Max Lock

The Oregonian’s article, reprinted by Transport Topics, writes that at 14 he wanted a job: when his birthday came he asked his parents for a work permit, because PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry law required parental consent for teenagers of that age to work; they agreed, and he went to work setting up and administering computers for a restaurant chain. He said: “I just always wanted to be busy,” and “I enjoyed working more than school.” Oregon Business writes that his first job was as an IT administrator at a pizza shop; FreightWaves writes that his first job, at 14, was as an IT administrator for a chain of East Coast pizza restaurants.⁠[1][2][3]

The sources tell the origin of his first business differently. Oregon Business writes that he became an entrepreneur at 14: the pizza shop where he worked introduced an ice cream flavor that flopped, he decided he could do better, and he founded Schoolboy Ice Cream with his own homemade recipe; The Oregonian’s article writes that he started the ice cream company at 15 because he disliked the desserts the restaurant served; FreightWaves writes that he tasted the shop’s ice cream at the pizza restaurant, thought he could do better and launched his own brand, which the restaurant stocked and which later reached Whole Foods; GeekWire writes that he started an organic ice cream company while consulting on systems for a local restaurant. TechCrunchTechCrunchTechCrunch is an American technology news outlet founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare and headquartered in San Francisco; it mainly covers technology companies, startups, and venture capital, and hosts events such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Its ownership passed successively through AOL, Verizon, and Yahoo, and in 2025 Regent announced its acquisition.Open the full entry wrote in 2014 that Schoolboy Ice Cream was his first business and was picked up by Whole Foods and KeHE, a nationwide distributor of natural, organic and specialty foods; TechCrunch wrote in 2015 that it was a frozen-treat company he started in high school whose products were sold through Whole Foods and other large distributors; Technical.ly calls it an all-natural ice cream company sold at Whole Foods.⁠[2][1][3][4][5][6][7]

As the ice cream business grew he began importing packaging directly from Chinese manufacturers. TechCrunch writes that a friend opening a frozen yogurt store asked him to order cups, that word spread through the frozen yogurt industry until he was selling more cups than ice cream, and that he turned to importing food packaging, selling tens of thousands of cups to more than 500 frozen yogurt stores. GeekWire writes that he imported paper and plastic products from Asia, built a customer base in the fast-growing frozen yogurt industry, and saw demand for environmentally conscious disposable dessert dishes and cutlery. Technical.ly lists his three businesses before Shipstr: the ice cream company, a tech consulting firm called MediaSpork, and a manufacturer and distributor of paper and plastic products for the frozen yogurt industry.⁠[5][4][7]

The Oregonian’s article writes that as a teenager he began importing paper cups from China for his ice cream, and that while running the cup business he attended high school during the day and worked from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. communicating with suppliers around the world. He said the difficulty did not lie in the cups themselves: “It’s pretty hard to mess up a paper cup,” and “The hard part is the logistics”; the article writes that he found freight forwarders’ service slow, inefficient and costly, especially for a small company like his. Oregon Business writes that he ran into supply trouble ordering paper cups and bowls, which would get lost or go to the wrong place. TechCrunch wrote in 2014 that running an import business taught him that international shipping was a “complete nightmare” that could badly hurt a small or mid-sized business’s bottom line: brokers could add a high markup to the prices of third-party service providers, and a shipment from China to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry could pass through as many as seven parties; TechCrunch wrote in 2015 that forwarders marked up the fees of third-party services such as warehousing, customs brokerage and trucking without always itemizing them. FreightWaves writes that he said the business “became all about logistics” and that he asked why he could book a flight or a hotel online but not a shipment; in GeekWire’s “Startup Spotlight” Q&A he said: “we should be able to do the same for our freight.”⁠[1][2][5][6][3][4]

On September 9, 2014 he launched Shipstr at TechCrunch DisruptTechCrunch DisruptTechCrunch Disrupt is a technology and startup conference organized by TechCrunch, combining interviews, product demonstrations, startup competitions and industry networking for founders and investors.Open the full entry in San Francisco, competing in the Startup Battlefield; TechCrunch wrote that Shipstr aimed to become the “Expedia of cargo shipping.” TechCrunch wrote that he was 18, had just graduated from high school, had become an entrepreneur at 14 and had founded four businesses; Technical.ly wrote that he was a recent graduate of Radnor High School and Shipstr’s chief executive. He said: “Any industry that delivers poor service for high prices deserves to be disrupted and that is why I created Shipstr.”⁠[5][6][7]

