The Latest in Logistics Tech š
Better airports, Uber, Uber, Uber, a bunch of new funding + the Dynamo Take!
First up, better airports:
āOh frick. My flight landed late. Now Iāve gotta run to make my layover. Where is the gate?? Why is this man walking so slow??? Should I take the train or run there??? UGH! Now I missed my flight! Where are my bags going to end up?Why did I even decide to come on this trip? So what! My kid is graduating college! BIG DEAL!ā
Gatwick Airport is using 2000 beacons and an app to help eliminate mental breakdowns like that from happening at airports. #HumanLogistics
From Ford to Uber and back to Ford:
Ford has a new CEO and a bunch of other people filling new roles, but one new hire (well new-ish) in particular I want to note is Sherif Marakby. Sherif Marakby worked at Ford for 25 years, and then left to work at Uber, but could only stomach a year there, and so now heās back at Ford in the newly created position of VP of Autonomous Vehicles and Electrification. (Electrification??? Thatās terrifying.) The auto industry is seeing a lot of major shifts in roles and partnerships right now as everyone competes to do autonomous best. Or at least first. Or at least first after Tesla.
Speaking of people mass-exiting Uber:
Uberās general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa just left the company. Jim Callaghan apparently left for personal reasons. That personal reason may or may not be that Uber was crushing his spirit and depleting him of his life force. But thatās only a guess.
Speaking of Uber effing everything up:
Uber made an oopsie that cost NY drivers tens of millions of dollars by taking too much of a cut from driversā figures by including state taxes in their calculations, when it should be doing so on a pretax figure. This isnāt as simple as paying that money back, though. The bigger question here is should those taxes be placed on drivers in the first place. Should Uber be taking on the burden of these taxes? Uber would argue no, but Uber also kinda argued that women shouldnāt whine so much about sexual harassment. Soā¦
Speaking of Uber trying to right some wrongs:
Last week, a judge told Uber to get tough with Anthony Levandowski (the engineer in the middle of this Waymo/ Uber mess) by exerting its contractual right to force him with the threat of termination to hand over any documents he stole from Google or to officially deny the allegations. Up until this point, Levandowski has been pleading the fifth because thatās a thing that I think most innocent people do, yeah?
Please, God. News about anything other than Uberā¦
Notable Logistics Tech Funding:
- Our friends at Shipamax raised 2.5 million to bring that old tired bulk shipping industry into modern times using cloud software.
- Trove has raised 8 million to pack, move, store and return your storage using an app and cheap, sketchy warehouse space:
- SoftBank has put $100 million into 99- another ride sharing app Iāve never heard of.
- Stae raised $1.5 million to help cities make those sad old spreadsheets useful.
- Bulletin has raised $2.2 million to change how brick-and-mortar works.
Other Logistics Tech Deals
The Dynamo Take with Santosh Sankar:
This week in a quick 6 minute podcast, Santosh shares his thoughts on Mark Fields leaving Ford, the Waymo + Lyft + GM triad, and how the digitization of freight forwarding and shipping is interacting with the more human-centric customer service aspects of the industry.
Suggested Reading
Thanks for reading! See you next week!
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