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As we begin a decade amidst global protests about police brutality, Axon may soon become one of the most consequential tech companies. Almost every adult in Western society knows Axon’s marquee products: the TASER and the police bodycam. And as the world rethinks the future of law enforcement, Axon’s technology will play an increasingly important role in how society functions.

I joined Axon’s Board of Directors 10 years ago. At the time, Axon was a small company called TASER International. Rick Smith, the founder, convinced me to join his simple yet inspirational mission: to Protect Life. Rick had founded the company to sell TASERs, so people and police would use guns less. In 2010 he wanted to expand it from a small manufacturer of nonlethal weapons to be a much larger tech company, to sell bodycams and software services, to help reduce the use of force of all kinds.

Now, as I look back on 10 years at Axon, it’s bittersweet to see how far things have come for Axon the company, and yet how much farther we have to go as a human race.

Averted over 200,000 potential deaths by police deadly force

Helped make bodycams an expectation of police in a civilized society, capturing 37 million hours of police interactions to increase transparency and accountability

Introduced revolutionary ideas such as using VR for de-escalation training for cops

Grew from a manufacturing team of 300 people making TASERs to a global team of 1,500+ making an entire ecosystem of software and hardware devices

Grew annual revenues six-fold, and grew profits from ~$0 to $87 million of adjusted earnings

Grew total market capitalization 25-fold, a multiple greater than even Amazon’s growth over the same time

But as I look back at the last 10 years, I ask, could we have done more to protect life? At a time when the world is gripped by images of the brutal killings of Black Americans such as George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, Axon’s most important work is in what comes next.

Millions watched the death of Rayshard Brooks as it was captured by Axon cameras. A decade ago, Mr. Brooks’ death would have been explained only in the words of the police officers on the scene. Today, we have video evidence from multiple vantage points, showing the full interactions that led to Mr. Brooks’ death. We shouldn’t accept for events like this to be judged only through the lens of race, nor through a one-sided memory of what happened, when technology can present a more complete story.

The transparency and accountability provided by bodycams aren’t magical solutions to prevent deaths, but they do give a clearer picture of what happened. This clearer picture not only helps ensure justice is served, it also leads to de-escalation in the moment, reducing complaints against police by 93%. 

As politicians consider police reform to battle systemic racism, while most tech companies contribute little more than statements of support, Axon courageously asks how new technology can help:

Could cities demilitarize police by following London’s example, arming cops with cameras and TASERs instead of deadly guns and batons?

What if virtual reality could be used to train police officers to see the world differently, to better deal with issues of racism, mental health, and violence?

What is the ethical role of AI in policing? Computer vision could help recover a stolen car or a kidnapped child, but it could also expand racial profiling and perpetuate racism.

Can school shootings be prevented or reduced using technology?

Should society use drones or robots in policing  — and how would we do so ethically?  Countries around the world are already experimenting with “robot” police.

How does one build policing technology that is used for good, while preventing misuse?

Could a TASER device be effective enough to truly obsolete the bullet?

These are all questions that Axon will face over its next ten years of growth. They are technological questions, but also social, ethical, political, and philosophical questions. Over the next decade, the team at Axon must engage a broad group of stakeholders to think through the answers. 

As a multi-billion dollar global company, Axon doesn’t only serve customers in law enforcement. Axon’s ultimate customer is society at large. Where many people see a false choice between public safety and civil liberty, Axon sees that these concepts are intertwined.  A safe and just society requires a public that feels safe and a government that values protecting the civil rights and privacy of all its citizens. Our future need not be a choice between divisive visions, but can be one where technology and ethical design play a key role in achieving better outcomes across the board.

I hope to look back in 2030 to see not only another decade of meteoric growth, but also transformative change in how technology has helped society protect life.

As we begin a decade amidst global protests about police brutality, Axon may soon become one of the most consequential tech companies. Almost every adult in Western society knows Axon’s marquee products: the TASER and the police bodycam.

<Axon 2030: rethinking law enforcement>

Axon 2030: rethinking law enforcement

By Hadi Partovi, Director, Axon

We posted a statement last week that said we need racial reconciliation and hope following the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and the countless others who have tragically lost their lives. The events of these past weeks have made us challenge the way we think, speak and act on race-related matters. Talk is not enough. We must engage in difficult conversations and become actively anti-racist. Today, we want to share the first steps Axon is committing to in order to eliminate systemic inequity, racism, and injustice. 

Axon’s vision is to make the bullet obsolete, reduce social conflict and ensure criminal justice systems are fair and effective. After this week we’ve learned that we can and must do even more. That’s why we are adding one more vision: Eradicate racism and excessive force in the justice system. 

Technology alone can’t solve the problem of systemic racism - but we believe it has a huge role to play and Axon is uniquely positioned to solve these problems.

Body cameras capture truth and provide transparency where there was none before. Signal technology, along with the power of AI, can help ensure cameras are always on when they’re supposed to be. 

Live-streaming video combined with other real-time situational awareness data and a re-imagined 911 experience can dramatically increase the safety of officers and the communities they serve by putting eyes directly on life-threatening and use of force situations in real-time. 

