The Plan to Make American Crime Obsolete

Summary

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The Plan to Make American Crime Obsolete

The a16z Show – May 18, 2026
Host: Andreessen Horowitz
Guests: Colonel Jeffrey Glover, Rahul Sidhu
Summary Prepared For: Listeners seeking key insights on the intersection of technology and public safety

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how cutting-edge technology—from drones to AI-powered analytics—is being deployed to transform American law enforcement and public safety. With input from industry experts Colonel Jeffrey Glover (Arizona Department of Public Safety) and Rahul Sidhu (CEO, Flock Safety), host David Ulavich guides a conversation about the challenges and innovations in making crime "obsolete" through advances in tech, evolving police roles, and the hurdles of tech adoption within law enforcement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Changing Face of Law Enforcement

• Evolving Expectations:
  • Law enforcement is demanded to "do more with less" amid staffing shortages, burnout, and increasingly complex duties.
  • Quote: “Most of the cops in the field are going to have to change the way their skill set is shaped… It's not going to look the same anymore.” – Colonel Glover (00:03, 09:20)
• Technology as a Force Multiplier:
  • Tools like drones, body-worn camera analytics, and real-time license plate readers are not future concepts—they're actively deployed in U.S. departments.
  • These systems go beyond surveillance, offering mental health monitoring and real-time situational awareness.

2. Drones and Sensor Networks: Inevitability and Impact

• Drones in Action:
  • Drones can respond to 911 calls before patrols even depart, pursue suspects, or rapidly locate Amber Alert vehicles—far more efficiently than traditional helicopters.
  • Quote: “You hear a gunshot go off and the drone finds a shooter getting into a car and driving off and then pursuing the vehicle. It's kind of almost hard to see that it isn't inevitable.” – Rahul Sidhu (00:18, 02:24)
• De-escalation Example:
  • Drones have facilitated peaceful outcomes by providing accurate situational awareness.
  • Quote: “It turned out the drone provided situational awareness… wait, there's just a janitor with a broom. That's not a guy with a shotgun. And it totally de-escalates the situation.” – David Ulavich (01:41)

3. AI and Officer Well-being

• Analytics on the Job:
  • Advanced AI like Vitania Heal the Heroes and Trulio analyzes bodycam data to monitor both officer behavior and wellbeing, including burnout risks.
  • Quote: “Behind the body-worn camera, we have analytics… to see if they're combative or not... it helps with them being able to have that feeling of … a layer of protection because it’s going to flag for the burnout as well.” – Colonel Glover (03:51)
• Operational Changes:
  • Departments are now arranging wellness checks and offering sabbaticals for officers flagged at risk of burnout, improving job satisfaction and performance.

4. The Law Enforcement Data Ecosystem

• Fusion Centers and Information Sharing:
  • Collaboration spans state, federal, and international partners, especially important for border states and in the context of upcoming large-scale events like FIFA and the Olympics.
  • Quote: “We have the Arizona Counterterrorism Inc. Center, the ACTIC… fusion centers around the U.S. are collaborating in tandem to make sure that they're sharing information.” – Colonel Glover (06:17)
• Proactive Crime Prevention:
  • Leveraging unclassified, global intelligence, supported by AI, allows trends to be detected and interventions planned before crime spikes locally.

5. Advice for Tech Founders Entering Public Safety

• Navigating Resistance:
  • Law enforcement can be slow to adopt new tools, wary of both change and the status quo. Founders are encouraged to persist, as transformation is inevitable.
  • Quote: “There's two things cops hate. For things to change and for things to stay the same.” – Rahul Sidhu (00:00, 08:16)
• Immersion & Understanding:
  • Sidhu emphasizes the importance for founders to deeply understand police work through ride-alongs or even service as a reserve officer.
  • Quote: “Spend a lot of time with the cops… do some ride alongs, really get an understanding of it. Be a reserve cop if you want to really get into it.” – Rahul Sidhu (08:00)
• Collaborative Spirit:
  • Both guests urge entrepreneurs to “jump in” and actively partner with law enforcement, who are now more open than ever to adapting and integrating new technologies.
  • Quote: “Jump in, really engage, connect. You're going to find there's a lot of law enforcement leaders … looking to figure out the best ways of implementation." – Colonel Glover (09:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Inevitable Tech Change:

  “If you can picture something that feels like an inevitability… recognize 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.”
  — Rahul Sidhu (08:16)

• On Shifting Police Skillsets:

  “Ten years from now. It may not be about kicking in doors and other things. It's going to be looking at the technical aspects of this video you just received and looking at AI…”
  — Colonel Jeffrey Glover (09:20)

• Humorous Truth:

  “There's two things cops hate. For things to change and for things to stay the same.”
  — Rahul Sidhu (00:00, 08:16)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–00:03: Sidhu and Glover on changing police skillsets and paradoxes of institutional resistance
• 00:18–02:24: Drones and their role in transforming public safety responses
• 03:51–05:23: AI-powered analytics and officer well-being
• 06:17–07:23: International and inter-agency intelligence sharing
• 08:00–09:20: Founder advice, immersive understanding of law enforcement
• 09:20–10:24: Colonel Glover on embracing change and preparing officers for a more technical future

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Closing Thoughts

This episode underscores the transformational power of technology in policing—improving both efficiency and humanity in public safety. It highlights a shift away from brute force toward intelligence, nuance, and collaborative innovation. Technology founders are encouraged to integrate deeply with the real-world experiences of officers, as the next decade promises monumental shifts in how crime is prevented and public safety is upheld.

