4 ms·

Flexport were advertising for roles on HN a few months ago. I'm sure they come up regularly for roles?

• toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Bit of shake up going on. Their billionaire founder is coming back into a CEO role, cleaned house at the top (of folks that came in from Amazon), and after rescinding job offers a month ago and 20% layoffs 9 months ago, they're now trimming another 20%. Internet rando analysis: Flexport most likely surfed the COVID wave of shipping, but the new macro makes the go forward much more challenging with aggregate demand declining (you can see this in both marine and over the road shipping volume declining). Boom time->war time transition as an org, hit by both rapidly rising interest rates (cost of capital, equity valuations) at the same time as volume declines precipitously. https://www.flexport.com/research/post-covid/ https://www.flexport.com/research/post-covid/ https://www.flexport.com/research/after-the-boom-evolving-e-commerce-supply-chains/ https://www.flexport.com/research/after-the-boom-evolving-e-... https://www.flexport.com/blog/how-long-will-covid-impact-last-a-new-index-predicts-shifts-in-goods-demand/ https://www.flexport.com/blog/how-long-will-covid-impact-las... https://www.freightos.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FBX-Ocean-Container-Spot-Rates-During-the-Pandemic.png https://www.freightos.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FBX-Oce... https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/economy-is-in-a-freight-recession-with-china-trade-heading-lower.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/economy-is-in-a-freight-rece... https://www.ccjdigital.com/economic-trends/article/15543395/freight-shipments-spending-dropping https://www.ccjdigital.com/economic-trends/article/15543395/... https://talkbusiness.net/2023/02/u-s-freight-volumes-fall-to-lowest-levels-in-9-years/ https://talkbusiness.net/2023/02/u-s-freight-volumes-fall-to... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=flexport&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  • addicted 3y ago
    The major red flag to me appears to be the fact that they couldn’t beat Amazon to a logistics contract with Shopify. It seems a lot of these actions followed that failure.
    • MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      Amazon and Walmart should both be able to dominate Flexport in logistics with ease. It's the foundation of what they do.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • gumby 3y ago
        But is it worth it to them? Its interesting to think if or if not the margin might be so low on that part of the business that it’s worth doing in house (because failure would cost them more) but not worth doing for the competition. Clearly the opposite was the case with AWS, but was that clear at the time? I can’t remember, if I even knew at the time.
      • addicted 3y ago
        Right, but if as an independent logistics company you cannot beat Amazon for a contract with a company which has basically defined itself in opposition to Amazon, is there even a reason to exist as a company?
• wnevets 3y ago
  My first thought as well, it seemed like they were constantly posting on HN for open roles.