Ex Flock Employee Tells Us Why it Was Attractive to Work There, and How He Was ‘Lied’ To

Our Take

404 Media's interview with Jonathan Paz, a former Flock Safety employee whose job was literally to convince city councils to buy in, is the kind of insider account we don't get often enough. Sales pitches are built on confidence and curated talking points, that's not news. But when the product is a nationwide network of license plate readers logging the movements of millions of innocent people, the gap between the internal sales script and the on-the-ground reality matters a lot more than your average SaaS pitch deck.

What stands out is Paz's description of company culture, enthusiasm manufactured and maintained through what he calls 'propaganda,' and the disillusionment that followed once he started reckoning with what the cameras actually do once they're bolted to a pole. Flock's entire growth model depends on having true believers in the field, people who can look a city council in the eye and promise public safety without dwelling too long on data retention policies, abuse potential, or the fact that these systems expand your surveillance footprint forever, not just for a few bad actors. When someone who used to be that true believer walks away and says the quiet part out loud, it's worth paying attention.

Credit to 404 Media for getting Paz on record. Stories like this are a reminder that the push to blanket American towns in ALPR cameras isn't some neutral public safety consensus, it's a sales operation with its own internal doubts. If you want to see how far that sales operation has already reached, check our camera map, and if your city is being pitched next, our take-action page has what you need to push back before the contract gets signed.