
stuff and it's it's kind of
what's ATV takeover? What's that?" Yeah,
it's it's this new ph it's not
necessarily too new, but it's it's
called a street takeover where they kind
of block off all four intersections and
just do donuts
on other ATVs
or, you know, tricked out vehicles and
they bring a bunch of guns and it's it's
a show of bravado in in my opinion. It
winds up being obviously a huge pain in
the butt for citizens who want to just
get from point A to point B. It also
winds up being dangerous because gangs
treat it as a bit of like a rivalry like
who can do the most impressive takeout
takedowns.
Um but it's a huge annoyance and so like
Mayor Larry did a good job last night.
He posted
well the gang is doing it. The gang
gang does it. It's not like you and me
calling like hey man let's go let's go
do some donuts.
Oh god.
It's like a recruitment tool.
Okay.
Um
and this happens in San Francisco like
in Hunter Point or some place like that
in San Francisco.
Every single major city has this in the
summers. Okay. Um, and it's a huge
nuisance. And so it was pretty it was it
was smart. The mayor did a press
conference and said, you know, here are
four ATVs we just recovered. Those
people are now in jail. We also own
their vehicles. So like maybe the bigger
issue is not even necessarily going to
jail. It's that we've stolen we've taken
possession of your ATV.
Um, and my guess is that he does he does
that one or two more times and I think
takeovers are going to go away.
That would be amazing. Okay, that's
awesome.
And it will happen. And the cool thing
is like we It's kind of simple. Like you
do you do a crime, like there's a
consequence. Even if the consequence
isn't like you don't you don't need to
have three strikes or out. Like any
consequence is is key.
Do you do you have kids?
Yes.
Okay. It's the same with kids. The
whether they're in timeout for 5 minutes
or 5 days doesn't matter. It's the fact
that like there was a repercussion for a
poor decision
leads to a behavioral change over time.
Um, and that's that that's to me very
consistent um in in what you see in
cities.
Interesting. [snorts] Now, when I lived
in San Francisco and my car would got
broken into, I never once reported it to
the police. It was just like too big of
a hassle. So, do we have a sense of like
the percentage of crimes that are not
reported or under reportported?
Yeah. Uh, it's a an alarming number is
how I would describe it. And it and it
is to your point
like if there was a murder I would be
definitely reporting it but
that's not that's not consistent though.
Right. Okay.
So like if you look at um you know one
of the more interesting things that we
do is gunshot detection. And so one of
the reasons why gunshot detection is
such an important product for major
cities is the sheer number of gun
violence that goes unreported.
Yeah. If I heard a gun, I probably
wouldn't call the cops unless unless it
was threatening me specifically or
something.
Exactly. And most people don't just
shoot guns in the air for fun.
Obviously, that is like a um you know,
it's not that's a thing, but it's not
that common. It's like we had a crazy
case
in Witchaw, Kansas,
where it was, to your point, was a
homicide, had gone completely
unreported, and the only reason why WTO
knew it happened is they have a gunshot
detection. So they not only knew that it
happened, they knew the exact time it
happened. They knew the exact location
within 50 feet and they were able to
dispatch an officer within seconds.
Oh wow.
No one ever called 911.
And so look, that's obviously one
example.
Yeah.
But it's pretty consistent that in
communities that feel like calling 911
is ineffective, like your experience in
San Francisco.
Yeah.
The reported crime is dramatically lower
than the actual crime. But it is
community to community that's different.
Like I think that if you lived in maybe
a different city, you might call every
single time your car is stolen. Um but
clearly, you know, San Francisco had
some work to do for you.
If my car was stolen, I'd be calling but
car broken into. It's like it's like do
you really want to like deal with the
hassle of spending like two hours
filling out
paper detective for insurance and you're
like,
"Yeah, exactly." So, you know, kind of
depends on depends on what what's going
on there.
Yeah. Yeah. But it's it's it's a pretty
significant number though.
In in my anecdotal
discussions, I don't have good data on
this, but my anecdotal discussions with
lots of people, it seems that [snorts]
home breakins seem to be on the rise in
America. Home invasions, people
sometimes are in their home when people
are coming to steal things, sometimes
they're not in their home.
Um, is that true? And and you know,
these are, let's say, very wealthy
people. Um, these are, you know, ve very
wealthy homes. So, I guess people are
trying to find, I don't know, um,
jewelry or watches or some sort of like
very fencable items or something like
that.
Um, is this true? Is this actually
happening?
So, so crime in general is going down.
Yeah.
But there's two things that are two for
other forces that are going against that
trend that make us feel less safe. So
the first is just information like the
flow of information is dramatically
faster, right? Orders of entity faster
today than it was 10 years ago. Um
between social media, the internet that
didn't exist, right? And so you didn't
hear about things. The second thing is
our expectations of safety continue to
go up every single day.
