Dec 17, 2025 · 58m · a16z
“How We Can Eliminate Crime” | Ben Horowitz and Garrett Langley
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In this episode of The a16z Show, Ben Horowitz and Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley join host Erik Torenberg to propose a national strategy for eliminating crime using advanced technology, intelligence-driven deterrence, and reformed police recruitment.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The host holds 9.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.0 Guest teaching 6.5 Guest disagreement 1.4 The host pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 43:02 Garrett highlights political hypocrisy over Flock
Garrett calls out an anti-Flock state representative who instantly became a proponent of the technology after her own home was shot at and Flock enabled the shooter's arrest within minutes.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 14:33 Host steelmans the preventative social work argumentErik Torenberg directly challenges the guest's critique of the defund movement by pointing out that advocates aimed to reallocate funds to preventative mental health services rather than simply stripping police budgets.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 20:06 Garrett's breakdown of declining national murder clearance ratesGarrett provides a comprehensive, multi-factorial masterclass explaining why national homicide solve rates dropped to 47 percent, citing higher evidence standards, lack of witness cooperation, shift to random gang crimes, software lag, and detective staffing gaps.
The host holds their own ▶ 41:58 Host introduces Delancey Street as a working rehabilitation modelErik Torenberg demonstrates expertise by introducing the Delancey Street Restaurant model to illustrate how private enterprises can successfully integrate and rehabilitate formerly incarcerated individuals into dignified career paths.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A National Strategy to Eliminate Crime: People, Products, and Policy | 1 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Host sets up an open prompt asking Garrett to outline a national strategy for eliminating crime across people, products, and policy. Garrett and Ben elaborate on police recruitment crises, student debt trade-offs, and past hiring failures like Memphis recruiting former gang members. | |
| Recruiting Innovations and the Las Vegas Cybertruck Case Study | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Guests discuss recruitment perks in cities, including Tesla and Cybertruck fleets as marketing lures for younger officers. Ben shares an anecdote about a media attack portraying him as a crime boss and Dr. Dre posing with Cybertruck police vehicles. | |
| The Product and Policy Pillars: Advanced Tech Stack and Decriminalization | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Garrett details the complete crime technology stack while Ben contrasts severe deterrence models with intelligence-driven policing. Host asks brief clarifying questions while guests explain deterrence theory. | |
| Reevaluating Mandatory Sentencing and Incarceration Costs | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Host pushes back on guests by steelmanning defund advocates who wanted to redirect funds into preventative mental health services. Ben and Garrett reframe the argument by explaining that social workers cannot handle violent crimes in progress or offset cash incentives for crime. | |
| Community Policing and Technology in Las Vegas | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Host asks about hip-hop culture's evolution regarding policing. Ben explains how intelligence and LPR tech prevent mistaken identity traffic stops, building trust in lower-income communities. | |
| Why National Murder Clearance Rates Are Declining | 1 | 8 | 1 | 0 | Garrett educates the host with a structured breakdown of five distinct reasons national homicide clearance rates have dropped to 47 percent. Host listens and prompts without interrupting. | |
| Lowering Barriers to Entry and Modernizing Police Training | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Host asks how to operationalize a police recruitment service program. Garrett advocates for reducing 52-week academy requirements and expanding non-sworn civilian analyst roles. | |
| Overcoming Municipal Budget Limits via Public-Private Partnerships | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Guests explain public-private partnerships bypassing bureaucratic municipal budget limits. Ben highlights buying espresso and ice machines for Las Vegas 911 dispatchers to slash call wait times. | |
| Debunking Surveillance Concerns and Promoting Public Transparency | 2 | 7 | 2 | 1 | Host asks Garrett about privacy criticisms facing Flock. Garrett refutes privacy concerns by noting federal agencies rely on cell phone dumps rather than license plate readers, arguing privacy is used as a proxy for police distrust. | |
| The Economic Class Disparity of the Defund Movement | 3 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Host steelmans criminal justice reform regarding how society should handle repeat offenders. Ben and Garrett point out that defunding police strips safety from poor neighborhoods while wealthy citizens purchase private security. | |
| Judicial Acceleration, Youth Diversion, and Anti-Recidivism Programs | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Garrett and Ben discuss youth diversion programs, judicial acceleration, and Hope for Prisoners in Vegas. Host cites Delancey Street as a successful real-world re-entry example. | |
