Why I Joined Fleeting

Over the weekend, I watched a fireside chat with Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder, and CEO of Social Capital, in which he discussed his views on how money is an instrument of change at Stanford. His time at Canadian billionaire, Terry Mattews' tech company shaped his world-view. There he learned this idea of using money as an instrument to help develop people and society.

About 16 mins into the video Chamath said something that really stuck out to me when discussing his once fledgling education portfolio,

This is about human capital development. It’s about, for every one of you who is so smart, that got into Stanford, think of all the people who could be as capable.... it took us three years, those building blocks exist and I’m like wow. How many times did I have to look at my partners and say no? The easy answer is to walk away, the hard answer is to double down, we have to support this business. That culture’s missing here. So part of what we’re trying to do to achieve those goals is, take really big audacious points of view on the world and then train ourselves to be patient. And it’s really, really hard. The entire society is set up to not be patient anymore.

Reflecting on my first month at Fleeting, I realize that this goes directly in line with not only why I joined the company, but why our entire team works so damn hard to achieve the audacious goal of creating an equitable system for stakeholders across trucking. These stakeholders include shippers, motor carriers, owner-operators, and individual drivers. In the current trucking model, it's the shippers and brokers that typically retain the control and thus reap the biggest benefits. But it's the truckers that deliver the essentials, yet are forced to accept inequitable compensation structures. We want to change that.

We fundamentally believe that truckers & owner operators deserve to live a life of prosperity and freedom, something that is not mutually exclusive to their shipping partners also maintaining healthy profits. This lifestyle we elude to is something drivers have not had the privilege of relying on since the introduction of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which introduced the brokerage system and shifted power to newly introduced brokers.

With the introduction of other technology platforms like Convoy, NEXT Trucking, and Uber Freight in 2015/2017, the market is not only ready to accept new technologies but we believe the system is ready for a real change. One which infuses transparency and education into a once mystifying system. Our platform promises both sides of the market the ability to maintain margins, increase transparency, and provide consistent world-class service because all parties are incentivized to the best job possible.

The opportunity is clear, it's a multi-billion dollar industry, estimated at over $768b (according to Statista) but the problem is even clearer. Disenfranchised Drivers and their families are often ill-informed on things like unit economics regarding their operations, and few companies are out there looking to properly equip drivers with the technology, tools, and resources necessary for them to thrive. It's not easy by any stretch, it may take years, but I know this team is up for the challenge. Thanks to the vision of our CEO, Pierre Laguerre, a person who has spent 16+ years in the industry as a driver and a multi-million dollar fleet owner, we are positioned to hit the market, unlike any other player consistently.

Ultimately, I joined Fleeting because, as Chamath says, "it's about human capital development". It's about doing the hard thing. Changing a system that has obviously left an essential part of their "machine" behind. Those types of systems are ones that are disrupted, and that's why I joined Fleeting - to be apart of an essential disruption.

#TeamFleeting