The $3.5M Amazon Ghost Trailer Scam (And Why Peak Season Started Early)

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0:57Malcolm Harris: What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? I'm your host, Malcolm Harris. What's up? What's happening? How are we doing, man? It's good to see each and every single one of you all, wherever you're getting this podcast. I really appreciate it. It kind of got a sneeze. I wanted it to go away. Okay, it went away. All right, so what's up? Welcome to What the Truck. Again, Malcolm Harris. I'm going to be joined very soon by my partner in crime, the dude, Michael Vincent. But it's a Friday edition of the show, the fastest 45 minutes in freight. And we've got some great stuff on the way for you guys because we've got two great guests as we head into the weekend.

1:31Malcolm Harris: Some headlines to tackle and much more. Speaking of guests, let's get to on deck and see who we are talking to today. Our first guest is going to be none other than the man, Adam Kahn. He is in the mix with me. He is a chief business development officer at Netrodine. Love the team at Netrodine. He's joining us to talk about the quest for zero. We've gotten really good at bragging about 50, 70, and even 80 % fewer accidents. But Adam, he is arguing we may be measuring the wrong thing. We're going to get into what zero actually means, why the last 20 % preventable accidents is the hardest to eliminate, and how fleets can bring drivers into the conversation so safety technology feels like protection and not surveillance.

2:12Malcolm Harris: And then also ending the show with me, he is Silky Smooth. Ari Silky is going to be in the mix with me. He is the chief operating officer at TEN10. He is joining us to break down why this peak season is coming a little bit early. Retailers are pulling imports forward by four to six weeks. Trailer orders nearly doubled year over year. And they are adding 3 ,000 new drive-ins to push its fleet past 85 ,000 trailers. Holy smokes. We're going to dig into whether the trailer is the next bottleneck, what a longer peak does to equipment planning and what fleet managers should lock down before q4 gets any deeper so i got the a's with me i got ari i got adam and i got the dude michael vincent mike what's up boy what's going on man listen how you doing i've been here the whole time man watching you bro you got that small head shirt on i feel like i'm loud i'm sorry that was bad.

3:16Malcolm Harris: That was a bad laugh. I sound like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Come on, be a professional. Don't be the real you out here. I love you, brother. I love you, too, brother. My tribe tied it up last night, bro. Listen. Listen. The White Sox, they look okay. Do not enable this man, guys. Don't enable him by putting that on the screen. The White Sox look shook right now, to say the least. They look like they're a team filled with a bunch of rookies. And listen, I need a – They didn't look that way for two nights in Cleveland. They looked like they knew what the hell we're doing. I think they like adversity or something like that.

3:55Malcolm Harris: It's just like close out the series. Like what are y 'all doing? Like it's crazy. Mayor Kami is swinging at God knows what. It feels like my man Colson Montgomery. He can't find it either. Miguel Vargas. It's a lot of – that lineup is really going to be good. I just think they might need this one lesson in order to come back stronger, better, faster, like Dab Punk said. Who knows? Who knows, man? It's baseball. It's sports. That's why they play the games, bro. Shout out to Tristan, man. His Dodgers sent a message. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. We got the best pitching matchup. Sorry about that, Braves.

4:37Malcolm Harris: Yeah. We got the best pitching matchup tonight. What you got? the the milwaukee brewers taking on the dodgers so you got school ball as well as uh jm on the mount it's it's gonna be this game might be zero zero with 15 innings man yeah you know i don't know i mean what uh what school balls uh like his return to detroit was didn't he get knocked around pretty good he got knocked for sure but like i just i think guys like him uh and jm they they They both like lock in whenever it's kind of like us. Dude's a beast. Dude's a beast. It could be. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, you never know.

5:14I mean, that's why they play those games. You know what I'm saying? It's, I don't know.

5:19Malcolm Harris: Yeah. I know he's the best in the world, but Shohei Otani has been abysmal this postseason. Like really, really, really bad. Like I think he maybe has three hits. And they still winning. And they're still winning. And just acting like nothing. It's crazy. Just wait till he comes out of that slump. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be game over for anybody. It's game over here because, again, it's going to be a great show, and it would not be possible without our sponsors. I'm talking about one and only. It's truckstop.com, ladies and gentlemen. Truckstop.com is bringing you guys What the Truck for the month of October.

5:55Malcolm Harris: For more than 30 years, truckstop.com has helped carriers and brokers move more freight profitably. It's an all-in-one freight platform covering load matching, compliance, and payments. Carriers Meet AVA, Truck Stops Voice Assistant inside truckstops.com go app. All right. You can search the live load board, check rates, and get patched through to the broker, all without taking your eyes off the road. It is included with the load board advance and pro at no extra cost. And then brokers, truckstop.com's broker assistant and risk factor helps you fill capacity and spot carrier risk before it even becomes a problem.

6:32Malcolm Harris: You can learn more and get started right now at truckstop.com. So, Colleen, the rest of the team, thank you guys so much for all that you all do to support us here at What The Truck. And in just a little over 20 days, it is the biggest party in freight. I'm talking about the future of Freight Festival. All right. This is going to be the Mac Daddy of them all. All right. The show of all shows. All right. This is going to be a fun one. We got a three-day event, and it is going to be fantastic. Starting with day zero on the 26th. We'll talk about those events here in a moment, but you're going to have, of course, day one as well as day two.

7:11Malcolm Harris: Future Freight Festival is going to be amazing. We still have limited availability. I know there's been a lot of promo codes going out there on different shows. So right now, look on our website for all of those promo codes, but we still have one. It is Take 20. You can take 20 % off of admission and use that code to be able to come in to the biggest event of the year. It's here in Chattanooga, Tennessee at The Signal, one of the best venues in the Southeast. It is incredible. And we do it a little differently. There's going to be outside areas for demos. There's going to be stages outside. There's going to be entertainment.