Yeah.
And so you go to maybe the safest one of
the safest cities in America. You go to
a place like Athetherton,
one home break in a year is enough to
cause pitchforks to come out.
Correct.
Now,
they don't have that same expectation in
Memphis, but eventually Memphis
I would when when I lived in San
Francisco, there were home breakins that
happened pretty regularly, like someone
going to garage and stealing a bike or
something like that. and it was often,
you know, homeless guy or like some
random, you know, random thieves or
something. When now that I live in
Northern Virginia, like I I probably
have eight or nine friends that have had
a home break in. Very very professional,
like super super like taking out the
cameras before they go in there. Um,
very very like like it's almost like
Mission Impossible style coming in and
trying to get their stuff um there. So
it does seem like the professionalism
has gone up
that and that is what that has
definitely changed. And so there's there
is a um there is a very accurate
although recently politicized narrative
on the sophistication of criminals and
what you're describing is very accurate.
I I'm good friends with a sheriff in
Virginia. Maybe it's your county.
Yeah.
And they have a huge problem on their
hands because what these organized South
American gangs are doing
Yeah. These are like using gangs drones.
They're using illegal drones that
they've removed ADSB.
So the law enforcement, no one has any
idea the drones are in the air.
Yeah.
They'll fly the drone, they'll check out
your house,
and then they will go hit.
Yeah.
And like I I could, if you wanted to, we
could go down a deep rabbit hole of like
these groups are very sophisticated and
it is a capitalistic activity for them.
Why to catch these guys? Like why is it
like it just seems like I I mean I got
eight or nine friends. This is not like
this is not one anecdote like that have
happened to I've had three on the same
block that got broken into like why is
this like so hard to catch.
Yeah. I mean it the the shortest answer
would be they have better technology.
Yeah. Okay.
Like they they're they're more equipped.
They're better funded um than what your
local police department probably has
access to.
I think the second one is regulatory
issues. If you want to pick on the drone
was an example, a a policy that we are
fighting very hard to adjust is that
local government has zero ability to
protect the airspace.
And so in an ideal world, if you talk to
the sheriff, because I've talked to them
about this,
his big push to the federal government
is like, why is it that I can use a gun
on the ground, but I can't use some
other type of weapon to take down a
drone in the air?
Yeah.
Who who is expected when that drone is
operating in his airspace? And I'd argue
it's his airspace. Who who
[clears throat] are we expecting is
going to protect your house from that
drone?
Yeah.
The FAA is currently being asked to do
that. And that is clearly not their
mandate. It is like taking out taking
down a drone is not an easy thing to do.
Like you can't like shooting a drone
with a
bullet very
traditional traditional uh bullet.
You can maybe take it down with like an
electromagnetic thing or something.
Yeah. Well, and and and so yeah, we look
at that and we go like that's that's
clearly just where regulation is
blocking technology from solving a
problem. And this is a good example
where, you know, the bad guys don't have
to follow the rules, but the good guys
do. And so I've got a sheriff who's
like, "Garrett, I'd happun out there and
just shoot the thing,
but I don't want to break the law
because my job is to enforce the law,
not break it."
Of course,
uh it's a it's a bit of a chicken and an
egg there where we got we got to get the
regulation to open up so we can go build
technology for them.
What are some other like crime
statistics that aren't that are either
misunderstood or kind of run against
conventional wisdom?
Yeah, I mean I'll give you two. one is a
is a a fascinating problem in kind of
the supply chain world. So you've got
these uh Eastern European gangs quite
sophisticated, right? And if you look at
the way 3PL's work in moving products
across the country from kind of getting
them in a port, whether it's Oakland or
or LA or Savannah,
then moving them through,
you have these groups that will go in
and they will buy a legitimate freight
forwarder, right? as a company's been
around maybe for 20 years and they're
going to provide a a
credible multiple for this, you know,
small business owner.
They will then turn the company illegal
and start stealing
20 foot, you know, containers of
product, millions and millions of
dollars of product. They'll make a
couple million dollars and then just
literally walk away, turn the company
off, disappear.
And it creates this like really weird
bought the company for
couple hundred thousand bucks.
A couple million bucks. Okay. Yeah.
Okay. Got it.
You know, like they and they'll they'll
they'll clean house and it creates this
problem where
there's an incentive misalignment
where like everyone wants the problem to
go away, but no one is actually either
sophisticated enough or incentivized
enough to solve it because everyone has
insurance.
Yeah.
