An entrepreneur & former Naval officer on Russia/Ukraine & Global Supply Chains -- with Ami Daniel
In Israel we sit down with an entrepreneur and former Naval officer, who has built a company that has had to navigate the twin crises of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the maritime implications of cracks in global supply chains.
Ami Daniel comes to these crises as the co-founder and CEO of Windward, a maritime data, analytics and artificial intelligence company bringing transparency to what is among the largest but most opaque part of the global economy. Ami also brings his perspective as a former Naval officer serving in the Middle East.
He talks to us about what he’s learning and seeing through his unique lens into these twin crises: Russia-Ukraine and broken supply chains from Covid.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] Oil exports from Russia were thought to be down. We know now that they're up since the beginning of the war. And the reason is that it's exporting more into India, Pakistan, and China.
On this podcast, we typically speak with policy makers, journalists, economists, elected officials, and think tank scholars and analysts, often about world events and geopolitical trends. Well, today we're going to do something a little different. We talk to a practitioner, someone building what was just a few years ago an Israeli startup, and it's now a global enterprise.
Now when I was just in Israel last week, I sat down with an entrepreneur and former naval officer who has built a company that's had to navigate the twin crises of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the [00:01:00] maritime implications of cracks in global supply chains, especially around China. Ami Daniel comes to these crises as the co founder and CEO of WinWard, a maritime data analytics and artificial intelligence company, bringing transparency to what is perhaps the largest, carrying 90 percent of the world's trade, but least understood, and until now, most opaque part of the global economy.
Ami also brings his perspective as a former naval officer serving in the Middle East. So he talks to us about what he's learning and seeing through his unique lens into these things. Two crises, Russia, Ukraine, and broken supply chains from COVID. So from Tel Aviv, this is call me back.
And I am pleased to welcome my friend Ami Danielle to the podcast. You should actually be welcoming me because I'm in. You're not in the United States, but it's good to be with you in person. Welcome to Israel, Dan Senor. [00:02:00] Thank you. It's, uh, here we are at the Startup Nation Central studio. It's pretty, uh Flashy.
It's flashy. It's cool. It's cool. It's legit. You know, the on air sign and, you know, and we're in the Startup Nation Central headquarters. It is, uh I, I, I encourage more pod, my fellow podcasters to come here and pod. Um, okay. So Ami, we've got a lot to discuss. Yep. Uh, before we get into the current geopolitical hotspots, which are, um, you know, front of mind, I just want to rewind the tape a little bit on you and your life.
So you finished, graduated high school. And went into the military in what year? So, 2002. 2002. Okay, so you go into the military and you go I feel old now by saying that. You don't have to feel old because I won't tell you how old I am. Okay. It's older than you. So, 2002 you join, not Syed Mactal, one of the, uh, elite infantry units, [00:03:00] not, uh, the paratroopers, not a tank unit, not, uh, one of the obvious high tech units like Shmona Matai, 8200 or Taupiot.
You join the Navy. Which is not a track we hear a lot about in terms of young Israelis going into. So, did you want to go into the Navy? Yeah, listen, so, by the way, from a, from a 18 year old Israeli perspective guy, actually all of these units are, Um, the alternatives you would consider. So, a, a, the top guys and, and ladies obviously would look at Shmona Matayim, which I looked at as well.
Which is 8200. 8200, sorry about that. Um, being a, being a fighter pilot. Mm hmm. Uh, going to Sayeret Matkal, 7 6, or, uh, the, the commando, or becoming a naval officer. It's exactly the same track. With exactly the same people. And, and as much demand people want to be enabled. [00:04:00] It's considered top five. The thing is it's very, it's a very small community.
Uh huh. So you have like 30 new officers I would reckon every year, maybe 40. Mm hmm. So it ends up as a very small amount of people actually doing that. Uh, I think the CEO of Outbrain, uh, uh, which is an Israeli company traded in, in NASDAQ is. Ex navy, uh, Neil Zoho, which is the COO of Wix is, is ex navy.
They're both ex naval officers as well. I know many others. The CEO of Tesla Israel, Adigigi, she's a good friend of mine. She's ex navy. Um, I think it's, um, I think it's something that was in front of mind because, uh, 8200 was, was the top, I think, but in the last, whatever, five, six years, you have a bunch of.
Ex navy officers, founders, Aleph, one of our venture investors, I think, who introduced us as well. Yeah. Has, I think, five or six other companies, at least, which all their founders are, uh, are ex navy. You can name Daisy, two founders ex navy, [00:05:00] Wibbitz, ex navy. So, it's becoming more and more relevant. And what did you do in the Navy?
