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Ryan Petersen loves memes. Rarely do they cross over into the realm of his startup, Flexport. On the one hand, the backlog of ships waiting to proceed to ports due to the ongoing blockage of the Suez Canal by the containership Ever Given is a crisis for anyone whose startup bills itself as “the platform for global trade.” On the other, “We don’t usually see people meme-ing about our industry. All of a sudden, they’re hyper-relevant to my day job,” he says.
Though he calls himself a technologist and not a ship expert, Petersen lives in the world of shipping lanes and air freight routes at $3.2 billion-valued Flexport, which provides software for companies to book and track shipment of their products. Petersen’s also a CEO who speaks his mind. So he was exactly whom Midas Touch wanted to check in on to make sense of the Internet’s sudden ship obsession.
What happened: Petersen’s low-down: we should be surprised this doesn’t happen more often. Accidents are fairly common in shipping – at least one big one happens a year, Petersen says, just not typically in the Suez. For American readers feeling superior, Petersen also notes that U.S. infrastructure lags many other regions. The size of the Empire State Building, the Ever Given can’t dock in at any U.S. port at all, Petersen says, as those ports lack deep enough channels or large enough cranes to unload it. As for who’s hurting, Flexport was one of many bookers with inventory on the ship and others lined up behind it, Petersen says. Insurance covers this type of disaster, but could take years to resolve.
The tech angle: With billions of dollars on the line each day of delay, why couldn’t tech stop this sort of problem? While software models can map weather patterns in real-time, and satellite companies provide a constant view, Petersen says this type of freak event shows a limit of big data. “All of the data comes from the same place, which is the past. If something like this hasn’t happened before, it’s not going to be in the model,” he says. Instead, data – and software like Flexport’s – is better suited to mapping what to do after such an event.
What about convincing Elon Musk to turn to automated ships next? Petersen says that the historical way of navigating harbors, shallows or canals like Suez – bring onboard a local pilot who navigates the passage all day, every day – largely works. Beyond that, it’s simply far less of a cost savings to automate a massive ship already with a skeleton crew of 20 or so versus the dozens of cranes and trucks that meet the ship at harbor. “Those labor cost savings border on several orders of magnitude more,” he says.
What’s next: Petersen’s been talking to experts about the Suez situation himself; there’s hope that the Ever Given will catch a high tide on Sunday night. In the meantime, Petersen will keep sharing memes and enjoying the moment as best he can. “I am kind of enjoying the whole world waking up to the fact that our container shipping is fascinating, and also photogenic and beautiful,” he says.
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