VR Empathy Training can help officers put themselves in others’ shoes and be better equipped to listen and de-escalate before they act. 

Citizen portals to securely share footage captured by citizens can create a direct and constructive connection between communities and the agencies sworn to protect them. 

Today, officers spend up to 40% of their day on paperwork— by streamlining officer workflows with powerful AI-driven tools like transcription and redaction, we are reinventing policing by ensuring more of their time can be spent building constructive relationships in the community.

The first step we took was to self-assess and reflect on how we as a company can do better. We are committing to take action for increased diversity and inclusion at our company with the following steps:

We are going to build a global company that represents the communities we live in and serve, where all employees feel comfortable to bring their authentic selves to work, regardless of race, gender, or orientation.

Hiring - We will be reviewing our hiring practices and standing up a dedicated team focused on improving our Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) hiring strategy and increasing diversity within the recruiting funnel.

Promotion - We will track and evaluate D&I data as part of all performance and compensation reviews going forward to ensure that we are driving a fair and inclusive environment throughout all levels of Axon.

Build a more open and inclusive culture - We will expand the scope of our various D&I initiatives to promote inclusion in the workplace and community and continue to facilitate dialogue by hosting events focused on leadership development, recruiting and community engagement. We’ve already begun to take the following steps:
- Expand the scope of our current and future affinity group efforts to ensure that their voices are much more pervasive and involved in key conversations.
- Launch company wide unconscious bias and cross-cultural trainings and continue to drive conversation and education around diverse perspectives.


We will seek to do business with suppliers that embody the same commitment to diversity and inclusion - Starting immediately we will change our RFP and supplier/vendor selection process to identify minority-owned businesses and add a weighting factor to our awards so all selections take this into account and actively encourage diversity as we seek to support minority-owned businesses.

Our next step is focused on how we can better engage with our communities:

We serve public safety. And public safety serves the community. It’s on us to listen to community members as we forge ahead on developing technology. We need to listen to communities now more than ever which is why we’re committing to take the following actions:

Seek out community input and feedback with all of our products:
- Actively conduct Voice of Customer sessions with community members to ensure that our existing products and future product development are reflecting the needs of the public.
- Support investigations led by community organizations looking into potential misuse of our products.
- Engage with law enforcement leaders to reform body-worn camera policies.

Drive active participation among our employees in the communities that we serve: Starting now, we are going to work with employees on how best they can engage with the community in an effort to give back and help build their own awareness of various diverse backgrounds and circumstances.

Lastly, we are committing to investing more in our products that can help provide greater transparency for the public and help drive reform within law enforcement:

Build more community-facing aspects to our products, to provide even greater transparency and empowerment: We will explicitly prioritize more capabilities that are directly community-facing and community-empowering. Examples may include more automated public transparency portals for data and insights, ways to ensure officers’ cameras are on when they’re supposed to be, and more.

Invest in the data, analytics, and tools that agencies can use to set policy and drive reform-minded compliance mechanisms: We will continue to balance the opportunity and necessity of using data to find actionable insights, with our ethics-first framework on key issues like retention policies. Our independent AI Ethics Board will continue to play a large role in these discussions.

We are committed to continuing the conversation to drive positive change. We are proudly leaning into this time of transformational change and driving forward in the next wave of policing reform. Everyone deserves to get home safe.

 Protect Life, Protect Truth,
 -Rick

Rick Smith
CEO and founder, Axon

A message from our CEO and founder Rick Smith. We posted a statement last week that said we need racial reconciliation and hope following the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and the countless others who have tragically lost their lives.

Where do we go from here?

ARTICLE: Where do we go from here?

A message from our CEO and founder Rick Smith

We need racial reconciliation and hope. We stand with the African American community. All lives cannot matter, until Black lives matter.

Axon commits to real action: building technology that helps eradicate racism and excessive force in the justice system.

I feel hope as I watch key leaders call for changes in both policing culture and policy. I am deeply motivated knowing that real, lasting change also requires tools and systems to implement, train and drive it. I met with some of Axon's leading innovators today and challenged them to focus our unique talents and energy to create tools that will enable meaningful and systematic change. 

As our CFO Jawad Ahsan told our employees this week, many people who are important to the fabric of this nation are feeling like they don't matter. They are literally crying out for help, and they deserve to be heard. So, we must do more than listen passively: we will act decisively to make tomorrow better than yesterday.

We stand for protecting life. We stand for protecting truth. We stand for transparency and accountability. We strongly denounce racism and will actively do our part to eradicate it.

Everyone deserves to get home safe.

Rick Smith
CEO and founder


Axon's Statement on the Death of George Floyd

Article: George Floyd Briefing Statement

Updated statement as of June 1, 2020

Axon CEO Rick Smith around the events involving George Floyd & Minneapolis

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Accelerate / 2020

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Axon 2030: rethinking law enforcement

Where do we go from here?

Axon CEO Rick Smith around the events involving George Floyd & Minneapolis

Data-Driven Decisions on Public Health Emergencies