7:47Malcolm Harris: You'll probably see me and Dale Prax having a conversation like we just were. We might even see some live music. You'll see that guy, Charles Gracie, as well as Matthew Leffler, which you're going to see Matthew Leffler here in a couple of hours on Freight Waves today. I'm excited to talk with him. But in the meantime, make sure that you guys are taking full advantage of this promo code. Take 20. You can take 20 % off. See some Chattanooga whiskey in the mix. It is going to be thebomb.com. All right. So with that being said, October 27th and the 28th, tickets are on sale now. That is the future of Freight Festival here in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee.

8:24Malcolm Harris: The scenic city, brother. The scenic city. It is. It is a scenic city. There is no doubt about it. It is indeed. There's no doubt about it. If you're there and you got a chance, just take, I don't know, maybe, what would it take, 20 minutes? Go up to Sunset Rock, check it out, and then come back down for the party. I like this stuff. I like this stuff. Don't regret it. You know what I'm saying? I'm picking up what you're putting down. You know what I'm saying? Or go out to the jump park up there and watch some people jump off there with their hand gliders and stuff, man. That'll make your stomach just go bull.

8:59Malcolm Harris: We need to put Cody out there. I don't think Izzy with his shoulder can do that quite yet, but we'll put Cody out there. You think he'll jump off that rock? Cody? Yeah. For any dollar amount, I think Cody would do anything. That's not even an indictment on his character. I just think the boy likes some cash from money paper, man that's just what is that is that what it is i mean he's an opportunity he he's he's he's a real real hustler real hustler i look i got mad respect i got he said he got kids he got kids nah he's not doing it he's got kids he's got kids well that's why they need them kids need new shoes bro that rock well he might do it because he does have kids so yeah he's doing it for the family man they need some shoes brother let's do it for y 'all man he's buying some hot he's buying some hot tennis shoes they 120 percent of retail those those tennis shoes i was on that shipment the other day yeah that's right them them nike the new bnsf nikes the bnsf nikes is a that's top tier michael vincent ism right there i mean that's that's some of your best work it is that's some down f3 real quick let's look at this and see what you guys uh yeah yeah real quick real quick it's just three days in totality so y 'all can see the exact lineup all right so day zero all right technically is going to be on the 26th all right what you're going to have supply chain day at f3 the freight brokerage compliance symposium that is going to be off the chain and then the f3 awards dinner so with this all right we're going to have the freight tech 100 of course a couple of other awards that are going to be announced i'm more than certain i will be in the mix at that awards dinner to be able to uh do it up the only way we know how to here at freight waves and then from there we're going to have the official opening of the future freight festival taking place on october 27th that is going to be off the chain and then of course closing it out with day two still a lot to cover on day two so make sure you guys stay enjoy the city there's going to be a lot of different food restaurants drinks uh some entertainment happening uh at the conclusion of day one is going to be phenomenal so that's your week at a glance when it comes to f3 and what you're getting out of your ticket of admission all right i i would tell you something here yes sir all right go across the street go to clumpy's get the chattanooga whiskey uh what is a chattanooga whiskey maple whiskey uh ice cream dude okay you really do this huh oh yeah hell yeah You really do this.

11:31Malcolm Harris: That is a great recommendation. I want to double down on that. That is a really good ice cream. I'm not even an ice cream guy. Oh, no, it's badass. It's fantastic. Get it in there fresh waffle cones. Klumpy's kicks ass. It's right there on the corner, man. It is. It is. There's nothing like a boozy tour or whatever tasting at Chattanooga Whiskey. And then you go to stir, right? Get you something to eat. And then you double back for the ice cream. and then you go home, preferably in an Uber. Don't, you know, do anything I would do. They got that big-ass Christmas tree in the terminal right next to Stir at that time?

12:12No, it's early. It's early by like two weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty cool. Going there in a rotunda, that thing's huge. Are y 'all serious? Hey, Chad, it's awesome, man. Go to F3, man. It kicks ass. I'm telling you, man. And tell me, just tell me, go buy that lizard. Who does it smell like? Look, if it doesn't smell, then it's Craig because that man is not wearing cologne. You know him, right? I mean, that dude, you know what I'm saying? I made a mistake once at Freightways putting like one of those little Febreze things in a light socket. I almost got fired. Dude does not like, you know what I'm saying?

12:48Problem was I turned it upside down and all oil leaked out and it stuck up the whole place. Oh, God. Oh, God. It's awful.

12:55Malcolm Harris: You know, Nike took you up on your offer, and they want to officially give you some royalties. Yeah, man, we got the BNSF Nikes officially on deck. Good to see you, Cody Collins. We got the Nikes ready to go. Are those railways? Yeah, those are the new BNSF Railway Nikes. The BNSF Ones, man. Shout out to Cody and the gang back there in real time giving us the heat that we need on our feet, man. I love it. That is fantastic. I love it. I love it. Well, let's talk about some fraud. Let's talk about somebody going to prison. That sound good to you? Why not? It's Friday. Somebody going to prison. Somebody's going to jail.

13:38Malcolm Harris: Let's go to Connecticut. Let's kick it off there, all right? Don't do it in Tennessee. They don't know how to get that needle in your arm, man. Texas did it. I mean, holy crap. That was great. You see that shit? Buddy. Oh, my goodness. She's alive. What do you do? They said her arm is like... I don't even know what adjective I just used. I think it was... Yeah. Yeah. Dude, let's get off that topic. I'm sorry I brought that up. No, you're fine. You're fine. Let's get out of that rabbit hole. That's nasty shit. Yeah, that's... What are we talking about? What are we talking about? We talking about Amazon here?

