Rahul advises founders targeting public safety not to be intimidated by cops' resistance to change, since beneficial change is inevitable, and to spend real time with officers (ride-alongs, reserve duty) to understand what to build. ✦ AI generated
Rahul · a16z Podcast · 2026-05-18 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 8:16
“What advice would you start to give to founders who are, you know, less interested in optimizing ad clicks and, you know, more interested in actually building something that helps first responders and save lives?”
There's two things cops hate. For things to change and for things to stay the same... recognize that that change will come, no matter what. It'll come because it's the best thing for them. It's the best thing for the communities. It's the best thing for the country. And just take it upon yourself to be the person who brings the change. Don't be intimidated by it just because they're cops.
verbatim transcript · starts at 8:16
7:56know, less interested in optimizing ad clicks and, you know, more interested in actually building something that that helps first responders and save lives? And uh what would you say? You know, I already know great founders uh that are working in public safety. It's funny. The Colonel was talking about uh tracking the performance of his uh you know, the the members of his department. In Burnout, there's a
8:17founder here, Ben Curley, in the audience said is uh the CEO of Chart Performance that does exactly that. You should I'm going to introduce you after this. You haven't met him already. We're already talking to >> All right, good. Good. Um but there's plenty of a great founders out there that are that are that are uh tackling public safety. My My advice to them is like, "Look,
8:34it comes off as very intimidating. I'm sure the Colonel's heard this saying, but it's There's two things cops hate. For things to change and for things to stay the same." And so it feels like a a very narrow thread that you have to hit. But the reality is that if you can picture something that feels like an inevitability, in the same way that, you know, we talk about drones, AI, some of
8:52these things, recognize that that change will come, no matter what. It'll come because it's the best thing for them. It's the best thing for the communities. It's the best thing for the country. And just take it upon yourself to be the person who brings the change. Don't be intimidated by it just because they're cops. Um and then if you do do it, I would say spend a lot of time with the cops, too.
9:10Just like uh Dr. Karp said previously, it is hard if you don't know what they've been through, what it feels like to be on the beat. Spend time. Do some ride-alongs. Um really get an understanding of it. Be a reserve cop, you know, if you want to uh really get into it. And that'll really help you not only speak the language, but know what to build for them.
9:27Colonel Glover, any final words that you want to share for uh the people on that want to work with law enforcement, work with public safety officials? What's the best way to to partner and work with you? Well, it back to Rose's point. It's It's really is jump in. I mean, jump in, really engage, connect. Um you know, you're going to find that there's a lot of law enforcement leaders that are
9:45looking to figure out the best ways of implementation and trying to get ahead of the curve with technology. We know that it's one of the It's going to be something that's going to really dominate this profession over the next 10 years is that we're going to see such a shift and change that most of the cops out on the in the field are going to have to change
10:05the way their skill set is shaped because it's going to be a little bit more investigative. It's going to be a little bit more nuanced. Um you're going to have to have a different frame uh work of being able to work with in terms of your mindset because it's not going to look the same anymore 10 years from now. Um it It's It may not be about, you