Comment by ethagknight | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethagknight | Hacker News Reader

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I don't understand the negative tone of the comments below. From the article, the story of Fred delivering packages for area tech companies with the Yale flying club is a fascinating startup story. He served two tours in Vietnam with the Marine Corps. He skirted government air cargo regs by flying planes under the size threshold. His board is diverse for Fortune 100 standards. The lead image portrait is his old board picture, stylized, with some planes in the background. He's right that stimulus checks directly caused labor shortages and he increased wages dramatically to make up for it. (yes he should pay all his employees more.. you probably could too.) He's an old guy with old school vocal opinions who has accomplished pretty amazing things. Everyone has their "ugh my package got stomped" anecdote but the physical level of service that Fedex (and UPS and DHL) provides worldwide is a staggering feat.

Another interesting note on Fred Smith, among many on Wikipedia, he inherited $4M dollars and put it all into starting Fedex, creating the $50B company we know today.

It is not his success that I find problematic, its his current assessment of the Gov, the politics and the imbalance that exists in today's "Socialize risk, Privatize profits" environment. He's suffering from hubris.

The fact that he comes from money makes this whole thing even more ridiculous. He did not build anything from scratch, he literally started on 3rd base and was handed his field position before he even started...

This also seems to ignore the fact that UPS existed decades before his company, a company that he intentionally named Federal Express to fool people into thinking it was a government entity...

UPS introduced next-day air service in select markets in 1982 and UPS Airlines founded in 1988, Fedex was founded in 1971 with a focus in overnight delivery. He launched his company in the shadow of a juggernaut.

Naming his company- even better, he apparently gave his dozen or so planes random serial numbers to give the impression he had way more planes. Plane #136 coming in!

Starting at 3rd base- this might be said of the Fords or for the Waltons, but Fred did not inherit the business he built. Yes he had a privileged start, but his daddy certainly didn't hand him an air freight business.

I certainly understand not liking his politics. His comments in the article are bristly.

UPS was founded in 1907. Bu thanks.

Fred was trained by the US Gov to fly, went to the most exclusive schools and inherited 40million in the 70s! That's 250million today... You can think this is a story of a selfmade man but you'd be wrong. He may have built a business, but he did it from the highest rings of the ladder having been placed there by his privilege.

> He's right that stimulus checks directly caused labor shortages

Citation needed.

> inherited $4M dollars

There it is! With just a small loan of $4 million you too can be a titan of industry.

I work in an industry where over the last two years my employees have respectfully but firmly quit because "I dont need to work right now," my experience in the construction and hospitality management world. It would be nifty to have a non-biased source to give you, but frankly its not necessary. Why show up for work if you have your bases covered with free money from the government. I am in favor of paying my team members more, but I couldn't match the Fed's offer.

Regarding the inheritance, yea its nice, but where is the magical easy button that got him to where he is today. Your comment is sarcastic and not constructive.

> Your comment is sarcastic and not constructive.

It was sarcastic, but it was absolutely constructive of my argument.

> where is the magical easy button

>>> Regarding the inheritance

There. It’s right there. I don’t understand how this is not plainly understood as the easy button.

> It would be nifty to have a non-biased source

Yeah, right? Like what a great thing a source would be right now. I’m glad we can all find common ground.

> but I couldn't match the Fed's offer.

Sounds like the free market won. I don’t know why you’re complaining, this is what you wanted.

He brilliantly navigated the airline deregulation period and built an amazing express company. Yet, he's always whining about the Post Office and Amazon.

One would think that after getting whomped by the ecommerce explosion 20 years ago and scrambling to buy a ground operation he would focus within. As a customer, they seem to be behind the 8-ball with anything outside of that business.

Frankly, the negative response to what FedEx is able to pull off reeks of first-world privilege. There's a lot of people who are quick to point fingers and talk about the exploitation of capitalism, but they've never even left the safety and comfort of the functioning country they grew up in to realize how absolutely amazing it is you can even get a package delivered in nearly every corner of the world for a reasonable price. As someone that's traveled around the world and had to ship things at odd times in strange places, I have nothing but admiration for the logistics networks that were built by organizations like FedEx and DHL. As someone who grew up relatively poor in a rural part of the US, I have nothing but admiration for the capabilities of the USPS and their coverage area.

The comments in this thread act like the article is committing the great man fallacy because it's talking about the work the founder put into FedEx. Yet, all of that is (presumably) factually accurate, which doesn't detract from larger systemic points, but certainly shouldn't encourage darts to be lobbed. The only folks who can possibly throw stones here are those who are ignorant of the realities of global logistics. Physical logistics is HARD, significantly harder than any problem the average tech worker has had to deal with in their life of air conditioned offices and ever more powerful systems available to them to solve problems.

I mean, my god, FedEx solved the logistical hurdles of package delivery so thoroughly they were able to put an API on top of it. That's got to be worth at least a little admiration.

> but they've never even left the safety and comfort of the functioning country they grew up in

Bold of you to assume every negative comment is from some ignorant untraveled American.

> As someone who grew up relatively poor in a rural part of the US

Hey, me too! which is doubly annoying considering the thick veneer of condescension in your comment.

Logistics is a hard problem, and fedex has some really interesting stories about that, but don’t come in here and start saying I’m privileged for criticizing the CEO when he’s so out of touch it’s comical.

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