In this special two-part episode, Andrew sits down with his dad, Jeff Silver, CEO and founder of Mastery Logistics Systems. This is part one, beginning with Jeff’s life in 1980 at the University of Michigan. In 1984, Jeff joined Paul Loeb and others in building what became American Backhaulers, one of the industry’s first and most successful freight brokerages. C.H. Robinson acquired American Backhaulers in 1999, and a key driver of that industry-changing deal was Express, the technolog...
Andrew welcomes Paul Singer, CEO and cofounder of FleetWorks, a carrier-facing voice AI agent. It’s been a year and a half since Paul and his cofounder Quang Tran tested the idea for FleetWorks. They signed up for a load board, posted an attractive load, and to their surprise, three carriers responded and negotiated with their AI agent — a product Paul calls “janky” compared to what they have today. “Ever since those three calls, we’ve been off to the races.” On this episode, Andrew and...
On this episode, recorded live from Manifest: The Future of Supply Chain & Logistics, Andrew interviews nine founders about their budding startups: Ed Burns with TruSygnal, a connection platform for shippers and carriersTom Curee with Qued, automated appointment scheduling through AIOmar Singh with Get Real Rates, an API pricing toolChip Reeves with Enablers, logistics human and AI staffingAlex Bezzubets with myMechanic Inc., a roadside assistance platformShan Wu with Forward Labs, a brok...
Andrew welcomes Jim Berlin, CEO and founder of Logistics Plus, a company he founded in 1996 and has built into a global logistics powerhouse in more than 50 countries, with $600M in revenue, customers like GE and WeWork, and a HQ within Erie, Pennsylvania’s Union Station. But success didn’t come without taking risks — and learning from failures. “I dive in with both feet without checking the depth of the water.” In this episode, Jim and Andrew cover: The journey of how Jim built his com...
Andrew welcomes Grace Maher, COO of OTR Solutions, one of the industry’s top factoring companies. Grace graduated from Georgia Tech with a business degree and an accounting certificate and went on to be an auditor for five years. But she felt she was meant for something else. In 2011, Grace got her first job in freight at Nolan Transportation; a year later, Nolan founder Kevin Nolan was starting OTR Solutions, and Grace found the opportunity she was looking for. In this episode, Andrew ...
In this episode, Andrew welcomes Cole Stevens, chief strategy officer at Stevens Trucking, a family-owned trucking company based in Oklahoma. Cole’s dad, Kenney, founded the business in 1979 with a single hotshot pickup truck in an Oklahoma oil patch. Today, they operate 400 tractors and 1,800 dry van trailers across the U.S. Andrew and Cole cover: The founding story of Stevens Trucking and how the Stevens family uniquely runs the business.All that Cole has learned from his dad about bu...
Andrew welcomes David Bell, CEO and founder of CloneOps.ai. David has been in the logistics industry for more than 30 years. He once had a vision to make Lean Solutions Group a 10,000-employee organization — he and his team accomplished that. Now, with his new voice AI business, CloneOps.ai, he plans to hit 1 billion talking minutes for his customers in three years. In this episode, David shares: How he founded his early LTL brokerage business and the challenges of LTL.How he and cofounder Ro...
For the 50th episode of The Freight Pod, Andrew welcomes Dhruv Gupta, CEO and cofounder of Drumkit. Dhruv shares his journey from studying transportation planning at Harvard to founding Drumkit, an innovative AI-driven workflow solution for logistics companies. In this episode, Andrew and Dhruv talk about: Dhruv’s experience of dealing with failure — calling his first business a “faceplant” — and what he learned that he still carries with him today. The importance of leading with c...
In this episode, Andrew talks to Brad Perling, CEO and co-founder of Bitfreighter. Brad was an aerospace major waiting to get into air traffic control school when he became an early employee at Calvary Logistics. He says that’s where he got his freight MBA, working up from carrier rep to general manager. Frustrated by the lack of options when it came to EDI technology, this former broker is now building another cost-saving option for integration technology in Bitfreighter, named to FreightWav...
