Fred Smith

Same pay, go home whenever you're done.

The sort suddenly ran like clockwork.

Charlie Munger loved this story.

Never ever think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.

Your mission statement doesn't matter.

Your incentives do.

Three, loyalty comes from the trenches.

In Vietnam, Fred learned from Staff Sergeant Jack, an enlisted man from Philadelphia.

Sergeant Jack, he said, wasn't well-educated, but he was probably the wisest guy I ever met.

When Jackson died in combat, it crystallized the lesson that soldiers don't fight for politicians, they fight for the person next to them.

Years later, when FedEx ran out of money, employees worked without pay.

Pilots used personal credit cards for fuel, not because they had to, but because of loyalty.

Most leaders demand it, but the best earn it through shared sacrifice.

Four, always be learning.

Fred read for four hours a day every day.

And he had this quote that I loved.

People who supposedly have vision spend a lot of time reading and gathering information and then synthesize it until they come up with an idea.

This reading convinced him that information about the package was as important as the package itself years before tracking existed.

While competitors perfected overnight delivery, he was already building for the data age.

Most executives wait for insights to come to them, but visionaries go out and find them.