14:13Malcolm Harris: We're going to talk about a Connecticut man and an Amazon case. All right, because somebody is officially going to jail. You're going to jail? A Connecticut man will spend two years in federal prison after defrauding Amazon through its trucking network. Amir Nazir, what a name. I mean, that is just great for product placement. Amir Nazir, 25. He registered a cause of registration of 23 trucking businesses with Amazon Logistics. Federal prosecutors linked those accounts to more than 1 ,000 trailer movements that never occurred. seems to be a common theme that people think they can get one over on Amazon because they're so big.

14:49Malcolm Harris: Not so fast, my friend. That's what a legendary guy once said. The scheme ultimately costed Amazon more than$3.5 million. The U.S. District Judge Kerry A. Dually sentenced the Connecticut resident on Wednesday in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Nazir received a 24-month sentence behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release. The court also ordered for him to pay an estimated$3.5 million in restitution. He must report to prison by November 12th. He's got a report. That's crazy. My thoughts to you, my questions rather to you is that, for one, why do people keep doing this stuff? Number two, do people think they can get away with this?

15:38Malcolm Harris: And the reporting thing is kind of weird. Why would he not like, are they just giving him like a red shirt month, a last month of freedom? I mean, why is there a delayed entry into federal prison? Is it because it's a nonviolent offense? Well, OK, look, one, they're doing it because they think they can get away with it. So there's your first two questions. OK, OK, OK. They don't have anything. They don't have anything else to do. Nobody's doing it because they don't think they can get away with it. You know what I'm saying? Well, I take that. I take that back. I take that back because there are people who get institutionalized, come out and commit the crime to get back in.

16:13There were 100 % is a large percentage of people who do that. Yeah. Right. Cause they don't know what to do outside. They got nothing else they can do. Right. That's, that's why the reporting thing, I think that's a great question. We should start a poll. Well, if you had to report to prison in a month, what's going down, what's going down for that month? You know what I'm saying?

16:34Malcolm Harris: Bro. I mean, that is a crazy scenario in a life to live. It's like, yo, I got a report in a month. Like, he can't travel. I'm sure his passport's been surrendered. Yeah, like I'm calling you, Malcolm. Say, hey, man, I got a month. We going out tonight. And you're like, nah, I'm tired. What do you mean you're tired? You could be tired when I'm in prison for the next three years. We're going out. Do you know how many chicken wings I would stuff into my body, bro? I would eat probably 300 wings a week just to feel something. Look, I got a couple of things on this, right? Okay. On this, okay? One, we got a guest who might be intimately knowledgeable about this, okay?

17:20Okay. I'm just saying, because the timelines line up. This went down, I think, or was discovered right near the end of his career at Amazon

17:31Malcolm Harris: when he left Amazon. I think Ari, I think. So he may have some good, good insight on what's going down here. But as long as we're as long as we're talking about, you know, freight theft that happened eight years ago and doesn't matter anymore. Let's talk about one. I pulled up a couple of the oldest ones. So I asked, what are the oldest freight theft occurrences and what were the sentences? Right. So there was a guy, Amura, Amura, not, and I don't know, I guess he's not going to be alive. He's not alive to get upset if I, if I. But he, so he was a, he was a, a, a boat man or a, a, a carrier in Babylon.

18:16So in 545 BC, he was hired to carry a boatload of dates from the countryside to Babylon. Part of the cargo went missing. He claimed that he didn't embezzle it, but he was convicted. They nailed him. Like literally or figuratively? No, they didn't literally nail him, but they caught him. They brought the case. The carrier or the BCO brought him to justice. Do you know what? 40 kourus of dates is approximately 7 ,000 liters of dates. I didn't know you measured dates in liters, but apparently you do. A kouru? A kouru. 40 kourus of dates is what he stole, or about 8 % of the cargo. And his sentence by five judges of the royal court of Babylon in 545 B.C.

19:14And the king Nabonidus. It was not Nebuchadnezzar. It was Nabonidus. Nabonidas, he had to replace the dates. That's it. So they threw him up a tree and made him pick 40 liters of dates. Okay.

19:28Malcolm Harris: Okay. That is your historical facts from Michael Vincent. Mike, you're really one of the most unintentionally funniest human beings on earth. Because that line about Nebuchadnezzar just made me almost spit out my water. It wasn't quite that old, but it was 545 BC. So it was, you know, they've been stealing freight off cargo ships for a long time. We haven't stopped them. Yeah. We haven't stopped them at all. More on that one, of course, you can read right now on FreightWaves.com. I want to transition to this next one from Stuart. Been a while since we covered something from Stuart. Saw this one yesterday.

20:01Malcolm Harris: Stu is in the mix. Let's talk a little Samsung action, all right? So with this one, Samsung Electronics America is seeking at least$186 million from CMA, CGM, in a Federal Maritime Commission complaint, alleging the ocean carrier imposed unlawful container charges and failed to fulfill inland transportation commitments. All right, the dispute centers on, quote-unquote, store door shipments, under which CMA agreed to transport Samsung's containers from overseas origins through U.S. ports to designated inland destination. Samsung's argument is that the carrier pass-along cost arising from delays in transportation it was responsible for arranging while requiring the electronics company to take over parts of the delivery process.

20:46Malcolm Harris: All right, so CMA. They began handling Samsung containers under store door bills of lading in late January 2020. Samsung alleges that beginning around the middle of that year, the carrier repeatedly failed to move the containers properly from marine and intermodal terminals and deliver them to their inland destination. Samsung also says it paid more than$121 ,000 in demerge detention and associated charges, including more than$26 ,000 individual demerge charges. excuse me these are not dollar amounts not 121 000 this is 121 000 individual demerge detention and associated charges and then an individual 26 000 i wanted to really make that clear 26 000 individual demerge charges and 94 000 detention type charges the company alleges the bills resulted from delays outside of its control all right this is something that bro So when I look at it like that and you break the numbers down like that, I think Samsung might be valid here, but maybe I'm speaking out of turn.

