When was it clear internally that FedEx was going to be one of the most significant companies of the century? (I'm trying to calibrate how much visibility insiders have into this, vs the public)
Once virality started to take hold and the package volume grew, standing in the sorting center was an enthralling experience: The astounding, mind-bending variety of what the US economy wanted to ship with high priority was beyond comprehension and belief. Early on, time critical legal papers? Sure, there were plenty of those. Okay.
A cubic foot of some specific small metal fasteners a big production line needed ASAP or shut down at some cost of thousands of dollars an hour. Fine.
But bricks? Yup: A brick oven could send some samples to an architect, or an architect could send the samples to a customer.
Spare parts for computers, etc.? Yup. But baby chicks? Yup. Medical samples on the way to a medical testing lab? Yup. A live baby bear? It happened.
The variety was beyond all belief and comprehension.
No question about the need, definitely a must have -- a large fraction of the customers would have paid nearly anything, often beyond all reason.
And "the world's largest plane" chartered to ship ballots.
Exotic/live animal transport is probably the weirdest, though.
It's so inspiring hearing about people who had unbelievable expectations from the very beginning. I always hear about the opposite – younger Zuckerberg expecting someone bigger like Microsoft/Google/etc to build the "real Facebook" [1], Larry and Sergey thinking they'd never make it to be as big as Shawn Fanning [2], etc.
Those are all extremely interesting, but I'm much more interested in what goes on with people who call it from the beginning. I'd love it if you wrote a book. Do you have a blog?
[1] https://youtu.be/MGsalg2f9js?t=13m24s
[2] http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/startup-school-2010/ron-conwa...