The $60M Lawyer Convicted in a Murder-Linked Trucking Scam

0:04Thank you.

0:30Malcolm Harris: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the last What the Truck of July. July 31st, I'm Malcolm Harris. Welcome to the fastest 45 minutes in freight. Another episode of What the Truck, joined by my partner in crime, Michael Vincent. Michael Vincent, what's up, my brother? I'm telling you what, man, it's been a long month. A lot of stuff is happening in July. Boy, July has been, I felt, every 31 days of July. It has been. Every one of them. The 4th of July was two months ago. It was, like, usually summer just, like, pew, it's over. And you're like, shit, man, I'm already buying Halloween stuff. But this July lasted a long time.

1:13I like it when things tick. Enjoy every second. Enjoy every, as Warren Zevon said, enjoy every second. Or every sandwich. Enjoy every sandwich.

1:23Malcolm Harris: You went from second to sandwich? Yeah. Yeah, that's what, yeah. Just take your time, man, enjoy life. Hunter S. Thompson, you buy the ticket, you ride the ride. You know what I'm saying? So if you had to rank sandwiches, ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, you know, like, what are your tiers of sandwiches? Yeah, you know, I'm telling you what, there's nothing like just the classic ham and cheese with mayo. I mean, you know what I'm saying? But a really well-done Reuben, you can't beat it. like a reuben like a pastrami or a reuben from from uh like cat's deli new york you ever had one of those oh no no i'm not a real soggy as you're it's big as your dome man

2:13Malcolm Harris: oh you're a mess uh for those that want a sandwich right now this is a free promo they did not pay me to say this publix has four dollar uh half subs right now it's like a You're giving away free advertising? Let's go. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. If you are hungry, I mean, for the free ski, I mean, it's not free, but$4 for a sandwich? Like, come on. Can't beat it. I'll tell you what. If the word got out, and if everybody went and tried it once, you'd never be able to get into a Publix. Their sandwiches are better than Subway every day of the week and twice on Sunday. They're good. Look at us agreeing this early on a Friday.

2:48Malcolm Harris: I'm so happy. It's going to be a love fest, people. It's a love in on what the truck. It's a love in. It's very hot in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but it's starting to cool down a little bit. However, it's a hot show because we've got two great guests. And let's talk about who they are, where they're from. All right. Because on deck, we're going to have Sammy Kahn. He's the co-founder and CEO of Novoia. He is going to be talking all about the supply chain and some concepts that I think you guys have heard of, but he's going to put it a different way. I'm really excited to get his expertise in terms of AI, automation, as well as just electric trucks.

3:23Malcolm Harris: I mean, I think he is very brilliant. And the conversation is going to be a cool one as we head into the weekend. And then we're going to the trap in Cox Fleet because Matt Trapp, the VP of operations at Cox Fleet, is going to be talking about us. Obviously, the big thing that a lot of people are talking about is technician shortages in the space right now. But the real problem is keeping the good ones. So Matt's going to talk to us about that and much more of what's happening at CoxSuite. So between Matt and Sammy, we are going to have one heck of a show as we head into the 1st of August and into the weekend.

3:57Malcolm Harris: All right. But before we do that, could not make it happen without our sponsors of the month, which is Gnosis Freight. Gnosis is a great team and they put together quite the operation when it comes to what they do. If you're still checking carrier websites, copying container data into spreadsheets, chasing updates through email chains, you're going to have to have Gnosis, guys. All right. It's an AI operating system for global logistics. One platform to track every single container, automate execution, and protect your margins across the full container lifecycle. So for right now, if you guys want more information, make sure you visit them.

4:30Malcolm Harris: Again, gnosisfreight.com. Book a demo and make sure you said that the dude and the bald sent you. All right. That's the dude and the what? The bald. The bald. I'm trying to try out nicknames, all right? So you got to - Is this like, we're like the good, the bald, and the ugly? Yeah, the good, the bald, and the ugly. So you're definitely the good. So who's good game? I guess Frazier could be the good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Shout out to Frazier, man. And for those that are going to be in Chattanooga, Tennessee on October 27th and 28th, it should be everybody. But if you're not, you're going to miss out on the event of the year.

5:07Malcolm Harris: And I'm talking about F3, the future of freight festival that is going to be here in the heart of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Of course, going to be at the Signal and the surrounding areas. For those that weren't there last year, you missed out on a spectacle, all right? From demos to talking with C-suite executives, conversations that were held that were absolutely outstanding about what's currently happening in the space, all right? So everybody that is anybody in logistics, 3PL land, and supply chain is going to be at the Future of Freight Festival here, F3. You see that wonderful What the Truck sign?

5:38Malcolm Harris: That's also going to be a thing this year. We're going to have a great time. There's going to be a plethora of shows, a plethora of information, fireside chats. You name it, we got it. It's going to be here at F3 October 27th and the 28th. Tickets are now on sale now. And you can use a promo code. It's officially available to you. It is TAKE20. You can TAKE20. That is T-A-K-E-2-0 for 20 % off of being able to come to F3. All right. So that's the code popping up right there. We got Charles Gracie and Matt Leffler that are going to be in the building. You got myself. Look at that handsome young fella.

6:14And then you also, you got a lot going on, man.

