The paper was given a “C” grade. The professor said that it was poorly thought out. It was based on outlandish assumptions of the market size.
An idea that was dismissed in 1965 may become a stock market winner. Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, was then a 21-year-old undergraduate at Yale.
He wrote an economics term paper (essay in British parlance) featuring a new business plan. In the 1960s, the shipping of packages was done by trucks and passenger flights. There was no dedicated air freight for packages. Fred Smith’s paper made the case for carrying important packages by air.