21:52No, no, no. The whole, no, no, no. Yeah, no, they're 100 % valid. Okay. And I'm glad you rectified that because one freaking container

22:04actually accrued$121 ,000.

22:06Malcolm Harris: Yeah, yeah. The way it looked on the article, I was like, no, this is individualized. I was going to say, those are charges, not dollars. One container did that. It was like the most expensive container. But it's in the article. You find it. It's atrocious. Yeah, bro. And if you're not on Samsung's side, then I'm not buying you whiskey at Chattanooga Whiskey. It's not. Nah. I'm not going to do it. And if I had two or three, I'd probably argue with you very loudly. Which I've been known to do. But listen. Listen. What's up? I screamed about this as many others did during COVID, man. The carriers made bank during COVID for many reasons.

22:53Once they were gouging the shit out of everybody on the rates because they finally figured out how to make money after centuries of losing money. Because it's the worst profitable industry that there is. They constantly lose money. They made money and gouged the hell out of everybody. And then they charged them for stuff that was outside of the people's control. You can't deliver my container. Therefore, I'm paying you for demurrage. I mean, that's essentially what happened. And look, this$186 million, it's peanuts, bro. It's peanuts. I mean, for Samsung, it's a bunch. But overall,$8.9 billion in demurrage and attention was charged.

23:40Malcolm Harris: in just two years because of this this is crazy when you look at the individual like broken down charges that's why i wanted to make that distinction now let me ask though is it too late is it too late six years ago you know yeah i don't know man that's leffler dude that's you got to talk to leffler about that you talk to him later today man he's he's a guy i don't know i was gonna look that up uh but i don't know i think there's all kinds of funky things in the law of when you you have certain amount of time to claim it and blah blah blah that type of stuff so i I would think that the lawyers at Samsung are smart enough to know whether they can claim this or not.

24:13Right. I'm very intrigued. I'm very intrigued. But that's a Matthew Leffler deal. But just think of this, man. From 2020, from the second quarter of 2020, when shit started going awry, right, to the first quarter of 2022, the amount of demerge build grew 900%. Yeah. Yeah. That's insane. That's enough to tell you that. It wasn't that nobody could take this stuff. They couldn't get it out of the ports. And now you're going to legitimately charge Malcolm Harris$200 ,000 because you can't find his container in the port. And there's 128 ships in San Pedro Harbor. And there's a line all the way to freaking Utah of empty containers, dredge companies trying to get in.

25:05Come on, man.

25:05Malcolm Harris: and people made people made fun of excuse me not made fun rather how do i want to say this they they took advantage of the situation during covid not only on the brokerage side but on the carry side specifically too with those charges like the customers really got the raw end of it and i got rides let's name let's name names let's name names yang min one msc maersk hmm Evergreen, Costco, CMA, CGM, right? $15.4 billion in demurrage. Just those carriers. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Yeah, you should. We can talk international all day for more on this one. It's a really, really interesting read from Stewart, and I'm sure we'll break this down in totality with Matthew Leffler at some point, so stick around for this.

25:59Malcolm Harris: Finally, I want to talk about the breaking major news that's happening in this space and in the country. All right. We got a hurricane that is imminent and we are going to break down the latest when it comes to Hurricane Isaias. All right. So I said the name correctly. I said Isaiah the other day, not Isaiah Buchanan, Isaias. All right. So right now, as you guys can see, it is 120 miles per hour. It is officially in the last two hours been named a major category three storm. It is headed directly between Mobile and Pensacola. You guys can see this right now. And yeah, this is going to be a pretty significant storm.

26:40Malcolm Harris: You guys can see right now that the eye is defined. You see the track right now. Again, it's going to make landfall between Pensacola as well as Mobile. I do anticipate for there to be some significant flooding, storm surge. I do think there's going to be a bunch of wind, obviously 120 miles per hour. And I think it is going to be a slow moving storm. So I will say the path of this thing, we do have a major football game to be played in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. Man up. They say man up. This is a true coin toss. I don't know if they're going to play this game. I have no idea if they're going to play this game.

27:18Malcolm Harris: And team, thank you all so much for the shots for this one. But again, Isai is officially making landfall, I would say, within the next 16 to 20 hours, if so. So for those in the path of the storm, use good judgment. Obviously, if you ride it out, I get it. But I would take heat of evacuation notices. But, Mike, you're saying that this is just rah-rah because this is the first major storm. And I've heard that. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I don't think it's rah-rah because of that. I just, you know, look, watch Weather Channel. They excited, man. I mean, you know what I'm saying. It's been a slow summer, the Weather Channel.

27:57Malcolm Harris: A lot of PTO's been taken. It's been slow, and all the climate change folk are going, see, one hurricane. Woo, it's going to be a major season. That doesn't mean this one. I mean, so there, I got that out of my system. Here's the thing. It's serious. It sucks for the people that are there. There's nothing funny about a hurricane coming on shore. And let me tell you this. I was shaking my head like this because you said, if you write it out, I understand. I don't understand. I wrote out, Charlie, I will never do that shit again. Did you really? Yes, I did. Two blocks from my house north, total absolute destruction, annihilation, nothing.

28:32I will never do that shit again. But get it. Out. Get the hell out. Get the hell out. It's just because, you know, people have done it and nothing happens and it was cool and stuff like that. But, you know, like a block over, the house was flooded, it's gone, people dead, that type of stuff. Nah, man, you got lucky, dude. Don't test that luck. Get the hell out.