6:19Malcolm Harris: So shout out to the people too, man. Got some good food. Got some good time and some good energy. All right. So October 27th and the 28th, it is going to be, again, amazing. Take 20 for a promo code. Tickets are on sale now. Don't meet me there. Beat me there. Looking forward to seeing you guys at F3 Future Freight Festival, October 27th and 28th here in Chattanooga. All right. So that is our F3 promo. Let's get to the business before we get to our guests. All right. We got two headlines today. For those, I'm sure you guys are wondering, there's a lot to talk about in terms of headlines. Yes, there is.

6:55Malcolm Harris: You're going to get a full recap and literally go to the source when it comes to earnings, specifically today on FreightWaves today at noon Eastern. And that's going to be with Craig Fuller and Julie Vandekamp because there is so many earnings. We'd probably spend up until that point going through each and every single one. We see some good stuff happening, obviously, some great things. We kind of talked about it yesterday on Freight Waves today. But there are some things that are kind of showing me some, I don't know, not so fast, my friend, like the legendary Lee Corso said. So you can get a full recap of that one on Freight Waves today.

7:27Malcolm Harris: It's going to be a good one today. A lot of great guests with Julie as well as Craig. But let's talk about the Louisiana Slammers. And I think we got a little B-roll here. Let's check this out. We do? What? Let's check this out. Ha ha ha!

7:49Malcolm Harris: All right, man. This right here. I'm kind of thinking if that car actually hit at that angle, a lot more damage would have been done. I mean, maybe it's Dom Toretto in the vehicle. You never know. Going the opposite direction and nailing it in the tandems, I think a lot more shit when it went down. Vanessa Mata, man, the New Orleans attorney convicted in the Louisiana stage accident scam, is not going to be getting a new trial. But next month, there's going to be a criminal trial for the two men charged with gunning down a witness to the scheme that slammed cars into trucks with the goal of generating a fat insurance payout.

8:25Malcolm Harris: All right, so Mata was one of the two attorneys convicted in March, which we covered, of being one of the ringleaders of the scam along with Jason Giles, all right? So with that, Mata requested a new trial from the U.S. District Court. Judge Wendy Vider, who then oversaw, of course, her criminal trial, but Judge Vider denied their request, all right? So with this, there is a lot that's happening right now. As you guys remember, I mean, this got pretty ugly. There was some puke in the courtroom. There was a lot of theatrics. I'm interested to see what the sentencing is gonna be like on this one.

8:58Malcolm Harris: Mike, when you saw this come across to your desk late last night, early this morning, what were your thoughts about this one? You know, it's just what does she have? Does she have something on somebody? You're going to have to at this point, right? Well, I don't know. It's dragging on and dragging on and dragging on. she i mean all this whole thing like you can't bring up that i i was involved with a murder trial then they did then they threatened her then they didn't do it do they have anything on her don't they have anything on her it's her and one dude and now there's a murder trial that she's involved in but not involved in there's what 60 other defendants yes this is correct that this is And none of them have been charged or anything.

9:58No, I mean, they're not even defendants. There's like 60 other people that were indicted or something like that.

10:03Malcolm Harris: They're like co-conspirators, yeah. Yeah, but none of them have been charged. Nothing has happened to them whatsoever. And I'm like, man, this is, and there's dead people, and maybe somebody killed them, or maybe she didn't kill them. It reminds me of Whitewater Gate, if you remember Whitewater Gate. Yes, that's a very good comparison. but it's but it's backwards right i mean everybody went to jail or got killed mysteriously or killed themselves vincent foster didn't kill himself um but uh except the clintons every single person involved went to jail or is dead except the clintons this one is like everybody involved got off scot-free except mata no this is this is weird it keeps getting delayed i will say there There was a tweet, and thank you to the team for chopping this up, from John Kingston about the attorney, Danny Keating.

10:54Malcolm Harris: All right, so saw this one. Yeah. And this is wild because once again, sentencing of Danny Keating, first attorney to plead guilty in the Louisiana stage accident scam is delayed. Well, it's supposed to be in August. Now it's October 8th. But the delay is far less earlier than ones of five to six months. Not sure if that means anything. This just seems very weird because it's been delayed a lot, dude. a lot the reason yet the reason i bring this this whole thing up is because or the comparisons it seems like there's there's a lot more going on than just mata and keating putting together this scam oh no no certainly certainly you know what i'm saying i mean this is there's all kinds of organized crime all over this shit yeah and there's probably judges in pockets maybe not this one but there's there's there's people going i can't do that 100 and perhaps we uh We need to get John Kingston on the horn here in the next couple of weeks to come back on the show to give us some insight into what he's hearing because he's been reporting on this again for the majority of the year.

11:57It's about time to get Kingston on anyway, regardless.