And I I think it's one of the most
fascinating problems we're faced with
right now because it's continuing to
grow. It's causing a problem for major
retailers in America, but no one has a
great solution yet. So, that's like one
that I find quite interesting that like
we're trying to work on with
I mean, this has been happening for
years. Like, if you ever see the movie
Donnie Brasco, one of my favorite
movies, they're they're out there like
basically heisting, you know, trucks all
the time and stuff like that. Maybe in
those cases, they have to like go with
guns and take the truck or something.
And
this is like a silent crime. No one ever
knows a crime has been committed until
it's months, weeks afterwards. and the
traceability of the product, you
actually can't figure out where things
went wrong.
Yeah.
Um the other one that I think is really
interesting that I I I we're working on
quite aggressively is so if you look
like nationwide,
generally speaking, you've got about a
50-50 chance getting away with murder.
Um a little bit more than 50%. Yes, it's
about 60% chance of getting away with
murder.
What? I I I thought it was really low. I
thought most murders are solved.
No, no. Most murders are not solved. Uh,
really? It's a 40 40% clearance rate is
a national average on average. I didn't
know it was that low. Okay.
Yeah. So, that's pretty bad, right?
That's terrible.
That's why flock exists.
Oh my gosh. Uh, it seems unacceptable.
The worst crimes. That's the number one
worst crime. The number one thing I want
to solve was that
only crime.
I want to have a 99% chance of solving
is murder. Right.
Should be 100% chance. Like if you kill
someone, you should be held accountable.
Yeah. What's just as alarming is if you
don't hurt someone, you have about an
85% chance of getting away with it. So
nonviolent crime has about an 85% get
away with for that particular crime.
Yeah. Like if I steal your car, I have
an 85% chance.
Assume like someone who steals a car
steals a car all the time or something.
And so if you have 85% chance, well then
it's like 15% chance of of getting
caught. Like you you you run those
numbers enough like there's a high
likelihood you will eventually get
caught. Yeah. Yeah.
I I imagine you don't commit a murder
every day or something, you know.
I sure hope not. That seems like a very
poor way to live your life. But
the the thing that that I ask is, well,
why is there even a difference to begin
with?
Because like it it must just be effort
then. And then if it's effort, the
question I then ask is like to your
first point, how do we get violent crime
from a 40% to a 99%.
Yeah. And then how do we get nonviolent
crime from a 15% to a 99%. Because there
really shouldn't be a delta.
Well, I mean, it does make sense that
there should be a delta, right? I mean,
you would put I mean, you should be
putting most of your resources to solve
murders, to to stop murders, to stop,
you know, if there's, you know, serious
violent crime or, you know, other types
of things that are um anything dealing
with a gun or something like that,
you're probably going to be more serious
about
you. Well, and and that's I think that I
think the the thing that I think about
is if one of the benefits of this AI
revolution happening is we move to a
world of abundance, abundance of
resources, abundance of intellect,
that to me seems like one of the better
things that could happen for society is
that actually like all crimes are
treated equal.
Um because typically speaking, people
don't just kill someone.
There's actually a progression of
you commit a nonviolent crime that
typically escalates to violence.
Yeah. I mean, really, it does depend.
Like, I know that like I know that like
if you commit a fraud, right? Let's say
you commit some sort of fraud and you're
stealing money or something like that. I
mean, if you if if you steal less than a
million dollars, like the federal
government is not going to be involved
in looking at your fraud. They have a
lot more resources, right? So, you know,
you probably have to steal at least a
few million before the federal
government's going to get involved and
maybe you have to steal a million before
the state and then, you know, otherwise
you're at the local or something. Um,
so, you know, so it makes sense like and
then you obviously the federal
government just has way more resources.
The quality of the people is super high.
Um, you know, you if you're if you have
an A USA, they're just going to be just
like a baller. Um, like some of the
local prosecutors are amazing, but the,
you know, they just don't have the
resources. they may not have the other
kind of ability to to to to deal with a
sophisticated case.
Yeah. But no, so I mean I so I think to
to your point, I just think
people are genuinely always shocked at
how low clearance rates are in America
and how [clears throat] easy
40% is shocking to me. I had no and I'm
a fairly knowledgeable person. I had no
idea it was that low.
And and you obviously are a data guy.
You know that there's you know that
there's a standard deviation there too,
which means in some places it's in a
team. really low.
It's really bad because but I mean for
it's it's so rare
for a city or county to have 100%
clearance rate on violent crime that I
can think of only probably
one place
maybe two.
Yeah, 100 does seem like almost an
unreasonable number but like let's get
in the 90s like that that seems like
something that we should be able to aim
for and get. But most most cities when
they get into the 60s and 70s start to
do a kind of you know applause tour.
