FedEx founder Fred Smith, a Marine Corps veteran who revolutionized package delivery, dies at 80

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Fred Smith, the FedEx Corp. founder who revolutionized the express delivery industry, has died, the company said. He was 80.
FedEx started operating in 1973, delivering small parcels and documents more quickly than the postal service. Over the next half-century, Smith, a Marine Corps veteran, oversaw the growth of a company that became something of an economic bellwether because so many other companies rely on it.
Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx became a global transportation and logistics company that averages 17 million shipments per business day. Smith stepped down as CEO in 2022 but remained executive chairman.
Smith, a 1966 graduate of Yale University, used a business theory he came up with in college to create a delivery system based on coordinated air cargo flights centered on a main hub, a 'hub and spokes' system, as it became known.
The company also played a major role in the shift by American business and industry to a greater use of time-sensitive deliveries and less dependence on large inventories and warehouses.
Smith once told The Associated Press that he came up with the name Federal Express because he wanted the company to sound big and important when in fact it was a start-up operation with a future far from assured.
At the time, Smith was trying to land a major shipping contract with the Federal Reserve Bank that didn't work out.
In the beginning, Federal Express had 14 small aircraft operating out of the Memphis International Airport flying packages to 25 U.S. cities.
Smith's father, also named Frederick, built a small fortune in Memphis with a regional bus line and other business ventures. Following college, Smith joined the U.S. Marines and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He left the military as a captain in 1969 after two tours in Vietnam where he was decorated for bravery and wounds received in combat.
He told The Associated Press in a 2023 interview that everything he did running FedEx came from his experience in the Marines, not what he learned at Yale.
Getting Federal Express started was no easy task. Overnight shipments were new to American business and the company had to have a fleet of planes and a system of interconnecting air routes in place from the get-go.
Though one of Memphis' best-known and most prominent citizens, Smith generally avoided the public spotlight, devoting his energies to work and family.
Despite his low profile, Smith made a cameo appearance in the 2000 movie 'Castaway' starring Tom Hanks. The movie was about a FedEx employee stranded on an island.
'Memphis has lost its most important citizen, Fred Smith,' said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, citing Smith's support for everything from the University of Memphis to the city's zoo. 'FedEx is the engine of our economy, and Fred Smith was its visionary founder. But more than that, he was a dedicated citizen who cared deeply about our city.'
Smith rarely publicized the donations he and his family made, but he agreed to speak with AP in 2023 about a gift to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to endow a new scholarship fund for the children of Navy service members pursuing studies in STEM.
'The thing that's interested me are the institutions and the causes not the naming or the recognition,' Smith said at the time.
Asked what it means to contribute to the public good, he replied:
'America is the most generous country in the world. It's amazing the charitable contributions that Americans make every year. Everything from the smallest things to these massive health care initiatives and the Gates Foundation and everything in between,' he said. 'I think if you've done well in this country, it's pretty churlish for you not to at least be willing to give a pretty good portion of that back to the public interest. And all this is in the great tradition of American philanthropy.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

TechCrunch

40 minutes ago

• TechCrunch

Moratorium on state AI regulation clears Senate hurdle

A Republican effort to prevent states from enforcing their own AI regulations cleared a key procedural hurdle on Saturday. The rule, as reportedly rewritten by Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz in an attempt to comply with budgetary rules, would withhold federal broadband funding from states if they try to enforce AI regulations in the next 10 years. And the rewrite seems to have passed muster, with the Senate Parliamentarian now ruling that the provision is not subject to the so-called Byrd rule — so it can be included in Republicans' 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' and passed with a simple majority, without potentially getting blocked by a filibuster, and without requiring support from Senate Democrats. However, it's not clear how many Republicans will support the moratorium. For example, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee recently said, 'We do not need a moratorium that would prohibit our states from stepping up and protecting citizens in their state.' And while the House of Representatives already passed a version of the bill that included a moratorium on AI regulation, far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene subbsequently declared that she is 'adamantly OPPOSED' the provision as 'a violation of state rights' and said it needs to be 'stripped out in the Senate.' House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the provision by saying it had President Donald Trump's support and arguing, 'We have to be careful not to have 50 different states regulating AI, because it has national security implications, right?' In a recent report, Americans for Responsible Innovation (an advocacy group for AI regulation), wrote that 'the proposal's broad language could potentially sweep away a wide range of public interest state legislation regulating AI and other algorithmic-based technologies, creating a regulatory vacuum across multiple technology policy domains without offering federal alternatives to replace the eliminated state-level guardrails.' Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW A number of states do seem to be taking steps toward AI regulation. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a high-profile AI safety bill last year while signing a number of less controversial regulations around issues like privacy and deepfakes. In New York, an AI safety bill passed by state lawmakers is awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul's signature. And Utah has passed its own regulations around AI transparency.

