Tony Stark lives in Scottsdale—or at least his doppelganger: Rick Smith, founder and CEO of AXON, a $30 billion leader in the public safety technology markets. Few entrepreneurs deserve the label “visionary” more than Smith. Since AXON’s founding in a garage in 1993, the company has grown from its original Taser products to a multi-billion dollar enterprise dedicated to “Protecting Lives.”
AXON founder Rick Smith plays the moon landing theme at the company’s TASERCON2023 conference.
Over the past five years alone, their stock has returned nearly 700%. AXON joined the S&P 500 in 2023. (FYI, I own the stock.)
I recently visited AXON to interview Smith and AXON President Josh Isner. (Video of our conversation here.) Smith and Isner represent a rare combination: a visionary leadership dyad. Think, Elon Musk and Gwynne Shotwell at SpaceX, or Steve Jobs and Tim Cook at Apple. Smith brings the science fiction. Isner and team create reality.
From science fiction to life
Upon arriving at AXON headquarters, you’ll enter through a special portal—an oval-shaped stainless steel room that manages access via facial recognition (or via their friendly receptionist, Laura Rodriquez).
The lobby of AXON’s headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, September 27, 2024, modeled after a similar … [+]
AXON’s head of communications, Alexandra Engel, said with a smile: “Rick wanted an entrance like that in Men in Blackso that’s what we got.” Catwalks run through the complex. This is due to Smith’s observation that, “every great lightsaber fight happens on a catwalk.”
It’s all part of AXON’s dynamic, discerning what customers might want in the future and making it so.
Balancing Vision and Execution
During its first decade, AXON (originally known as Taser) experienced exponential growth AND significant growing pains. Smith recalls, “Early in my career I had Steve Jobs syndrome,” so he didn’t listen well to customers. After initial market-defining successes, “we had 2 or 3 simultaneous failures.”
AXON Founder Rick Smith and President Josh Isner join Professor Rob Wolcott at AXON headquarters … [+]
Smith realized that he was part of the problem. “I’m really not good at hiring people [or] having difficult conversations.” After Smith’s management epiphany, he began trusting others to run operations, freeing himself to live in the future.
As Isner rose to lead sales and eventually to the chief operating role, Smith increasingly relied on him not only to manage the business but also to challenge him. Isner “pushes back” when the superhero founder goes too far. “There’s a dynamic tension between the two of us, which is good.”
Smith connects the dots between customers and AXON’s product development team, while Isner leads the business. Smith thinks, “If he didn’t do that, Josh would probably be Bill Belichick,” referring to one of the NFL’s greatest coaches of all time.
AXON President Josh Isner (center foreground) gathers colleagues at the company’s AXON Fest 2024 … [+]
Other visionary entrepreneurs faced similar journeys. After founding Dell in his dorm room, Michael Dell eventually learned to rely on exceptional managers like Kevin Rollins to transform the company from a weak challenger to an industry leader. Visionary leadership dyads work when two individuals combine complementary skills, vision and high confidence to generate long-term performance.
Vision as a team sport: Reframing
No matter how compelling the ideas emanating from the C-suite, Smith asserts, “creativity is a team sport.”
One of the ways AXON inspires and focuses the creativity of its teams is an approach I call reformulation: reframing challenges and asking better questions.
At first, the company focused on making the best tasers. That’s great, but not enough to guide the future. Smith advised, “Our job is not just to sell the next version of the taser. How do we make lead obsolete? I challenge you guys to give me a gun that beats a bullet in stopping power.” As a result, they began to discover much more innovative answers and offers.
AXON Founder Rick Smith makes a point during an interview with author and AXON President Josh … [+]
Creators obsessed with the customer
Unlike most companies, AXON doesn’t let its current capabilities and products define its limits.
AXON’s vision is limited by possible the needs of future customers, and not of AXON’s current businesses, or even customers SAY they love. The AXON team listens carefully, but also scans the horizons. Customers rarely ask for advances.
AXON Skydio drone control and monitoring systems. After partnering with Skydio in the market, … [+]
In a 2017 Future Concept video, AXON envisioned a future of rapid response policing. For example, the video proposed supplementing police reports from body camera data with artificial intelligence – impossible at the time. In April 2024, AXON made it a reality with the launch of Draft One. Imagine the hours officers can now reallocate to accomplish their missions.
Beginning in the 2010s, AXON closely monitored advances in drones. In 2018 they launched AXON Air with external partners. Later in 2024, the company acquired two of those drone company partners, Sky-Hero and Dedrone. AXON cultivated partnerships and expertise, creating options and offerings BEFORE competition.
An officer uses an AXON-enabled drone in the field.
Anything, anywhere, anytime
AXON’s strategy reflects the essence of what my co-author Kaihan Krippendorff and I call Proximity in our latest book of the same name. Proximity notes that digital technologies bully creating value ever closer to the moment of demand. I first started sharing Proximity on Forbes in 2017.
AXON brings ever more capabilities closer to the point of need for public safety professionals. Drones for situational awareness and rapid response, police reports complete with AI, virtual reality for training – anything, anywhere, anytime. This is the essential closeness, and it is winning.
Ethics & Purpose of Public Safety
Smith offers a provocative perspective on technology ethics and public safety. Reflecting on the 2002 film Minority Reportit defies conventional wisdom. Many people interpret the film as a dystopian future. “They had a technology that brought murder to zero in a violent country, brought false convictions to zero.” Smith disputes this logic. One person gets framed and it invalidates the whole system? “To me, this is an unimaginably good system.”
Tom Cruise stars in a scene from the film ‘Minority Report,’ 2002. (Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty … [+]
The AXON team engages the entire public safety community in rigorous ethical dialogues that evolve as technologies and threats change. Technologies like predictive AI must operate within accountable systems designed to minimize bias and protect individual rights. Advancing public safety while maintaining public trust will be essential to ensure communities feel protected AND respected.
AXON’s commitment to public safety and technological innovation finds its most ambitious expression in Moonshot 2032. AXON’s initiative seeks to reduce gun-related deaths among police and the public by 50% over a decade.
AXON’s Moonshot motivates the continued exploration of public safety challenges addressed with the latest technologies, equipping public safety agencies to respond faster and more effectively while protecting lives.
Smith at AXON’s Moonshot 2032 launch event in 2022.
“Luke, I am your Father”
Smith’s vision for AXON’s future remains bold and cinematic. The company’s stunning new headquarters in development reinforces the sci-fi theme: more catwalks and a platform reminiscent of the scene from The Empire strikes backwhere Luke Skywalker discovers his father.
Rather than becoming the Evil Empire, Smith aspires for AXON to remain a rebel force. “I am terrified. I want to continue to be the disruptor – not the disruptor.
Meanwhile, life is better with lightsabers.
AXON’s 2022 launch event for Moonshot 2032: Cutting gun-related deaths among police and … [+]