Yeah. Yeah.
I just think it I think it should be
really high. I think it should be really
high. [clears throat]
What now? Now there are um there is
different uh places around the world
have different levels of baseline
surveillance. Right. London you know
they're famous for the CCTV. In Dubai
they have this like camera system
everywhere. They've got all these
different sensors. Obviously, China's
kind of, you know, certain places China
have this kind of more extreme
surveillance model like how how do you
think the Americans are going to like be
okay with having a little bit more
surveillance or what's what's important,
what's not, how do we think about those
things?
Yeah. Um, well, I always would first
premise that uh no one elected me the
police chief of America or president.
So, I will share I'll share Flock's
point of view. Um there's really two
ends of the spectrum that you described
there. There is the Chinese and and less
Dubai, but let's put China and Dubai
together.
Yeah.
Which is like a bordering
totalitarian regime, which is
controlling crime with fear and
censorship uh and persecution. I don't
think that's going to go very well in
America. Um we have this thing called
the Constitution. And I would say
there's China then Dubai there's a
gradation right there's a gradation
because Dubai there is more freedoms but
but my friends who live there say look I
know the government's listening to my
calls like that's my that's the quid pro
like I I live in safety but the
government gets to listen to my calls
but it's completely safe when I walk
around and that's I'm I'm I'm signing up
for I moved here for that trade
and and if you commit a crime they can
just deport you
get out of whatever they want with you
right you Yeah.
And so like let's put that like from the
very far right and to your point yeah
let's go China to the far farest right
the you've got you've got Dubai right
before that and then if you go like all
the way the other spectrum you know I
won't pick on any certain countries but
there are certain countries where it's
clear law and order has evaporated.
No they have no they have no
capabilities to do anything and yeah
and their GDPs are in depression their
economies are dead and no one wants to
live there.
Yeah. I think there's like a massive
gray area that I think if if Flock is
successful, we allow local communities
to to pick where they want to end up.
You could end up Got it. And and and
then people could opt into those if they
choose to.
And so you look you look at it and in
and you know I'll pick on um certain
places like there are certain cities
who've chosen to not prioritize safety
and that's their choice. like and I
don't live there and you and you don't
have to choose to live there
and they're going to have more crime
and then you go look at like you know
what San Francisco has been doing
recently
and clearly Mayor Lur and and before him
the prior mayor has pushed that city
closer towards we want to put
significant law and order in place.
Yeah.
And I think that's going to pay off for
it. But I think what's important to me
is to your earlier point, we have the
benefit in this country of of local
governments having a choice.
Tons of experiments, right? And that's
great. And I think for me, I obviously I
I prioritize law and order. I think like
we have rules in place as a society and
we should respect those rules and we
should debate them fiercely and we
should elect people to write those laws
and and kind of ask our police
departments to enforce them. But for me,
it's somewhere in the middle. Um, and I
think the best case possible is at the
state and local level. Those elected
officials get to pick how aggressive or
how unaggressive they want to be for
their constituents because every city is
a little different.
You know, when I meet people in law
enforcement, cops, uh FBI agents, other
types of folks, like they are mired in
paperwork. They're just constantly doing
paperwork. They're constantly
complaining. Uh one people I know who
have been uh in these jobs for a while
say the the burden has increased over
time. They want to be out there fighting
crime. They want to be out there solving
crimes. They want to be able out there
preventing crimes. um how do we change
it? Like what can we do? Is there is AI
can AI do the paperwork for them? And
obviously these all these paperwork
things that they have to do are not like
terrible ideas. They're all they're all
put in place for like a good reason for
safety or for accountability or for
other types of things. So how how do we
make it so they can actually do their
jobs more?
Yeah. We are pushing a concept that's a
little bit different than pure AI. We
would call it more amplified
intelligence.
Yep. I think in certain parts of our
economy, we just want humans completely
out of it. That's makes sense. Like
totally fine. I think when it comes to
public safety, I think we want humans
pretty involved still. I don't think we
want to I think you think about the
the dystopian fears of something like
Minority Report isn't that they actually
had a higher, you know, success rate.
Instead, it was this artificial
intelligence that was making decisions.
It was this black box of like why does
this precog
believe that I'm talking to commitment a
crime? It's a great movie. So, I I
highly recommend like for I' I've met
people recently who haven't seen
Minority Report. It's an amazing movie.
It's a great it's a it's a wonderful
movie um and an interesting kind of uh
debate on on what's better for society.
But we look at that and go no artificial
intelligence isn't the right answer.
It's amplified intelligence where I want
a human at the start of the process.
That might be someone calling 911
because they're a victim of a crime.
They're seeing something bad happening.
