New York’s docks were handling half as much domestic cargo in the early 1950s as they had been in the depressed 1930s.
In thirty years, no one had invested significant money in coastal shipping.
In 1937, a trucker got frustrated waiting for his cargo to be unloaded. He later sold his company for $1.1 billion.
Here’s the story of how Malcom McLean made a billion dollars and which startup could be following in his footsteps. (Inspired by our episode with @laurabehrenswu)
New York’s docks were handling half as much domestic cargo in the early 1950s as they had been in the depressed 1930s.
In thirty years, no one had invested significant money in coastal shipping.
As McLean found out, loading ships was difficult and slow.
A truck or train would deliver items to the port. Each item was unloaded separately, recorded, and carried to storage.
When a ship was ready, each item was taken from storage, counted again, and hauled on-board.
“A four-thousand-mile voyage for a shipment might consume 50 percent of its costs in covering just the two ten-mile movements through two ports.”
Foreigners were barred from operating domestically. Cartels ran international routes. And gov. subsidies eased the pain of labor costs.
Reshaping the industry needed an outsider.
Enter Malcolm McLean.
But he worried that domestic shipping lines would undercut his business. Highway traffic was getting worse and shipping costs were falling as the government gave away war-surplus ships for next to nothing.
Why not bypass traffic by driving truck trailers onto ships?
Ships would then move trailers between North Carolina, New York City, and Rhode Island, circumventing traffic jams at a time when expressways were few and far between.
The wheels beneath each trailer would waste precious space. Pondering that problem, McLean came up with a more radical idea.
Leave the wheels and chassis, load the container. That would reduce the space each trailer needed by one-third.
The Interstate Commission said no. He couldn't own both a shipping and trucking company.
McLean chose shipping.
In 1955, he made $6 million ($60m today) on the sale of McLean Trucking.
On April 26, 1956, 100 dignitaries watched a purpose-built crane place a container on the Ideal-X every seven minutes. The ship was loaded in less than eight hours and set sail the same day.
Loading loose cargo on a medium-size cargo ship cost $5.83 per ton in 1956. McLean’s experts pegged the cost of loading the Ideal-X at $0.15 per ton.
With numbers like that, the container had a future.
McLean wasn’t the first to suggest containerization. But he was the first to understand that the future of shipping required not just a metal box but an entirely new way of handling freight.
Today, the US shipping industry alone is worth $700bn.
Laura Behrens Wu, this week’s FFG guest, is doing the same. She’s making shipping easier in the internet age.
McLean 2.0? Listen to find out:
https://t.co/vP8POjAEfb
If you’re struggling for business ideas, what problem do you face that you’re sure other people struggle with too?
Start there. Solve that problem. As Laura shows, you may find it’s a huge market.
It pairs well with @patrick_oshag and @LauraBehrensWu's conversation about Shippo and how to build a digital business in the physical world of shipping.
https://t.co/zCZWTiFOsj
More from History
This is THEFT!
Indians had Algebra BEFORE Mμslim prophet & religion was even born.
Here is Bakhshali Manuscript dating back to 3rd century CE. It is an Algebraic treatise. Have you anything like this from the Arabian desert? No, you simply plagiarized Algebra from Indians! https://t.co/cWXRNYMgDt
The Bakhshali manuscript, which has been carbon dated to 3rd century CE, is an ancient Hindu treatise on Arithmetic and Algebra.
The Algebraic problems deal with simultaneous equations, quadratic equations, arithmetic
geometric progressions & quadratic indeterminate equations.
Bakhshali isn't earliest Indian Algebraic treatise. Early Algebra is found in Shulba Sutras dating back to at least 800 BC. Traditional Algebra reached its pinnacle in the works of Aryabhata & Bhaskara.
What makes Bakhshali special is it offers mathematical proof to its theories
It is surprising to see that even after the ancient Indian algebraic treatise has been carbon dated to 3rd century CE by Oxford, they persist with "oh we invented Algebra. It is Halal".
A brief examination of the origins of "Halal Algebra" follows
https://t.co/eFIZ98FDrI
The earliest work of "Arabic Algebra" is the "Al-Kitāb Al-Jabr wal-muqābala" by Al Khwarizmi. The term "Algebra" comes from this book ("Al Jabr").
Before writing his treatise, Al Khwarizmi visited India. His book is a plagiarism from Indian Mathematics and an obvious one at that
Indians had Algebra BEFORE Mμslim prophet & religion was even born.