UPI

an hour ago

• UPI

FedEx founder Fred Smith dies at 80

June 22 (UPI) -- Fred Smith, the founder of shipping giant Federal Express, has died at the age of 80, the company announced Saturday. His cause of death was not revealed. Smith, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, founded the company in 1973 with just limited staff and 14 small Dassault Falcon 20 jets. He led the company until stepping down in 2022, after growing it to a global behemoth with over 500,000 employees globally and a fleet of about 700 aircraft and hundreds of thousands of vehicles. "It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I share that Frederick W. Smith, our founder and executive chairman, died earlier today," FedEx chief executive Raj Subramaniam said in a statement Saturday. Beyond his leadership of the company, Smith has been heralded for his pioneering of the "hub-and-spoke" delivery system that revolutionized the field of logistics. Instead of shipping packages directly from origin to destination as had been done, FedEx began to route all packages to a central facility in Memphis where they were then rerouted to regional centers and then their destinations. While Smith did not create the hub-and-spoke concept, which had been used previously for airline and railroad travel, he combined the model with a guarantee of overnight air delivery to become the first company to consistently provide express shipping. "He was the heart and soul of FedEx -- its PSP culture, values, integrity, and spirit. He was a mentor to many and a source of inspiration to all. He was also a proud father, grandfather, husband, Marine, and friend," Subramaniam said. "Please keep the entire Smith family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time."

Business Insider

an hour ago

• Business Insider

Women are getting wealthier — and they don't invest the same way as men

Women are becoming richer, and they're changing the face of wealth. According to a report by McKinsey published last month, women control about a third of all retail financial assets in the US and the European Union. By 2030, that proportion is expected to rise to between 40% to 45%, wrote Cristina Catania, global co-convener and European lead for the risk and resilience practice, and Jill Zucker, senior partner and co-leader of McKinsey's global growth transformation service line. The report is based on a survey of about 13,000 American and European investors, nearly half of whom were female financial decision makers. It found that between 2018 and 2023, global wealth rose by 43%, but jumped by 51% for women. Women's expanding control of assets is being driven by a combination of factors, including a continuing decline in marriage rates, the ongoing boost in women's average earnings, demographic trends like longer life expectancies, and a broad shift in attitudes about women managing their own finances. Risk doesn't equal reward As women become wealthier through investing, it's becoming clearer that they don't approach it the same way as men. "Women are much more risk-aware," Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen, cofounder of financial education and investment platform Female Invest, told Business Insider. "I would like to call it much more realistic in their own ability to invest." She said women are less likely than men to invest emotionally. "On average, men trade a lot more often than women because they believe they can beat the market or they read something in the news, and they get pumped up or afraid, and then they invest based on that," Hartvigsen said. Female investors, in her view, tend to be more calm, more realistic, and better at assessing risk. However, Katie Geery, an advisor at Rise Private Wealth Management, says being more cautious can also hold women back by leading them to miss out on opportunities to build wealth. "It is important to work with a trusted financial advisor who understands your risk tolerance and can walk you through making well-educated investment decisions based on your long-term goals," she told BI. Returns aren't everything The aims of investing also sometimes differ between men and women. "Women prefer to invest toward achieving specific goals rather than chasing the highest returns," said Avanti Shetye, financial planner at Wealthwyzr. Geery said female investors tend to be more focused on philanthropy and gifting. They often consider their values when buying stock and want their purchases to help make a better impact on the world. "Women often seek financial advisors who are empathetic and take the time to get to know them on a more personal level to gain a deeper understanding of their goals and values," she said. On Female Invest, Hartvigsen said the principles its members care about the most include climate, especially a firm's carbon footprint, and diversity in leadership, in terms of a board having a good gender balance. Start investing early For Shetye, it's important to start investing early. "Women tend to be primary caregivers for children or aging parents and often take unpaid time off," she said. "Not only that, women statistically live longer than men, which implies that women would need to invest as much as they can as early as possible so that their portfolios last them through retirement." Hartvigsen said long-term financial planning is vital: "When you do that, it doesn't matter what happens today." Both agree that this plan should be grounded in expert advice. "Working with a financial planner whose planning process is rooted in financial education can help provide comfort and security to stay consistent even in the roughest of markets," Shetye said. But she also believes that practice is more important than perfection. "You are never going to know everything there is to know about investing," Shetye said. "The key is consistency, and time will do the heavy lifting." Hartvigsen advises her clients to invest monthly on the same day and to diversify their investments. "If you do that, historically, it has been near impossible not to make money in the long run."