I want AI or this AI intelligence to
take over, build the investigation,
write the report, do the busy work, but
I want a human again at the end making
this objective call on what's right and
wrong. Um, I don't think we want to
replace that part of what makes us
human. And I think to your point on the
the policy writing and all the the leg
work, that to me is got to go away. Um,
we want cops in the streets. We want
cops being parts of a community. um not
sitting behind a desk. That to me is not
the answer.
No, your your your company is, you know,
in some ways both Bits and Adams.
Um and you know, we've everyone talks
about how much easier it is to start a
Bits company in the US than an Adams
company. And you're doing manufacturing
in the US. You're doing all these
things. You're building things in the
US. walk us through what it's like to
and and you kind of have to like you
have to manufacture [clears throat]
yours for many things because what
you're doing is sensitive like you know
you can't just like take the the random
components from China and stuff like
that. Um walk us through what it's like
to being like [clears throat] set up
manufacturing in the US.
I mean I think it's it's easier today
than so I started the company eight
years ago or so. Eight years ago, it was
very uphill battle particularly with
investors because every investor wants
to put you
in a bucket and they're like, "Okay,
Garrett, are you a software company?"
"Well, kind of." "Are you a hardware
company?" "Well, kind of." "Are you an
AI company?" "Well, kind of." "Are you
an operational company?" Like, "Are you
a field services?" "Well, it's going to
have to do it all."
Yeah. Yeah.
And for most investors, that's just too
many weird strikes because each of those
presents significant risk. like being
good at software hard, being good at
hardware hard, being good at
manufacturing also hard, field services,
you kind of the list goes down.
So that was painful. I mean, we spent
hundreds of millions of dollars at this
point, close to a billion dollars now
investing to make this business even a
possibility.
When I see companies like you, I mean,
there's like, you know, you guys, right?
There's Flock, there's Anderoll, which
is very similar, right, except for a
different market. um you've seen this
like massive success of Flock and some
others like so I imagine it's like way
easier to raise money today just because
people have seen that success right
someone else has done it but I think
we're lucky like I I I I went through YC
and wound up going back to Atlanta and
part of the reason why I went back to
Atlanta and in Georgia in particular is
it is a very pro business state.
Yes.
Like it is easier to build this kind of
a company in Georgia than other states.
Like we have policies that promote
manufacturing poor engineering. There's
a talent workforce that like wants to do
this kind of work.
Yeah.
And that like
there are a lot of factories. There's a
lot of car manufacturers and other types
of things.
You look at you look at like there's a
reason why
Yeah.
They're building in they're building in
Georgia.
Well, give us some other sense of just
by the way I love Atlanta. It's one of
my favorite cities. I think it's an
incredible place. Um, give us and it's
it it seems like a lot of super smart
people are there. Give us a sense of
like why you why you guys like why you
like Atlanta? You know, I know you're
from there, but why you like Atlanta so
much?
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the higher
ed system in in Atlanta, metro Atlanta,
I've got SCAD, so Savannah College of
Art and Design from a design
perspective.
I've got Kennesaw State and Georgia
State as incredible places, right?
Incredible places to recruit sales
talent.
Yeah. Um, from Emery I can recruit great
attorneys and business people. From
Georgia Tech I can recruit great
engineers. You've got Morehouse. You
have Agnes Scott. Yeah. Like the list
goes down.
Georgia like not that far.
You know, we don't we don't recruit. We
do recruit from UG. I like to give it a
hard time. Yeah. They're a little
farther away. But yeah, you look at it
just like incredible talent pool.
Yeah.
And then you combine that and obviously
this doesn't benefit Flock, but
benefited my prior businesses. You
combine that with a surprising number of
Fortune 500 companies that are
headquartered in Atlanta.
Yeah.
And you just forget that. Like we've got
Home Depot, we have UPS, we have Delta,
we have Fiserve, we like we used to have
TRU we have truest.
By the way, it's it's the biggest it's
the biggest city in the southeast,
right? So I mean just like so you can
recruit, you're not just recruiting from
Georgia, you can recruit from Tennessee,
you can recruit from Mississippi, you
can recruit from Alabama, you can group
from from places in Florida and group
from South Carolina. Right. Well, and
then you combine that with an incredibly
low cost of living where you can pay
someone,
you know, a low six figure salary and
they're going to put two kids through
school.
Yeah.
And have a nice house.
Yeah.
That's safe. And it's like that's not
Yeah. And a decent school district.
Yeah. That's a really unique combination
where you know the the benefit that it
makes for a place like Flock is our
retention numbers are through the roof
for our employees and I obviously think
we're a great place to work. Don't get
me wrong,
but like it's just people don't people
don't job hop as much. Um they just they
want to get a great career. They want to
work really hard
and they want to focus on building
family too.
