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Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

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Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#61

Post by DavidPeiffer »

bambax wrote: post #39
akavi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC-funded freight forwarding company. Basic thesis is by using tech, you can dramatically lower the labor costs of forwarding, and since freight forwarding has huge returns to scale, the benefits compound. They raised 2 G$ from 2019-2022, and their CEO used that warchest to expand counter-cyclically through the pandemic. TBD if either of the two theses pan out. Freight forwarding itself is the industry of coordinatin…

> Basic thesis is by using tech, you can dramatically lower the labor costs of forwarding, and since freight forwarding has huge returns to scale, the benefits compound Is this remotely true though? Aren't the main costs of forwarding simply fuel? At some point I was importing goods from China (really small volume though) and I did ask them for a quote, and they were twice the price what the Chinese factory could get…

Not who you responded to, but I've listened to a number of interviews from the former CEO (highly recommend the Odd Lots podcast for his interviews and many other supply chain related conversations). A couple concepts, some details may be a bit off and I'm very open to correction.

There is a lot of administrative cost. IIRC, you might have something like 1 dispatcher for every 50 drivers. You have other people giving quotes via phone, decently high turnover for truck drivers, slow loading warehouses that cause a cascading effect when the driver can't complete all the stops planned for the day, and a strict limit on hours worked for truckers.

Some of the pandemic port congestion was truckers arriving at a port to pick up a particular load, but that load wasn't ready right then. Flexport has an app which basically let drivers on their platform arrive at a port, grab any container that's part of their platform, and take that to the destination. This prevented countless hours of idle trucks in ports.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#62

Post by marcosdumay »

ghaff wrote: post #50
marcosdumay wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More commonly 2Gs would be used for 2x the normal force of gravity--i.e. you weigh twice as much. That's a lower case g.

As with many things I never expect others to be respecting arbitrary style guides when they write something. (Same reason I wouldn't use semi-weekly or biweekly.)

The guy went to the trouble of adhering to the guide, appending the unity at the correct place, and contextualizing it so it's clear.

It's everybody here that is getting out of their way to avoid understanding the number.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#64

Post by Oxidation »

marcosdumay wrote: post #47
ghaff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't immediately parse that abbreviation in the US--but if I did I'd parse it as G being shorthand for grand. More commonly 2Gs would be used for 2x the normal force of gravity--i.e. you weigh twice as much.

> More commonly 2Gs would be used for 2x the normal force of gravity--i.e. you weigh twice as much. That's a lower case g.

Also G (uppercase) doesn't have units that result in G$ being a plausible quantity even if you could combine number-unit quantities and use like a unit like that (which you can't for this exact reason): dollar-cubic metres per kilo per second per second.

It's also rather small.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#65

Post by lmm »

marcosdumay wrote: post #51
willcipriano wrote: post #25

Remember when everyone cut jobs and canceled orders at the beginning of the pandemic and it really bit them? I'm like 49% sure that's going to happen again. Something funny is in the air.

Do you expect easy money to come back? Nearly all of the companies laying people off are the unsustainable ones. I can imagine a lot of companies struggling to hire in a few months. But I can't imagine they being the same ones that are just firing.

I think easy money is coming back. There's still a bunch of wealth that doesn't know anywhere to find returns, that hasn't changed.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#66

Post by blacklight »

brianwawok wrote: post #55
blacklight wrote: post #46

-

Only a 4 minute uncertainty window seems ok to me? If you were CEO how would you lay off 20% of your company?

Probably I wouldn't lay off 20% of my staff at all, unless I was really sailing in stormy waters with no way out. And Flexport isn't: there's been a slight dip in global supply chains caused by the uncertainty in China, but nothing so dramatic nor permanent that you should run and fire 1/5 of your staff - you only do that if something happens like China attacking Taiwan, and you know that for years to come trade won't be the same. It sounds to me like another Silicon Valley company laying off large chunks of their staff because everyone else is doing so: https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la.... Or maybe because VC funds are suddenly draining for everyone?

And,if I really had to lay off so many people, I'd take a more personal approach. Invite the whole company for a virtual or physical meeting where I explain why I have to do that, why I have no alternatives, and communicate the decisions to the managers, so people can be let go after talking to a human. Not after getting an email out of the blue in their box, in the middle of a working day. This has been impersonal and faceless on so many levels.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#67

Post by makestuff »

bambax wrote: post #39
akavi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC-funded freight forwarding company. Basic thesis is by using tech, you can dramatically lower the labor costs of forwarding, and since freight forwarding has huge returns to scale, the benefits compound. They raised 2 G$ from 2019-2022, and their CEO used that warchest to expand counter-cyclically through the pandemic. TBD if either of the two theses pan out. Freight forwarding itself is the industry of coordinatin…

> Basic thesis is by using tech, you can dramatically lower the labor costs of forwarding, and since freight forwarding has huge returns to scale, the benefits compound Is this remotely true though? Aren't the main costs of forwarding simply fuel? At some point I was importing goods from China (really small volume though) and I did ask them for a quote, and they were twice the price what the Chinese factory could get…

My roommate worked at a freight forwarder, but from what he told me, the entire thing is a mess of excel spreadsheets and highly inefficient.

I think the pitch of flexport is what if we modernize the technology and make it more efficient by reducing or removing the need of all of these people managing the forwarding via excel.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#68

Post by paxys »

globalise83 wrote: post #42
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that they say: > At Flexport, 2023 is going to bring extraordinary velocity – we are in the process of doubling our software engineering talent and moving to single threaded business organizations to build world class products faster, and we will continue to invest in delivering best-in-class operational execution for our customers. Looks like they are laying off non-tech workers who they have made (or wi…

moving to single threaded business organizations What does that even mean? They are only able to do one thing at a time? Doesn't sound like a recipe for business success to me...

Narrowing focus is often a good thing for companies.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#69

Post by saysAl0t »

greatpostman wrote: post #57
whatever1 wrote: post #54

The AMZN logistics ceo first ruined AMZN with the over expansion and then took the ceo role in flexport to do exactly the same thing. Amazing incompetence.

These people just got into amazon early and rode the wave to the top. Some of them are truly talented, most were in the right place at the right time

Right place and time (era of cheap money) explains the majority of our so-called genius tech CEOs.

A handful of ideas from info theory coupled with government desire to hype nation state brand does not a genius make.

None of these people have established net new ideas. Just borrowing from Gödel, Shannon, Turing, and the like.

Computer networks put the visibility, routing of logistics within reach of the masses. But we’re obliged to preserve the meme of aristocrats knowing best.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#70

Post by makestuff »

globalise83 wrote: post #42
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that they say: > At Flexport, 2023 is going to bring extraordinary velocity – we are in the process of doubling our software engineering talent and moving to single threaded business organizations to build world class products faster, and we will continue to invest in delivering best-in-class operational execution for our customers. Looks like they are laying off non-tech workers who they have made (or wi…

moving to single threaded business organizations What does that even mean? They are only able to do one thing at a time? Doesn't sound like a recipe for business success to me...

Dave clark brought this from Amazon. At Amazon they call it "STLs" or single threaded leadership. Basically you assign one director/vp/etc. to the business, and they are responsible for PnL/success.

It isn't that you do one thing at a time as an entire company, but your org is focused on one thing. For example, maybe there is a director who runs an org in charge of international freight forwarding.

I'm not really sure how things are organized at other large companies as Amazon was my only experience into mega corp work.

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