Crypto Billionaire Chris Larsen Says His Son Keeps Pressuring Him to Drop Flock Support

During a recent interview at SF's Pier 27, local billionaire Chris Larsen revealed that his 19-year-old son keeps pressuring him to stop funding SFPD’s Flock surveillance technology amid growing backlash.

Larsen said he has defended the surveillance technology to his son by pointing to its role in reducing crime, but the 19-year-old remains unconvinced. As Business Insider reports, when Larsen told him that surveillance had helped bring crime down in San Francisco, his son responded that he would rather have the crime than the surveillance.

Larsen made the comments on a recent episode of the podcast, On with Kara Swisher, filmed at San Francisco’s Pier 27, where he discussed the growing backlash against Flock and other surveillance tools. He acknowledged that there is now significant opposition to the technology, which he attributed in part to what he called “bad press.”

Larsen donated $9.4 million to SFPD in 2025 to expand its Real-Time Investigation Center, consisting of automated license-plate readers, drones, surveillance cameras, and other tools, which also helped fund the center’s move from the Hall of Justice to a larger facility downtown, along with additional equipment and drone launch sites.