6 ms·

Curious about the official YCombinator stance on this extremely unpopular YCombinator-backed startup (unpopular here at HN anyway).

by ryandvm 2mo ago

avree 2mo ago
The official YCombinator stance is that Flock was a huge success as an investment - which it seemingly was, given that they managed to sign deals with what seems like every tiny municipality/sheriff/government organization. https://www.ycombinator.com/library/N0-unpopular-ideas-that-became-billion-dollar-businesses https://www.ycombinator.com/library/N0-unpopular-ideas-that-...
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  Because for police departments, they are a huge benefit and well worth the cost. A lot of crimes have been solved with Flock cameras. Stolen cars, or cars linked to criminal activity have been tracked and located. Missing persons have been found. None of that justifies the massive invasion of privacy that these cameras represent. You don't have a right to not be individually surveiled in public, but that doesn't mean it's OK for the government to warrantlessly track everyone everywhere they go 24x7, or to do it by proxy with a private company such as Flock. The potential for abuse is just too high, and we've seen many cases of that too.
snootypoot 2mo ago
[dead]
chuckadams 2mo ago
I believe "money good" is YC's only guiding principle. HN is a nice resource, but let's not have any illusions about the morals of the owners.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- EasyMark 2mo ago
  It's a news aggregator for tech and related news and discussion. I wouldn't want a highly politicized filtering of everything incoming, so you have to take the good with the bad (in your opinion)
overfeed 2mo ago
If you've read anything Garry Tan has said, you wouldn't be curious.
- rconti 2mo ago
  Care to enlighten us?
  - an0malous 2mo ago
    https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/2019867421029667158 https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/2019867421029667158
    - bix6 2mo ago
      lol love that he is quoting an AI that is quoting KTVU
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - nchmy 2mo ago
    I believe Garry Tan would enlighten you if you read/listened to him edit: to be clear, I dont think Tan is capable of "enlightening" anyone. I was responding to the lazy comment above...
    - Hikikomori 2mo ago
      Garry tan was enlightened by thiels Greta is the anti Christ talk.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
  - UncleMeat 2mo ago
    Garry is basically a fascist who thinks that democratic governance ruins society and that instead society should be run by tech elite.
doctorpangloss 2mo ago
if you want to tackle the POV of the true believers at Y Combinator*: look, flock can't be that effective if all it takes is a guy with a ladder to defeat it, right? same thing with pervasive facial detection, you can wear a mask. you don't have to go into all this philosophical stuff to see how the promises will not be fulfilled. *Garry Tan has been characterized as a True Believer, in that he sincerely believes Flock's vision will reduce crime and not be misused. on the flip side they don't invest in Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, etc. or other defense stuff. so it's very exceptional for them.
- giancarlostoro 2mo ago
  > or other defense stuff. so it's very exceptional for them. 9 Mothers. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/9-mothers-corporation https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/9-mothers-corporation
- nerdsniper 2mo ago
  YC is definitely pivoting into Defense. Besides 9mothers, there’s a list of 22 defense startups accepted into YC just this year so far: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/defense https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/defense And beyond this there are a number of defense-dependent companies like ProvenMetal (whose value proposition largely depends on a customer’s deep need to do onshore manufacturing) It makes sense. From 2000-2015 it was pretty difficult for anyone to break into defense and really own a brand. Breakout companies like EOTech were really rare. Generally founders would be at the mercy/grace of the major defense incumbents ('primes'), getting scraps from their tables. That’s changed lately. For a wide variety of reasons (political, technical, and on active battlefields) there’s a lot more room for startups to really own their own slice of the industry and build some moats of their own.
  - doctorpangloss 2mo ago
    they invest in defense stuff now, that's new! but. paul graham doesn't like defense stuff. there were plenty of great defense seed investments (palantir), and he runs the best seed venture firm in the world, always has, so his opinion matters. but it was out of a righteous place, it wasn't because he thought it couldn't make money. y combinator is a much bigger fund now with lots of people in charge. the "2000-2015" era you are talking about: valuations of everything were 1/10th of what they are now. it's hard to make any definitive comparisons about venture trends.
stickfigure 2mo ago
[flagged]
- rconti 2mo ago
  Flock seems to be pretty unpopular, internet-wide, in bipartisan tech/very online worlds; feels like 90% to me. Where things start coming into balance a bit more is among the Nextdoor paranoia crowd.
  - fckgw 2mo ago
    Flock is popular with 1) local police departments and 2) local city councils who don't want to upset the police It's pretty unpopular with mainly everyone else.
    - stickfigure 2mo ago
      If you spend time in neighborhood groups like nextdoor and local facebook groups, you find plenty of support for Flock. I'd even go so far as to say a majority. This doesn't have the scientific rigor of a random sample, but it's enough to convince me that the anti-Flock voices on HN are not representative of the public at large. And might not even be representative of HN.
      - frm88 2mo ago
        John Oliver made his last episode of Last Week Tonight about surverillance with particular focus on Flock and its many abuses. Last I checked it had 1.5m views on Youtube. Breaking Points had an episode on Flock yesterday featuring a member of the management calling anti-Flock people domestic terrorists. When I watched it on YT it had 80K views. EDIT: here's a list of 30+ cities that cancelled their contracts with Flock because of above reasons: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wave-30-cities-alpr-surveillance-contracts-2026/ https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wav...
        2mo ago

Curious about the official YCombinator stance on this extremely unpopular YCombinator-backed startup (unpopular here at HN anyway).

by ryandvm 2mo ago

Curious about the official YCombinator stance on this extremely unpopular YCombinator-backed startup (unpopular here at HN anyway).

avree 2mo ago

The official YCombinator stance is that Flock was a huge success as an investment - which it seemingly was, given that they managed to sign deals with what seems like every tiny municipality/sheriff/government organization. https://www.ycombinator.com/library/N0-unpopular-ideas-that-became-billion-dollar-businesses https://www.ycombinator.com/library/N0-unpopular-ideas-that-...

