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Rick Smith

Things Rick Says on Podcasts

“A police union leader told me famously, he said, 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. Because what you don't realize, police are arresting criminals all the time. And criminals have no compunction about lying about what happened. The number of false allegations are incredible.” — Rick Smith, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg “I don't want to live in a world where everybody else has robotics and AI and the police are showing up in a 74 Chevy, you know, with an old radio. Like they're going to need enough tech to keep up with the rest of us. And then the laws and regulations and oversight are going to have to evolve to make sure that we are controlling the government as the people.” — Rick Smith, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg “We send in more people with guns and they have a gunfight. Like, this is the Wild West, guys. Like, is that really the best we can do as a society? … This is a key distinction. You'll never get a cop that will take a non-lethal weapon up against somebody with a gun. But if we can send in a small drone or robot, then everything shifts.” — Rick Smith, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Where to Find Them

Rick Smith has been a guest on All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg .

Recently: “Freedom vs. Safety: Axon CEO Rick Smith on the Future of Policing” on All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg (November 2026).

What They Said

“A police union leader told me famously, he said, 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. Because what you don't realize, police are arresting criminals all the time. And criminals have no compunction about lying about what happened. The number of false allegations are incredible.” — Rick Smith, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Friedberg asked how Axon persuaded police to accept body cameras when they create liability for officers. Smith said that was exactly the early objection, then relayed what a police union leader had told him.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg Around 36:08 into the episode
Rick Smith

Yeah.

David Friedberg

…body cam's on and they get themselves in trouble. And so, isn't there a bit of a liability issue? And how do you end up selling your customer on putting themselves at risk? Or do they view it as a double-edged sword that it's also for their own safety, their own protection, and for winning cases?

Rick Smith

So you are articulating the exact concern people had up front. That's why they didn't want to wear it because they had that perception. However, once actually a police union leader told me famously, he said, 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. Because what you don't realize, police are arresting criminals all the time. And criminals have no compunction about lying about what happened. The number of false allegations are incredible. I'm going to give you one example. I'm on a ride along with a cop in Phoenix. And this is in the early days of body cameras. And I said, How's it going? He said, Well, I didn't like this, but let me tell you what happened to me last week. I was arresting a prostitute. She was basically more than half naked. She was high on some sort of drugs. And as I put her into the patrol car, as I'm driving…

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Rick Smith

White officer, black subject. Now, Michael Brown was unarmed, but he was significantly larger than Officer Wilson. And according to Officer Wilson, they were fighting over the gun. Like the officer, you know, an officer brings a gun to every fight they get in. And once they're fighting over the…

David Friedberg

And so you get out there, the market starts moving, and I'm assuming it just becomes de facto, right? I mean, all over the country at this point. I mean, maybe you can just share a little bit about the scale of the business today.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“I don't want to live in a world where everybody else has robotics and AI and the police are showing up in a 74 Chevy, you know, with an old radio. Like they're going to need enough tech to keep up with the rest of us. And then the laws and regulations and oversight are going to have to evolve to make sure that we are controlling the government as the people.” — Rick Smith, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Friedberg, describing himself as more libertarian, asked how citizens keep their liberties against a state with this much technology. Smith ended his answer with this argument for why police need modern tools alongside stronger oversight.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg Around 48:56 into the episode
Rick Smith

…the biggest parts of the future is drones and robots arriving on scene way before people have an opportunity to get there. And the whole idea is to just let's understand what's happening. Let's make sure we're making the best decisions possible. And the idea is to keep everybody as safe as we can.

David Friedberg

…So let me be clear on this. But this idea that you're creating a significant concentration of this extraordinary power, and it's hard for the citizens to be able to ultimately protect themselves against a government that decides to overwhelm voices and individuals at some point in the future.

Rick Smith

Just got to do is take a step back and look in the world as it exists today. So let's imagine, David, that police have got a tip that there's a dangerous felon in your house. This has happened, right? We've all heard of cases where police go to the wrong house and they're doing an entry. So today, the way that works, like if they believe that you're a dangerous felon, they may come through the door in your house and you're going to be dealing with multiple officers that are suited up with body armor with lethal weapons in their hands who are going to have to make a life or death decision instantaneously while their own adrenaline is surging, right? Human beings don't make good decisions under the fight or flight. So the fact is the government already has a monopoly on the legal use of force and it's almost every one of those officers has lethal force. And I will tell you, if they feel their life is at risk, the thing in their hand will be a gun. By comparison, if those police are going to come into your house, imagine a future where if they do have to do this mission, and again, we can debate about under what conditions they should do it.…

David Friedberg

And what's your view on the shifting political landscape, the rise of a DSA political class today that's calling for defunding the police? And what do you think happens to communities and cities over the next couple of years if and as more of that voice becomes elected?

Rick Smith

Well, if you actually defund the police, you know, we will get some social experiments. I can tell you, you don't need an experiment to show what would happen. It will be catastrophic, but democracies recover. And I'll give you an example. I think it was in 1968, the police in Montreal, Canada went…

David Friedberg

San Francisco got abandoned. I've seen it myself. Yeah.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“We send in more people with guns and they have a gunfight. Like, this is the Wild West, guys. Like, is that really the best we can do as a society? … This is a key distinction. You'll never get a cop that will take a non-lethal weapon up against somebody with a gun. But if we can send in a small drone or robot, then everything shifts.” — Rick Smith, All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Smith was defending Axon's plan for a Taser-equipped drone, the project that led members of his AI ethics board to quit. Asked how a person with a gun is stopped today, his answer is that the only option is more armed police, and that non-lethal force delivered by a drone or robot changes what officers are willing to do.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg Around 46:42 into the episode
Rick Smith

…with them for about a year on the idea that we could have a taser-capable drone to be used in extreme circumstances, like a school shooting was the incident there. But today, for example, if you have a person with a gun show up in a building anywhere in America, do you know how we stop them?

David Friedberg

We got to wait for the police with a gun? Yeah,

Rick Smith

we send in more people with guns and they have a gunfight. Like, this is the Wild West, guys. Like, is that really the best we can do as a society? And so, what we're saying is rather than waiting and sending a person with a gun to have more bullets flying, we could send in a drone or a robot armed with a non-lethal weapon. This is a key distinction. Like, you'll never get a cop that will take a non-lethal weapon up against somebody with a gun. But if we can send in a small drone or robot, then everything shifts. They're like, oh, wait a…

David Friedberg

Let's just talk about the future 10 years from now. I think there's five companies launching humanoid-like robots for commercial sale in the next 12 to 18 months that are going to be available here in the U.S. $10,000 to $30,000 price ranges have been kind of talked about. Do you think the future…

Rick Smith

Well, first, I would say policing is still fundamentally a human job. Any decisions about using force on another person will be made by humans. And that's a bright line for us. So even with the Taser drone you and I talked about earlier, part of what we learned from the concern was people are…

David Friedberg

How do citizens feel like they can maintain their individual liberties from being overwhelmed by a state that is equipped with this much technology? I think that's really where I react personally to think about as more of a libertarian. I'm a big proponent of the role of government being public…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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