The wave of creative destruction unleashed by twenty-first century information technology has left no industry untouched. The latest beneficiary—or victim, depending on your perspective—is the trucking industry. The Wall Street Journal reports on a handful of Silicon Valley backed startups looking to cut costs in the industry by reducing the need for intermediaries between truckers and customers:
View ArticleInvestors are pouring millions of dollars into startups hoping to disrupt the $700 billion trucking industry, the latest example of Silicon Valley’s efforts to upend the traditional economy.
A series of startups are vying to become an “Uber of trucking,” leveraging truck drivers’ smartphones to quickly connect them with nearby companies looking to ship goods. The upstarts aim to reinvent a fragmented U.S. trucking industry that has long relied on third-party brokers, essentially travel agents for trucking who connect truckers with customers.