Frederick Smith on attention to detail
From FedEx CEO Fred Smith on Leadership and Teamwork · · UCLAAnderson
“When we were raising money for FedEx this has been years and years ago... I walked through your hanger and I could have eaten off the floor. It was so perfectly polished and so completely clean with no oil or rags and the equipment was so perfectly uh laid out. That's the reason that we're going to invest in FedEx. Now the reason that that hanger was that way was obviously that's the way we set the standards but it was the guy that cleaned that floor that probably had as much influence on FedEx success as I did over the long term.”
On , Frederick Smith, Former Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at FedEx, spoke about attention to detail during FedEx CEO Fred Smith on Leadership and Teamwork on UCLAAnderson.
About Frederick Smith
Frederick Smith, founder and former CEO of FedEx, has continued to comment on trade, economic policy, and supply chain issues in public appearances. In a January 2023 conversation at MIT, Smith said he was personally disappointed by China's shift toward a "state directed Mercantile path" after he had pushed for its entry into the WTO. He also stated that "work is now optional" in the U.S., attributing inflation and slow growth to a lack of blue-collar labor willing to work. Smith expressed support for a carbon tax and said FedEx does not view Amazon as a direct competitor. In earlier appearances, Smith advocated for infrastructure investment, calling the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill "a step in the right direction." He said the U.S. should not abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership but improve it, and warned that withdrawal from NAFTA would have "massive repercussions." Smith has repeatedly called for lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate and adopting a territorial tax system, arguing that the current code discourages investment. He also stated that 85% of U.S. job losses over the past 25 years were due to automation, not trade.