Making local government accessible to everyone
We believe that what happens in city council chambers, planning commissions, and zoning boards matters. These decisions shape our neighborhoods, our businesses, and our communities. But until now, this information has been nearly impossible to find.
The Problem We Saw
Every day, thousands of local government meetings take place across America. City councils debate zoning changes. Planning commissions review development proposals. School boards discuss budgets. These meetings are technically public, but practically invisible.
If you're a real estate developer trying to understand community sentiment on a project, you might spend hours watching city council recordings. A journalist investigating local corruption has to manually search through years of meeting archives. A citizen who wants to participate in their local government doesn't even know where to start.
We thought: what if all of this was searchable? What if you could type in a company name, an address, or a topic and instantly find every time it was discussed in government meetings across the country?
"Local government is where policy becomes personal. It's where decisions are made about what gets built next door, what businesses can operate, and how our tax dollars are spent. Everyone deserves access to this information."
What We Built
Hamlet indexes thousands of government meeting transcripts from city councils, planning commissions, zoning boards, and other public bodies across the United States. We use a combination of official transcripts, video recordings, and AI-powered transcription to make this content searchable.
Our search goes beyond simple keyword matching. We help you find the exact moment in a meeting where your topic was discussed, understand the context of the conversation, and track how discussions evolve over time.
For professionals who need to stay informed, we offer keyword alerts that notify you when new meetings mention topics you care about. For researchers and analysts, we provide tools to export data and track patterns across jurisdictions.
Our Values
The principles that guide everything we build.
Transparency
Government should be visible to the people it serves. We make public information truly public by making it findable and accessible.
Civic Engagement
Informed citizens make better decisions. We help people understand what their local government is doing so they can participate meaningfully.
Accessibility
Time is valuable. We save people hours of manual research so they can focus on what matters - taking action on the information they find.
Built by people who care about local government
We're a small team of engineers, designers, and civic tech enthusiasts based in Oakland. We've worked at companies like Nextdoor, GoodRx, Mailchimp, and Pivotal Labs, and we're united by our belief that local government data should be open and accessible.
I'm the Founder of Hamlet, a company that uses AI to make public information easier to understand. Hamlet extracts data from City Council and Planning Commission meetings to understand how cities make decisions on development and other issues. Prior to Hamlet, I co-founded Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to hire writers. Scripted was acquired in 2017, and raised $20M from Crosslink Capital, Redpoint and others. I was on the Founding Team of Radiance, which sold to Bloomreach in 2023 - Radiance Labs was backed by Foundation Capital. I've held executive roles at Metromile, GoodRx and other tech companies. I once ran one of the top 200 podcasts in the US and my writing has appeared in Fortune, Forbes and The Information. I live in Orinda, CA where I ran for City Council and served on a commission.
Get in Touch
Questions, feedback, or partnership inquiries? We'd love to hear from you.
You can also find us on @myhamletinc