Ryan Petersen
Founder & CEO, Flexport. On 9 shows, 18 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestor@typesfast ↗LinkedIn ↗flexport.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Ryan Petersen is the founder and CEO of Flexport, a digital freight forwarder and supply chain platform that integrates logistics management, customs brokerage, and tracking software. Before founding Flexport in 2013, he co-founded the global shipping intelligence company ImportGenius.
9shows
18appearances
379statements
114resolved
65supported
18contradicted
57%fully supported
174said about them ↓ Everything Ryan Petersen said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Petersen: Most VCs collude more with competitors than their own partners
“There's a lot of collusion in VC. Like, I have a feeling that most VCs actually collude more with competitors than with their own partners.”
Petersen: Chinese believe in China, while half of Americans hate America
“Chinese people believe in China. Half of Americans hate America.”
Petersen: Remote US workers will lose jobs to offshore talent arbitrage
“By the way, I think remote work can really work, but it's not going to benefit the people who think like, it's not going to be people making 250,000 dollars a year hanging out in Jackson Hole. It's going to be geniuses in the developing world Making, you know,…”
Petersen: Anthropic is a better investment than OpenAI at equal valuation
“I think I'm going Anthropic. No offense, because Sam's a friend of mine, but. Yeah, the enterprise business seems great. And the team, I think there's a lot of value of like this cohesive team that's been together forever, and OpenAI's had ups and downs, and p…”
Petersen: Work-from-home ultimately benefits employers through global labor arbitrage
“The idea that work from home is going to benefit highly paid employees is sort of a total fantasy. Like, work from home done correctly, you should be hiring the world's greatest geniuses. There should be a labor arbitrage here, where you're finding really, rea…”
Petersen: A passive board is preferable to an active, 'helpful' board
“I don't really want a more active board. They're not super active in the business. They're not like telling us what to do. They don't help that much, but they don't ever hurt. And like, I would much rather have that than like a really helpful board. I don't th…”
Paul Graham advised Petersen to never surrender his company to an executive
“He said that's like saying this other guy would be a better husband for your wife. Might be true, but like, don't act on it. Like, this is your company. You need to stay in there.”
VCs cannot provide useful business strategy advice to obsessive founders
“It's why, like, no investor ever gives me useful advice, really. Because like, I'm not, sure, they can about people and some high-level stuff, for sure, or capital markets, but like, Business, like, strategy? Like, how could they ever know my business better t…”
U.S. tariffs are causing Flexport customers to halt domestic manufacturing
“I haven't met anyone who said, oh, because of these tariffs, I'm gonna start doing production in the U.S. I've read some headlines on it, and they've done some White House announcements and things, but like, those aren't my customer base. And my customer base …”
Petersen: U.S. trade tariffs will decrease American manufacturing
“What we've seen over the last few weeks is it's gonna decrease American manufacturing.”
Petersen: Chinese cars are far ahead of Western, Japanese, and Korean vehicles
“They're so fricking good. They're so far ahead of anything that the West or even Japan and Korea are making”
Petersen: Get teams working weekends via impossible deadlines, not requests
“The way to get people to work on nights and weekends is not to ask them to work nights and weekends. It's just give them a deadline that can only be met if they work on nights and weekends.”
Petersen: VC incentives create herd mentality and cross-firm collusion
“So therefore, the way to avoid getting fired in VC, again, this is not Founders Fund. This is what I like about them, that they're very different. But is it, the way to avoid getting fired is to be, well, to double check everything you do with other VCs. To ma…”
Petersen: Tech media unfairly targets startup founders instead of incumbent mega-corporations
“All reporters play a very important function of like holding the powerful accountable, but like founders, you're not that power, but we're kind of suffering through like, you know, we're up against some very powerful forces in the world. Like we feel like we'r…”
Petersen: Flexport Offers Better Fulfillment Proposition Than Amazon Logistics
“So if you want to say we compete with Amazon, I think we're a strictly better proposition other than the fact that we don't own amazon.com and have all the demand that that drives.”
Petersen: Amazon does not treat sellers as tier-one customers
“Amazon does not treat the seller on their platform as a tier one customer. Their job is to help the customer, the consumer at the end of the day.”
Petersen: Employees complaining on anonymous social networks are cowards
“There's this anonymous social network. It's like the terrible, all the cowards go there and just talk trash. Like, You're obviously a coward until you're allowed to talk in public and ask the open question, but you're too cowardly to do it. And you post on the…”
Petersen: Parker Conrad was wrongly scapegoated at Zenefits
“I think Parker was wrongly scapegoated and run out of town at benefits. Then he, and he proved it by going to build rippling into a business that's much bigger and better than reference benefits ever was in the exact same space.”
