LEGEND
What Happens in Vegas ...
Name : Frederik W . Smith Job Title : Founder , CEO and Chairman Company :
Y ou need a gambler ’ s nerve and a practised poker face to survive the highs and lows of entrepreneurship . But Frederik W . Smith , the founder , CEO and chairman of FedEx , took the notion to extremes .
Smith received only an average C grade for the early business plan of what would become Federal Express , outlined in a term paper he wrote as a Yale undergraduate in the mid-60s . His professor did not think much of the young business hopeful ’ s idea : to rethink contemporary logistics and forge a dedicated delivery system for time-sensitive packages , such as medicine and fragile electricals .
In hindsight , the academic seems myopic . But in the earliest days of Federal Express , he was almost vindicated . Smith set the company up with an inheritance fund in August 1971 after returning from the Vietnam war , but soon ran into early financial trouble , losing millions over rising fuel prices . After failing to secure fresh loans to keep his young business afloat – at its lowest , it had just $ 5,000 left in the bank – he soon found himself at a blackjack table in Las
Vegas , the fate of his business in the hands of the dealer .
He subsequently won $ 27,000 on that trip to Sin City , and by Monday the FedEx account read $ 32,000 , enough to reportedly keep Federal Express a going concern for another seven days . Though it was not the triumphant turning point that would bookend the second act of a movie version of his life , Smith later reflected in an Entrepreneur magazine interview that the winnings were an “ omen that things would get better ”. And they did .
By the 1980s , FedEx was growing at a compounded rate of 40 % annually . Flash forward to 1983 and it posted revenues of $ 1bn , making it the first American company to do so within 10 years of founding without relying on M & A activity . In 1984 it expanded internationally into Europe
684
Aircraft and Asia , and in 1994 adopted its modern name FedEx .
Smith remained at the helm throughout these decades of change , leading from the front . Today he continues to lead FedEx , a $ 77bn + logistics super power , employing more than half a
200,000 +
Vehicles
5,000 +
Operating facilities
million people around the world , and shows no signs of slowing down . In a recent investor letter Smith wrote that FedEx is “ the network for what ’ s next , and we have the backing of the sharpest team in the business ”.
18 August 2021