12:00Malcolm Harris: It's just always good to say, hey, Kingston's on. Yeah, no, for sure. Let's continue with the Kingston stories. He's been working very, very hard. And you... Artists working man in journalism. No, for sure. He's a dog. um he's talking about uh obviously with ch robinson and earnings but uh you know that with all that being said um you know the nuclear verdict was still a huge topic and mike you said that this is a topic of conversation which it was yesterday we were uh hosting freight waves today at the west end for an awesome event that was spectacular but then also um you know that kept coming up what was this this 600 million dollar uh you know uh decision and i guess my thoughts are it keeps coming up in in your circles too mike right well yeah no i mean we're both in in freight circles right but specifically i was at the tia regional event out at whiskey ranch in in uh fort worth which uh it was actually a whiskey ranch it was fantastic 40 000 40 000 barrels of whiskey dude Are you serious?

13:10Yeah. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was great. It was great for her. But, yes, this topic is on everybody's mind because it was TIA. They're all intermediaries, and they're all going, what the truck? What do we do now? You know what I'm saying? Because, I mean, just like the article goes through in Kingston, spot on.

13:33There's no guidelines, right? I mean, the lack of information in the article is because there's no freaking information. And it's got to be frustrating for a guy like Kingston, almost as frustrating as it is for the people who right now are flying blind. The brokers are now operating with no legal guidance whatsoever.

13:52Malcolm Harris: This article is chugged full of great quotable moments. And I mean, there's a lot to kind of dissect here from John Kingston. So I would like for you guys to go see this. I will just give a couple of quotes, again, from their CEO, Mr. Bozeman. I mean, we really believe this case was decided based on a motion rather than the law. He reiterated that if the jury's decision is entered by Judge Jones' final, we will immediately appeal, and we are very confident in the facts and the law on appeal. And then also, there was one other fact that Mr. Bozeman said as well. Um, again, I mean, there's a history here with Lupus Superior and its history of hauling all these loads, uh, for C.H.

14:37Malcolm Harris: Robinson, which is successful, right? They have successfully hauled these loads. But the one quote I want to take away is, but acknowledging that a horrible, excuse me, that a terrible tragedy occurred is not the same as having caused it. C.H. Robinson did not act negligently and should not be held liable in this case. C.H. Robinson does not employ drivers. That's a lot, dude. That's a lot. Well, it is a lot. And my interpretation of what he's saying is this. why is there a jury trial on this? They either did or didn't. Why is emotion brought into this? That's not legal. Emotion isn't legal. You know what I'm saying?

15:25No, for sure. What basically happened is there is no rule on what negligence or due diligence, proper due diligence is, and therefore you get to just make a decision based on how you feel. Well, when you're talking about the law, none of us are lawyers here.

15:44Malcolm Harris: So we're just speaking against. No, I know. But I mean, that's the case. They can't say, well, here's the legal precedent. Here's legally what they had to do. Here's what they do. You need to decide. Did they follow the letter of the law or not? There is no law. And if that's what they were given, that's bogus in itself because there isn't one. There is no there's there's there's no guidance. There's nothing there. We don't know what the standard would have protected us. That's another quote. They don't know what the standard would have been to protect themselves. The jury made it up, and that's 100 % accurate.

16:22Malcolm Harris: It's 100 % accurate. It's such a slippery slope because it's going to take really two or three more of these, and then you're going to see really a changing of the guard because in my brain, what I'm thinking of right now, first thing is, dude, if I'm an insurance provider, what are you doing right now, Mike? Look, I talked to an insurance provider yesterday at TIA, right? And they're watching this and they're trying to cover their butts. They're trying to advise clients on the best practices that they can come up with with vetting. But do they have here this is going to protect you? No. Or protect themselves?

17:00No. So along with that guidance, what did Craig say? Increased rates.

17:06Malcolm Harris: For sure. For sure. Yeah. The small guy's going to get squeezed? Damn right there. Oh, 100%. That literally was about to come out of my mouth. It was like the small guys and the players out there are just like, it's going to be an uphill battle. It really, really is. I'm interested to see how the conversations are going to continue. And, yeah, we'll definitely get Kingston on. But there's a ton of, there's a ton of, I mean, this is just, it isn't just brokers. Nowhere. This is a huge encompassing of the entire aspect of it. Absolutely. Ain't nobody hiring Malcolm Harris. I'm trucking. It ain't happening.

17:40You're not going to hire me to come out to Fort Worth and haul something for you? I would, but I'm not a broker. If I was a broker, I'd first say, no way.

17:50Malcolm Harris: You are hilarious. Guys, check that one out from John, man. He's fantastic. Fantastic stuff. I caught you mid-sit, but I was going to say, did you want to wrap this one up? Did you have anything else to say on this? I'm just, the confusion is there. The timing of how long this is going to take is just going to clear things out as far as have more people go by the wayside until we get actual what is happening. And does that actually ever happen? Who knows? Who knows? I mean, we got established. If you buy a house, I just bought a house. If you buy a house, there's established you have to do certain things.

18:30The house has to have certain standards. There are codes. There are standards.

18:33Malcolm Harris: You have to get an appraisal on the front end. You have to get an inspection. But those inspections, going through that inspections, there are codes. There are laws on this everything, right? And all that, that's not protecting anybody from dying in a fiery crash at 70 miles an hour from an 80 ,000-pound bullet going down the highway. It's just to make sure I didn't buy a piece of crap house, period. and the lending company, the mortgage company, has safe financials. It's a safe investment for them, right? 100%. This, but we have this, and we're going to just, you were negligent. Well, what do I need to do?

19:15I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Nothing.