In this episode, Andrew is joined by Jesse Buckingham, CEO and cofounder of Vooma. Jesse studied law and economics at the University of Sydney and got his MBA from Stanford. Before Vooma, he was CEO at ASG LogisTech, whose businesses included Trucker Tools, Record360, e-Courier, and PackageRoute. He was also a consultant at Bain & Company. Now, Jesse’s leading the Vooma team in building AI tools that will automate the shipment lifecycle and help brokerage teams enhance productivity and re...
For the last episode of 2024, we welcome our first driver to the show: Chad Boblett. He created the longstanding Rate Per Mile Masters Facebook group, which, in its 11 years, has grown to be a vibrant community of close to 37,000 owner-ops, carriers, brokers, and agents. In this episode, we go back even further — 13 years — to how Chad got started in trucking, when a severe injury caused him to lose just about everything in his life — including his job and his house. He was living in a ...
In a special episode to announce the acquisition of Trucker Tools by DAT, we are joined by Trucker Tools CEO Kary Jablonski to break down the deal. She walks us through why now was the time for Trucker Tools to go to market, why DAT makes the most sense as the long term home for the TT platform, and what the future looks like for Kary and her team. This move helps further DAT's position as the premiere freight marketplace and rate analytics platform, enhancing their product pipeline an...
Andrew is joined by Jonathan Salama, the CEO and co-founder of Transfix, a logistics technology company. He discusses Transfix's origins, starting as a freight brokerage business that he and his co-founder Drew built from the ground up. They focused on automating key functions like pricing, scheduling, and carrier management using machine learning models. When the pandemic hit, Transfix's technology proved invaluable in navigating the volatility. However, Transfix later had to pivot awa...
In this captivating episode, Andrew sits down with Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport, for an insightful and candid conversation about leadership, personal growth, and business. Ryan shares his journey of self-discovery, discussing how he reevaluated his values after a challenging period in China and the profound impact of mentors like Tony Robbins on his life and leadership style. The discussion delves into Flexport's operational processes challenges, including the impact of COVID-19 on their Ne...
FreightVana has acquired the brokerage operations of Loadsmith. We are joined this week for a special episode breaking down the making of the merger between these two organizations. FreightVana CEO Shannon Breen and Loadsmith CEO Brett Suma join the show to break down the deal, explaining why Loadsmith is divesting it's brokerage operations and why FreightVana is the perfect complementary partner. With mutual backgrounds at Knight, it was easy for Shannon and Brett to see eye to eye on...
The episode features an in-depth conversation with Ryan Joyce, the CEO of freight intelligence startup GenLogs. Ryan shares his unique background, having previously worked as an undercover CIA officer, a path he unknowingly would find himself on after a frightening situation with his father working in the Pentagon during 9/11. He discusses how that experience shaped his empathetic approach to problem-solving and his desire to make a positive impact. Ryan explains GenLogs' mission to bri...
Chadd Olesen, CEO of automation technology company AVRL, joined us this week to discuss his company's journey. AVRL started in 2017 focused on natural language processing, but pivoted in 2020 to automate spot freight pricing for brokers. Chadd shared how AVRL had to rethink their approach and technology to better fit the needs of freight brokers, rather than trying to force brokers to adapt to their original product. He emphasized the importance of being consultative and collaborative w...
Uber Freight announced it's newest capacity-as-a-service offering, Broker Access. The tool is designed to provide capacity for other brokers through the Uber platform. Uber has tens of thousands of carriers within it's network through the development of it's own brokerage and the acquisition of Transplace. My concern with this program is, in my opinion, this is a case of double or co-brokering. Whichever terminology you choose to use, it represents a problem as most shippers would be very opp...
Kara Smith-Brown joins us on this week's episode to discuss her career in marketing, how her company, LeadCoverage supports the freight industry, and her new book, The Revenue Engine, that comes out November 19th. Together, we explore how aligning sales with marketing can lead to a harmonious and successful business environment. By sharing her journey from the early days at Echo Global Logistics, Kara illustrates the potential of modern marketing tools to create a distinct edge for businesses...
We are joined this week by entrepreneur and multiple-time founder, Prasad Gollapalli. Prasad got his start in the industry at the old school load board, GetLoaded, which was later acquired by DAT. From there, he began his entrepreneurial journey as he started TruckerTools. After a successful exit, he is now focusing his time and attention on the world of scheduling appointments, and bringing automation and AI to reduce the human touch on this mundane, but important task. His startup, Qued, is...