As TechCrunch describes it, Shipstr was aimed at small businesses without a dedicated logistics department and let them arrange ocean freight without a freight broker: it collected prices and fees directly from trucking companies, customs brokers, warehouses and ocean carriers and aggregated them to give instant quotes and faster shipment tracking; U.S. providers connected through APIs, while many Chinese companies without standardized APIs could upload their Excel price sheets. It also offered “teamrooms” for communicating with providers, seeing which provider held a shipment and collecting documents, and a news aggregator that flagged events such as storms and port strikes that might delay shipments. Shipstr collected payment from customers first and paid each provider after it completed its leg; he claimed that customers could save 30 to 60 percent against conventional pricing.⁠[5]

Shipstr first targeted businesses importing goods from Ningbo, China, to Los Angeles. TechCrunch writes that more than 39,000 small and medium-sized U.S. businesses imported from Ningbo and over 19,000 of them used the Ningbo–Los Angeles route; in the question-and-answer session he said that more than 40,000 U.S. companies used that lane, mainly importing textiles and electronics, and that their contact details were publicly available in customs data. The company planned to expand to other Chinese and U.S. ports and eventually to the world’s top 50 ports; he also said that it would verify service quality by comparing customs data on departure from China and arrival at U.S. ports with providers’ estimates, and that the technology would work for companies of any size.⁠[5]

TechCrunch writes that freight brokers with many clients are slow to relay messages and documents, and that businesses struggle to get status updates because they cannot communicate directly with third-party providers; on Shipstr, customers could choose customs brokers for reliability and experience instead of having one assigned by a freight broker, could contact providers directly about delays, and would have a resolution team to turn to. Shipstr’s competitors were the roughly 17,000 freight brokers and forwarders in the United States, which he argued could also benefit because easier communication with customers could improve their margins; he also said larger companies were not the initial focus because many had in-house logistics or existing shipping contracts, while many smaller companies were underserved.⁠[5]

TechCrunch later wrote that Shipstr reached the final round of that year’s Startup Battlefield; GeekWire calls it the first runner-up, and FreightWaves writes that he was a runner-up in the competition. Technical.ly wrote at the time that it was unclear whether he would return to the Philadelphia area to run the business, and that his LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry profile gave San Francisco as Shipstr’s headquarters. FreightWaves writes that the competition drew the attention of the Thiel Foundation.⁠[6][8][4][3][7]

On the company’s founding date, Fleet’s January 2018 press release says it launched in 2014 and Lufthansa Cargo’s release of the same day says Fleet was founded in 2014, while Supply Chain Dive wrote in 2020 that he founded Fleet Logistics in 2015 and placed Fleet among the first wave of standalone freight booking platforms. FreightWaves writes that he founded Fleet at 18 and that his parents thought he was “crazy.”⁠[9][10][11][3]

GeekWire writes that Fleet raised a seed round in 2015 and began building its team in Portland, OregonOregonOregon (officially the State of Oregon) is a state on the Pacific coast of the western United States; its capital is Salem and its largest city is Portland. It was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1859, as the 33rd state. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 4,237,256.Open the full entry. The Oregonian’s article writes that he first looked at the San Francisco Bay Area but found it too expensive and too competitive for skilled workers; a prospective hire suggested Portland, and after visiting he decided to base Fleet there. He said: “Everyone tells you, you have to go to San Francisco to start a company,” and “We have a lot of talent here that people don’t recognize.”⁠[4][1]

In GeekWire’s “Startup Spotlight” Q&A he said that moving to Portland was the smartest decision Fleet had made: overhead was lower than in the Bay Area, which freed money for product development, and recruiting was easier. FreightWaves wrote in 2019 that Fleet was in Portland for its proximity to shipping and that he preferred the city’s vibe to San Francisco’s.⁠[4][3]