19:21Malcolm Harris: Yeah, I wonder why that is. i wonder i wonder i wonder who benefits from their not being established rules you're saying too many cold hard facts and i think that people aren't catching what you're putting down but i absolutely am don't you don't you sweat i think people are understanding what i'm what i'm saying here don't you sweat it don't you sweat it uh it comes down to it every time just follow it it happens in everything everything everything some good stuff this one from headlines again you can read all of our headlines from our great editorial team right now on freightwaves.com and then also again freight waves today for all the latest earning news uh with julie vandekamp as well as craig fuller is going to be taking place and i'm sure they'll have something to say uh about this topic from kingston and probably one or two things check it out yes sir yes sir yes sir but we got one or two everything that guy said is complete bullshit that's what they're gonna say that's what they're gonna say uh man you are you were hilarious everything that guy just said everything that guy just says

20:29Malcolm Harris: shout out to cody dollar man you it never it never seems to fail 10 out of 10 uh let's let's get into our guest and uh have some good conversations y 'all because i'm excited to bring this one on uh co-founder and ceo of nevoia all right uh we are going to have an awesome conversation got some good uh research and background information from this guy too uh he is now officially going to be joining the show momentarily he is mr sammy khan sammy is about to join the show excited to have him on board we're getting him ready and looped up but uh just to kind of let you guys know on some inside of it uh you know ai electric trucks uh They're obviously beginning to reshape freight moves across both short haul as well as over-the-road operations.

21:15Malcolm Harris: And just talking through that and seeing the innovations as well as how this is evolving over time. I think we got Sammy. Sammy, welcome to What The Truck. Morning, guys. How's it going? Doing well. Doing well. How are you doing this morning? I'm good. I'm good. I'm a little bit tired. we do we do this uh thing every quarter that we call eating our own dog food which is basically where me and the exec team just go in and do dispatch for like however long i've been doing it for the last two weeks and i'll tell you what dispatch is really tiring you're up at like two in the morning with a driver calling you and then speaking to you fine folks in the morning at 7 a.m so yeah all good man i appreciate you for being here that is sick though why do you and the exec team do that?

22:03Malcolm Harris: Because I mean, obviously, I think I know the answer, but you answer it for me. Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, it's like Travis Kalanick used to do at Uber, right? You go and you drive an Uber for a week or whatever, and you figure out and you just understand on the ground what's going on. And then you actually understand what you need to fix and how you need to go about fixing it. And I mean, for me, honestly, the most rewarding bit is you just get to speak to the drivers like i think it's such a unique industry to be in because you deal with so many people you you just cross paths with so many people um and it's just great to like sit down for two weeks and you're sending out the dispatches and then the drivers see your name at the end and they're like oh sally's here and then they start talking to you and it's it's just it's just really rewarding to be honest yeah no it's really awesome it's really i mean it's liking it to you know a lot of people you talk to you i mean you you came from uh from uh cambridge king's king's college right i did yes yeah i thought i i thought i saw you serving like french fries or something in the student union like there he is i was wondering i was wondering what your ai photo was gonna be i'm still waiting for my malt vinegar for my fries bro i'm still waiting for Put the fries in the bag, Sammy.

23:28You never even asked me what my favorite sandwich was. You guys talked about yours.

23:31Malcolm Harris: What was your favorite sandwich? What is your favorite sandwich? It's a chicken palm. You know, that's like an American staple. We don't get it back home. Chicken palm. Oh, beautiful. Gosh. They used to have the best. The feed table in Chattanooga on Main Street had great chicken palm. I don't know if they still have it, but it was fantastic chicken palm. It was great. So you went from... I'll check it out before I had three. you you need to check it out it's pretty good you you you went from serving fries at the student you know that's not true you're an officer of the sports and athletic club or something like that which is actually pretty pretty big title they're actually running an officer but you did that and then you were astrophysicist well you're studying astrophysics there he is right there i don't know if you recognize him.

24:20His name was Sammy Carl Sagan. I don't know if people recognize, remember Carl Sagan, but I do. And probably Sammy does because he's an astrophysicist. So, I mean, it's quite obvious that then now you're dispatching drainage vehicles, right? Yeah, exactly. A slight change in career. Yeah. is that is that like normal do you do you recommend that a a drage dispatcher study astrophysicists physics before they i don't think it's a prerequisite if i'm being totally honest um and to be yeah to be honest i'm not 100 sure how many analogies there are between my uh my degree and what i'm doing today but it was an interesting career path i tried to become an astronaut but they wouldn't let me because i have asthma so this was the next best thing you know dispatching trucks i don't think i've seen an astronaut with with a beard like yours i don't think you and malcolm could do it unless you shaved that facial hair yeah that's a no no that's a no no exactly that's where they disqualified i think it is your beard is way too good you know

25:32Malcolm Harris: appreciate that i love it i love it so at a 50 foot lens no boy walk us through what do you guys do and the impact on i guess yeah i mean the the dredge perspective which is only literally a fraction like a fraction truly the holistic picture of what you guys do right yeah i mean when we started the business around three years ago, really the lens that we took was all of these things are happening within trucking right now. You look at electrification, you look at AI, you look at autonomy, and actually some of the other kind of more market-based trends that are happening. You guys talked about the CHR verdict, et cetera.

