Fred Smith on the Birth of FedEx (2004)

Interesting bit about ZapMail -- prescient but also completely impractical in retrospect, a bit like Iridium.

As an aside, having been involved with negotiations slightly removed from Fred Smith, this is a guy you really do not want to tick off -- when you have something he wants, even incidentally, then just give him a price and cut a deal. I can't tell any of my stories (in a public venue, anyway), but there were several times when FedEx (which had, to be fair, moved mountains for our client) just got (reasonably) exasperated with our client and pulled (what I considered unreasonable) tricks to force them to a decision point. By the time I called off our involvement I felt like I had pissed off a Bond villain.

One of my favorite businesses. Another thing they've always done is invest in their workers and expect innovation from within. At one point, they even paid people a percentage of what their ideas produced. These days, they just use regular rewards, recognition, promotions, etc. Even their cost-cutting was different than most: paying people to leave rather than laying them off.

Such things send a powerful message that lead to mostly loyal, hard-working, innovative people. Well, at least at the levels where one can be innovative. The positions like Ground drivers and people moving stuff on conveyor belts probably impose limits. They still work hard for decent pay or hours relative to other companies in their areas.

I'd love to see more companies take a page out of Fred's book.