I am Rick Smith, the founder and CEO of Axon Enterprise. Years ago, we were almost brought down by attacks from short sellers, and I'm passionate about short seller reform (an issue that has gotten attention thanks to Reddit's WallStreetBets). AMA!

1. What non-lethal weapons should the SEC use to enforce regulations to maintain fairness in the marketplace?

2. What are the biggest challenges in convincing law enforcement agencies to embrace the use of non-lethal weapons to replace the bullet?

Thanks for both questions! Let's start with your first one...

What we saw in the Game Stop affair was that individual investors learned that hedge funds were trying to degrade / destroy a company that they loved. So, they came together to fight it with a crowd sourced short-squeeze. I fully support the sentiment, but as much as I wish it was, this isn’t a scalable long term solution. We can't hope that individual investors will identify the next time potentially abusive short behavior is occurring and then band together.

The long-term fix—the non-lethal weapon, to borrow your words—is actually pretty straight-forward regulation. Shareholders who buy a significant long position in a public company must make public filings and are monitored by the SEC. But someone could take a billion-dollar short position, then spend $100 million on private investigators, lobbyists and PR agencies to go after the company, and no one would know. Not the company, not the SEC, not law enforcement, no one.

A few years back, we drafted this basic and simple outline:

“An individual or company that takes a short position of $100,000.00 or more in a company must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and provide quarterly reports that describes the individual or company’s investments made relative to the short position, which includes information and expenses on investigation firms, federal, state and/or local lobbying engagements, public affairs and public relation firms, any letters that the individual or company or third parties write on their behalf to federal or state regulatory bodies or elected officials, and coordination or relationships with litigation law firms.“

It's not a radical proposal, given that investors who go long are required to disclose their positions.

It really is disgusting that this is in any way controversial. As a retail investor who has been burned a couple of times by short sellers I am incensed that it remains so unregulated.

Amen brother.

Now to question 2: We live in a country with hundreds of millions of privately owned firearms. And police have to deal with people armed with them every single day. So the critical factor will be creating non-lethal weapons that are undeniably more effective and just as reliable.

To be very clear: We aren’t there yet. Our best non-lethal weapons are not as reliable as firearms yet.

But imagine that Captain Kirk’s Phaser was available. It worked faster, more reliably, and with more shots than a gun. Most rational people would choose the more reliable weapon that doesn’t kill.

That’s a pretty tall order. But I have a pretty good idea how we get there (I have the luck of seeing what’s happening in R&D and charting the course).

The second part will be proving it. That will take several years of field data showing that the newer technologies are actually out-performing in the real world.

I imagine we will need to get to a position where researchers can look at 1,000 body camera videos of police shootings with conventional firearms, then compare that to 1,000 body camera videos of the TASER 9 or TASER 10 (yes, I think we get there in 2 or 3 product revs from today’s TASER 7 model).

This is one reason we invested so heavily in body camera tech — and more recently in our Axon Standards use-of-force-reporting system. You need the data to learn how to design the next generation to perform better. Then you need the data to prove it’s hitting the performance milestones needed before you would ask someone to literally bet their life on it.

I understand how shorts can make money especially by artificially creating bad press. How do they bring a company down?

And separately, if you are a profitable company with a good looking future, doesn't a short "attack" make for the perfect time to run a stock buyback strategy, if you consider your stock undervalued?

If the panic is severe enough, it dries up access to capital or disrupts revenue.

With the benefit of hindsight, TASER was the perfect target for a short attack in 2004.

We were a company with a single product - a new kind of non-lethal weapon that uses electricity to immobilize someone’s muscles. Our sales were 95% plus to government agencies. So here’s the game plan to take us down:

1. Work to aggressively place news stories alleging the product is dangerous. Note: you can also support local groups that are critical of law enforcement to help promote the issue.
2. Send letters to regulatory agencies demanding an investigation.
3. If you can successfully trigger an investigation, get it leaked to the press, and it will freeze the company’s sales.

This was pretty much the exact playbook that hit us. The news controversies caused temporary stock price fluctuations. But our sales kept growing at a 200% annual rate.

When the last piece fell into place and they successfully leaked the SEC investigation to the media, that’s when all hell broke loose. Overnight, our sales went from 200% growth rate to a 50% drop. Every major police department told us we were “radioactive” and they could not go to city council to get an approvals with us being on the front page of every news paper as being under a federal investigation.

The stock dropped 75% in a few weeks, and we got hit with a massive wave of lawsuits. Over 100 shareholder lawsuits, and dozens and dozen of product liability suits (up from zero).