On June 5, 2015, the Thiel Foundation announced its 2015 class of Thiel Fellows, 20 people chosen from a record 2,800 applications, and he was among them. The announcement gives him as 18 at application and from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, working in supply chain logistics as founder and president of Fleet, an easy-to-use freight shipping platform providing reliable shipments, fair pricing and an unparalleled customer experience for shippers of any size, particularly the small- to medium-sized companies traditionally underserved by the global freight industry. It says that each fellow receives $100,000 and mentorship on condition of skipping or stopping out of college during the two-year program, which was founded by Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry.⁠[12]

TechCrunch wrote in July 2015 that he had received a Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry for his work on Fleet. FreightWaves writes that the fellowship pays $100,000 to young entrepreneurs who skip college, and that after winning it he hired two of his former computer programming teachers and Fleet was created. The Oregonian’s article writes that he skipped college and by January 2018 was eight years into his career.⁠[6][3][1]

On July 9, 2015, TechCrunch wrote that Fleet, formerly called Shipstr, was launching a platform for finding and rating freight forwarders, describing it as the “YelpYelpYelp is a local business review and information platform founded in San Francisco in 2004. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker YELP, it is led by co-founder and chief executive Jeremy Stoppelman. The platform offers reviews, photos and local business information and lets users request service quotes and book restaurant tables.Open the full entry” of the commercial shipping world; it listed 6,000 freight forwarders that shippers could sort by rating, price, location and shipping lane. He said that the churn rate among small and mid-sized businesses in freight forwarding was about 60 percent and that a shipper after a bad experience could currently look only on GoogleGoogleGoogle is an American technology company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and incorporated in 1998. It became an Alphabet subsidiary in 2015. Its businesses include internet search, advertising, software platforms, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry for a new forwarder: “Currently there is about a 60 percent churn rate among small- to medium-sized businesses in the freight forwarding space.” A second product, a booking and payment platform, was planned by the end of the year; TechCrunch writes that if the review section was the Yelp of commercial shipping, this part was meant to resemble travel sites such as Expedia and Kayak. As planned, shippers would enter their goods’ origin and destination, Fleet would match them with several forwarders, and they would book, pay for and track shipments on the site. TechCrunch wrote in 2016 that Fleet’s marketplace launched in July 2015.⁠[6][8]

TechCrunch writes that this model differed from Fleet’s original plan of working directly with service providers; he said the company now focused on technology and left operations to existing freight forwarders. He argued that newer online platforms such as Flexport and Haven were still traditional forwarders using technology for quoting and tracking, and that because Fleet gathered information on thousands of forwarders it could also help such companies reach new clients and build brand recognition.⁠[6]

On April 12, 2016, TechCrunch wrote that the logistics marketplace Fleet had raised a $4 million seed round led by Hunt Technology Ventures, with participation from Placid Ventures, David S. Hunt, 1517 Fund, Invariantes Fund, GrowthX Fund, NFQ and Telegraph Hill Capital. GeekWire writes that the round brought Fleet’s total funding to $4.5 million. The Oregonian wrote in January 2018 that UPS had taken part in Fleet’s first investment round, two years earlier.⁠[8][4][1]

About 150 freight forwarders were then using Fleet’s quoting platform; the company said users who compared quotes usually saved 20 percent on shipping and planned to add reviews, ratings and shipment tracking. He said that sending a salesperson to meet a small business cost a freight forwarder more than $200 with no guarantee of a quote request: “It costs a freight forwarder over $200 to send a sales person to meet with an SMB.” TechCrunch writes that Freightos, Flexport and Haven had also raised venture funding and that AmazonAmazonAmazon is a publicly traded U.S. technology and retail company founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, with its principal corporate offices in Seattle. Its businesses span e-commerce, logistics and fulfillment, digital advertising, membership and entertainment services, consumer electronics, and Amazon Web Services cloud computing.Open the full entry had registered to provide ocean freight forwarding services; he said: “I think we are pretty well differentiated now by taking the marketplace approach,” adding that the company would keep focusing on the needs of small businesses that traditional forwarders had long underserved.⁠[8]