28:58The trucking logistics space on this, good news is it's not going through refineries and all other kind of stuff for the overall economic and that type of stuff. Disruption on I-10 maybe for a couple days, probably about it, right, for trucking and that type of stuff. but and maybe we don't get to see a football game in in alabama but there's folks along that line in there that live and make a living down there then for a hard time and prayers to those people absolutely be safe hope hope maybe this thing will just do an about face go back out in the golf and dissipate that'd be fantastic but hopefully you know as you you have strength

29:35Malcolm Harris: whenever a hurricane hits and gets out of the gulf it really does weaken as soon as it does come on shore. So my hopes is that it goes from a three significantly comes down to like a one and then you'll have like a tropical storm, depression. Well, isn't it predicted to come on shore as like a one? Yeah, they say it's going to weaken. It's going to weaken. It's just really in the pot right now. As you guys can see right now by these images, I mean, the Gulf is the warmest body of water that we, you know, have. So obviously it's just basically getting charged up like you're charging a cell phone.

30:07Malcolm Harris: And then from there, as it does become on shore, that hopefully that eye and the back of that eye is going to become weaker over time. And, yeah. Looking pretty rough right there, bro. Yeah, it is indeed. It is indeed. Well, we're going to keep everybody in the golf and the panhandle in our prayers. And let's continue to move on with the show. With that being said, we're going to welcome back a repeat guest. Two repeat guests. But the first one, you guys know him very, very well, man. He has one of the best LinkedIn profile photos in the world because it's him holding a Coke Zero with his name on it so you don't forget it.

30:44Malcolm Harris: He's got the merchandise representing the team that he is on. The man, the chief business development officer from Netrodine. Welcome back, my dog, Mr. Adam Kahn. Adam, welcome to What the Truck, brother. It is so good to see you, man. Yeah, I have to tell you, the introduction, the soundtrack woke up my dog and I think he fell out of the bed. So the explosion at the beginning of the show certainly had an impact to him. Oh, wow. You could say that we're making dreams come true, man. Oh, yeah. It was so good to see you. It was awesome. Really appreciate you for being here. And as always, you know the drill.

31:26Malcolm Harris: You know that we got Claude. And we got to just see, what is Claude thinking about you today? So, Mike, you go ahead and take it, bro. Oh, man, yeah. Hey, come on. Adam, the golden flash. my friend, the wrestling golden flash, actually, right? And a frat guy, I think, right? There he is.

31:46Look how yoked I am. Look at you, man. You are just, holy. I must have been putting up free plates back then. Are you still running around in your singlet just for old time's sake, bro? Yeah, it's the required uniform. I wear the required uniform. I got that reference. that was pretty good. So you wear tights. That's a little breakfast club for you. I love that. I wear the required uniform.

32:16Malcolm Harris: I do not wear the required uniform. Y 'all are foolish, man. I love that, man. Shout out to the team for getting that. Tony. We got a lot to talk about, man. All right. So we kind of tease it up, but we taught these numbers. We hear 50 % fewer accidents, accidents 70 80 those numbers they sound good they sound really impressive but you're arguing that we may be measuring something wrong so my question is why is it fewer accidents enough anymore well i think it's i think it's the engagement right so i i recently had a conversation with a fleet and they said i want to test out the product for a little bit and i want to see 10 percent accidents, you know, over a 10 percent reduction over six months.

33:04And I think that's a that's a challenging KPI to sort of look at. You know, it's a challenging goal because, you know, when you change your safety culture, it takes a little bit of time for that activity to sort of manifest and and become a really solid result. So, you know, you call that as a lagging indicator. You do something good, you deploy something, and it takes a little bit of time to get to that result. What I believe is a more successful path for fleets to take at is look at the leading indicators. So the types of things that – and I always think about a single driver. A single driver gets up before the sun comes up, does the pre-trip inspection, gets the load all secured, ready to go.

33:59The last thing they really can kind of put their head around is, oh, my CEO told me I need to do 70 % less accidents. Well, it's hard for a single driver to get behind that. But if you start thinking about the leading indicators or the actions that cause an accident and you focus on those, then it becomes, I think, a lot easier for the single driver to say, oh, I need to come to a full stop. I need to make sure I remember to stop at a red light. My speeding, my following distance, my distracted, my drowsy. I can control those things. And if I have a system that actually monitors that and allows me to reduce it and then get recognized for doing that, that becomes, I think, a really successful key for a company who wants to get down to zero accidents.

34:53It's kind of like when you talk about drinking the ocean. You don't drink it in big gulps. It's little sips, little sips, little sips. And then eventually the ocean is drained. So I just think the conversation has to change. And I did this special for both of you. I actually have a shirt. So I'm wearing the shirt, right?

35:20And because we do a very small little podcast, I actually have a book that I just – I'll send you guys a copy. but we made a cartoon version of our messaging as a handout because I think it's just you have to be creative in the ways that you inspire individuals. You look like a hand-helling. The goal is the same, but I think you just have to think about it differently about how do you get every participant in that process excited about being safe. Yeah. Yeah, man. You look like Hank Hill and Boomhauer in that picture. Listen, my wife says, who's this guy? She goes, that's like the skinny version of that.

36:12That's like the college version of me. And I'm like, you know what? You're bypassing the creative process to go to the critique. You know, you went there too fast. You should have wore the singlet in that picture. You talk about.

36:29It's interesting because I really like the angle that you guys are doing or the approach or the philosophy behind it, right? Because one little tweak of how you mentally look at something can have massive impacts. And I was wondering, you know, when we put this up there, that last 20 % is hard to get rid of. And it seems like that's a common thread in many, many places. You know what I mean? That 20 % causes 80 % of the problem. That last 20%. You charge your electric vehicle, the first 80 % of it takes 15 minutes. The last 20 % takes nine hours to charge the damn thing. There's always those different things.

