To Disrupt Real Problems, Rewrite the Silicon Valley Playbook
Startups and VCs can’t build solutions to our national crises with the same old approach
As protests over the murder of George Floyd erupted in Minneapolis — and then spread at lightning speed to cities and towns across America — downloads of the Citizen app exploded to over 150,000 per day. Founded in New York City in 2016, Citizen provides advanced filtering of police scanners to give users a real-time map of crime and police activity near them. The explosion in usage was driven by protesters, who realized quickly that they could use Citizen to coordinate with other protesters and monitor the locations of riot police.
Citizen is an example of how tech startups can enable direct political action in new ways. It also highlights the big responsibility companies have with the policy and technology choices they make: controversially, Citizen provides unencrypted user data to law enforcement when presented with valid subpoenas, court orders, or search warrants.
The business of technology is inextricably entwined with the future of our country. And events of the last…