Here is Bakhshali Manuscript dating back to 3rd century CE. It is an Algebraic treatise. Have you anything like this from the Arabian desert? No, you simply plagiarized Algebra from Indians! https://t.co/cWXRNYMgDt
Muslims gave the world Algebra, so here's a "halal" way to say Merry Christmas to our Christian friends :)#MerryChristmas2020 pic.twitter.com/aLXEw2K2I1
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) December 25, 2020
The Bakhshali manuscript, which has been carbon dated to 3rd century CE, is an ancient Hindu treatise on Arithmetic and Algebra.
The Algebraic problems deal with simultaneous equations, quadratic equations, arithmetic
geometric progressions & quadratic indeterminate equations.
Bakhshali isn't earliest Indian Algebraic treatise. Early Algebra is found in Shulba Sutras dating back to at least 800 BC. Traditional Algebra reached its pinnacle in the works of Aryabhata & Bhaskara.
What makes Bakhshali special is it offers mathematical proof to its theories
It is surprising to see that even after the ancient Indian algebraic treatise has been carbon dated to 3rd century CE by Oxford, they persist with "oh we invented Algebra. It is Halal".
A brief examination of the origins of "Halal Algebra" follows
https://t.co/eFIZ98FDrI
The earliest work of "Arabic Algebra" is the "Al-Kitāb Al-Jabr wal-muqābala" by Al Khwarizmi. The term "Algebra" comes from this book ("Al Jabr").
Before writing his treatise, Al Khwarizmi visited India. His book is a plagiarism from Indian Mathematics and an obvious one at that
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@EricTopol @NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad B.1.1.7 reveals clearly that SARS-CoV-2 is reverting to its original pre-outbreak condition, i.e. adapted to transgenic hACE2 mice (either Baric's BALB/c ones or others used at WIV labs during chimeric bat coronavirus experiments aimed at developing a pan betacoronavirus vaccine)
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad 1. From Day 1, SARS-COV-2 was very well adapted to humans .....and transgenic hACE2 Mice
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad 2. High Probability of serial passaging in Transgenic Mice expressing hACE2 in genesis of SARS-COV-2
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, ... found to date in mouse-adapted SARS-CoV2 and is also seen in ferret infections.
https://t.co/9Z4oJmkcKj
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad We adapted a clinical isolate of SARS-CoV-2 by serial passaging in the ... Thus, this mouse-adapted strain and associated challenge model should be ... (B) SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA loads in mouse lung homogenates at P0 to P6.
https://t.co/I90OOCJg7o
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad 1. From Day 1, SARS-COV-2 was very well adapted to humans .....and transgenic hACE2 Mice
1. From Day 1, SARS-COV-2 was very well adapted to humans .....and transgenic hACE2 Mice
— Billy Bostickson \U0001f3f4\U0001f441&\U0001f441 \U0001f193 (@BillyBostickson) January 30, 2021
"we generated a mouse model expressing hACE2 by using CRISPR/Cas9 knockin technology. In comparison with wild-type C57BL/6 mice, both young & aged hACE2 mice sustained high viral loads... pic.twitter.com/j94XtSkscj
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad 2. High Probability of serial passaging in Transgenic Mice expressing hACE2 in genesis of SARS-COV-2
1. High Probability of serial passaging in Transgenic Mice expressing hACE2 in genesis of SARS-COV-2!
— Billy Bostickson \U0001f3f4\U0001f441&\U0001f441 \U0001f193 (@BillyBostickson) January 2, 2021
2 papers:
Human\u2013viral molecular mimicryhttps://t.co/irfH0Zgrve
Molecular Mimicryhttps://t.co/yLQoUtfS6s https://t.co/lsCv2iMEQz
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, ... found to date in mouse-adapted SARS-CoV2 and is also seen in ferret infections.
https://t.co/9Z4oJmkcKj
@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad We adapted a clinical isolate of SARS-CoV-2 by serial passaging in the ... Thus, this mouse-adapted strain and associated challenge model should be ... (B) SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA loads in mouse lung homogenates at P0 to P6.
https://t.co/I90OOCJg7o
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
If everyone was holding bitcoin on the old x86 in their parents basement, we would be finding a price bottom. The problem is the risk is all pooled at a few brokerages and a network of rotten exchanges with counter party risk that makes AIG circa 2008 look like a good credit.
— Greg Wester (@gwestr) November 25, 2018
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