Looking back on it, we should not have survived. We were blessed with a very strong balance sheet, and the science was overwhelmingly on our side. In total, we have sustained over 300 law suits, with only two jury losses—both of which we won or reduced greatly on appeal. Luckily, science matters in the court room. Much harder to win in the media where sensationalism generally rules.

I am incredibly proud of the team that pulled us through this crisis. But make no mistake: iIt was touch and go, and we easily could have gone under.

Now apply that same rule book to any company that is doing something new that challenges the status quo. You could easily imagine a scenario where the company does not survive.

Remember: shorts don’t need a company to go under, just for the stock to go down. But if it fails completely, that’s the max pay out.

On your last question, it might be an opportune time for a company to buy back stock. But, cash is like oxygen, so if it's a serious crisis you probably want to take a more conservative cash position to make sure you can weather the storm.

This is certainly not something you would intentionally inflict upon yourself just to buy back your own shares cheaper. And if you did, you would probably go to jail—and live with being ridiculed for the rest of your days ;-)

Ooh I have the same question, I don't follow how fluctuating stock price affects a business's operations if a seasoned issuance wasn't planned.

Good questions. If the stock is cratering, it causes a bunch of bad second order effects. People see it as proof that the company is in trouble. Even more important for tech companies, a critical component of employee pay is typically stock based. So, if the stock is cratering, it devastates employee morale. The competition for tech talent is ruthless, so if people see negative news stories and a dropping stock price, they have an incentive to go to another company where you get fresh stock awards—rather than sitting on ones you have that are way under water.

Customers also tend to track stock prices, and while I hate to say it, they read a lot into big drops. We had customers in 2005 asking if we were going to survive. So, in addition to all the negative headlines, people start to doubt if it's smart to do business with you. It becomes self-fulfilling, and the downward spiral can move fast.

Again, I'm able to share this because we survived and ultimately thrived. I can talk about it openly now, whereas most CEO’s who are currently being hit will stay silent. You don't win any points for openness in the middle of a short attack.

And to be clear, we do manage for the long-term, focus on executing, and don’t focus too much on daily price movements. That’s healthy. The specific issue is targeted attacks intended to drive down the value of the shares while also simultaneously taking actions to undermine a company’s fundamentals.

How did you find the colluder??

First off, the investigators very quickly identified suspicious behavior and body language. As they were trying to identify who had access to the letter we had received from the SEC (which was leak to the media), they noticed that the letter had been opened neatly with a letter opener.

Curiously, I only open letters with my thumbs—and there was only one person around who used a letter opener: my personal assistant, who had been with the company for less than a year.

Now, she said she had never seen the letter. They then pulled out a stack of opened letters from people’s desks showing that only hers were neatly opened with a letter opener. Then they showed her the SEC letter—neatly cut open.

At that point, she pulled a pre-written letter of resignation out of her pocket and walked out.

What reform steps would you suggest?

Thanks for the question! Here goes...

First things first, bring transparency and regulatory oversight to short selling. An investor who had a long position has to disclose their holding. Short sellers don't. Which means they can place enormous bets in stealth. That's a curious and dangerous double standard.

The SEC has to do more than that, though. My company got hurt not because of the bets themselves, but because of the short sellers' behavior. So here's what I'd propose: If a short seller hires a private investigator to dig up dirt on a company they’ve shorted, that should be made public (i.e. filed with the SEC the same way companies must file disclosures). If an investors funds a negative press campaign through PR agencies or websites-for-hire, they should have to disclose that. Or better yet, the SEC can prohibit such practices.

This isn't out of left field btw. Back in 2008, the SEC issued a temporary order that forced investors to report large short positions. The stock market was teetering; they didn't want this sort of thing to push it over the edge.

Those seem like simple fixes, but honestly, they'd go a long way. As an officer of a public company, the SEC tightly regulates me, my other senior officers, and all the investors who have a stake in our company. They monitor our trades and our public statements closely. The same rules should apply to the short sellers.

For most investors, this would results in zero additional filings to the SEC. Only investors taking large short positions (over say $100,000 or $1 million) would have a duty to file, and they would only have to file the kinds of activities and expenses outlined above.

1.) How can we prove beyond a reasonable doubt that we have seen market manipulation and bring about concerted legal action against the perpetrators? As in, what is your recommended protocol for gathering evidence using public facing data and insider data?

2.) Connecting to question one, how can we as retail investors and concerned citizens help to end this?

3.) How can people impacted by short selling tactics recoup their loses?