| Political Hypocrisy and Real Community Demand for Law Enforcement | 3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | Host raises concerns about militarized policing on behalf of young citizens. Garrett shares a story calling out political hypocrisy, detailing how an anti-Flock lawmaker became an eager fan after Flock caught a suspect who shot at her home. | |
| Addressing Distorted Crime Statistics and Implementing Flexible Data Limits | 2 | 7 | 2 | 0 | Ben explains how non-prosecution policies lead citizens to stop reporting crimes, corrupting official statistical trends. Garrett outlines customizable data retention limits ranging from 7 days to 5 years. | |
| Tupac Shakur Case Study & Information Sharing | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Ben shares an insider account of how LAPD corruption and inter-agency non-cooperation stalled the Tupac Shakur homicide investigation in Las Vegas for three decades. | |
| The Rise of Sophisticated Organized Crime | 2 | 8 | 2 | 1 | Host asks whether crime spikes stem from ideology or organized crime. Garrett describes highly sophisticated foreign rings running corporate-style cargo theft scams, while Ben describes organized retail crime rings in San Francisco. | |
| The Future of Policing: Precision, Drones, and Intelligence | 1 | 8 | 1 | 0 | Garrett details a real-world case study where drone technology and AI software identified a drive-by shooter's forearm tattoo from a half-mile away, allowing plainclothes officers to de-escalate without SWAT force. | |
| Flock's Impact on Recovering Missing Children | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Host prompts Garrett for stories on child recoveries. Garrett highlights that Flock helped return over 450 missing children in a single year. |
Statements from this episode (36)
Horowitz: Murderers have a 53% chance of getting away with it
“For murder. You have a 53% chance of getting away with murder.”
Langley: Cell phone dumps track people better than license plate readers
“If the federal government wanted to find you, a license plate reader is the dumbest way to do it. I will just get a cell phone dump. And I will know your exact location and time at all times.”
Langley: A Teach for America for police would fix staffing shortages
“Why not create a Teach for America for law enforcement? 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 analysts, like, there's a... Yeah. Ton of roles you can have in a p…”
Langley: Police staffing shortages are driven entirely by cultural stigma
“That it's entirely cultural. So, I mean, because you think about it, there's nothing has changed unless, That would indicate some percentage of people who were born and wanted to serve has changed. The only thing that's changed is the stigma attached to the jo…”
Horowitz: Memphis police lowered recruitment standards enough to hire criminals
“Because of the shortage many police departments have lowered their standards. So the kind of criticism of the police was, okay, you have, and it really, like, if you looked into it, There were some, like, psychos who joined the police force. They couldn't get …”
Horowitz: Post-Rampart LAPD recruited gang members who killed Notorious B.I.G.
“What happened in the LAPD with the Rampart scandal right after the Rodney King incident They had the same kind of thing. Everybody got fired, et cetera. They had trouble recruiting. They started recruiting people out of gangs and those gang members ended up, y…”
Horowitz: Las Vegas police Cybertrucks have been great for recruitment
“Well, the Cybertrucks, they have been great for recruiting, despite the criticism that I got.”
Horowitz: Dr. Dre requested a photo with a police Cybertruck
“When we did Paid in Full Dr. Dre, you know, famous for, you know, the song, ah, Fuck the Police, saw the Cybertruck parked out front and took a picture with the cops in front of the Cybertruck at his request.”
Langley: The majority of gun violence is never reported to police
“Majority of gun violence does not get reported.”
Langley: A 2022 Southern California rap song referenced Flock Safety
“Maybe in twenty-twenty-two, there was a rap song released, ah, in, in Southern California, with reference to flock, and that.”
Horowitz: Reducing police presence creates crime careers and avoids systemic solutions
“And so by reducing law enforcement, you create a crime career path, and it Kind of lets us avoid creating real career paths for people in that situation, and so it's a cascading effect of just badness.”
Langley: Mass incarceration imposes a double economic penalty on society
“If I woke up in 10 years and all we had done was put a lot of people in prison, it was actually double bad. Yeah. Because now prison's already very expensive. There's an economic cost of now that person's no longer productive in society, like.”
Horowitz: Lack of enforcement creates lost generations driven by criminal pay
“If you don't enforce crime, what you end up is with lost generations because you, like, it's a pretty, I mean, look, if I can become a criminal and make, like, 10 X what I can work, make in a minimum wage job as an entry thing, like, Right. You know, like, and…”
Horowitz: Reallocating police funds to social work has failed
“So you have to have, I'm not against social work, but you can't do it at the expense of crime, you know, law enforcement, and we saw that. I mean, like, we ran the experiment, it didn't work.”
