Fred Smith

In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.

Fred Smith built FedEx from a college term paper that got a C. The professor said it wouldn't work.

Today, that idea moves trillions of dollars a year in packages.

This is about how Fred Smith solved a problem everyone else accepted as unsolvable.

Before FedEx, shipping something across the country meant waiting days or weeks with no idea when it would arrive.

Smith refused to accept that.

What he built changed more than shipping.

He changed our relationship with time before FedEx waiting was inevitable.

After FedEx, waiting became optional.

That shift created everything from just-in-time manufacturing to same-day delivery.

Smith had every excuse to fail.

His father died when he was four, leaving him to grow up in leg braces from a bone disease.

He came back to Vietnam to build his company during the worst recession since the Depression.

At one point, with only $5,000 left in the company bank account, he flew to Vegas and won.

Yet he built one of only four companies to ever hit $1 billion in revenue within 10 years without acquisitions.

At the time, anyway.

Three lessons from this episode stand out.

First, the best businesses solve coordination problems, not product problems.

FedEx wasn't really about moving packages.

It was about trust.