Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:02:39 · Garrett Langley, Alexa von Tobel
[00:02:39] S0: Thanks for having me. Excited to chat. [00:02:41] S2: So I wanna just quickly start from the beginning, which is I've had a lot of repeat entrepreneurs on here. You're a repeat, repeat entrepreneur, and, actually, you've had just already a really remarkable career. You were one of the first employees at Firethorn, which later sold to Qualcomm for over $200,000,000. You cofounded Experience, a live events platform, which when... Was acquired by Cox Enterprises for over $200,000,000. You helped architect Clutch, an incredible car subscription and fleet management company. This is far from your first rodeo and far from your most... You know, this is maybe one of your bigger companies, but you've seen a lot of success. And I think just before we dive into talking about Flock Safety, I would love to just ask, what have you learned that you could pay forward about being a successful entrepreneur that kind of has been some of the maybe rules and track of your life now that you've been through it so many times?
00:03:40 · Garrett Langley
[00:03:40] S0: Yeah. I mean, I think I always just go back to... There's this constant debate, I think, in technology entrepreneurship of is the product the most important thing? Is the market the most important thing? Is it the team? And I just... I mean, after twenty years or so now of trying to build important companies, it just seems like team is the only thing that matters. And I originally thought that was something that was particularly true for early stage companies, but now Flock's, you know, close close to 2,000 people. And when people ask internally, you know, what's the biggest risk to the company continuing to do well, I should get back to people. Like, if we can hire and retain and train incredible people who are mission oriented, everything rolls downhill. And when I think about fire adventures, we have the highest highs and lowest lows, like, all made better with a stronger team. So for me, like, whenever I look at a problem, I immediately jump to, like, let's just talk with people oriented. Let's focus on that first, and everything else tends to take care of itself.
00:04:43 · Alexa von Tobel, Garrett Langley
[00:04:43] S2: Yeah. I agree with you. People are pretty much the the the one, two, and three most important part of any equation. You grew up in Atlanta, and I always like to ask people... And I I... You still live in Atlanta, Flock Safety's headquarters in Atlanta. I always like to ask people before we dive into just the immense success that you've had. Is there anything from your childhood that really stands out that you kind of feel like was extremely helpful to enabling your success today? And and it could be anything, but I always like to ask, like, what did your parents do? [00:05:15] S0: Yeah. [00:05:15] S2: So not what did they do in their careers, but, like, how did they raise you that made you so comfortable with risk?
00:05:15 · Alexa von Tobel, Garrett Langley
[00:05:15] S2: So not what did they do in their careers, but, like, how did they raise you that made you so comfortable with risk? [00:05:20] S0: I think that might be a born trait. But if I reflect now on it, you know, my father has never used a laptop in his entire life. He got an iPhone for the first time maybe two years ago. And so he starts to ask the question like, how did I wind up in technology? And what you would... What we kinda skip over is, I don't think I've ever met a single person that doesn't love my father. He is like the perfect definition of that old school sales guy that knows everyone on a first name basis, knows where their kids went to school, brings them a treat on Christmas or Thanksgiving or their birthday. And, like, he just loved people, and he was so good at it. And he spent his entire career in in sales and and a field model, you know, selling industrial rollers. So not necessarily the most glamorous job. But I learned through real osmosis, like, how you treat customers. And and I think now, like, looking back, I think earlier in my career, I don't I don't think I had that clarity. But I think about it now, and I'm like, man, I learned everything I know about managing a customer, managing an employee, managing relationships through him. And, you know, has that in the field of technology. I'd say that skill set is really hard earned, and I think a lot of my success stems from that ability.
00:06:45 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:06:45] S2: That's so great, and what a nice shout out. I wanna talk a little bit about Flock. And Flock is a company that the team here at Inspired, we've talked a lot about and just being one of the companies we really admire. And just a few quick stats for everybody. So in March 2025, just recently, you guys have raised $275,000,000 at a $7,500,000,000 valuation, making it one of the most highly valued safety tech companies in the world. And also, you know, your most successful venture to date. Can we just tell everybody, what does Flock Safety do? Like, in plain English, give us a lot of the detail of, like, what you guys are doing on a daily basis, and who are your customers?
00:07:28 · Garrett Langley
[00:07:28] S0: At the end of the day, Flock is a crime fighting company. We happen to fight crime with technology, and we have three types of customers. Kind of our core bread and butter is neighborhoods. I live in a neighborhood, you know, it's a 80 home cul de sac kind of classic plan to develop it. And there's hundreds of thousands of neighborhoods in America, and and we've got a nice portion of that. We then service businesses. Right? Whether it's a hospital or a retailer, every business wants to keep both their employees safe and their assets safe. And then the third customer is really the kind of linchpin of the equation is local law enforcement. At the end of the day, a neighborhood nor a business can actually solve crime. They can just help, and it's local law enforcement's job to solve for crime. And so the whole idea stemmed from this realization that, you know, it's just too easy to commit crime and get away with it in America. We have more crime than we should have, and that is because it's easy to get away with. You know? And so we kinda just kept picking at that, you know, a real onion peel of, like, let's go layer and layer deeper, and eventually got down to this is a very solvable problem. Just I think we can actually make a pretty big dent. And, you know, now when I think about... When I meet with the police chief or a mayor, and they're like, Garrett, you know, how do we know this is gonna be successful? How will we define it? And this is kind of maybe surprising, but I go job growth. It's actually all sent back to jobs. Because for a community to thrive, there needs to be economic growth, economic prosperity, a belief that your future's gonna be better than what it is today. And in an environment where crime is rampant, that future is dissolved. And so we've kinda try to build that bedrock of safety so that communities, whether they're big or small, have an ability to thrive.