Hacker News: snowypine

I write about the stuff that I find interesting. Sometimes, that's a deep dive on the trucking industry, other times, it's about turning 25 and figuring out careers.

New comment by snowypine in "Show HN: ZeusCloud – an open source cloud security platform"

snowypine — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 19:52:45 +0000

Cloud security is going to be one of the largest frontiers in cybersecurity for years to come. Excited to see more open source security solutions!

New comment by snowypine in "Launch HN: EdgeBit (YC W23) – live software vulnerability analysis"

snowypine — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 14:51:54 +0000

Awesome. Supply chain security is one of the most important pieces of modern security efforts. Tracking active vulnerabilities to cut through the noise is a super solid approach

Careers and Ambition

snowypine — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 03:58:16 +0000

Article URL: https://snowingpine.com/2023/02/23/careers-and-ambition

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34920596

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

How I Write

snowypine — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 23:46:04 +0000

Article URL: https://snowingpine.com/2023/02/16/how-i-write

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34828450

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Profits in AI

snowypine — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 04:47:09 +0000

Article URL: https://www.hirequill.com/posts/profit-in-ai

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34527763

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 20:37:26 +0000

Intermodal is actually a relatively small subset of trucking - probably behind generic dry van, reefer, and flatbed.

That being said, solar panels are great but what happens when they break down or get damaged. I don't think the savings are worth the hassle right now.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 20:30:14 +0000

Never saw this article before but wow is it a great read.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 07:30:57 +0000

Yup exactly! I'm not too sure what the early systems were running on but here's a photo of early DAT load boards - https://www.dat.com/blog/life-before-load-boards

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 07:28:42 +0000

Thanks for reading and the compliment! :)

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 21:01:39 +0000

This is another piece that I never got to talk about in my post. There's a LOT of software in trucking, the problem is that most of the software was built in a different era.

Platform Science looks pretty cool - seems like a TMS with specific improvements against legacy systems. Building a TMS is a pretty good business - massive fixed cost but once you've built the system, it's fairly hard for competitors to dislodge you.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 19:19:41 +0000

Glad you liked it!

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 19:18:46 +0000

1 - Oh man, this was one of the questions that was asked by almost every investor. The truth is that no one really knows. My best guess is that we're a decade or more away from true self-driving. Augmented driving might be sooner but trucking is one of the biggest employers in 35 states. Truck drivers are not going to let self/augmented driving eat into their paychecks.

2 - Unfortunately, the margins are too thin for owner operators to have a vested interest in climate. I do think that an interesting distribution strategy for cleaner trucks is to sell heavily into private fleets (e.g. walmart trucking) because there's an ESG angle that the companies can buy into. As for dedicated trucking carriers, it's going to be hard to convince them unless there's some realistic return on investment.

3 - This is interesting, I haven't looked into insurance too much personally and I know the barrier to entry there is extremely high. That being said, I think the liability aspect reduces the viability of offering low-cost insurance. Most trucks are essentially houses on wheels in terms of cost and a single accident can run in the millions.

I'd imagine that if you really wanted to build an insurance company for trucking, you'd need to focus exclusively on mega-fleets (25+ truck carriers) and somehow offer them better rates than legacy insurance companies. While owner operators pay a lot in terms of insurance, the market simply isn't big enough to build a cohesive risk engine and underprice existing insurance without taking on unaccounted risk.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 19:00:52 +0000

I'm not an expert here on water transportation but I think water is very similar to rail. Both are much more cost and energy efficient. But they require large freight volumes and sacrifice a lot of the flexibility that trucking has. Unless we change our supply chain philosophy, trucking will likely reign above all other forms of transportation.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 18:48:57 +0000

Yeah, I had to heavily edit the piece to ensure that it wasn't a mini-novella.

So, for more context on factoring, there are two types - recourse and non-recourse. Recourse factoring means that the factoring company can come back and ask the driver for their money back. Generally, the rates for recourse factoring are lower (by 20-50 basis points only because the default rate in drivers is quite high).

Non-recourse factoring is something that the industry is transitioning to. Most of the startups offering factoring today are doing non-recourse. The problem with that approach is that fraud rates rise exponentially. Not too sure how the landscape will look even 6 months from now as easy capital goes away.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 18:43:22 +0000

DAT's full name is "Dial a truck". They used to have these large screens in truck stops showing loads and encouraging drivers to call for loads.

So I guess these drivers mostly hung out at truck stops (they still do today), just that most truck stops aren't as clean/nice as before.

New comment by snowypine in "On Trucking"

snowypine — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 18:41:09 +0000

I'd say it's more market conditions over anything else. Truck drivers generally have poor credit - they're not going to be able to come up with ~400k otherwise. As a result, you get lenders that charge more.

Also, repossessing trucks across the country is kinda an issue. You might need to drive hundreds or thousands of miles to claim the truck which is a nightmare that carriers deal with on a daily basis.