26:15Like all of these things are really pushing towards a market, then it's going to become much more consolidated and look very, very different from how the trucking market looks today. And so when we started the business, we really thought like, okay, well, what is that going to mean? What does the trucking industry look like in 2040? How does AI, autonomy, electrification play into all of this? And when we started thinking about where we could add value, we decided to start with the carrier perspective. We wanted to build a next generation carrier around these new technologies, as opposed to trying to adapt a legacy carrier to these new technologies.

26:51We wanted to say, hey, assuming AI, autonomy, electrification, these technologies are commonplace and ubiquitous, what makes the best trucking company? What makes a trucking company the most efficient that it can be? And it turns out it's not the same things that make diesel trucking companies efficient because diesel trucking companies are completely based around the driver. They're completely optimized around the driver. So that was really the vision that we had when we started Navoya. Let's start this next generation trucking company. And then when we did that, the first kind of rung of the ladder that we tried to try to hit was electrification.

27:24It was, you know, how do we get electric vehicles to the market at a price that is competitive with diesel? And that is really where we started on the on the Dreyarch side as well, because ultimately the biggest reason was that there was just a lot of incentives, a lot of market movement from, you know, the California Air Resources Board, for example, from the ports to encourage electrification of Dreyarch. So that's where we started. But ultimately, as you mentioned, that became a very, very small sliver of what we do, because as the market expanded, as the vehicles got better, we started to do more and more over the road.

27:57And we started to realize that actually the economics in over the road are even better than drayage. And that's really where the long term focus is for us as well. Sammy, that's fantastic. Really? So we've discussed electrification of vehicles and just that, not the autonomy side of it or the autonomous vehicle side, but just the electrification side of it. And starting in ports and closed environments or, you know, relatively closed environments, you know, regular route, I suppose, is what it is. But specifically small areas inside the yard, inside a port, that type of stuff seems to be the best economics.

28:32But you're saying that over the road in electrification is something that really you feel is economically viable at this time? Or are you predicting the path to it becoming economically viable? No, it's economically viable at this time. I mean, it's funny you say that because that was the same view that we had when we started the company. It was going to be like, let's start with these port runs. Let's start with these shorter hops. Let's kind of make that work. And actually, you look back to the deck that we had when we started the company, we didn't think over the road was going to be a possibility until 2035.

29:10But what happened is, as we started with those kind of shorter haul runs and shorter use cases, what we realized is that the economics is just so much better for the long haul. Because if you think about electric vehicles, they've got a really high upfront cost, and then they've got much lower running costs, like maintenance, fuel, et cetera, et cetera. So naturally, the more miles you're running, the more competitive they become against diesel. The problem that we had when we first started the company was that the technology was just not quite there yet. And look, I don't want to be too much of a Tesla fanboy on this show, but we got five of the pre-production Tesla semis into our fleet at the back end of last year.

29:48And that was really the accelerant for us kind of shifting away from the dredge focus and the short haul focus into the long haul OTR focus. Because that vehicle, despite what anyone tells you, despite what any noise is in the market, is so much cheaper than diesel for over-the-road applications. Like in our fleet, it's about 30 % to 40 % cheaper per mile than a diesel vehicle. So does that make up for the loss in capacity that you can haul because of the heavier truck? Again, that's a misconception. The new Tesla has no loss of capacity. It's a misconception. People often talk about loss of capacity.

30:28People often assume that you can't haul, but we can haul 45 ,000 pounds. We haul 45 ,000 pounds all the time with our vehicles. There's no loss of capacity. Wow. Yeah.

30:40Malcolm Harris: So, Sammy, I guess a follow-up question that I have to that is, you know, every single show, it seems, there's always an AI type of focus that comes up. And, you know, there's been a lot of innovation that has happened really in the last 12 months. I mean, I just just being blunt with it, I guess my question to you is that where is the biggest, I'd say, improvement of your operation specifically when it's been tied to AI? I mean, obviously, fleet management is probably top of mind. But is there anything else that you can really speak to that is like, yeah, AI has been critical to move this forward?

31:16Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the main thing about AI with respect to kind of how we use it in our business is it's really about freeing up the people and, you know, mainly the dispatchers, to be totally honest, to do the value additive stuff. If you watch a dispatcher and you see what they're doing, you know, typically they are spending 80, 90 % of their time speaking to drivers, figuring out where they are, speaking to customers, giving them updates, you know, speaking to brokers, et cetera, et cetera. And that gives them very little time to actually do the value additive stuff, which frankly, like even now, even with where AI is today, I still believe only humans can do, which is like, Hey, this truck has broken down at this specific location with this driver, with this load, what are we going to do about it?

32:03How are we going to react to that in real time? If you're trying to do that and also respond to a query from one of your customers about an ETA for a load that's not due for two days, like it's just impossible. So when we started adopting AI, when we started putting AI into our business, really the thing that we wanted to do was free up the dispatches. So we focused on those high volume, but frankly, low risk, low output use cases like responding to ETA updates, responding to customer queries, rate queries, all of that sort of stuff. And then what we found is actually, even though those things don't necessarily directly drive value themselves, we've seen a huge ROI because our dispatchers are so much more freed up to go and add value themselves and make the right decision when they need to make the right decision because they're not doing a thousand things at once.