1) Here’s the depressing part: You really can’t. When we were getting hit with massive short sales, and even after we uncovered a mole inside the company who was clearly breaking the law by transmitting material non-public information to short sellers, our lawyers basically said there’s no record of who could be behind it. They suspected that even if we chased it down, the best we would find is transaction involving off-shore companies.

I think the best thing people can do is to put pressure on Congress to provide oversight. There are records somewhere of who is making large short trades—it’s just not made available. That needs to change, and it doesn't seem like a big overhaul of the system because traders who take long positions have to disclose, too.

2) Public pressure for some oversight. We have been debating starting an online petition to gather signatures for "Short Seller Transparency Reform."

3) If there were public records, one could imagine shareholder lawsuits pursuing egregious behavior (just like the shareholder lawsuits that go after companies and their management teams when a stock drops). But, first people would need to know who they are.

Shorting Question:

WSB idolizes the members with the biggest monetary loss/YOLO/outright stupid plays with their money. What's the dumbest way you've spent or lost money, and did you wear it as a badge of honor?

Axon Question:

Do you view Police Unions as helpful or harmful in regulating agency misconduct and delivering key features for transparency?

Thanks, Rick!

Confession time: I bought a business jet in 2007. The sales pitch was “Hey, it’s a tax deduction... and you charter it out to pay the operating expenses, then you only have to pay for gas when you fly.” And, like everyone in 2007, I saw that debt was near zero interest so I borrowed all the money.

Then 2008 happened. Gas prices soared, the recession hit so people stopped chartering aircraft. The value of the plane dropped to zero, I had a huge loan against it, and the value of our stock tanked at the same time. It nearly wiped me out financially.

I feel pretty stupid just re-reading what I wrote. But hey, you asked. And, no, I don’t wear that one as a badge of honor. Rather as a reminder of the dangers of hubris.

The money that I’ve spent that I will never regret is taking all my old college buddies on trips, experiences that many of them couldn’t afford. I have never regretted spending money on experiences with friends. Those memories mean the world to me.

Your never regrets are awesome to read!

That's what good people do.

Thank you!

What was the first evidence or thing your noticed or were told that suggested you were under a short attack?

First sign: The pace of negative news articles dramatically increased as we saw the short interest in the stock tick up. However, there is very little transparency around short investors. You could only see the overall short interest once a month (I think it’s once every two weeks now). So, while we could tell you every major share holder (and so can the SEC), no one knows who holds the big short positions, and there is no oversight. It's a big glaring problem, because people can profit through the destruction of a company's value can do so with complete anonymity.

One example: In July of 2004, the New York Times published a negative piece that drove the price of the stock down dramatically. We received tips that there had been major short selling activity in the days before the article hit — like hundreds of millions of dollars worth. But there was no way to track or verify if that was happening.

It was especially troubling when we learned that the author of the negative article against us played in a regular card game with a bunch of hedge fund managers. And that same author went on to write many negative articles over the next year or so—and he even disclosed in a January 2005 article that he had been receiving internal documents from our company directly from a short seller. In other words, a stock trader had access to inside information and was trafficking that info the the NYT author.

An investigation we commissioned found we had a paid mole inside the company (my personal assistant, if you can believe that) who was apparently sharing material non-public information with traders shorting the stock.

I flew to New York and shared all the underlying data with the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. However, without data to establish the trading patterns or identities, there was no investigation.

So there were those early signals in the form of media scrutiny, which led us down the rabbit hole. Again, we're not the only ones who face things like this, which is why I wanted to write about it and do this AMA.

What is your opinion on the "strategic failed-to-deliver shares" tactic that shorters have been using with GME and other companies?

(GME has the second highest failed-to-deliver shares numbers in the entire market right now)

I am not personally familiar with the fails regarding GME, so can’t comment specifically there. However, in late 2004 and early 2005, there were significant fail-to-delivers in TASER as the stock was cratering.

Quick primer for folks: When you short a stock you are supposed to go find some shares to borrow, then you sell the shares you borrowed, then you buy back shares later and return them to where you borrowed them.

In today’s market, this is all electrons moving across ledgers. So people can sell shares they don’t own and without bothering to find the shares to borrow. These are called “Naked Shorts” because it literally creates a phantom supply of shares that don’t exist—and this practice is supposed to be illegal.

There is typically a grace period (I think it used to be 3 days) before the short seller had to deliver the borrowed shares to prove they were legitimately borrowed shares. But when there’s a coordinated effort to start a downward price spiral, naked shorts can rapidly produce a basically limitless supply of shares.