On November 3, 2016, GeekWire’s “Startup Spotlight” column profiled Fleet in a Q&A answered by him, with a photo caption naming him as its chief executive. He summed up Fleet as “An online marketplace for international logistics, connecting shippers and logistics service providers”; as described, shippers of any size could get quotes, pay online, message providers and track shipment status on the platform. He said Fleet had sought venture capital because it aimed to change an old-fashioned industry and needed money to build its product and to assure service providers that it would last.⁠[4]

He said the company’s competitive edge was putting customers first, especially the smaller businesses that traditional freight forwarders often overlooked, with “The Price You See is the Price You Pay” as a core policy against forwarders quoting one price and charging another after delivery. He named keeping employees who were poor cultural fits for too long as the company’s biggest mistake and advocated open, honest communication about problems. Asked whether he would rather have Bill GatesBill GatesBill Gates is an American entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist who cofounded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and served as its chief executive and chairman. He later shifted his focus toward global health, education and climate, chairs the Gates Foundation, and manages investments through arrangements including Cascade.Open the full entry, Mark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, Chairman and CEO of Meta, and a co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. His work spans social networking, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry or Jeff BezosJeff BezosJeff Bezos is an American entrepreneur and investor who founded Amazon in 1994, led it as chief executive for many years, and became its executive chair in 2021. He also founded the spaceflight company Blue Origin, bought The Washington Post in 2013, and set up philanthropic funds including the Bezos Earth Fund.Open the full entry as an ally, he chose Jeff Bezos because Amazon was building its own logistics network, from last-mile delivery to ocean and air freight, and he would rather have it as an ally than a competitor. He described the team as food lovers who enjoyed puzzles, with escape rooms and potlucks as their favorite team activities, and said that because tasks and projects changed often, the company hired people who handled ambiguity well. His advice to new entrepreneurs was: “Always go an extra mile to service your customers.”⁠[4]

On January 24, 2018, Portland-based Fleet announced a $10 million Series A led by Lufthansa Cargo, with existing and new investors including Hunt Technology Ventures, UPS, UP2398 and the 1517 Fund as well as other previous investors; the press release said Fleet had raised a total of $14 million since its launch in 2014, that the money would expand the Portland team, add product features and support business development, and that Lufthansa Cargo’s chief commercial officer, Alexis von Hoensbroech, had joined Fleet’s board, and it gave his age as 21. The Oregonian’s article of January 25, 2018, reprinted by Transport Topics, writes that the $10 million round was led by the German airline Lufthansa and brought Fleet’s total funding to $14 million, and gives his age as 22.⁠[9][1]

Fleet’s release said that thousands of importers and exporters and more than 500 freight forwarders were using the platform to manage shipments online and that shipping spend processed through it had grown sevenfold over the past year; it claimed that a typical medium-sized shipper making 5 to more than 100 shipments a month could save up to $30,000 and 800 hours a year. He said in the release: “Lufthansa Cargo brings strategic industry experience and joins Fleet not only as an investor,” but also as a board member and a partner for Fleet’s forthcoming air freight platform, and: “This new funding enables Fleet to accelerate our platform and bring new features and functionality.” The release describes Fleet as an online marketplace that helps businesses choose providers by price, transit time and reliability.⁠[9]

Lufthansa Cargo’s release of the same day says that Fleet was founded in 2014, is headquartered in Portland in the United States and runs an online marketplace matching customers seeking freight services with unused capacity at logistics companies; Lufthansa Cargo’s chief executive, Peter Gerber, called Fleet “a perfect match for us.” The release says the stake was part of the Lufthansa Group’s digitization strategy and was strongly supported by the Lufthansa Innovation Hub in Berlin.⁠[10]

The Oregonian’s article writes that Fleet then had 17 employees and planned to use the new money to hire marketing and operations staff; he said: “We have a lot of hiring planned for 2018.” It writes that Fleet let importers choose among trucking, warehousing and shipping companies by price and service; Fleet claimed that frequent shippers could save thousands of dollars a year and track shipments more closely. He said that he was now usually asleep at night and that his life was more enjoyable, though he still worked a great deal: “My life now is a lot more enjoyable,” and “But I still work probably too much.”⁠[1]