37:06It's because of that last little tweak that you have to make. And it's really interesting to change from reduce it to why are the still ones still happening? It seems like it's the same exact thing, but it absolutely is not. When you're talking to drivers, do you promote positive things or still try and negate the negative actions? Where's that delineation? It's a great point, a great question, because you're really thinking about the long tail, right? The long tail on anything, going from 90 % to 95 % to 99 % is always a lot more difficult than going from zero to 50%. um so i i bring up the example of like a weight you know if you're ever on a diet and or you know the three of us in our weight loss competition um and you know we all lose 20 pounds and you know so we're all motivated by the reduction right and what happens is and i guarantee that anyone who's ever been on a diet has found the weight back right magically you After you're done, you lose 20 pounds.

38:18The Fuddrucker cheeseburger catches up with you eventually, and you found 5-10 pounds back.

38:24Malcolm Harris: I forgot about Fuddruckers. Those were fantastic. Nice. Those were awesome. Yeah. Look at us. We just got so excited about hearing the name Fuddruckers. That's crazy. Give me that 20 pounds. I don't care. I'll take 25 for Fuddrucker. I know. So what happens is if you take away a bad habit, If you don't replace it with something, then the bad habit comes back. So that's where, as an example, if I have where technology sort of has stepped up, I have now the ability to somebody to say, hey, I'd like you to come to a complete stop at every stop sign. Okay, I can measure your stop sign compliance. But the change in behavior starts happening when I don't talk about the number of times that you did something wrong, but you start modeling good.

39:15Right. So now you say instead of having five to 10 stop signs that you run through this month, why don't you strive for 100 percent stop sign compliance? So it's the measurement of good, which certainly allows for the drivers now to be incentivized to say, oh, I have an individual goal. I can contribute to this. I know how to get recognized. But all those add up to that long tail, right? So if you have everyone now, I give the example, I have a video telematics unit in my car, and we have something called a driver star streak, that every time that a driver hits 75 full stops in a row, there's a bonus to their score.

40:00And it's meaningful. So scores often mean dollar amounts in their pocket. If they hit the rate measurement, it's another 50 bucks, another 150 bucks a week, and that's meaningful to a driver. So I have this unit in my car. I've never been punched in the arm so much by my family yelling at me to go because a full stop, you know, it's two, three seconds. You know, it's left, right, left, right. But I was recognized with this driver star star. And then the next week happened and I'm like, all right, I forgot about that. But what I recognized and what I realized was my driving actually had changed.

40:40Malcolm Harris: For sure. Right. So now automatically I stop at every stop sign, not because there's a bogey there or a reward there. I already got that. I already know what that feels like. But now it's like 10 ,000 hours of expertise. Now if you practice something, I think I heard the number is 18 minutes a day makes you an expert at the end of the year. So if the 5 to 10 stop signs that a driver, and I'm just using stop signs, speeding, drowsy, distracted, following distance. they all come into this bucket, into this bundle. But if you can just now focus and say, hey, not only am I doing this, but now I recognize that I changed, that's that last 20 % that we talk about.

41:22And it's a lot easier to dashboard because when you're tracking a positive measurement, it's a team goal. And the team starts to collaborate with drivers of how to hit a team goal. when you're tracking bad or you know risky driving it's an individual punishment and nobody wants to help you on that one because they don't want to be part of that conversation so adam i want to ask

41:48Malcolm Harris: something because you made a great point but we talk about technology a lot on the show and obviously it's what you all focus on and do quite a bit but the driver is the fabric of the industry and what we do, how do we make sure that the driver has a seat at the table when it comes to technology and bridging the gap? Well, certainly the driver, you know, I would say any successful deployment of technology you have, if you don't have the end user bought off onto the wide, then it would be vastly unsuccessful. So sometimes it's that very difficult conversation that says, hey, you know, we're a fleet that's being competitive and we know that we need to have, you know let's say an influx of new vehicles new trucks every two to three years well that's capital and if i you know it's a fleet who's pretty bound by a tight margin you you start to look at places where you know where a cost is happening and you know an accident certainly has a tangible and an intangible cost but if you can now change the the the culture and involve the driver individually, it's okay to go to the driver saying, hey, look, we're chasing a half a million dollars of loss last year.

43:01If we can reduce that to, you know, a significant number, that allows us to buy five new vehicles and put you in the greatest, you know, the newest, more comfortable vehicle, you know, that's out there and makes us as a company more profitable, which I can share that money with. So I think you have to have that, you know, the why conversation and then empower

43:24Malcolm Harris: are the individual to have the me conversation definitely the last thing before we go to the conclusion of the show um if you you're a fleet operator right now listening and you know you're just kind of debating what what's the first thing you should do differently tomorrow uh if you're serious about this quest for zero because you've given us a lot of nuggets but like what is the the one thing that you're just like listen like you got to do this if you're really serious about this quest for zero this is what you need to absolutely focus on well i think it's understanding the entire journey of of that work um you know so starting at the distribution center starting at the assembly line starting at the facilities you know as an example is if i have a late if someone's late loading my vehicle and i don't adjust the driver's uh dispatch now the driver's inherits a 30 minute late, you know, delay on his, on his route, which he's going to try to make up, you know, cutting corners.

