A Message From The Founders Regarding George Floyd

By Patrick Sobalvarro (co-founder and CEO), Clara Vu (co-founder and CTO), Scott Denenberg (co-founder and VP Engineering), Veo Robotics

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”  
Dr. Martin Luther King

On May 25th, George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers.  It’s common these days for corporate leaders to issue statements about current events, and at Veo Robotics we’ve avoided this practice, because our business is computer vision and manufacturing robotics.  We claim no special expertise on the many problems plaguing our nation and the world today.

But this event was shocking in its evil.  George Floyd was not behaving violently; he was physically restrained and pleading for his life and he was brutally killed by police, who are meant to serve and protect the communities in which they work.

This was only the latest example of something we all know, which is the reality of persistent racism in our country.  We have an ideal, which is that our government should be of the people, by the people and for the people, but that wasn't George Floyd's experience and it hasn't been the experience of many Black Americans through our country's history.

Dr. King’s words demand that we speak up, and so we say this: We deplore and condemn the brutal killing of George Floyd, and the horrifying fact that it was perpetrated by police officers, who should have been protecting and serving their community.  We call for swift, clear, decisive justice.  We call for change, to build a more just society in which all people are equal before the law.  And we voice our support for members of the Black community in this time of grief.