Other things I like about Atlanta is um
you know you mentioned universities
there. The other few things I really
like about Atlanta is one it's just like
the airport's super connected airport.
It's it's obviously the biggest airport
in America. Um you can get anywhere from
there. So if like you live in Austin,
like you often have it's like harder to
get places from Austin, right? Like a
major airport. DC you can get place but
like but like but like Yeah, but Austin
it's just like the airport's just not as
connected, right? Like you have to go to
Dallas to get the connected one if you
live in Austin or something, right? And
then the second thing about Atlanta is
um well it's good weather, right? Yeah,
like it's it's maybe the one of the best
weather places in America. It's just
great. You can it's easy to go outside.
It's it's nice place. And then and then
the third is it's actually like a fun
city. It's a really really really fun
city. So if you're a a 28-year-old, a
25-year-old, like it's fun. It's fun to
be single there. It's fun to be married
there. Um there's great restaurants.
Like it's it's just a good you can have
a good time there. Like any any any
major city it would be like at that, you
know, at that kind of stage. Yeah,
totally agree. Totally agree.
Um, why aren't there more companies
being started there?
Oh man, what what it's, if I had the
answer to that question, um, you know, I
think the biggest issue is just the
[snorts]
lack of successful exits creates a kind
of downward spiral.
You have like Mailchimp, Countly, like
you've got some good ones in Atlanta,
right?
Yeah. But like think when's the last
what's the last company that went public
in Atlanta and had a good IPO?
CNN or something. Yeah.
No, it goes all the way back to ISS,
Internet Security Systems.
Oh my gosh.
That was the And that was in the late
90s, early 2000s.
Okay. [laughter]
And that that's the issue, right? And so
you look at we've had a couple atbats
and I think Mailchimp's a great company.
Yeah. Yeah,
but like it didn't meant 500
millionaires that had the appetite to go
start a company
and even if you look at us and you look
at one trust and store and mail other
companies and like
you know none of us are public
and that that I think creates a problem.
Okay. Interesting.
What um now
you know there's all this like there's
been all this like gov tech talk now all
public there's all this people want to
put money into public safety related
things. Um where do you see the market
looking like if you had to advise other
companies that want to go like broad not
to compete against you but just broadly
get into this space like how would you
be advising them? Yeah, I think that
there was so you you mentioned Androl.
Um T Trey is a is a good friend and an
investor in Flock through Founders Fund.
Yeah, he's also been a guest of World of
D. Also an amazing guy.
Saw that. He's a great guy. And you know
the the the history on Flock, right? Our
original market was not public safety.
It was neighborhoods and it's still a
nice part of our business. And I was
contemplating going into law enforcement
and Trey was like, "Don't do it." You
know, we tried it at Palanteer. Yeah,
it's a horrible market. And I was like,
I got customers calling me want to give
me money. Tell me why.
And I don't know if it's like a 2 by two
or probably, you know, like an axi. It's
probably an axi of of sales cycle and
ACV.
And so you either have to have like
really big ACVs if you want a big sales
cycle,
but if you get stuck in a quadrant of
like low ACV and long sales cycle, you
die.
And that is generally speaking local
government. Local government takes a
very long time to buy. So there's like
successful companies like OpenGV that
have you know relatively low ACVs and
super long sales cycles and they they've
figured it out somehow
but to but still took 14 years to to get
to you know 100 million of AR. So not
necessarily you know the latest kind of
push for fast growth
not the double not the triple triple
double double stuff. Yeah.
No no or even the like you know one to
10 to 100 whatever people expect these
days. And so you look at that and you
have to really ask yourself,
do I just believe that I'm going to have
outsized ACVs or am I going to have
undersized sales cycles? And at Flock,
we were fortunate that, you know, our
sales cycles were really really fast,
you know, under 90 days.
And and that's the only reason I've been
insane. That's insane because like most
of the SAS companies I'm I'm in have
like sales cycles longer than that. like
why why just is just cuz it's compelling
like or it's just like they have a
problem or like the politician's going
to get fired if they don't do something
or Yeah.
The the best analogy I've come up with
is so as a CEO I think about two things
right either generating more revenue or
saving money.
Yeah.
When I get a pitch to save money I send
it to my CFO.
I'm like hey we should look into this.
When I get a pitch that's like I can
help drive your growth. I'm like I'm
taking that demo myself.
Yeah. And if I like it, I'm going to buy
it on the spot because I'm measured as a
CEO on the growth of my business.
For a police chief, revenue growth
equates to solving crime.
Yeah.
And so if you sell some widget that's
going to save his people time, he's
like, "This is really interesting.