44:27So, you know, one of the things I think is really interesting is to understand the whole journey of, of that assignment. And then the second one most certainly is to make sure that the driver feels connected to it. The more connected that, you know, the, the loaders to the drivers, to the, to the delivery is, then you can really go through and say, okay, everybody can now play apart in this. And it's not where a driver is intentionally doing bad things. They may have time that's given to them that causes them to be a little bit more risk adverse. And that's not good. So at the end of the day, I think it's really you have to get the whole team connected to the process and what you're trying to accomplish.

45:11And the thing between agentic AI and reporting and AI right now. All the technology is there to make it information right at your fingertips where you can have that great conversation.

45:25Malcolm Harris: I cannot agree more. Great answer and a great guy. Adam Kahn, the Chief Business Development Officer at Netrodine. Adam, as always, so good to see you, brother. Keep rocking. Keep being the best. And, man, hope to see you. If not, before the end of the year, man, Q1, we got to make it happen. Hey, I love this shirt, man. I love full stops, baby. I love full stops. I hate them. Well, no, I love them. I'd appreciate you, bro. It's the hardest thing to do when you're driving on a street all by yourself that nobody else on the street is a full stop. It's really difficult to have that discipline, though, man.

46:03So I applaud everybody who does it. It is, dude.

46:07Malcolm Harris: All right. Thank you all. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. It's a great guy. And every good team, we talk about it. It's baseball season. It's the playoffs. You got to have a good closer. You got to have somebody in. Three up, three down. I need them. Get them in. Get them gone. Who else to bring to you guys to close out the show but my man? He is, of course, the chief operating officer at 10. He is Mr. Ari Silky. Silky Smooth. Ari, welcome to the show, my man. It's good to see you again. Good to see you again. Welcome and excited to be on the show. Excited to have you, man. How's life been? What you been up to?

46:42It's been great. Yeah, I've been over at 10 for four months now and, yeah, having a good time, making some big bets in the industry and, yeah, trying to help everybody move forward and move as many boxes on time as possible and safely.

46:58Malcolm Harris: Let's go. Let's go, Mike. Let's get to the Claude, man, because we – We got to do that. I was going to say, you know, it's sports season. Do you know who the Golden Gusties are? I do. I know you do I just saw this photo that's how I busted out laughing it popped up early and I was like oh my gosh a bunch of Swedish Lutherans got together and said hey man let's start a college up there in Minnesota this is basically what happened and they named it after a 17th century warrior king in Sweden apparently Adolf Gustav the second or something like that? Is that right? Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:45Anyways, yeah. So, yeah, Ari is a graduate of that school and an alum. He is a golden ghosty. How do you say it? Gusty? Gusty? Gusty? Gusty. Golden, golden, gusty. So why not turn a Swedish warlord, a warrior, I guess, not warlord, but warrior into a nice cuddly little lion for the school uh right could not be better you go

48:12Malcolm Harris: bro could not be better um all right let's talk about something and let's talk about something that everybody's going to be talking about in a month but should probably be talking about right now let's talk peak what are you and the team at 10 seeing in terms of peak because you're saying that hey like it's about four to six weeks earlier there's a little pivot in what we're normally saying but i don't want to put words in your mouth by any means yeah i mean i think we've been seeing it all year, kind of the mix between supply and demand and the trucking market coming back, you know, as we've all been waiting for, for about four years, it's been slowly happening, gradually happening.

48:48And that change in the dynamic usually kind of comes together when there's a high velocity event, such as peak, where you have much higher than normal demands and you need to have the capacity to do that. And so, yeah, I think every year it seems that peak gets a little bit stretched out and moved earlier kind of across lots of different players, which isn't a bad thing because the whole idea of peak is what's your kind of peak need. And the more you can stretch that out, the actually less peaky you are, which is good for everybody. It's good for customers because we have better availability. It's good for shippers and carriers because you can kind of balance out the total amount required versus having it peak as high as it does some years.

49:29So I think that's been true for several years of kind of a gradual spreading out of that. I think the different dynamic this year is that reconciliation of supply and demand, which will force a peak year than a normal year. And even if you spread it out, I think all pieces of capacity will be constrained this year more than we've seen in the last few years. That's really interesting. So as this peak kind of, I'm imagining a bell curve that is stretching out a bit, but also rising at the same time, right? So its median is going up. Is that kind of what we're describing here? What are those impacts on the freight utilization and having that capacity?

50:17Because when it peaks, when it does the seasonality of peaks and troughs and so on, people are used to those that pay attention, Right. And they can plan their fleet. Now it's not so there isn't this up and down that you had before. It's more gradual. Right. How do you plan for that? Or is there problems and issues in trying to plan for that versus, hey, I know that this time we're going to have a ton of capacity and then we're going to have none. Yeah, it's evolving, I would say. I mean, the more you can flatten it, the easier it is to plan because then you know you need 10 trucks for seven weeks versus I need 10 trucks for the first three weeks.

51:00And then I need 15 trucks and then I need to go back to 10 trucks. And how do you deal with that? Yeah. All the capacity. And so the more it flattens, the better. Now, it's still not flat, to be clear. There's still a heavy peak season in these high velocity events where their sales or holidays definitely drive a lot more demand and therefore a lot more capacity. So you still need to plan for it. But I think it's a good point. It's probably as it evolves, it's harder to precisely plan when that capacity is needed. And rarely do you regret having too much capacity and you can regret not having enough capacity.

51:34Malcolm Harris: I want to talk about a longer peak. This question has just been on my brain. I mean, can we get to a point where peak season isn't really like this window and it's more so a longer period due to elevated demand? Or do you think it's still going to remain kind of like this two to three month window? I think you're still going to have the window. But even if you stretch it a little bit, it matters, right? If you can take, if you can minimize the top peak of it, the amount of capacity any particular carrier or shipper needs can change pretty materially. So, you know, for example, let's say it's changed by a week, one week longer.

