Rick Smith

Lost two close college friends to cancer. One just recently. You know that helplessness — the moment medicine runs out of road. Then read yesterday: an electrical engineer used AI to design a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine for his dying dog. Two months, no medical degree, from scratch. Rosie's tumors shrank by up to 75%. She's back chasing rabbits. He calls it democratizing cancer treatment. That term hits deep when you've watched the system say there's nothing more we can do. Imagine what happens when breakthroughs like this can reach people just as easily. The world is moving fast. The question is whether the people deciding what's permissible will move as fast as the people doing the work. Go Rosie. 🐶🐇☀️

“Move fast or die” is a startup cliché. In Ukraine, it’s the literal truth. Spent time in Kyiv with government officials and tech leaders who are solving problems the rest of the world hasn’t faced yet. The conflict in the Persian Gulf shows us this threat landscape is coming everywhere. Ukraine is stress-testing the answers. Honored to be part of that work.

The Matrix is coming… but I think it will be much more positive experience than the movie

Excited to see @ILLENIUM at the Sphere with my best friend.

One man’s “Eureka!” is another man’s “Meh.” I remembered Max cracking the shaped-pulse breakthrough in TASER technology — and me being incredibly excited about it.  Max remembers it… a bit differently. Thirty years of building things teaches you something: the giant leaps that change everything rarely feel like history in the moment. They show up in the middle of the daily grind. Grateful for teammates like engineer Max Nerheim who spot those moments, even when the CEO is distracted. Fun conversation with our resident mad genius on Boldly Go. Full episode below⬇️

@DmytroKuleba Ukraine's ability to innovate under pressure is unlike anything I have seen. Your innovations will be key to protecting the civilized world from evil and chaos.

Three things a Ukrainian sees in the war against Iran. 1. For four years, the U.S. and the rest of the world have studied Russia’s war against Ukraine in microscopic detail. And yet, in the first days of this war, they are once again shooting down cheap Shaheds with missiles worth millions. Ukraine learned that lesson in 2023. Others chose to learn it the hard way.

Relieved to hear Volusia County Deputy José Rivera is alert and in good spirits after being shot, and wishing him a speedy recovery. Stopping bullets isn’t what we designed body cameras to do. But today one helped do exactly that. Some days in this work it feels like inspired technology meets a little bit of the divine. Honored that our team gets to build tools that help protect the people who protect our communities.

Spent time this week at @Dedrone’s Kassel, Germany facility. Two years after joining @axon_us , their work in airspace security is now fully integrated into our mission to Protect Life. Drone defense isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s part of modern public safety infrastructure, from critical facilities to major events to emergency response. Proud of the team building the cutting-edge systems that help the right drones fly and stop the ones that shouldn’t.

Thank you, @fedorovmykhailo, and the brave Ukrainian people for your incredible resilience and innovation. The free world owes you a debt of gratitude for defending democracy’s eastern border. It’s a privilege to invest in and support your defense community, and an opportunity to engage and learn in the fastest-moving defense and drone tech environment on earth. #StandWithUkraine #DroneTech #Ukraine

Last summer, I met with @AxonRick and presented the potential of Ukrainian Defense Tech. Today, @axon_us is investing in @thefourthlawai. This funding will accelerate R&D for AI autonomy to protect our cities from Shahed-type attacks. AI is the future of the battlefield. Grateful to Rick Smith and the Axon team for their focus on Ukrainian innovation. We are defining the future of security together 🤝

@jdroege and me @singularityu back in 2013 checking out Google’s early self-driving car prototype — long before it became @Waymo. Now they’re everywhere around @axon_us HQ. Amazing how exponential change feels slow… and then suddenly it isn’t. Check out the conversation @mikewagers and I had with Jason, who now heads one of the leading AI companies, @scale_AI Full episode below⬇️

5/5 - If you enjoy startup stories, lessons learned the hard way, and a grounded conversation about AI and where things are headed, I think you’ll love this one.

4/5 - Since then, Jason went on to found @UberEats and now leads @scale_AI — right at the center of the current AI revolution. So we talked about what’s real vs hype in AI and how fast change is actually coming.

1/5 - Every company that survives its early years usually has a handful of people who show up at exactly the right moment and help you get through it. For @axon_us, @jdroege was one of those people. @mikewagers and I just had him on @BoldlyGoPodcast. 🧵

3/5 - That period also marked Axon’s transformation from being known primarily as a weapons company into a software and technology company. Honestly, there’s a good argument to make that Jason helped save that transition at a moment when it really could have gone the other way.

2/5 - Jason worked with us during the early Evidence.com days, when we were trying to convince law enforcement that storing digital evidence in the cloud was a good idea… …while still figuring out how to make it secure and scalable. Those were not calm years.