Fred Smith
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
The best ones compete on trust.
Number seven, all in.
It's July 1974.
FedEx has $5,000 left, not enough to fuel Monday's flights.
Fred flew to Vegas and turned it into $27,000 at the blackjack table.
But the real gamble was even bigger.
He'd already bet his entire inheritance, his house, everything he had, everything was on the line.
When he told investors about Vegas, they didn't see desperation.
They saw someone who would do anything to survive.
And within two weeks, he raised $11 million.
Most people hedge.
The ones who change the world burn the boats.
One betrayal breaks everything.
When Fred bought Flying Tigers, he had to merge two pilot groups with different seniority systems.
He protected the Tigers pilots over his own.
The FedEx pilots who'd built the company, who'd used their personal credit cards for fuel, felt betrayed.
They called it treachery.
15 years of family culture shattered overnight.
Warren Buffett said, 15 years of family culture were shattered overnight.