When Clearview AI launched in 2017, its founders had no intention of selling to the government. Indeed, its core product-a facial-recognition tool that scrapes billions of publicly available photos from across the web to, within seconds, identify almost anyone-was originally built as a tool for retailers to thwart shoplifters.
But in time, a more consequential customer set took up the software. When reports surfaced in 2020 that Clearview's tech was being licensed to more than 600 police departments across the country, the revelation and attendant privacy concerns set off a media frenzy and a series of lawsuits, one of which was settled in June.
Even so, Clearview co-founder and CEO Hoan Ton-That has continued to license the technology to law enforcement agencies. The New York Citybased company also began working with the Ukrainian military after Russia invaded in 2021.
In the preceding three years, the company's revenue growth surpassed. 287 percent, showing that despite the criticism, demand remains strong. We sat down with Ton-That, 36, to understand how the company navigates these moments in the spotlight while pushing its powerful technology forward.
When did you know the public sector would become a significant customer?
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