Back in the day, we were managing truckload freight for a large industrial company. The setup was solid—good rates, consistent service, everything working as it should.
Then along comes one of their internal guys—let’s call him Brent—who wanted to prove he could wring even more “efficiency” out of the operation. Without involving us, he went out and re-bid ten of their biggest lanes on his own. Soon after, he announced with great fanfare that he had found $800,000 in annual savings.
He got a big award. Some kind of internal hero. Made us look kind of bad (why couldn’t LP have done that) but we had to keep our heads down. Didn’t want to get in front of this news cannon.
But nobody looked too closely at the numbers. They just heard the word “savings” and they all nodded approvingly. GOOD NEWS!
Eventually, I asked to see the actual data. Took some persistence, but I got it. And what it showed was that nine of the ten lanes were actually higher—by a combined $200,000 a year. The entire “savings” was based on just one lane, which supposedly saved a million dollars.
Now, you’d think someone of the big execs would stop and ask, “Wait—a million-dollar savings on a single truck lane?” But no one did.
That lane? A short 150-mile “mini” route on paper. But the freight was a huge, oversized part—over-width, requiring flatbeds, special routing, permits, no night driving, no driving in the rain or snow and no weekend runs. Oh—and customs clearance on both sides of a very congested, slow-moving international bridge thrown in for good measure.
The winning bidder came in at half the price of every other quote—$1,000 below the next-lowest. A number that only made sense if you had no idea what the freight actually was. But hey: $1,000 of savings per load x 1,000 loads a year = $1 million in “savings.” Woo hoo, right?
Only problem? Once they realized what they’d signed up for, that company just disappeared. Never moved a single load. Never heard from them again.
But those “savings” stayed on the books. The award stayed on Brent’s shelf. And the myth of the great cost-cutter lived on.
Moral of the story?
It’s easy to find “waste” when you don’t understand the work.
And even easier to declare victory—and then quietly slip away—when no one notices that none of those trucks actually rolled.
Yesterday was the latest G7 Ukraine Reconstruction Business Advisory Council (BAC) call. As a reminder, this is business and government leaders from the major industrial nations working to help Ukraine clear the path for reconstruction. Working on:
Insurance so people can have coverage to invest there
Port infrastructure so goods can get delivered as needed to help the economy
Energy to help fix what Russia is knocking out and to plan for the future
Housing to replace and rebuild the tens of thousands of homes that have been destroyed
Travel, making it easier for people to visit the country and see for themselves what is happening there, as well as the opportunities to rebuild
We have follow-up meetings in Kyiv and Rome coming up. As I’ve mentioned, this is a very impressive and caring group, headed by Dr. Christian Bruch, Chairman of Siemens in Germany (Christian also lived/worked in Buffalo and Erie years ago). All of them are working hard to help Ukraine continue to resist and survive, keep the lights and heat on during the war, and rebuild afterward. A good, solid group.
While everyone is glad there are peace talks in the works, some concerns were expressed about how these might end up. I told them that I had faith that things will go the right way and a “fair” peace will be achieved. That’s clearly the hope everyone has.
Signal Group Chat Leak
You know I try to stay out of politics with Berlin’s Wall (and will), but the recent Signal incident reminds me of something Prof G/Scott Galloway always says: “It’s not the f-up that gets you, it is your response to the f’up.” I agree.
To me, how much easier/smarter would it have been for the folks in this group to say, “Sorry. Our mistake. Lesson learned. Won’t happen again,” and then just STFU?
Trying to deny this was wrong, or to say it was not classified, makes no sense to me. It’s like getting caught by your Mom with your hands and face covered in chocolate and saying, “It wasn’t me who ate that quart of chocolate ice cream.” I don’t get it.
Everyone makes mistakes. Owning them, learning from them, apologizing for them is pretty acceptable for most people (not all–I know). But since everyone is human, and since humans are imperfect, it seems like it would have been a much smarter way to go (and maybe even Jeffrey Goldberg would not then have come up with the actual types of missiles to use and times of launches for the fighter jets that were on that chain? Maybe he still would have, but maybe not).
There is an old saying, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.” You think these folks would know that.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Lastly, I’ve been playing around with CHAT GPT since it came out last fall. AI is still an “infant” but will soon become a toddler and then a teen and on and on. Learning very fast and you can already tell that the world will change.