52:14Well, that actually means if you have the same amount of volume over one more week, your peak volume will be reduced, which can be material. But no, I think I suspect we'll always have a concept in the industry of a peak. It'd just be a matter of how long it is and how high it peaks. So when you, you know, trailer orders are what? What's the bagel? Five months out? Something like that, right? And then you have this flattened out peak, but then you have these wild swings in pull forward and not pull forward because of the current geopolitical climate that we're in. How difficult is that to really manage?

53:00You're ordering trucks or trailers five months out, but by the time those are delivered, what you saw in the future has changed completely. right? How do you plan for that type of stuff and what's the best, really the best strategy? Yeah, it's a great question and a hard one to answer. Yeah. In this dynamic, things are changing in shorter horizons than the lead time for a lot of equipment, especially drivers. And so you have to be able to kind of hedge and make some assumptions on what you think is going to happen and then have the flexibility to be able to either scale up or down based on what actually happens.

53:38And again, the earlier point, I've often in my transformation career regretted being too lean on assets. I've rarely regretted having a few extras. And so depending on the size of the operation and their abilities, and also now as an equipment provider under 10, we're able to absorb some of that variation for a customer to have access to equipment at a shorter notice than what the lead time is, which means we have to take some bets going forward. But that's kind of our business, and we're set up and positioned and capitalized to be able to take some of those bets with one of the largest fleets in North America to be able to kind of hedge that.

54:17But as a carrier or as a shipper, especially as a small carrier, it is definitely a challenging spot to be able to predict and deal with that variation in the timelines that things are changing today.

54:29Malcolm Harris: All right, I want to ask you this. I mean, a smaller or midsize carrier, all right, leasing, is it more attractive right now or is it a bit more dangerous i mean where do you fall because i see both sides of the argument but given your background curious to know your thoughts yeah i think especially for a smaller carrier what leasing does is it gives you flexibility that you wouldn't otherwise have right when sort of for a lease and you know and lots of different terms or duration on that and it allows you not to tie up your capital um in a somewhat one-way door decision of owning these trailers.

55:05Not that you couldn't sell them, but typically you'd own them for a reasonably long period of time and invest in the maintenance, et cetera. I think leasing actually for small, medium, and large companies can provide a flexibility on the balance sheet side as well as just an operational side to have ability to scale down or up based on what's happening in market conditions. Especially to your original question on small, mid-sized carrier, it allows them to run a more balanced business. I mean, you know, trailers and tractors assets are quite expensive. And so if you're at a midsize scale, you're deploying many millions of dollars in capital and making sure that you're able to run a business that supports that, you know, for the longer you might own these assets for 10 plus years.

55:47It's challenging for a lot of small or midsize companies to do. So you guys are adding like 3 ,000 new dry vans or something. You're pushing past 85 ,000 trailers now, that type of stuff. What do you see in the market, man? Because I want your crystal ball, bro. And it seems like it's a positive one, right? Am I wrong here? You're not replacing old equipment. You're adding new stuff. And a lot of people would say, okay, we're pretty uncertain what is happening right now. We just see a bunch of reports on containers in international shipping. And it is, if you take out data center construction, we're down in international shipping.

56:29It's not a good scenario out there without data centers. What are you guys seeing in the market? We're seeing growth, growth for us as a company. And I believe propelled by growth in the industry, at least for the customers that we're dealing with. And we're growing as a company, so we're dealing with more and more customers every week. But yeah, we see the demand strong and we see it holding strong into 27 and beyond. We are, as I've alluded to, we're taking a forward-looking projection and saying, hey, we need to have assets. We need to have assets that have the latest technology on. We need to have assets that are on the newer side, which is what a large number of the shippers are requiring.

57:12They have the optimal uptime paired with the optimal technology to run their fleet the way that they need to to get packages downstream to their customers. And so for us, like any business, we look at all the research, we understand what's happening in the market, and then we take our own assumptions. And that all led us to make a decision to really lean in this year, especially for Peak, to make sure we have the right trailers for our customers as they need them.

57:39Malcolm Harris: Chief Operating Officer at 10. He is Silky Smooth, Mr. Ari Silky. Ari, thank you so much for being here on What the Truck. a phenomenal job and uh cannot wait to have you back here on the show brother thank you very much appreciate being on and you guys have a great day you as well go golden gusties go golden gusties i love it we gotta get you that pic too uh man ari soky again representing 10 an awesome show man want to thank ari want to also thank adam as well and thank my brother michael vincent he was in the mix doing his thing he's back now and uh he is uh gonna have a good weekend hopefully you got anything planned mike uh yeah heading out to a couple uh halloween events that type of stuff in different little towns around here in north texas so just being a good father man good father good husband doing all the things i'm gonna watch a lot of football eat some chicken wings might have a couple of ipas and uh just sit and reflect right uh get ready for a monday show man can get some good thinking done with some ipas and some chicken wings you know what i'm saying that he can get them that he can let's look at the road ahead for monday's show all right you guys are going to have a great weekend but then coming back on monday steve loge he's a general manager at sensolis man i had a great conversation with steve i think he is going to be fantastic and you guys are going to get a lot out of him and then sam gerard all right he is the vice president of customer success and senior site executive at onji energy all right this one with sam is going to be pivotal.

59:12Malcolm Harris: This one right here is going to be crazy. Like the questions that we have. Yeah, he's off the chain. High energy guy. Do not let the hair fool you. This guy, I feel like he's a 22 year old in his body. So we got Sam, we got Steve, and it has been a great week of What the Truck. Make sure you guys are going back on all these previous episodes doing your thing. That's it for us. It's Michael Vincent. It's Malcolm I'm Harris. Peace and love. We'll see you on Monday. Holler.

1:00:15We'll be right back.