Knowing the old supply-demand curve, infinite supply exhausts the number of buyers and the price starts to drop. If this coincides with bad news stories, it can tip off a panic where other shareholders see the bad news and the dropping share price, and they put in sell orders and the cycle picks up steam. If it works, the naked short can buy on the tail end of the panic and close out their position with no one the wiser.

What was your favorite thing about playing with the Pacers?

Playing with Reggie Miller, of course. Kidding. I'm not Rik Smits, though I'm envious of the spelling of his name.

I think the scariest part of it all is the collusion! How do so many people hop on board with something like this, greed I guess? Were there any negative consequences to the colluders after all was said and done?

I actually don’t think the individuals who rallied to GameStop were driven by greed. It was a pretty unlikely scenario that it would be so successful. GameStop had particular appeal because of the gamer community, but I personally believe it was more driven by a sentiment of wanting to stand up to Wall Street—and to stop “big money” from profiting by killing a company that people appreciate.

I'm obviously biased here, but in my gut, I think there’s something ugly about investors who seek to actively try to drive down the value of a company to turn a profit. It feels uniquely un-American to me. The stated purpose of the entire financial market is to connect capital to the right projects—ones that can grow, create value, and create jobs. When you can profit from FUD, then it pays to create fear and spread rumors. In the world of social media and when uncorroborated news can travel a mile a minute, it feels like un-monitored short selling introduces significant risk and volatility in our financial markets. And as risk and volatility go up, the value of the entire market goes down.

The WSB-ers did something important, even if they didn't intend to: They drew attention to this problem. And my hope is that the drama attracts regulators to take action to ensure transparency.

Agree- I meant greed by the collusion from PR, Media, Etc that attacked your business... Love the sentiment of the GameStop community! I hope this will draw action against the bad guys driving down the value of a company for profit! I agree, very un-american.

This is great insight into your own experience with this situation- always great to see other real-life examples, thanks for sharing.

Happy to share them, and honestly, what WSB did this past couple weeks is part of what motivated me to speak out. As a CEO, you're told to tread lightly in general—and especially lightly on this subject. But maybe this time, enough people are paying attention that there could be some genuine changes.

What do you think is the reason that the Taser XREP (Shotgun Model) didn’t get the interest that it deserved? Is a longer ranged Taser something that Axon is considering in the future?

The XREP was a super painful failure for us—and me personally. The original idea for the business in 1993 was to do the XREP shotgun launched wireless projectile. Unfortunately, the XREP was too expensive, and too buggy. It has some technical limitations that made it only effective about half the time. And, at $150 per shot, that ineffectiveness was really making customers angry.

The technical issues were fundamental limitations—we tried everything we could, but we couldn’t fix them. So, we had to shut down the product.

Now for the future: Reliability of incapacitation is more important than range. I have set down our marker that we will outperform the 9mm pistol by 2030. That means we will be more reliable at stopping a human target within pistol ranges. And we will deliver against that goal! The longer ranges will come after we nail making the pistol obsolete, so it's definitely something we're considering.

What's your favorite sandwich Rick?

Unquestionably, it's the Goober Grape sandwich.

Damn, now I gotta look that up!

Edit: It's peanut butter mixed with jelly that comes in a spread. Never heard of it before, not sure if they sell it in Canada or not. I'll keep an eye out for it.

There is nothing more satisfying than not having to use two knives to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is efficiency at its best.

When you realized how the community as a whole was rallying around WSB, Gamestop and against shortselling as a whole, what was your initial reaction? Also now that the initial 'hype' has sort of dwindled, do you see a brighter future ahead with upcoming congressional hearings and reforms?

Candidly, my initial reaction was “go get ‘em!”. Our company was nearly destroyed by short sellers. I can’t prove it—because there’s no required filings or oversight—but when the short interest tipped up over $1 billion, bad things started happening in rapid succession.

We had a PR and legal firestorm in no time, and it triggered an SEC investigation that was leaked to the media through short sellers. Even after local law enforcement officers helping with our investigation uncovered we had someone inside the company leaking non public information to short sellers who were manipulating the stock, you just can’t do anything about it. It is beyond aggravating.

Our legal team at Wilson Sonsini was adamant: You keep your head down and execute the business. Any public protestations make you look like a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracist. We were focused on simply surviving, which was far from assured.

Fast forward to today, when WSB pulled "short selling" into the headlines. I am hopeful that all of this attention creates a push for some oversight. Think about how much time Elon Musk has spent dealing with FUD from short sellers. Ask anyone from management in a disruptive company, and they will tell you horror stories (though I bet they'll do it off the record).

I am only comfortable speaking up now because we are not under an attack today, and it's far enough in the rear view mirror that there’s not a risk today that people will say I am deflecting criticism. But it was a scary, tough time for the company.

