The Near-Miss Data Hack Slashing Fleet Collisions by 67%

0:00Thank you.

0:33Malcolm Harris: Welcome to a Friday edition of What a Truck. I'm your host, Malcolm Harris. I'm joined with my man, Mr. Michael Vincent. Mike, this is a bit different for your boy, man, but I'm happy to be here. What's up, man? What's up, dog? Look at you, baby. There's more books on that shelf than you ever read in your whole life. Ever in my life. This is my dad's office. For those that don't know, because I promise you, I am, for one, not a 49ers fan. He's got a Falcons helmet right there for me. And then he's got a 49ers helmet for him up there. And, yeah. That's a lot of books. I was actually there. I was actually there in the, what was it?

1:16They played in the NFC Championship. Is that right? Yes, that is correct. Yeah. Yeah, I was there. That is correct. Yeah, me and Bo's actually. I like the haircut.

1:27Malcolm Harris: I like the haircut. I like the haircut. There you go, baby. Looking like Slim Shady. Slim Shady. Hello. My name is Slim Shady. What's that, dog? Look at you. You got some 5 o 'clock shadow at 10 o 'clock in the morning. I do. Roll what's up. I do, yeah. Decided to grow the beard back. I think it was cool for what it gave. I think you'll succeed. I think you'll succeed. One of my buddies said that I look like. You like it? You like that? Yeah, yeah. I dig the Soul Pass. I can't pull it off, but they're cool. I got a buddy who's got one, and I'm jealous because they're cool. I think they're cool.

2:11I can't pull it off, though. I look like a dork.

2:14Malcolm Harris: No, I think you can pull off anything. You are cool, by the way. Mr. Style. You know. Where are you at? The ATL? You in the ATL? Is that where you at? I'm in Florida. I'm in Sarasota, Florida. Oh, Florida. Sarasota. Yeah, I'm in Florida. Sarasota. Man. I knew you were from the hood, bro.

2:41You're crazy. Everybody knows Sarasota is Florida's hood.

2:50Malcolm Harris: I'm not doing this with you today. I'm not doing this with you today. You're not? Okay, who did you? I'll go there. We'll say that. We'll say that. Let's talk. So every single show after the show ends, we normally need you. We have a phone call. We have a phone call. We debrief. You know, it's my favorite thing. Well, we're not going to have one today because my phone literally stopped working yesterday. It will not turn on. I think it's probably some nefarious activity going on there, bro. Either that or Isaiah Buchanan is trying to hack me. He's jealous of my abilities and he wants to be me.

3:29Malcolm Harris: It's one of those two. Well, we've had some private conversations, Izzy and I have. So it's possible. I'm kind of like his mentor. I'm so jealous. He has the jawline. He's a good-looking brother, man. I want to be Izzy when I grow up. He is good-looking, but you're the best-smelling brother I know. I'll tell you that. Oh my gosh. I appreciate it. It's some good looking brothers that we're going to have on today's show. Let's look at On Deck and see who we got coming up. All right. You guys have seen two of these guests before, but for those that don't know, we have Dr. Stefan Heck. He is going to be in the building as well as Zach Greenberger.

4:11Malcolm Harris: All right. So these fellas are here to talk about Empiric Earth, the new company born, bringing Nexar and Naoto together. Together, we're getting into over 10 billion miles of real world driving data. Why the near misses that never become crashes matter more than the actual crashes themselves and how fleets are seeing collision losses drop as much as 67 % using this type of data. And then Greg Barry, the builder product manager at Numero is going to break down tax pyramiding. All right. So tariffs are grabbing the headlines as we talked about on Wednesday, but he's going to jump in a little more and explain the hidden sales tax problem behind, as well as building underneath the US-Canada trade tensions and how supply chain moves are looking smarter on paper by quietly, again, showing what's being eaten up by tax exposure that nobody saw coming.

5:03Malcolm Harris: This is going to be an episode that is going to have a lot of information coming to you quick, fast, and in a hurry between Greg, Zach, and Stefan. This is going to be off the chain. Mike, are you ready to go, brother? I'm always ready, brother. I was born. I was born a cheesiest coach.

5:22Malcolm Harris: I was born a cheesiest coach. Let's get into it. Let's pay the bills first, man. All right. This show is going to be sponsored by DayCard. All right. They are a sponsor and are presenting sponsor of the month of September. Of course, bringing to you the MacroPoint ELD+. Plus, this is a new dual source tracking capability that combines ELD and mobile app tracking in one session. You can spot discrepancy sooner, capture proof of delivery, and gain greater confidence in every load. You're going to learn more at Descartes.com. We have a few guests from Descartes that are going to be on the show on the back end of the show this month of September.

6:02Malcolm Harris: And we're going to speak with them. Excited to have multiple guests representing Descartes. Thank you all so much for what you're doing. And then also not this Monday, but next Monday, I want to shout out to Tanya Garcia because she scared me this morning. She was like, are you ready for Cooner to be on the show on Monday? And I was like, no, because I don't I don't think we're having a show on Monday because I travel. So next, it's next Monday. It's next Monday. I was scared. All right. So the 28th, you're going to hear directly from our supporting sponsor, Cooner Fleet Management Solutions. And for those that don't know, a truck that's not moving isn't making any money.

6:36Malcolm Harris: Every breakdown means lost revenue, misloads, driver downtime, and added pressure on your business. And that's why fleets across North America trust KUNA fleet management solutions for mobile maintenance, preventative service, DOT inspections, and nationwide repair support. KUNA's tailored services, again, help maximize revenue by keeping trucks moving, drivers earning, and freight on schedule. Visit KUNAFMS.com slash with a truck for your complimentary fleet service review. All right. So you guys know in about just a month's time, we got the biggest event happening here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and it is the future of Freight Festival.

7:14Malcolm Harris: The Freight Tech 100, for those that don't know, is coming to you very, very, very soon. And there's going to be a whole spectacle about the Freight Tech 100 happening here at F3, October 27th and the 28th. Tickets are on sale now. Right now, you can still use the promo code TAKE20. That is T-A-K-E-2-0 for 20 % off of admission. Thank you all so much for throwing that up there. You guys can see that promo code and be able to have the opportunity to get a little off of your ticket of admission going into the future of Freight Festival. So we're excited. There's going to be a lot of great conversations.

7:50Malcolm Harris: Of course, some great keynote speakers, some great sessions. A lot of different characters from Freight Waves are going to be there. and I could not be more excited. The Lizard and Craig Fuller are going to be there, probably not in the same room because I believe they're the same person. Can't be. Can't be. Yeah, I'm excited, man. It's going to be awesome. So make sure you guys are there. And if you're not, I'm going to take another form of digital. That was a terrible golf swing. Did you see that golf swing? The hell was that? I did see that golf swing. He 100 % shanked that off the hosel right into the lake.

8:28Malcolm Harris: I couldn't agree more, man. I couldn't agree more. Again, October 27th and the 28th. Tickets are on sale right now. Might even get some chat whiskey from us. You never know. Again, only way to find out. Bring that 20%. Bring that 20%. Bring that 20%. We'll turn it into something. All right. October 27th, 28th. Featured Freight Festival at The Signal in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And excited for this one in a little over a month's time. All right. So, Mike, I saw this one and I immediately thought about you because I didn't know if it was that big of a deal or not. But it seems like it. All right.

9:06Malcolm Harris: This is this is weird. This is weird. Mexico. All right. Let's talk about it. Let's just get into it. All right. Mexican customs authorities have lifted a ban on empty commercial trucks entering Mexico through the border crossing in Eagle Pass, Texas. Sorry, this band ended. A five-day disruption that stranded hundreds of tractors across the border in the Mexican city of Pijas. Yeah, I'm going to butcher that. That forced to scramble to reposition equipment. All right, so. Give it a shot. What is it? I don't know. I don't want to get flagged, man. Is it Negros? OK, cool, cool. I was trying to keep it PG.

9:45Malcolm Harris: You know what I'm saying? Mexico's National Customs Agency, known as the ANA, reinstated empty truck crossings from Eagle Pass, of course, on Monday after imposing the restriction on September 9th. The restriction allowed trucks carrying freight to enter Mexico, but prohibited the empty trailers and tractors operating without trailers from crossing southbound into Mexico. The local customs administration initially said the measure would remain into effect until further notice. So what this did was this stranded up reportedly 700 tractors in Eagle Pass without a way to return to Mexico. All right.

10:23Malcolm Harris: So empty, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, bro. This is a recipe for disaster in terms of capacity, in terms of traffic flow. I mean, what were your thoughts when you saw this? Because I was like, dude, this is I mean, it seems like it might not be that significant. but over a certain amount of days, yeah, it is significant. Yeah. First of all, does Claudia know about this? Did anybody call Claudia? Hey, put Claudia on the phone, man. Hold up, bro. Get Claudia on the phone. What the hell is this crap? Does she know what these people are doing down here? Who the hell is A &AM and why did they get it? Who gave them authority?

11:08Malcolm Harris: I wanted to know the same thing. How did they get to do something like this? No, we inquiring minds want to know where did this come from? Because I mean, here's here's first of all, it's like, what are these people doing? What was this all about? Was this like some type of protest about some shit or. But there's nothing there. There's nothing like they say, hey, look, we want higher pay. Therefore, we're not going to freaking do this. You know, Claudia didn't come out and say, hey, look, if you're not if you're going to treat us like, Like, you know, dogs and tariff, we're not going to accept any more empties.

11:44I mean, it's not a trade thing. What was it? Was it a poke at the bear saying, hey, if we close our borders, you're screwed? I mean, no kidding. You know what I'm saying? It's not like, was this a test to see how effective we could be? If you shut down traffic going southbound, it screws stuff up. You don't have to test it to understand that. I mean, hello, right? You know, when you were just a kid running around in a kitchen in the next room over there and you stuck your finger in the fire there, right? And your mama said, dude, hot, don't do it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, danger, fire danger.

12:20You know what I mean? I can't agree more. Your dad said, I'll let him do it. I'll only do it once, right?

12:28Malcolm Harris: Yeah. That's typically how conversations went in this household. My dad would just let me do whatever I wanted for one time. Oh, yeah. Totally. Totally. He's going to try to stick your keys in the light socket. Yeah, he'll only do it once. He'll do it one time. He ain't going to do it again. He won't do it. He won't do it twice. But seriously, dude, why are you poking the bear? I mean, why would you do this? This can't be a coordinated thing. I mean, because it makes no sense. I mean, Claudia's not going to go, hey, let's try this as a strategy. It's so sophomoric and stupid and like, duh, are you going to?

13:02Anyway, it doesn't make any sense to me. What's the point? that's what I want to know

13:07Malcolm Harris: what was the point? I mean and think about it too from a numbers perspective dog this is the nation's 10th largest border crossing area in 2025 according to trade volume alright so they handled almost 4 billion in total trade bro so it's like why would you why would you do this at something that is really going to almost have a trickle effect to not only US inland locations whether it's Brownsville, whether it's Laredo, whether it's these different areas in Texas. But like, bro, this is going to impact all the different other ports in Mexico when it comes to traffic and getting commodities and other things there.

13:47Malcolm Harris: So I was very, very confused by why this happened. I'm confused, too. I mean, you know, I do the research and all this other kind of stuff and look into this, and I can't find anything that makes any type of logical sense as to why you would do this. because you ban empties coming in. You don't get stuff going north. You kill your own economy. You're not helping anybody here. This isn't a tariff type of situation where things have to flow. When you cut off the move, you've cut off the move. That's all there is to it. Like, oops, we didn't realize we were cutting off our nose to spite our face.

14:21Like, no, they're not dummies in Mexico. They're not a bunch of morons running around. But this was kind of a stupid move. I don't know why. Maybe somebody was just sick for a couple of days and they're just playing it off as a political stunt. You know, I don't know. Hey, man, can you take care of the inbound shit? I've never done that shit before. Man, I don't even know what you're talking about, man. Yeah, I don't know about it. I don't play in that southbound crap, man. I'm northbound, man. I'm northbound. I'm downtown, man. I'm good. That's it. That's it, bro. Northbound Harris. That's what they call me.

14:57Malcolm Harris: Yo, check out more information. on this article right now from Noi. We're going to want a part two for this one, but it's on FreightWaves.com for those that are interested. I'd like to know who is the mastermind behind this stupidity is what I'd like to know. What the hell are they thinking? I don't know. We're putting them up against each other, and we didn't mean to intentionally, but they had been probably the most popular. You do this all the time. The most popular riders, and it's just happened that way. So let's go from Noi to Phil Brink, And let's talk about the second one. We've been in the state of Nebraska on back-to-back shows, which is very, very odd.

15:38Malcolm Harris: All right, a truck driver. Have you ever actually been there in Nebraska? Bro, I have not set foot in Nebraska, ever. You wouldn't know it if you were. You wouldn't know it if you were. I'm assuming it's just a bunch of land and cornfields and then a stadium that sits 100 ,000 people that watch videos from the 90s kind of sounds like tennessee football right now but that's neither here nor there uh a chop chopper fled after nebraska troopers discovered 250k and stolen commercial speakers inside a semi all right so they also found false delivery paperwork uh during this encounter about a week and a half ago near gothenburg other merchandise filled about half the trailer investigators later trace everything aboard to thefts uh when it came from Thefts rather in Illinois and New York.

16:29Malcolm Harris: So New York, excuse me, Nebraska State Patrol, they received an alert about a suspected freight fraudulent load moving through the state around 530 p.m. The trooper located the vehicle parked at a truck stop. All right. Then from there, they contact with this operator, revealed fraudulent shipping documents. And then from there, troopers obtained a warrant before opening the cargo area. And that's when they kind of saw all of the items. All right. So items were intended for Walmart facilities in Florida, which occupied one side and then high end sound equipment destined for Las Vegas filled the other side.

17:05Malcolm Harris: All right. So the speakers alone were about 250 K. The name of the driver who is still wanted is Ashwani Kumar. All right. So the trucker disappeared after the officers placed him out of service. All right. So he was going through New Jersey through a non domiciled CDL and then investigators secured an arrest warrant following his departure. All right. So he's again, unaware of any arrests involving Kumar as of late Tuesday. This could have changed as is now Friday, but this is the news that we have right now. So I wanted to bring this to you guys. Hasn't changed. I checked it this morning he's still he's yeah so he's at large right now which again we've talked about it often this non-domiciled cdl mess and we talked about on even on wednesday 110 schools you said stupid and dangerous you know we did say at large but he may just in fact be stupid and dangerous because this right here is crazy.

18:11Who put together this load? Half is going to Vegas and half is going to Florida, and he's in Nebraska. That's a hell of a milk run. Talk about route optimization. This guy needs some help. All you guys out there, tech guys, you got to get with these people. This is not route optimization. This is not how you run a milk route, okay? This is not an effective milk run. I mean, what was he doing? He came out of Illinois, and he's got half going to Vegas and half going to Nebraska. Or half going to Vegas and half going to Florida. What was the plan?

18:43Malcolm Harris: What was the plan? So if you're going from Illinois, you've got to stop in Nebraska, drop off in Vegas, and then cross country to go to Florida. I mean. What? What the hell are they talking about? It's stolen goods. was there a manifest in there from like the thieves saying hey drop it off at this dude's house he said check the guy on the corner it's my cousin he'll tell me to drop off this half then head to florida drop off this so what are they talking about half of the stolen goods were were going here and half there they don't know where the hell these things were going they were stolen there's no manifest this guy didn't have a map they have a map on himself saying hey go to malcolm's house in sarasota you know the one and then you know you see what i'm saying it doesn't make any sense it doesn't and you know again this isn't necessarily you know we talk about cargo theft like this is cargo theft but this is also stupidity at its highest level i think what would these officers do it this is what the officers need phil's phil needs in his course i don't know what a cfco course is right but it's probably not going to help with it's probably not going to help with the beginning of this case because it was just a tip and we don't know what that was somebody Somebody called and said, hey, dude, this guy stole a bunch of shit.

19:59He's a moron. Trust me. Just pick him up over here. And that's what happened. That's really what happened here, right? And you're not taking any course to get tips. What's that course like? Hey, answer your phone. Oh, okay. Got it. You get an A. But when you pull him over, don't send everybody to the back of the truck to look for the stolen goods because the dude might run. You know, it's just a possibility he might leave. I don't know.

20:32Malcolm Harris: I just have so many questions because, like, technically, like, if you have a commodity that's that, I mean, that's no small amount. Of course, we talked about way larger amounts here on the show. Check this out. Why would you not be detained? Check this out. Yeah, talk to me. They were going to detain him. He ran, dude, before they could detain him.

20:53Malcolm Harris: It's not funny. I'm not laughing. It's not funny. It is funny. I mean, this is funny. There's$250 ,000 worth of speakers. What kind of speakers were these? Half a truckload is$250 ,000. Have you gone to Best Buy and shit? Speakers are cheap, dude. You can get them for nothing. Yeah, I'm very curious. They had to be like some maybe concert equipment or something like that. I was wondering that as well. I was like, where are these speakers going? It had to be for like a major show or a venue or some type of festival, something like that. because this, yeah, it just didn't make sense to me. You're right.

21:26Malcolm Harris: You're absolutely right. Check it out, dude. The paperwork, right? I got this from local news over there. The paperwork claimed that it was temperature-controlled candy. It was a dry van.

21:44Oops. You think that might tip someone off?

21:50Malcolm Harris: yeah so i got some temperature control candy oh but you don't have a reefer unit at all but it's a drive-in you don't have a reefer candy no no reefer candy what you know what i'm saying can you imagine that conversation with bro uh oh my gosh uh check check this one out y 'all for those that want a little comedic relief on your friday as you head into the weekend and uh we we do got some breaking news and i'm sure he's going to break later of course uh you know so definitely definitely stick around uh for freight waves today i think there's going to be some breaking news that everybody's going to want to listen to in a good way uh and then also is that right yeah that's right that's right and then um i saw an article it's not ready yet but apparently a truck driver intentionally ran into an aldi in nashville so we'll bring you guys yeah yeah Yeah, apparently.

22:48Malcolm Harris: Why would you do that? Aldi's are awesome. I love Aldi's. You like Aldi's? I love a good Aldi, man. Listen, you can make$150 change the world in Aldi right now. Will it expire by the time you get home? Yes. Will it expire by the time you get home? Yes, it will. But you will be okay. You'll be okay. That's right. All right, let's get to the main attraction, all right? We're excited to bring our two guests to talk about this partnership. And they've been on the show multiple times. And for those that don't know, they are fantastic guys. Excited to see and hear from them. Right now joining the show is going to be Zach Greenberger as well as Dr.

23:30Malcolm Harris: Stefan Heck. Gentlemen, welcome back to What the Truck. It is so good to see you. Although not in studio, I still feel like you guys are right here with me. So thank you all so much. What is going on? Thank you for having us and having us both. Yeah, that's great. And Malcolm, I got to ask, are we going for the Sixers this year? I mean, I'm going wherever LeBron goes, I go. Wherever LeBron goes, I go. I was watching. I'm like, I'm watching it like this is a super team that I don't like. 82-0. Only way you can win. It's the only way you can win, dude. Let's go. Let's go. I'm ready. He ain't like MJ where he could win and make everybody else great.

24:18He's got to go to a team already great, and then he can ride their coattails. I'm not doing this with you today.

24:23Malcolm Harris: I refuse to be baited by you today, Michael Benson. You're going to act up in front of our guests, and I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to have it. Do you think LeBron James could score 83 points in Philly by himself in one game? 83 points. If Bam Adebayo can do it, LeBron James can do it. That's all I got to say. I don't know, bro. I don't know. I don't know. I'm digging your house. Is that Dr. Hex's house with the cool leaded glass windows? Yes. Yes. It's an antique in California, 1902. So, yes. I love it. No, you can tell. That's very cool. I love that kind of stuff. You know what? Look, I had Claude describe you guys.

25:07Let's do Dr. Stephan first. Do I call you Dr. or Stephan or Dr. Starius? You can just call me Stephan. That's fine. Oh, wow. There he is. I love the clog, man. I know. And, Matt, you could type like a mother with those things. I'm telling you. You got to have a special keyboard, though, because you just ruin them. You run through them like crazy. And check out Zacks. This is what's weird is they're very eerily similar. Let's see Zacks. We did his as well, didn't we? Yeah, there it is. Oh, wow. Oh, you're playing the violin, though. That's cool. I don't know where the Tesla shirt came from. I don't understand.

25:53Zach used to be a Tesla. Oh, is that what it is? Okay, there it is. That's what it is. I got you. I got you. But there you go. You guys can, there's what Claude thinks of you right there. Very interesting. I love them. I think they're very cool. I think they're very cool. Are you actually musically talented, Zach? Is that in your background somewhere? No, I'm not. I mean, I think I played the violin in first grade, but I didn't realize Claude would be able to go that far back. Somewhere Claude's looking at your elementary school record. You need to start getting worried, Zach. You need to start getting worried.

26:32You thought you were safe. You know what? Junior high pictures are going to come out next, bro. That's a problem.

26:38Malcolm Harris: you're not safe you're not safe if it's reaching back that far there's no telling um so guys got some news and i want to bring it to everybody empiric earth is officially happening bringing nexar and nato together so before we get into that what is the idea behind empiric earth that you believe wasn't possible before and either zach or stefan whoever wants to start it out but I want to hear from both of you on this question. Yeah, I'll kick us off. Well, I mean, as you both know, the companies were really focused on serving different customer bases in the past. So Nexar served more of the rideshare population, Nauto served enterprise fleets.

27:20And it turns out when you put two world-class products together with state-of-the-art models with very large data sets and collecting hundreds of millions of miles a month, you can really make magic happen. And so when Stefan and I talked about the companies coming together probably about six months ago now, we realized quickly that we could provide value to customers to measure, predict and prevent collisions in ways that neither company could really do alone. So for us, this was very opportunistic and designed to bring way more value to the industry and to our customers. I love it. I love it.

27:58I love it. So how did the merger occur? Did you call up Stephan and say, dude, let's just make this happen? We were catching up, and we started discussing how much better it could be together, and that's where the idea came. And then we spent about a week hashing it out, and then we gradually told our team, our board, and then the whole company. So, yeah, it really started with the two of us saying, what could we do together that we can't do alone? and you look at you look at what we had right you know if you look at the nodo side we have very precise scoring for for drivers um we can anticipate risks very early on you look at nexar a huge library of what happens in cities um a really interesting um tool that lets you actually look ahead at the road and see what else is is happening there a 4d reconstruction so you We can actually take any collision and see it in 4D.

28:55How did it evolve? What happened? So that's just some examples of, you know, the two together have a unique capability. It's really on that. So it's taken safety from, you know, we've seen from the reactive, right? Or the near-term reactive to true predictive to true predictive. Because a lot of the things that we view as and see as predictive is just because they're a lot faster and we've been able to react as humans. right it's not really predictive but it's just it's so milliseconds of understanding that you're coming up on this traffic too fast right this is taking it past that a bit right to predict that's right this this is not just milliseconds this is five six seconds out and saying hey this situation the light's changing there's a pedestrian crossing or the truck's changing lanes in front of you and giving you as i said five six seconds of heads up uh to do something typically when we intervene it's not yet an imminent collision.

29:54Obviously, in some cases, it can be if it's an emergency. But our goal is really to give you enough time that you can do a gentle maneuver. You can change lanes, for example, or you can slow down gradually. We're not trying to create these last-minute, last-ditch, you know, emergency braking situations that you see from the traditional safety systems where you might just be able to brake enough to avoid the collision, but, you know, everything in your cab is going flying. And we have seen, particularly in the passenger carrying side, If you're talking about a taxi or Uber, people get hurt even when you have automatic emergency braking kicking and avoid the crash.

30:28Because if you're not sitting the right way wearing your seatbelt or there's anything loose in the vehicle, you can still get in here even though you technically avoided the collision. So that's why it's really important to give you that extra time. We do see that the very best drivers, we have a lot of CDL drivers, they can even go seven, eight seconds. So our goal over the next couple of years is to keep increasing that. Right now, we're at about six. The very best drivers can anticipate stuff before the average driver can even see it. They know, hey, there's a turn coming up. There's a car.

31:00And they have a hunch, that guy's going to change lanes. Let me just get out of the way before anything even happens. So that's really, it's a gift for the best drivers. Yeah. And it is really special. I'm always looking at those steer tires. You know what I mean? I'm always looking at those steer tires when I'm coming up on somebody. Yeah, seriously. When I'm coming up on passing somebody, I'm always looking at those two. Because if you see those move first, you know what's going down. I'm always looking at that type of stuff. And I've got daughters that are starting to get to that age. They're 14 and 12, but I'm already in parking lots trying to teach them to drive.

31:36Because once they start to actually learn, I want them to be like totally comfortable with the car, right? Doing those things. And when we're moving, sometimes there's a car or somebody in that parking lot. I'm saying, okay, now look, there's a car there. there's somebody on a sidewalk. They might be getting in that car. These are the things you need to be aware of as we're driving around here is when you go back this way, that car's out of your sight, you come back. It could be moving because there's a car and there's a person, right? These are the type of things that this is looking at, these type of situations where, look, this has happened before.

32:07We've modeled this before. So we're in a situation where potentially this is what is going on. And the more evidence that's in there, it starts to predict a situation where you need to be aware. Is that, am I getting that right? That's exactly it. That's exactly what's going on. And the tricky part of what you described, right? Your daughter trusts you. So she's not going to say, hey dad, that's backseat driving. But if you do that with an electronic system and you do it too early where the less experienced driver doesn't even recognize that that was happening or that was dangerous, it comes across as a false alarm and then it becomes backseat driving.

32:41So there's this tricky judgment of, I've got to alert you when the risk is high enough and obvious enough that you'll see it once I alert you, but also that it's not so obvious that you're already on the break doing something about it because then it's just nuisance, right? So there's this window where the AI can look just enough ahead and predict and then give you time to change the outcome. And that's why the near misses are so important as well because you see about six near misses for every actual collision. And if you can identify those near miss situation where something almost happened and learn from those as well, you're just going to get so much better.

33:15you know and you think about the network yeah the network the network effects associated with it are really interesting so you know i remember we talked about the last time on the last time i was on we talked about what the difference is between an individual driver or vehicle seeing risk versus the whole network and we discussed how you know a single fleet might see debris in uh in in a lane a handful of times a year and when you put it across an entire network and you see it thousands of times a week, you can use all of those insights relative to where you know they are happening to create predictive analytics that marry with the models you're already running on the vehicle today.

33:54So everything is getting incrementally smarter as the more miles are driven on the platform. And just like your example of the wheels turning, you can actually see people look over their shoulder before they change lanes, right? So that's an early indicator. Or if you're talking about the example you gave of a pedestrian right if the pedestrian is looking at the light you know they're going to wait if the pedestrian is looking at their mobile phone they may just run right into the street not even realizing that the light's red so those are all those clues that a really experienced driver looks at and that's what we're trying to integrate because if we can give you those clues proactively a you can avoid the collisions and really prevent them but secondly with every one of those experiences you're going to become a better driver and so we can change that that learning curve typically when you're a teenager it takes about three years uh to be a decent driver and it takes about six years to become a sort of fully mature driver that's what the data shows we can shorten that to about six months to get you to be a great driver well i mean you guys

34:54Malcolm Harris: have the data to to prove it to what 350 000 connected uh sensors covering what 98 of u.s roads uh you've added another 300 million miles of driver data every single month so you guys know what you're talking about. I want to break this down, though, when it comes to, I guess, the fleet level. If I'm a fleet manager watching this right here, right now, what does Empiric Earth tell me that my current safety program and protocols don't necessarily save right now? So you can get down to the individual route and say, you know, which of my routes is dangerous, exactly what time of day, and then to Zach's example, why, right?

35:33Is it, you know, bad lane markings? Is it there's flooding? Is it just there's lots of traffic? Is it a particular entrance ramp? You can also get down to an individual driver and understand what do they still need to work on. And what you find is, you know, most fleets talk about, hey, don't speed. And it turns out speeding is only about 20 % of typical drivers. The big problem, if you want to change one thing to make a fleet safer, it's really putting phones away. We see that 70 % of all collision damage is caused by a mobile phone distraction. And that's invisible for most fleets. If you don't have a real-time system understanding when the driver's looking at the road, when the driver's looking at the phone, you have no idea.

36:13We see a lot of fleets, for example, that have an official zero tolerance policy, right? Which means, hey, if you're caught looking at your mobile phone, you're going to get fired. That's the first thing we change when we work with a fleet. We say, hey, you don't realize it, but 80 % of your driver's looking at their phone some of the time. If they realize they're looking at it, they're doing it unconsciously right now, right? The phones are addictive. And so we can get them to realize when they're doing it and realize how dangerous it is. It'll stop on its own. You don't need that policy. So we actually get rid of that policy and then give the driver's feedback because most people think, oh, I touched my phone, you know, once a day, twice a day for maybe a second or two.

36:51The data shows it's seven times per hour for between four and six seconds. And if you look at six seconds, six seconds is more than a football field that you've just traveled without looking at the road it at all. So if you're not aware of that, that's going to kill you. Wow. Absolutely. I mean, these are statistics that people need to understand is how far they travel. Because they, oh, I just looked at it for a second. And that is, I touch my phone way more than that. You're honest, then. That's good. Yeah, but not when I'm driving. It's hands-free and that's it. And most of the time, it's not even that.

37:42It's just you use your voice commands and all that kind of stuff. So how are you covering so much? And, well, a better question is this. Is it the technology or the amount of data that you have? What's the biggest breakthrough in what you guys are doing? Is it the computing power that you have now or is it the coverage that you have? Both. The coverage definitely helps because, you know, we've got millions of rare collisions that you might not even see in a lifetime as an individual. But to Zach's point, across, you know, hundreds of thousands of vehicles, thousands of fleets, somebody has seen it.

38:21And so the AI in the system is learning from all of those. And it's basically learning from the best drivers and learning from all the screw ups that happen on the road. And so you're learning from both. But it is definitely the technology as well. And Zach should talk about this more. But our AI models are actually more accurate, more predictive than anything else out there. They win the benchmarks against the best in the world. And we actually try to make them more compute efficient because that allows you to put them in more vehicles without having to have a really expensive vehicle with fancy computers.

38:57And maybe just to give a reference point, we've seen outperformance with our driving models that are almost a 40th of the size of some of the other largest models that are out there. So what that means is that it costs us significantly less money to train them, and they also could technically run on any camera, any production vehicle, whatever that might look like, which is very different from how a lot of the rest of the AI industry has adopted these models because they're at scale. They take a lot of compute power, a lot of spending power, and ultimately there's not enough memory or energy in the vehicle to be able to run them.

39:37Malcolm Harris: so my my follow-up question is like i'll stay with you is you know obviously now with your role what is the ultimate goal i mean is it a mixture of keeping fleets safer are you trying to do something bigger is there an intelligence layer because you kind of made it known like you know you you want to remain independent and i get that but what does it really mean looking forward for you all yeah so stefan and i always talk about our ultimate goal is to to prevent predict and measure risk and i think what's interesting about the models that we built is we found that it turns out that vehicles moving at very high speeds around roads are one of the best ways to understand physics just generally so so what we've seen is that these models actually generalized to a ton of other applications that are very similar to vehicles, right?

40:36Whether they are autonomous vehicles or whether it's drones or forklifts or safety in warehouses, you can use a lot of these models and insights to help predict and measure risk in very similar ways that, for example, we've been able to do in the trucking industry. So when we think about our overall mission, our overall mission is to bring safety to future deployments of physical AI and or, you know, any sort of, let's call it experience where there is human risk involved. And I think that ultimately would be how we think about it, how we talk about it with the teams and what the rest of the industry is getting really excited about.

41:18The big leap near term is to go from something that you have to add, you know, it's an AI dash camera, or it's a retrofit system for your truck, to a system that's really available to anybody at no extra cost for vehicles. And that's where Zach's point about the capability of doing it in light compute really matters. Because, you know, let's take a personal vehicle as an example, right? You buy a less expensive car. Today, it doesn't have fancy safety systems. But if we can make this, you know, 10 bucks of compute to add to the car that in return saves you$1 ,000 on your insurance. Now suddenly it's a great deal.

41:52So it's to make it really ubiquitous into all vehicles. And as Zach pointed out, any other kind of system that is moving across roads, indoors, same kinds of risks happen. We have a great example where we're running the models on a camera that's going through blood vessels, and it knows how to avoid the things coming at it in the blood flow. So nothing to do with roads. Corpuscles? It can like avoid corpuscles? That's right. I saw that movie. When I was a kid, there was that movie, right? Where they shrunk them and put them inside. Anyway. That's right. The Magic School Bus or something like that.

42:34The Magic School Bus. We got to move on, don't we? No. We got to. First of all, I just want to thumbs up or thumbs down. Flock cameras up or down?

42:54There you go. All right. That's it. That was my follow-up. Thank you.

42:58Malcolm Harris: The Shaq and Kobe of risk management, Zach and Stefan, thank you guys so much for all y 'all do. It's always a pleasure having y 'all on the show, and it's always an open invite anytime you guys have any updates, and proud of you all. Pleasure. Thanks for having us. I would have said MJ and Pippen, but that's okay. You're an old man. Or I guess LeBron and Embiid now, right? You better say it. Yes, sir. Trust the process. 83.

43:31Malcolm Harris: We'll talk to you guys soon, man. Again, great, great stuff with both of them. We got a couple of minutes left, and we're going to make the most out of it because joining the show right now, again, from Numeral, is none other than Mr. Greg Barry. I'm excited to have Greg. He is going to be on just momentarily, man. But we're going to get into one of the biggest things that I personally don't know much about, tax pyramiding. So welcoming now to What's the Truck, we have Mr. Greg Barry. Greg, can you hear us okay? Yes. Hey, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How's it going? It's doing well, doing well in sunny San Francisco, so can't complain.

44:14How are you guys? Lovely, lovely. It doesn't look sunny behind you. Is that a window? It looks like a sun back there. It might be sunny, but it looks a little cool. Yeah, painting in my living room. So sun's still peeking out, 7 in the morning here. I mean, I've been in San Francisco in August when it felt like 20 degrees, but I thought it got warmer in like September, end of September. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. September is our summertime for sure. It's actually when it starts to feel nice here. So. Gotcha. Gotcha. Hey, you know what? I, I, I tossed you into Claude as well. Let's see that. Let's see that, that Claude picture.

44:54There he is. There he is.

45:01That is Greg Barry according to, according to, yeah, absolutely. I have one question and I want to hear all about this tax stuff. Does Ohio State cover 52.5 points tomorrow? Man, after last week, I surely hope so. Yeah, me too.

45:20Malcolm Harris: I mean, Kent State was one of the worst teams in the FBS last year. My Tennessee Vols played them and put up almost 70 up in the first half. So I'm confident that Ohio State is going to be very, very frustrated, and they're going to make a point tomorrow in the shoe. How many points do you think they score in the fourth quarter? In the fourth quarter, they'll score seven points because Ryan Day, that's a classy young man. That's what he does, except I think against Indiana, where he threw up that extra point just to hit him. Just to stick it to him. Just to stick it to him. Anyway, let's let's the simplest question.

46:02When we talk about tax pyramiding, what the heck am I saying?

46:06Malcolm Harris: What am I talking about? What does that mean? It sounds like someone's going to jail to me. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. So so the good news is, is this is not just another pyramid scheme out there. So when we talk about tax pyramiding, very much what you mentioned at the top of the show. Right. You know, in the headlines today, terrorists are getting all of the attention. However, there is a lot that impacts the price and the sale of goods today that is very much homegrown in the United States. So tax pyramiding is very much around how sales and use tax impacts goods at each level of the supply chain, starting at raw materials all the way into when it reaches the final consumer.

46:48And so if you imagine each time an item changes hands between those levels of the supply chain, there can sometimes be sales and use tax assessed. That gets baked into the selling price of that good between each rung of the ladder there. And it's like a snowball rolling downhill. And so by the time it gets to the end consumer, that has become a material part of the selling price of the good. And so, you know, the taxes between each stage of the supply chain, the material revenue for the states in some cases, you know, up to 40 percent. And but at the end of the day, a lot of these costs are actually avoidable by law.