Horowitz: Las Vegas has the highest US murder clearance rate, exceeding 90%
“Vegas has the highest murder clearance rate in the country, well over 90%.”
Horowitz: Defunding the police effectively terrorizes poor communities
“When you go defund the police, we're not gonna enforce law, you're basically terrorizing the poor community.”
Langley: Most homicides are now random drug or gang incidents
“The majority of crime was domestic. You would kill a partner, you would kill a girlfriend or boyfriend, so it was it was a not randomized crime. Now the majority of homicides are random. It is a drug deal gone, gone wrong. It is a gang rivalry over territory. …”
Langley: Atlanta police staffing dropped to 60% before recovering
“Atlanta is, was at a low, was at 60% staffed. They're now up to 75, 80.”
Horowitz: Las Vegas police shootings dropped 75% after tech deployment
“Police shootings of suspects in Vegas dropped like 75% when we first put the cameras and the drones in place.”
Horowitz: Funding amenities for Las Vegas 911 dispatchers drastically cut wait times
“So we had a tremendous attrition problem in the nine one. Nine one one's a very stressful job. It takes 12 months to train somebody. It's all this kind of thing. And, you know, they, everybody was quitting. They, five minute call waits for nine one. Imagine wa…”
Langley: Atlanta Police Foundation provides $30M annually to local police
“In Atlanta I'm on the police foundation board. Yeah. I think we, Contribute about thirty million dollars a year to the police department.”
Langley: San Francisco's public safety tech innovations are 100% privately funded
“So if you look at all of the latest innovations in San Francisco, a hundred percent private funded.”
Langley: Flock Safety technology will assist in 1 million arrests this year
“Yeah, we'll have to do about a million arrests this year.”
Langley: Public privacy complaints are a proxy for distrust in police
“You know, they call it privacy, but that's just a cover for, I don't trust the police to do their job effectively.”
Horowitz: Defunding police privatizes security for the rich
“It's defund the police for poor people. It's privatized the police for rich people.”
Horowitz: 98% of crime victims are poor people
“Crimes are committed, like, 98% against poor people. Like, that is who are the victims of crime.”
Horowitz: The US recidivism rate exceeds 70 percent
“And so, our recidivism rate is over 70% in the United States, and countries that do, like, a better job, it can be, you know, much below 40%.”
Horowitz: Declining to enforce laws punishes victims without fixing prisons
“You can't, you're not going to solve the prison problem by not enforcing the law. Like, that's just, you just make the, you punish the victims on behalf of the criminals at that point, which is, I think that's a very dangerous thing for a society to do.”
Langley: Incarcerated young nonviolent offenders become violent within months
“Putting them in prison is the worst thing to do. They will go from nonviolent to violent in months. They will get stuck in it for their entire life.”
Horowitz: Las Vegas Hope for Prisoners program has near-zero recidivism
“The Vegas prosecutor will, if you're like an eighteen-year-old kid, and you commit a first-time offense, and it's not violent, they'll send you, they won't prosecute you, they'll send you to Hope for Prisoners, and you go through the rehab. They are close to z…”
Langley: Privileged residents demand less policing while vulnerable residents request more
“The number of times we've been in debates where you've got a privileged person in a community Articulating a desire for less policing, yet the person who actually need it, needs it, is sitting there saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, time out, I actually want mor…”
Horowitz: LAPD corruption and rogue officers protected Tupac Shakur's killers
“Well, in that case, the LAPD was corrupt, and the, well, there were literally criminals in the police force protecting the criminals who killed Tupac, and, you know, thankfully, we kind of reopened the cold case, and we caught the guy, but it's,”
Horowitz: Prosecutors and judges are funded to avoid convicting criminals
“There's a huge push to not criminal, to decriminalize crime, essentially, in this country. And, like, it's still going on, and it's, you know, there are still these, you know, prosecutors and judges that are funded basically for the purposes of not convicting …”
Langley: Sophisticated foreign gangs run U.S. crime as organized businesses
“There are truly a large number of, Eastern European and South American gangs operating large-scale businesses, and I call them businesses, because while they commit crime, they don't run sloppy.”
Horowitz: San Francisco's shoplifting policy enabled organized crime, not hungry residents
“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 was massive gangs took everything out of the stores. They ended up, right, shutting…”