Axon CEO: police drones should carry non-lethal weapons, not guns
Axon proposes replacing armed police standoffs with non-lethal-armed drones and robots, keeping firing authority with humans but requiring real-time multi-person approval before deployment.
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Five gunshot deaths in his circle launched the company
While studying in Europe, Rick Smith heard locals say they feared coming to America because of gun violence. Asked if he knew anyone killed by guns, he calculated that roughly five or six people in his network had died from gunshots—including two high school football teammates killed in road rage incidents. He concluded: the bullet is an ancient technology. If people had the equivalent of ‘Captain Kirk's phaser’, they would choose to subdue someone non-lethally rather than kill them. This realization led him directly to find the Taser gun inventor and co-found the company.
— Rick SmithTwo failed products nearly killed the company, until a rescue loan
For its first seven years, the company focused on the consumer market. Both product launches failed, and Rick was ready to shut down. His father told him the company owed Silicon Valley Bank about $2 million—if they closed now, the bank would take everything. So his father pulled out a final $500,000, and investor Bruce Culver matched it with his own last $500,000. With this money, the company designed, manufactured, and launched its law enforcement Taser product, eventually reached cash flow break-even, and went public.
— Rick SmithBeing a non-internet company was the advantage in the 2000 crash
After the internet bubble burst in 2000, an investment bank approached the company with this pitch: ‘You're not an internet company—you have real products and real revenue.’ The company went public at roughly a $12 million valuation. The founding team owned 100% of the equity at IPO; no VC or institutional investors were on the cap table. The IPO allowed the company to repay shareholder loans and saved his father from bankruptcy.
— Rick Smith2004 brought both peak stock performance and the short attack that followed
By 2004, the company was the world's best-performing stock by one- and three-year returns. But late that year it faced an SEC investigation accusing it of exaggerating product safety to inflate stock price. Behind the scenes, a short-seller had infiltrated the company: Rick's personal assistant turned out to be their mole, leaking internal documents to the New York Times. Market value crashed from about $2 billion to roughly $100 million; stock price fell from $33 to $7. Customers—police departments—also suspended purchases during the investigation. The company went from zero lawsuits to hundreds, surviving only by fighting its own insurance company: refusing settlements and even suing the insurer back.
— Rick SmithA college friend's five-year stint as part-time CTO saved the software division
Around 2010, the company launched body camera operations for law enforcement, but Rick had never built a software company. The team and technology fell apart—at one point they nearly lost all customer data in their self-built data center. College friend Hadi Partovi joined the board and effectively served five years as ‘part-time CTO’. He pushed the company to abandon the self-built data center for AWS and Azure, and rebuilt the team properly. Hadi also championed the rebrand from Taser to Axon, arguing that the Taser brand meant ‘electroshock weapon’—too narrow for a company whose business had expanded far beyond weapons alone.
— Rick SmithA lost custody case convinced him that recording beats testimony
The direct trigger for body cameras came from a custody death case in Northern California. A suspect with a 20-year history of methamphetamine use died while detained; his family showed his high school graduation photo to the jury to move them emotionally. But the police officers involved told Rick what they actually saw that night was someone who ‘looked like he walked out of The Exorcist’—nothing like the photo. Police testimony must stay measured and professional, while the family's emotional narrative swayed the jury. Rick concluded: you have to record what officers see on scene and let the footage speak for itself, not rely on police explaining it later with ‘professional terminology’.
— Rick SmithPolice resisted body cameras until ninety days of use made them indispensable
When body cameras first rolled out, police widely resisted, worried about supervisors picking apart their actions and ‘Big Brother watching’. But a union leader told Rick: no officer wants to wear a camera until they've worn one for 90 days—then they refuse to work without it. He gave an example: a cop transporting a half-naked, drugged suspect who threatened to yell ‘rape’. The officer reminded her the entire conversation was being recorded, and she immediately calmed down. The real turning point came at the 2014 Ferguson incident and Michael Brown shooting. Both the family and the police union demanded cameras—the family to see the truth, the union to prove their innocence.
— Rick SmithEthics advisors quit over a project they privately agreed with
In 2022, the company announced development of a Taser-equipped drone for responding to extreme situations like school shootings. Several AI ethics committee members immediately resigned in protest. Rick revealed that many advisors privately agreed this was better than sending armed officers with assault rifles into an active shooter scenario. But because they held university positions, they feared being labeled ‘pro-police’ and canceled, creating too much political risk. The company didn't dissolve the committee; it reorganized as the ‘Fairness and Ethics Advisory Committee’ and deliberately brought in more voices from Black and Latino communities—the groups most impacted by over-policing and where those concerns primarily originate.
— Rick SmithReal-time approval by multiple officers prevents abuse of remotely deployed weapons
Rick emphasizes that any decision to use force must remain a human choice—this is the company's red line. To counter abuse concerns, future drone and robot weapon systems will use a ‘multi-key’ architecture: any officer deploying non-lethal force from a drone or robot needs real-time manager approval first. Compared to today's model—police carry guns and face accountability only afterward—this system turns enforcement decisions into institutional decisions with real-time oversight by multiple parties, reducing space for misuse and abuse. This is also why the company acquired close to half of Skydio's equity: to secure an exclusive law enforcement channel.
— Rick SmithA night of police absence showed what happens when law enforcement disappears
Responding to calls to ‘defund the police’, Rick cited the 1968 Montreal police strike over wages. There was no George Floyd-like precipitating event, just a labor dispute. But the moment criminals learned police had walked out, the city descended into chaos that night—later called the ‘Night of Terror’. He quoted Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker: effective police are the ‘glue’ holding social trust together. He pointed to San Francisco as evidence: after it relaxed enforcement on shoplifting, retail collapsed, then corrected course.
— Rick SmithIn their own words · checked verbatim
the simple insight was if we had Captain Kirk's phaser, like people would choose not to kill other people because they'd have a more civilized way to stop somebody who's threatening them
Rick Smith3:06
I have $500,000 and I'm on the hook. So if we shut down, the bank has taken everything. So we have no choice. I'm putting my last $500,000 in.
Rick Smith8:33
2005, our stock dropped from $33 to $7 a share. And it was, yeah, it was miserable.
Rick Smith14:43
hey, man, the taser is a kind of a, it's a sledgehammer brand. It means electric weapon to people. And you do a lot more than that.
Rick Smith19:52
no cop wants to wear a body camera until they've worn one for 90 days. And then they will not go on patrol without it.
Rick Smith24:01
So we're actually going to be building the least abusable technology in the history of policing.
Rick Smith45:48
looking back on it, that is now known as the night of terror because criminals heard the police were on strike and the city went crazy
Rick Smith51:02
Figures
| Company IPO valuation | approximately $12 million | 9:36 |
| 2004 peak market cap | approximately $2 billion | 14:43 |
| Market cap after SEC investigation | approximately $100 million | 14:43 |
| Stock price decline | from $33 to $7 | 14:43 |
Glossary
- ALPR
- Automatic license plate recognition system that scans and compares vehicle license plates to track stolen vehicles or identify vehicles at crime scenes.
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