32:52Having said all of that, with where AI is going, there was a moment about two weeks ago that I termed internally the singularity because we had a trailer that was with one of our drivers and we were trying to figure out exactly where that trailer had gone. And I gave the task to AI and I gave the task to a dispatcher and AI found where it was and the dispatcher couldn't. And so we're actually getting to that point now where even some of this more complex stuff AI can do as well. But ultimately, it has to be a tool that allows your humans to thrive and do the things that I think even in 10, 20 years, you're still going to need humans to make those split second decisions because they're just so, so difficult and so contextual.

33:34Malcolm Harris: That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. The AI in the vehicle is tremendous stuff. And I'm a fan of Tesla. I recently got a Tesla vehicle and it's fantastic. The first thing that I noticed and had to get used to, it's my wife's, but is basically the accelerator and the brakes. Okay? 100%. And most people tell you that. And they tell you that right away. It is not like driving a normal car. It's just not. It's incredibly fast. The torque is instant. It goes from zero to 60 as fast as it goes from 80 to 120. But as soon as you take your foot off the gas, it stops. So you have to feather down the gas.

34:18It does not coast. And it just occurs to me that that would be the same case on a commercial vehicle as well. Does that pose or does that create a safer environment on the roads? Because it will not coast. It will just stop. And it will stop rather abruptly and annoy the hell out of you if you don't learn how to use that gas pedal correctly. 100%. I mean, firstly, you have to train the drivers. 100%. We don't let a driver go out until they've sat in that vehicle for at least a day with another driver who's teaching them everything because it is totally different. But to that point, we actually had one of our drivers go visit a customer the other day.

35:00And exactly the point that they made was, I feel so much safer in this vehicle because let's say you're in the grapevine in LA and you're kind of coming down with a truck. If your brakes give out, that's it. You're toast. Whereas with the Tesla, you're actually not even touching your brakes. Your brakes are a backup to the engine brake, which is what you're using for 99 % of your deceleration. generation and the other thing which isn't a jake break but you should put the noise on it like a jake break right you should um and the other thing is because you've hauled up you know 40 000 pounds behind you the amount of energy that's actually being regenerated as you go down is huge we've got vehicles that get to the top at like 10 charge and by the time they're at the bottom they're at 35 again so it's hugely beneficial from from that perspective as well wow so mountain roads would be actually beneficial and even probably more of a cost savings that's amazing that's a great point

35:57Malcolm Harris: that's a great point i uh i was just gonna ask you know as we look into the future for navoya um what are the biggest things on you your as well as the the leadership team uh for navoya and what you guys are are trying to really accomplish and if you could just like kind of sit in a room right now and just make like a game plan all right it's like you're a college football coach and you're giving us your pitch like, hey, we're going to win championships. How does that look? How does winning a championship look? Yeah, well, I mentioned three things at the beginning. We talked about AI, we talked about electrification, but the piece we didn't talk about was autonomy.

36:34Our vision is actually the steps that needs to be taken in the trucking industry to get towards scalable autonomy are exactly the same as scalable electrification. What we mean by that is we've run millions and millions of data points, like, you know, weeks and months of simulations to show like what is the most efficient way of running an autonomous truck. And what we've demonstrated is that actually the most cost efficient way to run an autonomous truck is with a hub and spoke model. So basically you have these regional corridors where you're just running the autonomous truck pretty much 24 seven.

37:09And then you're doing the local deliveries with a driver. That's really important because if you think that your local shipper is going to allow an autonomous vehicle to enter their property and deal with all of the insurance headaches and liability, it's not going to happen for at least 50 years. So you've got the driver still doing the delivery and then the autonomous truck going 24-7. But that's exactly what we're doing with electric vehicles, because that's also how you get the best utilization out of your electric fleet. So in terms of scaling, what we're really looking to do is just increase the number of corridors that we have and then start to link them up.

37:42So today we're doing you know, Northern California to Southern California. And we're also doing Southern California to Phoenix and we're doing Houston to Dallas. And so our vision is, you know, if we can start to link Phoenix, El Paso to Houston, then all of a sudden we can actually do electric runs from, you know, all the way from Modesto, California to Dallas, Texas. And it's going to be fully EV and at a much lower cost than diesel. And then when autonomy actually becomes commercially viable, then you can actually just switch out those units to autonomous units, which not only means that you can reduce your costs, but it's beneficial to the drivers that you have because now you're saying, hey, I don't need you to go on the road.

38:23You can just do local freight. You're gonna be close to your family at all times. You're gonna be home every night and you have more of those local runs. So you actually make up for kind of the drivers that you don't need doing the longer haul because you have more drivers that you need doing the shorter hauls.

38:37Malcolm Harris: Sammy, I'm excited to see how this is gonna play out for you and the rest of the team at Navoya. Thank you for just giving us some insight. I'm very impressed. And we definitely need to have you back on the show before too long, man. Oh, yeah. Appreciate it, guys. I got a question that I want to ask him, but I'll just ask it this way. Do you want to talk on the next show about what is needed to make autonomous trucks commercially viable? Or are you keeping that a secret because it's a stealth mode? because I think you and I both know what the answer is. Oh, I see what you're doing here. This is a really funny question because I'm literally having this conversation with our investors right now.