Flexport CEO says government hid port delays by moving ships offshore
“They passed this rule that the ships have to wait a 150 miles offshore so that the carbon, so that the pollution wouldn't hit LA, like reasonable, good. But then they kept using the same metric for how many ships are waiting right outside the port. And it went…”
Brands failing to match Amazon's two-hour delivery will eventually go bankrupt
“And if you don't fix it, if you don't solve it, if you're not able to at least get parity to Amazon's value proposition of two-hour delivery, you will go bankrupt.”
Petersen: Building Traditional Investor Relationships Is Overrated for Founders
“I think relationships are overrated, but if you know, once you have existing investors, hopefully they keep backing you through over time.”
Petersen: Flexport Would Have Succeeded Without Investor Operational Support
“Most of them have been amazing, like connecting, making connections and stuff, but we would have pretty much had the same company without any given thing that any of them did besides give us lots of money.”
Petersen: Startup Corporate Boards Are Dangerous and Often Lack Qualifications
“I think that boards are very dangerous because all of a sudden you've empowered these people with title and decision-making authority. Now you're, you have argument from authority, right? Like you're, because the board says it must be the right thing to do. Ev…”
The other half of the tape: Ryan Petersen's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 166 times in 67 episodes across the shows. 8 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most John Coogan 27Harry Stebbings 25Jordi Hays 9Sheel Mohnot 8Leo Polovets 8Sam Parr 7Sam Blond 7Ben Braverman 7
Statements about Ryan Petersen, by other people (8)
Coulter: It is possible that Jeff Bezos returns to run Amazon
“I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. I, he's still on the board, of course, I could see him coming back. I don't think it's going to be like a Ryan Peterson scenario where he comes back and it's like, get out of here, Andy Jassy and take your tea…”
Puri: Container Ships Make $50M Profit Per Asia Trip, Lose $1M/Day Idle
“One trip round trip from Asia on a, on one of these shipping boats is fifty million of profit. So every, every day that they're sitting out, you know, sitting, sitting idle and it's a 30 day trip. And so, you know, so that's about a million dollars per day per…”
Tobi Lütke endorses founder-led companies and Ryan Petersen's Flexport return
“I'm super pro-founders running their companies. I think that's, so this is why I'm celebrating, ah, celebrating that Ryan is coming back, and also Ryan is totally fucking awesome, so .”
Byers: Flexport is the only deal Susa ever committed to on a phone call
“We committed to Ryan on the phone. It's the only time we've ever done that in SUSE history. We committed to the deal on the phone call.”
Stephens: Had No Logistics Thesis Prior to Backing Flexport
“Did I have like some super crazy interest in supply chain and logistics or a thesis in supply chain and logistics before I invested in flex work? No, of course not. Like I needed Ryan to like convince me of the timing to the market.”
Braverman: Ryan Petersen's ImportGenius printed cash selling structured data
“Ryan had this company, Import Genius, that basically took public data Structured it, made it available for third parties, made it searchable, and they just sold access to it for like a hundred bucks a month per seat, and the business absolutely printed and sti…”
Braverman invested life savings in Flexport before joining as CRO
“What did I actually use to make my decision Like first to invest my life savings in Blacksburg, and then ultimately to make the bet to like, okay, let's, let's put every waking hour every day into this thing, go work for Ryan full time as CRO.”
Braverman: Paul Graham identified Flexport as breakout before official YC acceptance
“Paul Graham had already identified Ryan and Flexport as a breakout from YC before he went into YC, and you know that because he got called on stage at startup school by Paul before he was officially accepted into YC.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
TBPN 53
20VC 50
My First Million 18
the Official SaaStr Podcast 14
All-In 11
Big Technology 7
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 7
the a16z Podcast 6
2026 21 mentions in 13 episodes 2 per episode
- The Media Game Has Changed
- Big Tech turns to mining, Thinking Machines loses top executives, NYC Sauna Wars heat up | Diet TBPN
- DeepSeek Raises at $50B | The Rise of Open Source vs OpenAI & Anthropic | OpenAI Builds Own Chip · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Apple-Intel Chip Deal, U.S Adds 115K Jobs, DeepSeek Eyes $50B Valuation | Diet TBPN
- How Hims & Hers Reached a $4.3BN Market Cap on $2.3BN of Revenue | Andrew Dudum · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Apple’s iPhone Duo, Meta’s Muse AI Agent, Anthropic Researcher Quits Over AI Doom | Diet TBPN
- Demis Is Out as DeepMind CEO, Revolut Founder Yacht Drama, AI’s Great Reverse Bank Run | Diet TBPN
- The Fight Over Open Source AI, Anthropic's $1.5B Payout, NYC Socialists: Evictions = Violence?
