WIRED reveals scale of expected departures and sale speculation
1 Sep 18 10:22 PM · 5d ago · 2 articles · 2 posts · 3 sources · development 1 of 1
WIRED reported that a significant share of Flock's roughly 1,500 employees may seek to leave, that most applicants will be approved, and that some employees suspect the cash-strapped company could eventually sell off parts or all of its business.
“When you see enough of the vandalism … you know the writing is the wall”
person familiar with Flock's severance planGarrett Langley Flock Safety CEOFlock Safety Surveillance/license-plate-reader companyParesh Dave WIRED reporterDhruv Mehrotra WIRED reporter
The whole story articlesposts the bright band is this development · numbered dots are the others · click one to jump
Reported in the same hours no headline names this development itself — these 4 claims were published in its stretch
-
first by Slashdot, 5d ago · also HN Frontpage, Beehaw, Wired, Mashable
3 more headlines
- Flock Offers Employees Buyouts as Customers Flee HN Frontpage · 5d ago
- Flock offers workers voluntary buyouts amid backlash Mashable · 4d ago
- Signs of Crisis at Flock as It Offers Employees Buyouts to Quit and Get Off Payroll Mastodon · 2d ago
-
first by HN Frontpage, 3d ago
-
first by TechCrunch, 4d ago
-
first by Wired, 5d ago
What people said 24 voices · best of 60 · verbatim
-
K
Flock is shedding employees as people find out about all the data they collect and demand their cities and towns cut off ties with the surveillance system. https://www. wired.com/story/flock-is-offer ing-voluntary-buyouts-to-employees/ # tech # technology # politics # uspol # news
-
R
Flock Turns to Employee Buyouts to Avoid Layoffs Instead of layoffs, Flock is offering voluntary buyouts to cut headcount. It shows a new way for tech startups to handle scaling down.
-
Facebook had a good idea for hiring and retention: pay the highest, and that will boost college students' perceptions of how cool you are.Facebook got a lot of mileage out of that, running long after public scandals confirmed the early hints of possible sketchiness, back when Google was an attractive alternative.Though I don't know that's still…
-
No. It should be “leave and leak proprietary information that breaks the business model”. What proprietary information? I'd hate to burst your bubble, but Flock isn't exactly doing anything groundbreaking. Cameras with built-in modems, image recognition/OCR and a centralized database. You can build a proof of concept used for recognizing cats…
-
H
Aw. Poor Flock employees. "Flock is reportedly now offering severance packages to employees who want to leave the company through a "voluntary employee separation program," which is expected to be open until October 2nd, with workers receiving feedback on whether their bids got accepted on October 9." "Apparently, morale at the company is so low…
-
O
Sources: ⚪ TechCrunch +5 → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/19/flock-reportedly-tries-to-shrink-workforce-with-employee-buyouts/ 🔴 Hacker News -60 →
-
It would be nice to think this will significantly hamper Flock and its goals and methods in any way, but it will probably just have the effect of selecting for the employees who are either true believers, or are desperate enough that they'll keep their heads down and get good work done just to keep their jobs.Sporadic vandalism, a handful of…
-
To add cellphones are voluntary held, we as citizens love and really can’t go without them. Those who want to opt out of the GPS triangulation capabilities have dumb phones and nah, you can’t really get out of the cell tower ping triangulation. But the law protects the government from making use of that. But if you’re buying the data from shitty…
-
A
"NEW: Flock is offering employees "generous" buyouts as communities across the US push back against the surveillance camera network" Now the trick is to make sure that cities don't turn to less-recognizable surveillance companies doing exactly what Flock does. I am actually hopeful myself. It's not going to be easy, but it's a matter of educating…
-
> “Because you go on to X or you go on to Reddit and you go, why are people so mad at us when we've been doing the same thing for nine years?” Langley said. “And why are they so mad at us for things we don't do? And we just want people to be safe.”I can't believe this is being said with a straight face. "We've been dumping chemicals in this river…
-
I agree. They are a much better option than nearly every republican than I've ever looked into, and I would literally vote for the decaying corpse of a llama over trump... But a lot of dems have a lot of issues that they don't seem keen to be addressing. Especially the fact that they seem to be more worried about their image than they are about…
-
M
Fuck yeah! We will defeat the surveillance state. All ALPRs, indeed all corporations, need to be shown that they do not actually have impunity for constant lies and lawless behavior. Thank you to everyone who protested, went to city council, or even picked up a hacksaw. https://www. neowin.net/news/people-hate-fl…
-
This is a good case for making some laws which ensure entities responsible cannot hide from the public by white labeling, changing names, etc.In other words, since surveillance of the public by definition involves the public, the public should have a say in how it is conducted and the companies that attempt to profit from it should have their…
-
How does wearing a camera prevent people from getting attacked? And, even if it did, how much bad behavior not in the best interests of the employees can walmart get away with? Given walmart's historical treatment and concerns over its employee's wellbeing, I think we all know the answer to those questions. One positive outcome does not negate a…
-
C
Ah-ha-ha-hah-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!!! 😄 😂 😆 🤣 Flock Safety announced a voluntary employee separation program on Friday, offering a “generous” severance package to those who want to leave amid growing backlash against the surveillance technology company, according to an internal email shared with WIRED. https://www. wired.com/story/flock-is-offer…
-
Until there’s real civil liabilities around how companies use and share data there will never be an economic reason for any company to respect their consumers. When the data is worth more than the core business, the equilibrium is completely thrown off. It’s the same forces pushing AI companies to effectively give away inference while their…
-
There is also often enough offered in these sorts of jobs in terms of interesting or engaging work that doesn't mean you are directly implementing evil shit. I came across an essay someone in tech wrote that basically was "the problems were interesting and the collaborative work felt rewarding, but this was made to kill people". Unfortunately I…
-
M
if you work for flock then I am judging you as being harmful to information security generally, to national security generally, and to my safety specifically. quitting is the least that they can do. https://www. neowin.net/news/people-hate-fl ock-so-much-that-its-employees-are-now-demoralized-and-thinking-of-quitting/
-
My city right outside Austin scrapped it. Its even split between red and blue voters and support for abandoning flock was overwhelmingly in favor of abandoning. Makes me feel good to see others banding together for positive change in today’s political climate in the USA….even if the motivation comes from self interest (too used to “get your…
-
Are you kidding me? You think stomping on a tiny lug wrench can loosen a lug nut that was overtightened by a machine and then driven for thousands of miles and exposed to elements? You're the reason I've carried four way tire irons my entire life, just for the HOPE that stomping might work.
-
T
Without buyouts, Flock would "almost certainly" need to lay off staff. https:// techcrunch.com/2026/09/19/floc k-reportedly-tries-to-shrink-workforce-with-employee-buyouts/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
-
It's really interesting to me that Flock was the straw that broke the surveillance camel's back, and not, I don't know, the home assistant devices from trillion-dollar advertising and e-commerce companies that listen to everything in your home.
-
They need to pay for things like food, rent, health insurance, and childcare. We're way past the scale and technological development where these things need not be a concern on an individual level, but it's the perfect tool of coercion while maintaining a facade of so called freedom.
-
M
it turns out that it's possible to kill a company. who's next? https:// futurism.com/artificial-intell igence/flock-crisis-employee-buyouts
All 1 developments of Flock Safety Offers Buyouts to Staff as Cities Drop Camera… →
MastodonNewswiresHacker NewsRedditBluesky