39:19Yeah, I bet you are because I know what the answer is. I can see in your beard that you know what the answer is. We've been kind of doing that part of the business a little bit more stealthy historically, but actually right now we really believe that it's the time to get our voice heard. Like we are so convinced that this is the right strategy. This is how it's going to work. And this is how it's going to play out. And actually it's the time to kind of get that message out there. And it's the time to explain to people why we have the data demonstrating that this is actually going to be the right use case and the right fit.

39:55So yeah, we're going to be a bit more aggressive on that in the coming months. So that could be a good time to start talking about it.

40:02Malcolm Harris: Sammy Cohn again with Navoya. Sammy, thank you so much for being here. What the truck, bro. appreciate it guys have a good weekend i see what you're doing sammy fantastic man that was a fantastic interviewing guest again sammy yeah uh representing navoya um man some some awesome stuff uh as we are here with our second guest officially we kind of give you guys a precursor of what this was earlier but again technician shortages we're It goes directly to the source. This guy, he seems like he's a pretty good golfer, too. I think we've got some information about that. So with that, let's go to Matt Schrapp.

40:41Malcolm Harris: He is the VP of Operations at Cox Fleet. Matt, welcome officially to What the Truck. It's good to have you here with us, man. Thank you for having me, guys. Appreciate it. Although I'm curious about your sources of information. I've got kids and a job and don't have any time to play golf. Yeah, not anymore. Not anymore. Not anymore. That's fair. That's fair. Does the phrase, help me out, Frejia, a gungle-mungle-mungle mean anything to you? No, God. It doesn't? Not really. You are an Emory grad, right? I am an Emory grad. That's right. You are an Emory grad. You know who wasn't? It wasn't Bill Murray, but the Dalai Lama was.

41:24And I heard that they gave you some advice on the golf course down there. There it is. There's the picture. See? It wasn't just Bill Murray who got full consciousness on his deathbed. It was also Matt Trapp. Is it true? Is he a long hitter, big hitter, the Dalai Lama? The Dalai Lama? I'm not really sure he gets out on the course that often. Inside praying and teaching and, you know, getting in touch with his spirit. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's awesome stuff, brother.

41:58Malcolm Harris: It is awesome stuff. First off, thank you again for being here, Matt. I want to just jump right into it and talk about, I mean, this is an issue that a lot of people are discussing right now. But for those that aren't aware, can you talk to us about the issue of the technician shortage? But really, I kind of want to look at the other side of the coin, too, because what's happening when it comes to retention? Yeah, absolutely. So I think we all know, we see the stats out there that there's fewer and fewer technicians, fewer people interested in becoming technicians as they graduate, the kids, younger generation.

42:33And so while hiring and recruiting and training is extremely important, once you got them, you need to try to keep them, right? Because you've already done the hard work of getting them in the door. And now it's about how do you keep them and keep them motivated, keep them happy, not only just in order to have them to employ them and have them to do the work for the customers, but also to do great work for the customers, right? We see, at least within our business, our company, and in the data, that the longer that we keep a technician, a happier technician is, the better they end up performing for that customer.

43:07And at the end of the day, we're all here because of the customer. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, absolutely. What is the... why the shortage? What, I mean, what, what can be done to actually recruit people into this, right? I mean, you, you, you obviously retention is the best, is the best way to, you know, but you're always going to have attrition no matter how hard you, you, you try and there's growth. Is there, are there less technicians coming into the workforce, which I assume that there are. And how do you, how do you fix that? Yeah, there definitely are. A couple of different ways. I mean, we try to think about approaching it.

43:51So just the other week, we were here in Atlanta. It's our home office. We were down at Piedmont Park out there for this big expo where you're getting in front of kids. And a lot of the different companies that are here around Atlanta, UPS, Coca-Cola, Delta, they're out there. and they're doing these like cool hands-on things with the kids to get them interested in STEM, you know, like science, technology, engineering type activities. And so we went out there and we had a service truck and we had wrenches and we had the kids out there out fixing things, putting on, you know, safety vest and crawling up under trucks and just getting kids excited about seeing themselves in a hands-on career in the future, something where they're working with their hands.

44:36Because let's face it, I mean, you just talked about on the last segment around AI, like AI is going to be coming for some of the jobs, a lot of the white collar jobs, or at least we'll make there be fewer of them. AI is going to be really hard to replace the technician, right? I mean, you still need somebody to get up under the truck or get up under the hood and actually fix the thing. And so, you know, I encourage my kids, I encourage, you know, a lot of young folks that I talk to to look at those careers that are more hands on, that are going to be more durable and sustainable in the long run.

45:10So that's that's kind of the first part. The second is we actually have our own training academy. I mean, there's a lot of training academies out there that folks work with. And it's encouraging, in particular, like military, like veterans who are coming out and looking for a second career to transition into the civilian workforce by thinking about a career as a technician. And so we do this. We target that really successfully. And it's a path to give these veterans a different career as they come in. And so we'll bring them in. We'll teach them the skills. We'll teach them about, you know, trucks and trailers and, you know, electric issues and diagnostics and all that.