- 5 more episodes that year, every mention in 2026 →
2025 25 mentions in 11 episodes 2 per episode
- "I Partner with People" - Chad Byers talks about Venture, Fitness, and Being a Chad.
- Five $10M+ Ideas (from a guy who's done it 3 times)
- TBPN Year in Review
- The FULL HISTORY of Temu (Why it's EXPLODING!)
- Weekly Recap: CEO Affair at Coldplay Concert, Elon Musk's AI Girlfriend, Cognition Acquires Windsurf
- Apple’s Anthropic Flirtation, Can Meta Build Superintelligence?, AI Browser Wars — With M.G. Siegler
- Weekly Recap: Tesla Robotaxi, Mr. Beast's AI Tool, Yacine, The Social Network 2, Neuralink Update
- State-Of-The-Art Prompting For AI Agents · Y Combinator
- 3 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 44 mentions in 14 episodes 3 per episode
- CHRISTIANITY: Why it's making a comeback (ep23)
- Fact-Checking The Information (ep10)
- Why Founders Shouldn't Think Like Investors · Y Combinator
- Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Zach Perret: Why ‘Founder Mode’ is the Most Dangerous Blog Post for Founders | E1215 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Year of Tech in Review (ep25)
- $100B Founder Breaks Down The Biggest AI Business Opportunities For 2025
- 6 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 30 mentions in 7 episodes 4 per episode
- CRO Confidential: Sales Recruitment and Hiring Managers With Ben Braverman
- A Dozen Grueling Years At Amazon — With Kristi Coulter
- Dave Clark: Lessons from Leading 1M Employees w/ Jeff Bezos at Amazon to CEO of Flexport | E1036 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke: Remote Work vs In-Person; The Benefit of Setting Constraints | E997 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- All-In Summit: Tobi Lutke on consumer spending, teams, Amazon, AI, and more
- Big Ideas 2024: A New Age of Maritime Exploration with Grant Gregory
- Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 15 mentions in 11 episodes 1 per episode
- Sheel Mohnot: Lessons from Investing in Flexport and Missing on Robinhood | 20VC #917 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Lieb: How I Founded Google Photos & Bump; Why I Left Google | 20VC #927 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- AI and the Creator Economy with Karen X Cheng
- Saagar Enjeti and Marshall Kosloff on Midterms, Trump, Economy, and Ukraine
- E94: NFT volume plummets, California's overreach, FBI meddling, climate change & national security
- Wesley Chan: How I Created Google Analytics; The Founding Story of Gmail & Canva | 20VC #919 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- #AIS: Bestie AMA with Valor's Antonio Gracias
- #AIS: Opening chat with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez
- 3 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 11 mentions in 2 episodes 6 per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 7 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
- 20VC: Carta Founder Henry Ward on Why The Best Companies Are Not Product Led But Distribution Led, 3 Requirements Needed For A New Market/Investment To Be Exciting and Why Small Markets Are So Attractive
- 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman on Betting His Career Facebook Would Be A $10Bn Company, Lessons From Travis and Uber on Scaling A Global Marketplace & Whether Growth and Capital Efficiency Are Mutually Exclusive
- 20VC: Sam Altman, Y Combinator President on What Makes Truly Great Leaders, Why We Will See A Compression of Seed Funding & The Future Scaling of YC
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 9 mentions in 2 episodes 5 per episode
- 20VC: Investing; A Game Of Access Or Picking, Why Technical DD At Seed Is Irrelevant & Why A Contrarian Mindset Does Not Always Lead To Optimal Returns with Leo Polovets, Co-Founder & General Partner @ Susa Ventures
- 20VC: SaaStr's Jason Lemkin on The 3 Things You Want From Your LPs, Why Most VCs Do Not Add Value & Why The Best VCs Know How To Package Startups For The Next Round
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ryan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 4 | 123 | 53% 8/15 | full record on 20VC → |
| BIG TECHNOLOGYLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 3 | 70 | 52% 17/33 | full record on Big Technology → |
| Y COMBINATORLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 2 | 48 | 71% 10/14 | full record on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast → |
| ALL-INLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 4 | 47 | 59% 19/32 | full record on All-In → |
 KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 1 | 43 | 54% 7/13 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 1 | 19 | 50% 1/2 | full record on My First Million → |
| TBPNLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 2 | 9 | 100% 1/1 | full record on TBPN → |
| a16zLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 1 +1 | 9 | 50% 2/4 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |
| SAASTRLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Flexport | 0 +1 | 11 | — | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |