Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention • Hacker News Board

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#51

Post by jgalt212 » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 9:26 AM UTC

patmcguire wrote: post #40

calpaterson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was true in the container revolution also. Malcom McLean (inventor of modern shipping containers) had to sell his trucking business when he bought a shipping business because because the regulator at the time did not allow anyone to operate a trucking company and a shipping company at the same time. There were also rules in the US at various times which prevented people from operating a trucking/railroad company…

I know that the history of shipping containers might not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but The Box is a great book http://www.amazon.com/The-Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller/dp/... Shipping rules used to be crazy

I also thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it's 400 pages about the evolution of 1 device. And in those 400 pages there are 0 diagrams. A huge disservice to the read. I found myself using the wiki quite often when reading this book.

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#52

Post by mks » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 10:03 AM UTC

deanclatworthy wrote: post #45

mks wrote: post #44

I fondly remember interning at major freight forwarder during university. The main input interface was paper which was them keyed into the mainframe application. Only the biggest partners have been integrated via EDI. So just putting sensible API in front of all this sounds like good idea. I have been working on operations data mart most of the time (and saving cca 30 000 dollars on carrier volume discount on shipped…

Re: last point. I did not know that. Could you provide some more information?

Sorry for the linkbaity cliffhanger.

Occasionally there exists a situation when there is huge demand for shipments in one direction (e.g. Hong Kong to Singapore) while there is not much traffic the other way round.

Shipping companies then need to get those containers back to origin, so the prices go down (better ship full container where at least handling is paid rather than empty container where carrier has to cover all the costs).

Not sure how often this happens currently, I got the information from friendly trade lane manager few years back.

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#53

Post by kato » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

Chinjut wrote: post #22

kato wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The veterans aren't "resisting progress", as much as protecting their own interests by using their experience. It may be at the cost of other people, but I think it's short-sighted to call them luddites. Currently, they have no incentive to invest in tech in the way of a silicon valley startup backed by VCs. If the aim is progress to everyone's benefit, tech will make its mark once it's in the hands of some of the es…

For what it's worth, the historical Luddites also were protecting their own interests, rather than fundamentally motivated to resist progress. (I mention this with no judgement one way or another of their actions)

Very true!

Re: Freight Startups Attract Silicon Valley’s Attention

#54

Post by thedogeye » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

vskarine wrote: post #30

dmnd wrote: post #5

Flexport is hiring engineers: https://jobs.lever.co/flexport As an engineer starting at Flexport in a couple of weeks, here are some more interesting resources that shaped my thinking: Interview with Ryan Petersen (Flexport CEO) https://theblueprint.com/stories/ryan-petersen/ Office hours at startup school 2013 with pg & sama https://youtu.be/syoqjYLDs48?t=1167 I also happened to have recently read Zero to One. Plus,…

How do you differentiate yourselves from FreightOS?

FreightOS is a software company building tools to make incumbent freight forwarders more efficient--so it's more of a supply-driven marketplace.

Flexport is a freight forwarder that builds our own software, with the goal of providing better customer experiences with lower transaction costs--so it's more of a demand-driven marketplace.

Probably we will meet them in the middle someday and have to compete with them for customers. They founders seem very smart and accomplished, and they appear to have solved many hard problems already, so it will be a fun challenge when it happens.