Flock was a startup that was funded by Y Combinator. Paul Graham and the other Y Combinator people provided expertise and advice to them throughout their whole journey.
I wonder what Paul Graham says to the Flock executives now?
cm11 1 day ago||
In case anyone's wondering (I was). Flock was in the summer 2017 batch and more recently YC invested in their 2025 raise.
kklisura 1 day ago||
It's not PG, it's Garry Tan.
driverdan 1 day ago|||
And Garry Tan has repeatedly defended Flock and badmouthed people who oppose them.
ViktorRay 1 day ago|||
PG is still involved in Y combinator batches and all that right? He regularly posts about giving advice to founders on his twitter account.
smt88 1 day ago||
How could those innocent employees have predicted that helping to build out a surveillance state would make them unpopular?
SoftTalker 1 day ago|
I'm actually surprised. The usual thing is that people don't care, or think "I have nothing to hide" and just go on with their lives. That's mostly been the case with online surveillance, tracking, etc. done by Google, Meta, and the ad industry.
For some reason, Flock became a rallying point on both the left and the right.
beepbopboopp 1 day ago|||
This ones easy, it's because the other ones provide a service people generally want, so the faustian bargain is always "Ill give you this thing I dont want to as long as you keep providing the thing I like."
Flock provides nothing direct to the consumer which means this is going to get worse and Id stake a wager they rebrand after raising their next huge round.
treis 1 day ago||
Plenty of people support Flock or at least its mission. They're just not vocal because the opposition is vociferous. Like most things the country is fairly divided. This poll has it 46% opposed and 38% support:
I think Google/Meta surveillance just feels like something painless, benign, and invisible. You couldn’t see a reason a huge corporation would really want to target you or put you in danger. With Flock, your local law enforcement has access, and that feels like a much more real threat (warrantless tracking of your real-world activity with the ability to ruin your day/life), not to mention how it’s already been abused to track exes of officers, had be easily hacked in the past, and that AI face recognition matched the wrong people.
mattstir 1 day ago||
Honestly I think the only significant difference is in branding: Flock isn't consumer-facing and is explicitly marketed for tracking people's movements. The major tech companies that make your phone, browser, maybe a few smart home devices with always-on microphones or cameras, all have more data about you and your habits than Flock could ever obtain, and with us paying for the privilege no less. I get that the average person doesn't care when the product works as advertised, but I don't think that's healthy. People should care as much about privacy when it's Google or Meta as when it's Flock.
Zigurd 22 hours ago||||
One reason is that the CEO comes off as a raving lunatic. I saw a video snippet of him ranting about how anti-flock activists are terrorists. That's going to become a classic in how not to do crisis communication.
Retr0id 1 day ago||||
The bipartisan nature isn't that surprising, given that surveillance is more of an authoritarianism vs libertarianism issue i.e. orthogonal to left vs right (in an oversimplified kinda way).
taormina 1 day ago||||
It's like nobody, left or right, wanted for or consented to the surveillance state. Nothing like shoving the biggest, dumbest camera you can find in everyone's face to rub it all in. Obviously, the surveillance state is part and parcel post-9/11, but it's too easy to ignore the tech nerds when they talk about abstract things like "privacy" and "abusing the system". Then we get visible things for them to rally against like Flock.
nilamo 1 day ago|||
One is just tech shit for nerds. The other is actual cameras watching everything that's really happening.
Idk, doesn't seem that surprising that it ruffles more feathers.
cush 1 day ago||
Is YC seriously still invested in this trash?
dlcarrier 1 day ago||
I wonder how much of the bad sentiment is from Flock being used as an excuse for government agencies to blatantly violate the fourth amendment. If the data they collect could only be accessed for specific individuals, after a warrant is issued, I don't think the general public would care as much about the company hosting the equipment.
erelong 1 day ago||
Shut down, rebrand, try some different approach to security services
Being a magnet of attention as a despised surveillance corp has to be tiring
cindyllm 1 day ago|
[dead]
shevy-java 1 day ago||
That's great that they are quitting. It is not ethical to spy on fellow people.