Axon CEO Rick Smith on drones, Skydio, and the future of policing

Rick Smith joined David Friedberg on the All-In podcast to walk through Axon's full arc, from a dot-com IPO at a $12 million valuation and near-bankruptcy to the cloud-software powerhouse the company is today. The conversation covers the short attack and SEC probe the company weathered in its early years, and how the Ferguson unrest pushed Axon to pivot from hardware into cloud video software.

That pivot has quietly produced a remarkable scale point: Axon's body cameras now handle more daily video uploads than YouTube. The installed base of police agencies paying for that cloud video storage is exactly the customer pool Smith is now selling into with drones, which is the strategic logic behind the Skydio investment.

Axon is Skydio's largest investor, holding nearly half the company. Locking up the leading domestic public-safety drone maker gives Axon a path to sell aerial hardware into the same contracts that already anchor its recurring software revenue, extending the platform without needing to recruit a new class of buyers.

The Taser-equipped drone program drew sharp criticism, including resignations from Axon's ethics board. Smith defends the program in the episode and addresses the hard limits the company has set around autonomous lethal force, a distinction that matters for any investor assessing how public sentiment affects government contract renewals.