Thanks for the time." Yeah.
Uh but when you show him a product that
within minutes helps him solve crime,
he will move mountains to buy that
product. And that's what Flock does.
Like we go in and we are revenue
generating for a city in that regard.
Because obviously like and every police
chief has like they've got stats on what
they have to solve and how the stats
work and they got to move the stats,
right?
He's going to show up and think about
this in the case of of you know maybe
example that's closer to home for you
guys. Like if there goes an unsolved
murder in your town in Northern
Virginia, that police chief's going to
lose his job over not being able to
solve that crime. But there there were
companies like this in the past, you
know, um Shot Spot or all these other
companies that have been, you know,
around, you know, for a while, um that
didn't grow as fast, that had
difficulties that there, you know, is it
just because their product wasn't like I
I assume at some point like great
product too, right? You know,
the product just wasn't as good. I mean,
I think that the Shot Spotter product is
a good example.
Shot spider in itself is a product that
works. It will triangulate a gunshot. It
will not solve a homicide though.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It will give you a data point. And so
what we figured out is, well, if you
combine gunshot detection with license
rate readers and a drone,
Yeah.
I know the gunshot happened. I came on
site in 30 seconds and I can you got to
launch the drone right away to get
there. So you can have eyes in the sky,
right? Okay. Yeah.
So So that's a different like that's a
fundamentally
we don't commit to knowing. Okay. Great.
Like Yeah. So we we got like you hear a
gunshot like you should have at least
one drone maybe more in the air like as
soon as possible covering that area
looking for anomalies looking for things
that are going on getting all the
license plates in that area getting all
the other people fleeing or whatever
else. Yeah, that that makes complete
sense.
And and then we're not going and
selling, hey, we we can tell you a
gunshot occurred. That's not actually
that interesting. We can say chief we
will get you to 100% clearance rate on
homicides. That's our commitment to you.
you got to buy all you have to buy this
whole suite of products. So that that's
that's the big difference.
Okay. Interesting. Couple personal
questions. So I I'm I'm obsessed with
people's names. Okay. Your last name is
Langley, which you know, and many people
equate with being a spy and law
enforcement and things like that. Do you
think your last name has something to do
with what you're doing today?
Oh man. No. So it's so it's interesting
story. So it's your to your intro. I was
fortunate to sell two companies before
this.
Yeah. And I wasn't sure if I was going
to work again. And my uncle, who's kind
of my closest mentor, said, 'Look,
you're you're good clearly at like
finding problems and building companies
around it. Go build something that's not
so dopey. And he kind of looked at the
prior businesses I had started. And I
think in his eyes, they were dopey.
Kind of businesses that like
they help people, but they don't really
matter.
Yeah.
Um they disappear. No one cares.
If they didn't exist, it wouldn't really
change people's lives.
Doesn't really matter. Yeah. And so when
I start when we started Flock, Paige and
Matt and I said, "Okay, we're only going
to build non-dopy businesses and we
looked at a bunch of ideas and Flock's
just the one that kind of got product
market fit first and eight years later
here I am solving a lot of crime."
Cuz speaking of businesses, you have
like a list of startup ideas on your
website. [clears throat]
Some of them are a little dopey. Um and
the number one is in toilets. Um like
what's the vision in the toilets? Um,
so toilets have not largely changed
since the Roman Empire. And I'm not that
guy who's going to go on a on a on a
long tangent on on the Roman Empire, but
largely the Ro the Romans developed what
we would consider as modern toilets
today where you sit down.
There's there's water flowing, there's a
sponge there. We've made some things
better. They're less communal today than
they used to be. It used to be pretty
open air kind of group concept. We've
made it a little bit more private, but
it hasn't changed.
Yeah. And I think there's a couple
companies, one of those is called
Throne, which I think is pretty cool.
They're trying to introduce kind of a
modern take on uh the the the biome is
like very we don't track ourselves very
well
and what you excrete is actually like a
really good indicator of what's going on
in your body.
Totally. It should you should have some
sort of like that should be a really
great way of like getting some data or
something.
So I look at that and I look at like the
just the the ergonomics. There's a
handful of things that are just
fundamentally wrong with toilets today.
Yeah.
And if I had been able to convince my
wife that it was a good use of my time,
I probably would be in the toilet
business. But
yeah, I mean we have we have like the
nice heated one and everything and it's
definitely like definitely a pleasure
like when you're there you're like I'm
definitely taking longer when I'm there
sitting on my phone or whatever. It's
very nice.
Yes. I agree. I agree.
All right. Couple p more personal
questions too. We ask all of our guests.
What is a conspiracy theory that you
believe?
