Business · 2
What did FedEx founder Fred Smith do before launching the company that contradicted his own academic predictions?
Answer
He wrote a paper predicting overnight delivery would fail
Fred Smith famously wrote a Yale term paper arguing that a dedicated overnight delivery network would not be economically viable, yet he went on to found FedEx in 1971 and proved his own thesis wrong by building one of the world's largest logistics companies.
💡 Did you know?
FedEx founder Fred Smith wrote a paper predicting overnight delivery would fail, then built the company anyway to prove himself wrong.
Other options people guess
- He worked as a logistics director for a rival courier firm
- He lobbied Congress against air freight deregulation
- He co-founded a ground shipping startup that he later dissolved
Topics
- fedex
- entrepreneurship
- logistics
- business-history
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