On March 26, 2018, Oregon Business wrote that seven years after starting his first business he was chief executive of the freight shipping company Fleet Logistics, which had raised a $10 million Series A and was building a Global Distribution System (GDS), an automated online platform for booking freight. It wrote that Fleet had released the air freight version to selected partners in February and planned to begin testing ocean freight capabilities in March. He wanted to make shipping more transparent by reducing reliance on intermediaries such as freight forwarders, saying: “small businesses should know which airlines and trucking companies are moving their product,” and: “We give you five different trucking companies and airlines, then it’s up to you to choose,” and “The customer is in complete control.”⁠[2]

On January 17, 2019, FreightWaves wrote that he was chief executive and president of Fleet, a Portland-based digital freight forwarder with hundreds of customers moving more than 1,000 shipments a month, including door knobs and toilet seats, and that its headcount had tripled over the past year to about 32. It writes that Fleet first launched as a rating and review site for freight forwarders through which users could also book forwarders, but customers called Fleet when they had problems with forwarders, and Fleet answered that it was just the software company, as someone who books a flight on Kayak calls the airline, not Kayak. Because freight is a relationship-based industry, Fleet brought everything in-house and became a fully licensed freight forwarder.⁠[3]

His goal was “100 percent automation across quoting, booking, managing of shipments,” with digital connections to providers; he argued that many startups focused on the front end rather than the back end, and said incumbents resented startups raising large sums to build what amounted to a map on top of their existing data; that a “pretty map” not tied to real data or service providers was not enough, and that the winners would automate all the work forwarders do. He also said that automation was limited by the industry’s capabilities, pointing to a trucking company in Raleigh that had no API Fleet could use, and that Fleet still had to work within traditional forwarding practices, with a sales process more traditional than many startups admit.⁠[3]

FreightWaves writes that Fleet had raised about $13 million from the 1517 Fund, Hunt Technology Ventures (which FreightWaves discloses as one of its own investors), UPS and others, a figure that differs from the $14 million given in Fleet’s January 2018 release and The Oregonian’s article; he described Lufthansa Cargo becoming a strategic partner the previous year as a “huge” milestone. He said that age had not been a problem with established industry players as long as a company acted professionally and served customers well, recalling that he had experienced ageism only once, at 14 at the restaurant. He also said he had always liked being busy and that freight forwarding customers depend on the service.⁠[3][9][1]

On February 20, 2020, Lufthansa Cargo announced that Fleet Logistics had begun using its smartBooking API, which let Fleet’s customers get real-time air freight quotes on major trade lanes and book capacity; Fleet also used Lufthansa Cargo’s eTracking API so that customers could track shipments from quote to delivery. The release says that the two companies had worked together on several initiatives since Lufthansa Cargo invested in Fleet in an early-2018 funding round; Lufthansa Cargo’s chief commercial officer, Dorothea von Boxberg, said Fleet was among the first customers using smartBooking. Speaking as chief executive of Fleet Logistics, he said: “The smartBooking API is a significant advancement,” calling it “one of the first air freight API to bring together spot rates and capacity,” and added: “This makes the process more efficient and lowers the barriers to process an entire shipment from door to door.” He also said that Fleet planned to work with partners to digitize supply chain services such as rates, capacity, bookings, documentation and financial settlement.⁠[13]

On May 26, 2020, the Seattle-headquartered global logistics company Expeditors International of Washington announced that it had acquired Fleet Logistics’ digital platform to support Koho, its online less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping platform for smaller shippers; terms were not disclosed. The release says that Expeditors had run a Koho pilot with Fleet, and its chief strategy officer, Benjamin Clark, said the pilot had demonstrated the company’s ability to meet an unmet need and that Koho was the first idea to pass through every stage of its innovation framework. Speaking as Fleet’s founder and chief executive, he said: “I am very excited to be joining Expeditors,” adding that combining Expeditors’ world-class systems and service standards with Fleet’s digital platform would help Expeditors further extend its capabilities.⁠[14]

Reporting the deal, FreightWaves described Fleet as an end-to-end digital freight forwarder offering instant quotes, booking, freight management and delivery for international and domestic shipments, and wrote that Fleet’s technology had helped advance the Koho pilot and that Expeditors launched Koho in 2019. Supply Chain Dive wrote that the deal followed an eight-month pilot between the two companies and that, in a LinkedIn post, he said he would lead the Koho team.⁠[15][11]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]