Fred Smith

So now Smith, at this point, he owns two jets.

He's got about $4 million in debt and he has no business.

Most people would sell the planes and walk away, take the loss.

Smith chose to see the rejection as an opportunity because it freed him to pursue something even bigger.

So with banking off the table, he returned to the original idea.

Air freight was broken.

The major airlines had all tried cargo, and by 1970, they were all failing.

United alone had lost $20 million that year.

The problem was fundamental.

Airlines were optimized for passengers and not packages.

They flew during the day and eliminated most flights at night and treated cargo as an afterthought.

I think I remember reading a statistic that 95% of flights are during the day.

A package might sit for days waiting for space.

Smith's vision was radical.

An airline designed exclusively just for packages, flying at night when airports were empty, everything through one central hub, guaranteed overnight delivery anywhere in America.

So he commissioned two consulting firms, and neither of which was aware of the other, to study the feasibility of the idea.

And both confirmed massive demand.

Businesses spent billions on inventory because they couldn't trust shipping.

One missing part could shut down an assembly line costing hundreds of thousands daily.

So armed with this data, Smith orchestrated something unprecedented.