I’m not an IT guy (just the opposite, as the LP IT team will rapidly attest 🤪), but I have “played” with IT from the very beginning. I owned a Kaypro back in the ’70s. The first “portable/luggable” computer ever. (64k was its maximum disk capacity). (I know–what’s a disk? Hahahaha). But I had one.
And when I was driving a truck, I was one of the first to use beepers. And then cell phones and Blackberries (I know, what’s a blackberry?). That is why my cell number is 3333. You could actually choose your own number back then. And now AI.
I liken it to driving a car. I can drive really well, but I can’t fix an engine, can’t change spark plugs (I know–what are spark plugs? 🤪) and usually can’t even figure out how to open the hood. But I can drive a car.
Our good friend and former colleague, Moustafa Elhadary, works for OpenAI, which created CHAPGPT. He told me about a new image creator they’ve come out with. He made this to show me.
Pretty cool, huh?
And then told me to make something, so I made this cartoon out of this picture of my grandson, Ernie. Took less than a minute (and even I could do it! 😉). Pretty cool.
Here is a podcast I was recently on. Honestly, I have not/won’t listen to it myself (for you Seinfeld fans, think of George having to listen to “Risk Management” on audio books 🤪), but hopefully it’s ok.
Warning, it’s long (but not Joe Rogan or Lex Fridman long).
Thanks, Andrew Silver, for a fun time and the opportunity to tell some LP stories.
I have not been to DC this often since back in the 60’s when we used to go down there to demonstrate as a student radical 🤪.
But now that I am older, wiser, and more mature (?) I hope to have a slightly different impact on things – or at least do it in a better manner 😉
I flew up Tuesday to attend part of the Ukraine Week activities. By luck, I got to sit next to RFK Jr, who was flying up from Florida after being approved by the Senate committee to be voted on as the next US Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
I pretty much left him alone, but we chatted about a few things. He was very gracious and, I think, appreciated that I didn’t ask for a selfie hahahahaha. We talked about all the “theater” today in politics, and I mentioned that I had read the book “Thirteen Days in October” about the Cuban missile crisis when his Dad and Uncle (John F. Kennedy) had to navigate that. How “real” it was for them. It’s an incredible story and based, in fact, on his Dad’s diary from those days. Worth reading.
In the morning, Steve Scully and I visited the US Senate office of PA Senator Dave McCormick (we visited the other US Senator–John Fetterman’s office, my last time there a few weeks ago). I’ve met Dave a couple of times, and his staff knows Steve from his long career in DC. Their office is tucked away in the basement (he just got elected), so it was cozy. Not the office I’m sure he had up in Westport, CT when he ran Bridgewater 😉. But where he will hopefully get some good things done.
At the event (view the daily recap here), there was a prayer breakfast that I missed where Vice President JD Vance spoke, along with Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. My “main event” was the session of the US-Ukraine Business Council. Now, I’m not really good at these kind of events, but luckily for me, my son Derek is, and everyone there knows him and thinks the world of him. So the opening of every conversation with all the “bigwigs” there starts with, “Oh, you must be Derek’s Dad. Great to meet you. I think the world of him”. Easy icebreaker for me 🤪
At the Biz Council, lots of high-end folks from Ukraine, US industry, and the government. Sentiment was fairly optimistic that the Trump Admin is working hard to end the war and ensure Ukraine gets a fair deal out of any settlement. Most everyone there thought that would be the case. And EVERYONE there stood in awe at the strength, courage, and innovation of the Ukrainian people and what the future can hold for them once this war ends.
I met some very interesting people, which will lead to new connections and opportunities for LP to continue supporting Ukraine’s war efforts and reconstruction. A worthwhile few days.
I know most all of you know about how we have been leading the way in supporting Ukraine’s valiant fight and their people, reflected in this cool tag we have been using:
We are part of the Global G7 Ukraine Advisory Council, finding ways to help Ukraine’s energy needs and eventual reconstruction.
Just like we were the company that brought the first freight aircraft into the US after 9/11 to support GE’s locomotive schedule (not going to let the terrorists stop the US economy), and how we sent people down to New Orleans the day after Hurricane Katrina hit, and a million other times we have led the way forward for our customers.
Well, today (I can’t lie, I’m kind of mourning the Bills loss yesterday), I was reflecting on “better” things, so I asked Open AI’s CHATGPT a question. The answer surprised me and made me smile. AI is pretty smart 😉
I guess it’s safe to say that we’ve been ahead of the crowd from the very beginning 😉