45:53And then we put them to work afterwards. So we pay for their training, run them through the rigors, and then we put them out on the lots and working with our customers. And we give them, you know, they are as an apprentice at that point. And so we put them with a mentor who can help coach them and train them. And then they become master technicians down the road. And whether they end up staying with us, we hope they do. or they go on to somebody else, you know, we've at least helped them in that journey and giving them a second career. And so there are a couple different ways to think about, like, adding to more technicians in the pipeline.

46:26Malcolm Harris: Matt, I feel like the game has changed because it's almost like the evolution of basketball with, like, the three-point line versus, you know, back in, you know, the 90s. I mean, threes weren't really that just of a focal point of an offense, right? I think it's the same when we're talking about technicians and follow me here. It's because of, I guess, yeah, you're using wrenches and you're under a truck too, but there's a technology aspect that a technician now really, really has to have. How have the two kind of, how do they mutually play off of each other? And then also with the progression in the career of a technician, it's something that you got to have, right?

47:04it. Yeah, yeah, you absolutely it's, it's becoming table stakes. You know, most technicians are out there, whether you're in the shop, or you're out, you know, in a truck and mobile environment, whatever you're doing, you're working with, you know, laptops, tablets, handhelds, right? So you got to be proficient at that. But then the diagnostics and the complexity of the machines is just getting greater and greater. And then you've got with EVs and coming in and how you You have to handle those and the safety and the training involved with EVs. And just being able to adapt and maneuver through that, the ones that do it well, they use technology to their advantage to make themselves more efficient, more effective, move faster.

47:49They're finding ways to get the information in their hands quicker so that they can solve the problem at hand. And so, like we like to say, you know, AI is not going to replace the technician. But it's a technician using AI is going to replace other technicians at the end of the day. And so getting technicians proficient in using the technology and understanding and not being scared of it, how it can help them, how it can make them more successful. That's key. And that's part of the journey and what folks need to do from a retention standpoint is make sure you're training them and guiding them and supporting them along the way so they know how to do it to be most effective.

48:29That's excellent. So looking into the future, what's going on, we understand what the problems are. We understand what you're trying to do and the industry is trying to do to correct things. How do you see this evolving out through the future? What are the pitfalls? What are the positives that we can take away? You know, the positives are that, like, especially on the diesel side of it, you look at the satisfaction. Like, we look at a bunch of surveys that are out in the industry. And the satisfaction as a diesel technician tends to be higher than automotive technicians. And so you think about progression of a technician, a lot of times we see you start off as an automotive technician, and then you continue to train up and move to the diesel side of it.

49:10And diesel techs, I'll tell you, they got a little bit of an ego in a good way. They've earned their stripes to be able to get to that level. And so we see that that is a little bit more durable, sustainable. It's a higher mountain for these guys to climb. And so there's something there to aspire towards. Um, so that's sort of the good news. The other is that like the problems around retention and why people quit, um, you know, we think are solvable, not just for ourselves, but, you know, for our customers and for others in the industry. I mean, the number one reason people quit, it's their boss.

49:47It's terrible leadership. I mean, we see it over and over. It's not pay. I mean, you know, pay, pay has got to be there, but pay, pay just, you know, kind of normalizes across the board. people quit people they quit people they don't want to be around and so if you can invest in your leadership and training them and having them understand and listen to the people they're guiding and have them be a leader not a boss that's how we talk about it then you're just you're going to see your retention go through the roof right you're going to you're going to have technicians stick around longer it's um yeah they don't they don't quit the job they they quit the people.

50:23Malcolm Harris: They quit the person. This is such an interesting conversation for the, I guess our last one, because we are short on time. I want to ask, I mean, in terms of what you and the rest of the team at CoxSuite are doing, if there's somebody that's listening right now that has additional questions or wants to kind of pick your brain more, where should they go to get more information about this? Because this is a really fascinating topic. Yeah. Be happy to talk to anybody. We've got a lot of resources out there. We've got a great team behind us who are like experts in recruiting and retention. Hit me up on LinkedIn.

50:53I'm out there. You can find me, you know, Matt Trap. You can also go to Cox Fleet and see, you know, we're building something pretty amazing here and would love for more folks to be a part of the journey.

51:04Malcolm Harris: Awesome. Awesome. Matt Trap, again, for Cox Fleet. Thank you so much for being here and have a good weekend if you can hit the course, but it seems like you're probably going to be with the fam this weekend too. So thanks guys. Appreciate you having me. Appreciate you being here. Appreciate you guys, man. It's been quite the episode. Me and the dude, we're going to do what we do. Not saying we got to go home, but we got to get up out of here. Before we do, it's the road ahead. So let's check it out. Because Monday, we're going to have a fantastic show led off by, of course, Paul Singer, co-founder and CEO of Fleetworks.

51:34Malcolm Harris: And Amir Haas, the founder and CEO of Iago, is going to be on the show. So Amir, Paul, myself, and the dude, we're going to see you on Monday. Like, subscribe, follow, do all the things from myself and Michael Vincent. It's been another episode of What the Truck. It's peace and it's love. And love. We'll see y 'all.

52:26Outro Music