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Transcript

[Rahul Sidhu]

There's two things cops hate. For things to change and for things to stay the same.

[Colonel Jeffrey Glover]

Most of the cops in the field are going to have to change the 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. It's not going to look the same anymore.

[David Ulavich]

Are people just going to start seeing drones flying around? Is that where we are?

[Rahul Sidhu]

You hear a gunshot go off and the drone finds a shooter getting into a car and driving off and then pursuing the vehicle. It's kind of almost hard to see that it isn't inevitable. We can't do that with a helicopter today unless you've just kept five helicopters up 247 and that's just not, not sustainable.

[David Ulavich]

What advice would you give to founders who are less interested in optimizing ad clicks and more interested in actually building something that helps first responders and save lives?

[Rahul Sidhu]

Might advice?

[A16Z Podcast Host]

American law enforcement is being asked to do more with less. Departments are short staffed, officers are burning out, and the complexity of the job keeps growing. But the technology available to public safety has never been more powerful. Drones that respond to 911 calls before a patrol car can leave the station. License plate readers that flag an an Amber alert vehicle in real time. Body worn camera analytics that detect burnout before an officer hits a breaking point. These aren't prototypes. They're deployed today in departments across the country. The harder question is how you actually get this technology into the field. Law enforcement moves slowly by design. Trust has built over years, not product cycles. And the gap between what's technically possible and what departments will adopt is wide. Colonel Jeffrey Glover and Rahul Sidhu speak with David Ulavich about rebuilding public safety for the 21st century.

[David Ulavich]

I'm on the board of Flock Safety. There's other companies like Skydio that make drones. I'm the recipient of constant notifications from you guys. Hey, we found a kidnapped child. We used the technology in this way, we were able to de escalate a situation. I remember one story where someone called 911 and said, hey, there's a guy in the alleyway with a shotgun. Well, you can imagine how a police officer would respond to that call. But it turned out the drone provided situational awareness and said, wait, there's just a janitor with a broom. That's not a guy with a shotgun. And it totally de escalates the situation. So it's really incredible. Anything else we should know, Rahul about? Where are we in the sort of Nationwide, in the state of drone deployment, are people just going to start see drones flying around? Is that where we are?

[Rahul Sidhu]

Yeah, look, drones are, they're flying robots. And as we see AI robotics sweep every industry, like all these industries are looking for ways to either automate things, make things more efficient, make things more effective. Drones are a similar piece of that. And in public safety, the short answer is we are going to see more drones. We're going to see also potentially more hostile drones that we have to be prepared for. You're going to see more police and fire department drones are responding to fire calls across the country and flock safety. It's not just about drones for us. We have multitudes of sensors in the communities. We have license plate reading cameras, we have gunshot detection capabilities. All of this is coming together, all this data where you're able to determine, oh, that's an amber alert vehicle. And the drone takes off and chases the Amber alert vehicle, or you hear gunshot go off and the drone finds, you know, a shooter getting into a car and driving off and then pursuing the vehicle. Even on the highways with dps, that's something that it's kind of almost hard to see, that it isn't inevitable. We can't do that with a helicopter today unless you've just kept five helicopters up 247 and that's just not sustainable. This is the only way to actually achieve that level of safety.

[David Ulavich]

I joked earlier that it's a bad time to be an enemy of America, from Maduro to El Mencho to the Ayatollah. But it sounds like it's going to be a bad time to be a criminal here in America. Colonel Glover, talk about some of the other technologies and capabilities that you've been able to deploy that really changes the equation for law enforcement. Either helping the officers or helping the general public, or in most cases, both.

[Colonel Jeffrey Glover]

Yeah, so there's a couple of different things that we're doing, sort of like an ecosystem or platform within the agency that we've done. One piece of it is being able to make sure that we're giving the officers what they need to do to be successful. But it's also about their own mental health and well being. So we utilize Vitania Heal the Heroes. It's basically brain scan sort of start off the day and everything to figure out exactly, you know, how are you doing, you know, temperature check, then they go out, they can do their shift. Behind the body worn camera, we have analytics, that's Trulio, that's running behind the body worn camera just to see for the behavior and interaction part of that was, you know, looking at, you can do a scorecard for how the trooper is interacting with the public, but it also gets a little bit of information on how the public is interacting with that trooper to see if they're combative or not. And then it can flag the situation as well for the supervisor. Outside of that, you have what essentially is. It helps with them being able to have that feeling of I have a little bit of a layer of protection because with this it's going to flag for the burnout as well. And that was one of the things that the associations in speaking with them about this was that from the advent of our body worn camera and being able to take that technology, run those analytics behind it, be able to check for those that had burnout, where if we need to pull them from the field, if we need to do something a little bit different, we started instituting, well, checks and sabbaticals for those that are at the and 25 year mark to be able to help optimize their performance. So that way when they go out in the field, they feel good about what they're doing and they have job satisfaction.