I think paleontology is a is a joke of a
science. Uh I obviously think dinosaurs
are
I think dinosaurs are real. Or let me
rephrase that. I think life on Earth has
been around for millions of years.
Yeah.
But you know, I've I've got uh I've got,
you know, young children in our house,
my kids, and I'll read these books and
I'm looking at these pictures of
dinosaurs and I'm like, this is
completely made up. There's no way they
they knew this dinosaur had this pattern
and it had feathers here and had a form.
I'm like BS.
This is this is a bunch of people
playing science.
I don't think it's it I don't I think
it's just so far off uh from what it
probably looked like.
Okay. Yeah, I I I think that's almost
certainly true. Yes. Yeah, I agree with
that. Okay.
Oh, debate that with a pal
paleontologist and I think they would
they would be quite offended, but
Okay. [clears throat] All right. That's
good to know. We'll have a
paleontologist world of death soon. Um,
a last question we ask all of our
guests. What conventional wisdom or
advice do you think is generally bad
advice?
Uh, starting companies. I mean, the
number of people I see starting a
company while in college, they're 18 or
19,
I think it's totally ludicrous. Like,
you have such a short worldview of like
what problems actually matter to
society. You have no experience. And I
think most of those kids, but they're
still kids
would be way better off joining a
company that's got product market fit
learning
to just get some like and I'm not saying
college is better. I actually don't
think college is particularly
productive.
But I I wish more 18-year-olds that were
thinking about do I want to go start a
company? Do I want to go to college?
Would just go join a series B series C
company that's still super small. Like
if you join a 200 person company that is
a tiny tiny company and the scale of
things you're going to learn so much so
fast you'll also build a better network.
Like to me I don't get this big push of
like everyone should go start a company.
I think entrepreneurship is incredible
obviously but I think there is a right
time and place and I don't think it's
when you're 18. I think it's when you're
maybe mid 20s late 20s I think is like
the ideal window to start a company.
But are that many people who are 18 you
know or 22 starting companies? I mean
outside of IC
uh yeah I mean I look at my own alma
moater Georgia Tech which is like very
very focused on trying to drive
entrepreneurship for their students.
Yeah.
And I think that that's a wasted effort
compared to that same energy being
applied to like go join companies like
go join earlier stage companies. There's
no energy in my opinion at the
collegiate level getting students to
think about joining venturebacked
companies
at least in the southeast. Maybe it's
different at Stanford, but in in the
Southeast, like it is hard for me to
compete
with a Coca-Cola, which feels crazy.
Yeah.
Like that feels crazy to me. But those
those kids who are thinking about a
place like Flock and like maybe Flock
two years ago, they're going to want to
go and building a company because they
can go raise a quart million dollars in
a seed round. And I just think they'd be
more successful. To your question of
like how do we get better companies in
Atlanta? That's probably what I'd push
for. It's like go join successful
companies that are ramping up and
learned there first. Now,
I I went to Georgia Tech two years ago.
I never actually had never been there. I
never been to the campus before.
Obviously worked with a lot of people
from Georgia Tech, but never been to the
campus. The campus is awesome. Um, and
what I liked about the campus, it's like
kind of integrated within the city. I
walked there from where I was in the
city. Um, you can walk from, you know,
even the the super touristy part, like
from the Coca-Cola Museum, you could
walk up to Georgia Tech. Um, and, uh,
it's not, you know, it's not that long
of a walk. Um, even even from there. Um,
I I feel like it is kind of like
underappreciated. Like I feel like it's
not as well known. Uh, why is it so
underappreciated?
Uh it's a it's a good question because I
think on the on an international scale
we probably get more respect than on the
domestic scale.
Yeah. A lot I know a lot of
international people that went there
like that's how they ended up in the
United States. They came from all over
the country all over the world to get
their masters there or something.
Yeah. I it's a I I wish I had a great
answer for you because for me at least
that's the only school I applied to.
Yeah. like I didn't I didn't even
contemplate I was like why would I leave
Atlanta when it's free to go to Georgia
Tech. Um and then also you know it
benefit me and my wife there too which
makes it kind of
I went to a Georgia Georgia Tech
football game and while Georgia Tech did
not win the football game it was an
awesome experience like it was so fun.
The stadium was great because it's it's
like it's intimate and it was it was
packed. I mean completely utterly
packed. It it was a great it's just a
really cool place to be.
I agree and it's in downtown Atlanta so
it's a pretty fun place to live. So
yeah, exactly. This has been amazing.
Thank you Langley for joining us on
World of D. I'm connected with you on
LinkedIn. I definitely encourage our uh
listeners to engage with you there. This
has been super interesting as I knew it
would be and and a ton of fun.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for listening. If you haven't
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