Flock opens a voluntary exit window at double its usual severance

A voluntary program takes the choice of who leaves away from the employer. Flock told staff it expects to grant buyouts to the majority of people who apply ^[3], so the departure list gets set by whoever is most confident of finding another job. For a city with a live deployment, the risk is specific: the support engineer who knows how your camera network feeds your records system is the one with options. Applications close October 2 ^[2], acceptances go out October 9 ^[8], and most people who take the deal leave by October 29, though Flock may ask some to stay another one to three months ^[9]. That leaves 27 days between the deadline to decide and the date most leavers are gone ^[1].

Some employees have been offered sums in the range of tens of thousands of dollars, one person familiar with the program told WIRED ^[6]. The package also covers several months of health care and gives two years to exercise stock options, longer than Flock normally allows someone who resigns ^[7].

The cancellation side has numbers attached to it. WIRED reports that roughly three times as many local governments dropped Flock in 2026 as in the previous five years ^[20]. Spread that earlier total evenly and it averages a fifth of it per year, so a single year at three times the total runs about fifteen times the earlier annual pace ^[2].

The revenue side is thinner. Two people familiar with the business told WIRED that many contracts were dropped or not extended this year and that the company could fall short of its revenue goals ^[10], and one said that without buyouts Flock would almost certainly have had to lay people off ^[12]. Vandalism against the cameras has pushed expenses up unexpectedly ^[11]. Flock did not immediately respond to WIRED's requests for comment ^[13].

CEO Garrett Langley told the All-In podcast last month that "the biggest damage" from the backlash had been "internal morale" ^[17]. "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 ^[18]. WIRED has documented officers allegedly using Flock to track former romantic partners and colleagues, and has reported how widely some agencies share access to the system ^[21].

One of the people familiar with the severance plan told WIRED that "when you see enough of the vandalism" targeting Flock cameras this year, "you know the writing is the wall" that something has to change ^[24]. The same people said employees expect Flock to sell parts or all of its business to stay afloat, and that some may take the offer ^[16]. The company has raised about $1.2 billion in venture capital ^[15].

A buyer can handle this with two columns in a spreadsheet. First, the renewal date of every vendor holding records the agency cannot collect again. Second, the assignment and change-of-control language in each of those contracts, since the sale of a business line would test it. The pile of records keeps growing: WIRED reported last month that Flock built AI investigative software to identify drivers, find potential associates from patterns of movement, and search police records, and its analysis of the code found tools that continuously search camera feeds for people matching written descriptions ^[22][23].