How do you feel about remote work/remote roles these days for your company?

Great, great question. I love remote work. Let's take today as an example: I did five major customer meetings today. In the old world, I would have had to spend five to ten days traveling to do the same thing. My personal productivity is much higher in a world of Zoom-commuting (Zoomuting?). And I get to see my kids every day.

We have given maximum discretion to every manager at Axon to permit remote work where ever feasible. Of course, we have production lines and other jobs that simply have to happen in a work place. But we are doubling down on offering maximum flexibility everywhere we possibly can.

Two questions: 1) What can companies do to protect themselves from a coordinated short seller effort, if anything? And 2) Does the system need new or more regulation, or is it simply an SEC enforcement issue (which seems to always leave a lot to be desired)?

1) On what companies can do to protect themselves: Because of the lack of regulation and transparency, there's isn't a lot you can do. There are actions that can give a company some measure of intangible protection, but honestly, it’s imperfect at best. Companies can try to make themselves less of a target for coordinated short attack by proactively and quickly responding to FUD as it arises, busting rumors, correcting flat-out lies, being transparent with the public, and having a proactive crisis communications strategy. But as I've experienced first-hand, that's a lot of tough work.

2) On regulation, the lack of transparency means that active short attacks often happen in the shadows. I think that regulation on short selling transparency is an important first step. f people can destroy things, make money doing it, and never be found out for it, it will lead people to try. At a minimum, we should make them do it in broad day light.

By the way, I don’t lump all short sellers together. There are plenty of people hedging their exposure or making passive bets. No problem there. But when someone takes a big short position and decides to go after a company to drive it down, we need regulators to pay attention and do something.

How can I work for someone like you?

Ha! I appreciate the thought. You can go check out our careers site: www.axon.com/careers. Or just send me a message w/ your LinkedIn.

Do you think the short selll is over for gme. And have we seen the peak of the stock yet?

I like the stock. Gme to the moon. Diamond hands.

I am not personally familiar with the underlying business at GME, so I don’t really have an opinion on its value. But I do believe there’s a ton of societal value in what has happened and how much attention has been drawn to this topic. Let me say it differently: This is the way.

In what instance is it appropriate, moral, or good for society to short a stock?

Hedging a position is a reasonable time to do it. And if you correctly identify a company that’s just plainly gotten it wrong, I don’t have a problem with it.

However, when it comes to aggressive short strategies of the kinds I've been talking about in this AMA, we have to ask ourselves if the benefits outweigh the clearly dangerous costs and perverse incentives. I don't think we need to do much here: I believe there simply needs to be oversight to watch out for abusive short sellers.

If you look at the history of the markets and the billions and trillions of dollars that move through it, the lack of any major regulatory short selling scandals is really pretty suspicious, isn’t it? Surely, some bad actor out there has decided to make a big short bet then take some bad actions. And I'm pretty sure I was on the receiving end at one point many years ago...

You mention in your article that Shorts can (in theory) be used to bring a company stock back in line for fraud or overvaluation but has itself been shown to be a tool for abuse and fraud.

At the end of the day, besides lining the pockets of those already vested in the market, is there any real economic value to having shorts even be an option? It seems like so many “Wall Street” financial methods, they are just skimming money off the top of other peoples money without putting their own skin on the line.

Edit for Clarity: Imagining stock A is valued at $10, they borrow and sell at $10, buy it back 90 days from now at $7 and return the share while pocketing a $3 (30%) cut.

ELI5; what benefit to the company, shareholders or the economy did that short option provide. Other than putting $3 in the hedge funds ledger

Based on my personal experience, I don’t think the contribution value of short selling is worth the cost and distraction. However, I am a realist, and I think that reasonable regulation is a far more likely outcome.

My personal belief is that the financial markets exist to connect investors and their capital to the best projects. Anything that obscures and distracts from that purpose is a negative value. Think of all the time and energy that goes into the battle between longs and shorts. All the extra volatility it creates. All the brilliant minds that go into short selling at hedge funds.

Now imagine all that effort was going into finding projects that would create value, new inventions, job creating projects. I think the U.S. economy would be much stronger if we focused our financial markets on finding long term value, not betting on the moods of the day.

I believe this is a solid reason why the big tech disruptors stay private so much longer these days. They can focus entirely on creating value, not optimizing for the next quarters results or having to defend against all the FUD that comes with being in the public markets—much of which is related to the fact that there’s money betting for and against you.

All of that makes for exciting CNBC segments, but creates unnecessary volatility and distraction for the economy.