[David Ulavich]

Absolutely. It's been amazing to see the public sentiment shift over things like body cams. At first people were very against body cams. Even some of the officer unions were against body cams. Then they realized, wait a minute, you see all the dumb things that the criminals do. So that's pretty good. It protects our officers, but it also provides you game tape, gives you footage. It could be coaching mental health services, make sure that somebody who needs a break gets a break. And really incredible technology. I remember the same discussion happened with Taser. So we see this over and over again with technology that we sort of have to go through a hype cycle of reaction. But it's great to see those things being deployed. Do you want to talk a little bit real quickly about the intelligence gathering apparatus? I think that, you know, you've mentioned it a couple times that we shifted law enforcement to really making sure that we have all the information we need. Talk about the Department of Public Safety, how you're working to really make sure that officers have the best information available.

[Colonel Jeffrey Glover]

Yeah. So one of the things that we're leaning into as well is that we have the Arizona Counterterrorism Inc. Center, the actic. So with the fusion centers around the US Are collaborating and working together in tandem to make sure that they're sharing information. You have the TRX program, which a lot of us are doing for FIFA right now, because that's the big event that's coming up as well as the Olympics. But one of the things in Arizona that I'm doing is I'm leaning heavily in, into making sure that we're having sort of an international presence as well. So we have a lot of partnerships with different groups. Especially, you know, of course, we are a border state. So we have the state of Sonora, Mexico, that's right next to us. We're looking at being able to have the ability of having intelligence officers from Mexico, from the uae, from Liberia, from different parts of the world, because the world is getting a lot smaller. We all know that crime is happening everywhere. Being able to condense that down and distill it to where we can have good information sharing that's unclassified. To just be able to share with one another on trends and being able to backstop that with some of the technology and AI helps us with being able to actually stop a lot of the trends before they start.

[David Ulavich]

Absolutely. We saw very sadly in Austin that global events have local repercussions. So I think we've seen in New York City that their counterterrorism work at the NYPD has been very successful. And excited to hear that you're bringing that kind of a program into Arizona. Rahul, you started out as a policeman, as a paramedic. Now that you've seen all this technology, some of which you've brought to bear in public safety, do you think there's still great opportunities in public safety? What advice would you start to give to founders who are less interested in optimizing ad clicks and more interested in actually building something that helps first responders and save lives. What would you say?

[Rahul Sidhu]

I already know great founders that are working in public safety.

[A16Z Podcast Host]

It's funny.

[Rahul Sidhu]

The Colonel was talking about tracking the performance of the members of his department in Burnout. There's a founder here, Ben Curley, in the audience that is the CEO of Sharp Performance, that does exactly that you should. And they introduce you after this. You haven't met him already.

[Colonel Jeffrey Glover]

We're already talking to them.

[Rahul Sidhu]

All right, good, good. But there's plenty of great founders out there that are tackling public safety. My advice for them is, look, it comes off as very intimidating. I'm sure the Colonel's heard this saying. But there's two things cops hate. For things to change and for things to stay the same. And so it feels like 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 we talk about drones, AI, some of these recognize 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 that brings the change. Don't be intimidated by it just because they're cops. And then if you do it, I would say spend a lot of time with the cops too. Just like 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, really get an understanding of it. Be a reserve cop if you want to really get into it. And that'll really help you not only speak the language, but know what to build for them.

[David Ulavich]

Colonel Glover, any final words that you want to share for the people that want to work with law enforcement, work with public safety officials? What's the best way to partner and work with you?

[Colonel Jeffrey Glover]

Well, back to Ro's point is really is jump in. I mean, jump in, really engage, connect. You're going to find there's a lot of law enforcement leaders that are looking to figure out the best ways of implementation and trying to get ahead of the curb with technology. We know that 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 in the field are going to have to change the 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. You're going to have a different framework of being able to work with in terms of your mindset because it's not going to look the same anymore. Ten years from now. It may not be about kicking indoors and other things. It's going to be looking at the technical aspects of this video you just received and looking at AI and certain things that are going to come up from a fraud standpoint as well. And so it's going to be very nuanced in that way. And so every leader is looking at how do we make this adjustment, how do we become a little bit more flexible and adaptable to what's going to be the need.

[David Ulavich]

Awesome. Well, thank you both, gentlemen. Appreciate the work you do out in the field as technologists and thanks for being with us here today.

[Colonel Jeffrey Glover]

Okay, thank you.

[Rahul Sidhu]

Thank you.

[A16Z Podcast Host]

Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating, or review and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on X16Z and subscribe to our substack@A16Z substack.com thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16z.com disclosures.