47:26You don't have to pay them. And it's one of those things that a lot of companies aren't aware of or if they become aware of it, it's a little bit too late. And of course, with all things related to sales tax, there is a lot of compliance burden around them. So, you know, even if you are kind of exempting tax to your customers, there's a massive compliance burden on your end in terms of what you have to collect from them and validate. Otherwise, you could be on the hook under a sales tax audit. So, you know, with inside your company, you know, if you're a manufacturer, you know, somebody within the wholesale distribution business, an ability within your organization to actually assess, you know, should we or should we not charge tax on this transaction?

48:09or should we actually not pay it, is incredibly helpful for keeping down your costs and making your goods more competitive in the marketplace. It sounds like it's a bit of nefarious activity that is just being labeled as, well, you don't have to pay it, but we're going to put it on this bill anyway. Tell me why I'm wrong. with that, right? I mean, it's like, yeah, there's these hidden taxes that you really don't have to pay. That sounds like bullshit to me, man. I mean, what, you know what I mean? Yeah. So at the end of the day, it ends up not usually being nefarious activity. Typically it is a company acting conservatively, right?

48:57And so if you are a seller and you don't charge sales tax and the state comes to audit you, well, now you're, you're on the hook, you know, plus whatever penalties and interest they want to slap on that. So what typically ends up happening is, you know, if you're a seller, some of your more sophisticated customers eventually end up coming to you and saying, hey, you know, legally, I'm not actually required to pay sales tax on this purchase. And then you do your due diligence and you say, oh, actually, you're correct. And so you start exempting it for all of your customers. However, in order to actually, you know, legally give that exemption, you have to be collecting what are called exemption certificates from these customers and the criteria changes by state.

49:41And so, you know, as your company gets bigger, you're more likely transacting with purchasers in all different states. So the criteria compounds, you know, you can imagine trying to in-house learn, you know, 50 different set of validation rules. And so, you know, there's nothing really nefarious going on, but, you know, folks typically end up operating out of a very conservative stance here. And, you know, I don't want to speak negatively against sales taxes because, you know, these are the taxes that end up, you know, building and paving our roads, paying our teachers and schools. And so it's important that they function properly.

50:17But at the end of the day, it's, you know, an organization acting conservatively. But then at the end of the line, right, these fees and these costs really end up snowballing into a pretty big bill.

50:28Malcolm Harris: Greg, I want to follow up here because this does sound like a tech problem whenever I think about it, but it's also a data problem as much as a tax problem. So my question is, what role can tech play in identifying the tax pyramiding before it becomes a significant expense for these businesses that you just called in the question? Yeah, yeah, great question. I mean, the laws around these exemptions are incredibly complex and nuanced, right? So for any organization to actually implement, historically to actually implement them, it would require a pretty robust tax team. Because as I mentioned, each state has their own set of laws and criteria.

51:08And then on the purchaser side, you have to know, hey, is what I'm purchasing actually exempt at the end of the day as well? And then I can give my seller an exemption certificate. it. So to your question about where does technology play a role in preventing this snowballing of cost, at least what we've built at Numeral is a solution that is able to get in the cracks and crevices of each of these transactions, understand the nuance of where it's taking place. And with the use of AI now, we can, in pretty short order, a couple of seconds, assess for you if your purchase actually does qualify for the exemption or not.

51:48And then especially on the seller side, you know, if that document that the seller is giving you is valid, because if you accept, you know, an incorrect document, you are on the hook for that sales tax, the penalties and interest. And so, you know, while you're trying to be a good operator in the market, it could end up snowballing into a ton of liability for you. And so what tech has really offered us in particular, you know, a good positive use of AI is the ability to get in, really understand these laws intimately and how they apply to your specific purchase and transaction.

52:21Malcolm Harris: So for shippers that have questions on this, how can they reach out to you, Greg? What's the Greg Barry 60 second pitch before we get out of here? Yeah, definitely. You can find us at numeral.com, N-U-M-E-R-A-L. You can book a demo with any of our sales folks. We have also tons of educational content on our website that talks specifically about these exemptions for manufacturers, wholesalers, folks in the freight and logistics business as well. Greg Berry, again, representing Numero. Greg, thank you so much. Good luck to your Buckeyes this weekend. And hopefully we'll see a lot of, well, I don't want to see too much Jeremiah Smith.

53:01Malcolm Harris: That means something went wrong. So hopefully you'll see some Chris Henry more than Jeremiah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. appreciate you appreciate you and appreciate you guys for being here we're going to bring back Mr. Michael Vincent and go double box Michael the next time double box the next time we see one another we're going to be at With the Truck West together yeah that's right next Wednesday right next Wednesday we will see do a show right here right here from the studio we're going to do we're going to do a show at With the Truck West on Wednesday it's going to be a fantastic time I'll be out in Dallas with PCS Software, showing them some love and excited to be there with them.

53:43Malcolm Harris: So, yeah, we got What the Truck Was. Look at that camera studio, man. That looks fantastic. We're actually going to have someone from Big Park. You'll be sitting right there in that empty chair right there. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm going to be sitting right there. No, I'm ready. Right there, baby. We will make it happen, baby. We will make it happen. We will make it happen. Well, it's been a great week. Make sure you guys are following and everywhere. I appreciate the Bowler Room Boys for making this one happen virtually for us. And again, that's it. From myself, Malcolm Harris, and Michael Vincent, it's peace, it's love.

54:16Malcolm Harris: We'll see you on Wednesday. Holla. Peace and love.

54:51We'll see you next time.