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- Sent Items #192: Sunday, June 22, 2025
Sent Items #192: Sunday, June 22, 2025
Matthew Hertz
June 22, 2025
Fred Smith, the Founder and longtime CEO of FedEx passed away yesterday. Fred was a legend in supply chain, entrepreneurship, and Tennessee history. So many great stories about his journey. When he was a student at Yale in 1965, he famously wrote an economics paper that spelled out his idea for a nationwide overnight delivery system. His professor gave him a C.
He was a Marine in Vietnam. He loved this country.
When the company had only $5,000 in cash left, Smith pitched General Dynamics for more funding, but the board refused. On his way home, Smith took a detour to Las Vegas and won $27,000 playing blackjack, which he wired back to FedEx, to keep them afloat.
I never met him, but wish I had. He will be remembered favorably, and as a pioneer in supply chain.
I enjoyed this conversation with my friends at Optym. You can check out the podcast here or watch it on YouTube below:
Amazon Prime Day is coming up! Here’s a very strange reminder from Lebron James:
A couple new unboxing videos, one featuring Graza, a fantastic DTC olive oil brand.
For this second one I asked my gen z employee to edit a recent unboxing video...here’s how it went:
One last PSA before we get to the news. Last week we announced Third Person’s Inaugural Logistics & Leadership Fall 2025 Cohort Participants:
Very excited for this event later in the year. With the tremendous demand we saw for this first event, we have already begun planning dates for the next one (TBD, Spring 2026). You can sign up for the waitlist to be notified here (link).
Now onto some news….
Amazon CEO Says AI Will Lead to Smaller Workforce (link)
Amazon plans to reduce its workforce in the coming years due to increased use of AI. CEO Andy Jassy says AI is a once-in-a-lifetime tech change altering Amazon’s operations. Amazon anticipates that AI will change the number and types of jobs but isn’t expecting mass layoffs.
Amazon has plans to spend more than $100 billion on data centers, which fuel AI. It has also invested billions in the AI startup Anthropic. Jassy said that generative AI and agents are increasingly capable of doing more tasks at Amazon. He said the company has already rolled out, or is building, more than 1,000 agents.
My favorite recent quote on the topic is from Eric Schmidt, ex-CEO of Google and Executive Chairman. He said that ‘AI won’t take your jobs, but someone who knows how to use it will’. Essentially that AI will not necessarily lead to mass unemployment, but rather to job shifts and the need for adaptation, emphasizing job creation, upskilling, and increased productivity.
Of course we continue to watch container pricing…
Drewry’s World Container Index decreased 7% to $3,279 per 40ft container this week. For the first time in over a month, Drewry's WCI fell 7% this week, following six weeks of gains, mainly due to the low demand for US-bound cargo. It is a sign that the recent surge in imports to the US, which occurred after the temporary halt of higher US tariffs, will fail to have the lasting impact some initially expected. Rates are still up from 73% on the Shanghai to Los Angeles lane.
Spot freight rates across eight major East-West trades:
Source: Drewry Supply Chain Advisors
The Latest Casualty of the Tariff War: Free Shipping (link)
Retailers are raising the bar for free delivery—or eliminating the perk—as they seek to mitigate tariff costs. The tactic is one way retailers are looking to cope with tariffs imposed this year by the Trump administration. The administration has set a baseline 10% duty on most countries and 30% on China, and has threatened to raise levies further in the coming months. The average cost to ship a parcel including surcharges is $12.50 today, up from $9.53 in 2019, according to ShipMatrix.
Really interesting post from my friend Ben Emmrich from Tusk Logistics. If you ship parcels and don’t know who they are, let’s change that today! Happy to connect you directly.
Tusk Logistics exists to make it easy for shippers to access alternative carriers nationwide, and have full visibility into their performance and value. Alternative carriers are reliable and growing fast. Every week, Tusk tracks thousands of parcel deliveries across their nationwide network of alternative carriers.
📦 95.5%+ of all shipments last week were delivered on time
🔥 95%+ of all shipments last week were delivered within two days
⏱️ Of the few that were late, 77% arrived the very next day
Meanwhile, parcel shipping in Canada is a mess. Canada Post has been negotiating with its two largest unions for months, causing widespread disruptions. Meanwhile, DHL Express Canada has suspended operations in Canada as of last week due to union strikes(link).
Have a great week ahead!
- Matt
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