SoftTalker 2mo ago
Because for police departments, they are a huge benefit and well worth the cost. A lot of crimes have been solved with Flock cameras. Stolen cars, or cars linked to criminal activity have been tracked and located. Missing persons have been found. None of that justifies the massive invasion of privacy that these cameras represent. You don't have a right to not be individually surveiled in public, but that doesn't mean it's OK for the government to warrantlessly track everyone everywhere they go 24x7, or to do it by proxy with a private company such as Flock. The potential for abuse is just too high, and we've seen many cases of that too.

snootypoot 2mo ago

[dead]

chuckadams 2mo ago

I believe "money good" is YC's only guiding principle. HN is a nice resource, but let's not have any illusions about the morals of the owners.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
EasyMark 2mo ago
It's a news aggregator for tech and related news and discussion. I wouldn't want a highly politicized filtering of everything incoming, so you have to take the good with the bad (in your opinion)

overfeed 2mo ago

If you've read anything Garry Tan has said, you wouldn't be curious.

rconti 2mo ago
Care to enlighten us?
- an0malous 2mo ago
  https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/2019867421029667158 https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/2019867421029667158
  - bix6 2mo ago
    lol love that he is quoting an AI that is quoting KTVU
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- nchmy 2mo ago
  I believe Garry Tan would enlighten you if you read/listened to him edit: to be clear, I dont think Tan is capable of "enlightening" anyone. I was responding to the lazy comment above...
  - Hikikomori 2mo ago
    Garry tan was enlightened by thiels Greta is the anti Christ talk.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- UncleMeat 2mo ago
  Garry is basically a fascist who thinks that democratic governance ruins society and that instead society should be run by tech elite.

doctorpangloss 2mo ago

if you want to tackle the POV of the true believers at Y Combinator*: look, flock can't be that effective if all it takes is a guy with a ladder to defeat it, right? same thing with pervasive facial detection, you can wear a mask. you don't have to go into all this philosophical stuff to see how the promises will not be fulfilled. *Garry Tan has been characterized as a True Believer, in that he sincerely believes Flock's vision will reduce crime and not be misused. on the flip side they don't invest in Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition, etc. or other defense stuff. so it's very exceptional for them.

giancarlostoro 2mo ago
> or other defense stuff. so it's very exceptional for them. 9 Mothers. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/9-mothers-corporation https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/9-mothers-corporation
nerdsniper 2mo ago
YC is definitely pivoting into Defense. Besides 9mothers, there’s a list of 22 defense startups accepted into YC just this year so far: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/defense https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/defense And beyond this there are a number of defense-dependent companies like ProvenMetal (whose value proposition largely depends on a customer’s deep need to do onshore manufacturing) It makes sense. From 2000-2015 it was pretty difficult for anyone to break into defense and really own a brand. Breakout companies like EOTech were really rare. Generally founders would be at the mercy/grace of the major defense incumbents ('primes'), getting scraps from their tables. That’s changed lately. For a wide variety of reasons (political, technical, and on active battlefields) there’s a lot more room for startups to really own their own slice of the industry and build some moats of their own.
- doctorpangloss 2mo ago
  they invest in defense stuff now, that's new! but. paul graham doesn't like defense stuff. there were plenty of great defense seed investments (palantir), and he runs the best seed venture firm in the world, always has, so his opinion matters. but it was out of a righteous place, it wasn't because he thought it couldn't make money. y combinator is a much bigger fund now with lots of people in charge. the "2000-2015" era you are talking about: valuations of everything were 1/10th of what they are now. it's hard to make any definitive comparisons about venture trends.

stickfigure 2mo ago

[flagged]

rconti 2mo ago
Flock seems to be pretty unpopular, internet-wide, in bipartisan tech/very online worlds; feels like 90% to me. Where things start coming into balance a bit more is among the Nextdoor paranoia crowd.
- fckgw 2mo ago
  Flock is popular with 1) local police departments and 2) local city councils who don't want to upset the police It's pretty unpopular with mainly everyone else.
  - stickfigure 2mo ago
    If you spend time in neighborhood groups like nextdoor and local facebook groups, you find plenty of support for Flock. I'd even go so far as to say a majority. This doesn't have the scientific rigor of a random sample, but it's enough to convince me that the anti-Flock voices on HN are not representative of the public at large. And might not even be representative of HN.
    - frm88 2mo ago
      John Oliver made his last episode of Last Week Tonight about surverillance with particular focus on Flock and its many abuses. Last I checked it had 1.5m views on Youtube. Breaking Points had an episode on Flock yesterday featuring a member of the management calling anti-Flock people domestic terrorists. When I watched it on YT it had 80K views. EDIT: here's a list of 30+ cities that cancelled their contracts with Flock because of above reasons: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wave-30-cities-alpr-surveillance-contracts-2026/ https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wav...
      - 2mo ago