The Trucking Episode: Why the Industry Is Such a Mess

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:16)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

So Tracy, we've obviously been talking a ton on this show about supply chain bottlenecks, logistics and so forth. Probably, we've talked about all of it, but we've had a pretty emphasis on ships, vessels, this sort of international freight aspect of global supply chains.

Tracy Alloway (0:37)

I think that's right. Although I feel like we're getting more and more specialized. So we started with container shipping, and then we got into break bulk a little bit on our previous episode, and we're thinking about doing a barge episode now.

We haven't gone into, I guess, land transport, but it does feel like we're working our way through all the different modes of transport. I wonder if we're gonna end up doing a sort of Odd Lots coracle episode at some point, like the wackiest modes of moving goods.

Joe Weisenthal (1:11)

Yeah, I mean, that's the way to do it. Zoom out, go global, and then start to drill down to all the different nooks and crannies. But as you mentioned, we did sort of the bulk shipping episode a couple of weeks ago.

And at the end, we were like, okay, we gotta go trucking next. And so now it's time for, now we gotta talk about trucking.

Tracy Alloway (1:31)

All right, the truck driving episode. It's time has come. I cannot contain my enthusiasm for this episode because I think I mentioned this before, but one of my dream jobs that I used to fantasize about was being a truck driver.

I think, like I'm sure I have a romanticized notion of what it is. And obviously part of our conversation is going to be about how difficult driving and the job actually is for those doing it on a day-to-day basis. But I have a personal interest in this industry and I'm really curious to hear what exactly is going on at the moment.

Joe Weisenthal (2:07)

I also have a personal romanticized interest, not because I ever aspired to be a truck driver per se, but I'm a big fan of country music and there's lots of songs about truck driving. And I was a huge fan as a kid of that movie, Convoy, which also has a great soundtrack of songs about truck driving.

Six Days on the Road, another good song. So I'm also very interested in this and I'm very excited for this episode. So after we did that last episode, we were like, we gotta do the truck driving episode. Today's guest, multiple people reached out and said, you gotta get on this guy. He's the obvious next one for it.

Tracy Alloway (2:44)

Yeah, and I think it's gonna be interesting. I mean, one of the reasons this has come up is because we hear these reports of a shortage in truck drivers, which is again, feeding into the supply chain issues that we've been discussing on Odd Lots for the past year now. But there's a big question mark over whether or not that's actually happening. And again, to that point about you and I both romanticizing the job, there's a disconnect there, isn't there? If there is indeed a shortage, and yet people like you and I are thinking, oh, it'd be nice to drive a truck around and have an opportunity to eat junk food and listen to country music and be like Chris Christofferson and Allie McGraw in Convoy.

Something's going on. So I'm really interested by this dynamic and I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Joe Weisenthal (3:32)

Exactly right.

So as I mentioned, everyone said you got to reach out to this guest. So I'm very excited. We're gonna be speaking with Craig Fuller. He is the founder and CEO of FreightWaves, which is kind of like the Bloomberg terminal for transport. Could be said they cover transport from a news perspective. They also have data, all that stuff.

And he is going to tell us all about domestic truck industry and how stuff gets around after it's unloaded from the port. So Craig, thank you very much for joining us.

Craig Fuller (4:03)

Hey Joe, Tracy, great to be here.

Joe Weisenthal (4:06)

Craig, so excited to talk to you. Obviously there's lots to cover. And of course we're gonna get into all of the supply chain messes that we're seeing right now.

But as always, it sort of helps. And I think it's especially true in trucking to talk about what the pre-crisis environment looked like. Because if I recall from seeing the reporting, there was a lot of very intense boom and bust cycles just in the last few years leading up to 2020 Periods where it was very good, periods where it was weak.