I was a naval officer, uh, was serving as a, what's called tactical warfare officer. It means that there's a command information center. It's the guy running it, basically. And my, uh, I wouldn't say claim to fame because it's maybe claim to blame. Uh, I was, um, the tactical officer on board the INS Hanit, which was a corvette that got hit from a Hezbollah missile, July 14th, 2006, 8 42 PM.
Uh, which is, I think the last time that happened. Uh, before the Moskva, the Russian vessel who got hit by a missile and drowned. Israel Lebanon War of 2006? Yeah, absolutely. This is like day three of the war, right? Um, so I think since then, the next time it happened, it's now. When the Moskva just, uh, drowned.
So within, within the Navy circles, it's a very known event because this happens once 20, every 20 or 30 years, and it's really a, uh, [00:06:00] a defining moment for you as a human being. The fact that you're on a vessel, suddenly you're hit by a missile. You know, four people dead, 12 wounded, eight and a half hours of fire.
You're on this while this is happening? I'm on, I'm on this. I'm running the CIC. Um, CIC is? Uh, Command Information Center. Uh, there is, uh, the fog of war. So you don't really know who's who and who's where. All the radars are down and they're up again. Uh, you know, there's communication saying we're firing more missiles.
They are, they're not. You get towed away. It's like a big, big, big event. And how long was the event? How long did this happen? Uh, it took 10 hours. So because the fire was there, so we were very close to shore, about 15 kilometers from shore, it's like eight miles. Um, then when the missile hit us, uh, by the way, another vessel got hit and drowned, a merchant vessel.
Um, when a missile hit us, it had still a lot of, uh, fuel in it. So actually the fire is a fire [00:07:00] driven by the fuel in the missile and it took like eight hours to take it, uh, to take it out completely. So it's a very, very big event. And how old were you at this time? 21 and a half or so. I just think people don't appreciate when I, when I describe the kind of experience that young Israelis get across the board.
All income, socio economic strata, all academic backgrounds. The fact that there, Eric Schmidt gave us this great line when we were working on the first book. He says you take the average Israeli 25 year old and you put him or her up against their peers anywhere in the world. Any day of the week, Google will probably want to hire the Israeli 25 year old because of these kinds of experiences and leadership experience and sort of the crucial for, you know, for for management and leadership challenges.
You just don't get that in most other parts of the world, you do. I think you get other things. Obviously, it's Silicon Valley and other places. But absolutely, I agree with you in terms of Becoming [00:08:00] an adult and what does it mean for you and who are you and the repercussions of your actions? Absolutely, I think even more so in extreme situations because I know a lot of people were in the Navy nothing happened You know like the day to day operations or you know, obviously, you know, they're great guys, but really being like in a in a life changing event where it is up to luck or God, you decide.
Uh, the fact that I'm alive today, um, it's definitely not skill, because we could have been blown up completely. And you, so you, after how many years did you leave the Navy? So I leave the Navy after six and a half years. Uh, when I'm in the Navy, I meet my co founder, Matan. He, we, we, we fought together. So Matan, Matan is also a naval officer.
Matan is also, my co founder is also a naval officer and Actually in the last year or so when I'm in the Navy, we have this new shiny thing, uh, called automatic, um, information system or identification system called AIS [00:09:00] that ship starts transmitting their locations, not Navy vessels, but dry bulk vessels, tanker vessels, uh, container vessels, and so on and so forth.
And I'm there in the Navy saying to the other guys, this is going to be big. Okay, we need to figure out what to do with this. So explain, so just, just let's slow it down. So what, what is the it and why did you think it was going to be so big? So In the Navy, whatever, 15 years ago, you would have sailed in the open sea and you would have seen a blip on your radar, which means something is there.
Meaning some, some ship, some vessels, some ship. Yeah, you're, you're, you're, you know, sailing in the ocean. You're seeing the radar like in the movies going around and say blip. Yeah. Right. Something's there. Something's there. And you have no idea what's there and you start all this process. Uh, what does the electronic warfare say?
What do we see from the bridge? What do we see in the binoculars? Uh, did somebody else see it? Did some other ship sail next to it? It's like a fuss, right? And then 2007, 2008, [00:10:00] suddenly this automatic identification system comes along and You see who's there. So, so it's a, so you, so you get like a code. You get a code, you get the name actually.
You actually, you actually get the name. So you don't just see the blip, now you can see a blip with a code or name. Yes. It tells you what? On the box, it says who it is. So it's not just a blip, it's a blip with who is it and where is it going. So you could say, I'm, hello, I'm a tanker named Dan, uh, motor vessel Dan, and I'm going to Cyprus and I'll be there in five hours.
And that information is coming from who? From the vessel itself. So it's, so it's a safety protocol that all the vessels have to transmit to prevent collisions. But it's getting into the Navy, and then it's starting to be picked up by satellites. So now it's not just from picked up from a vessel to a vessel, but also by a satellite globally of what every vessel is transmitting.
And who controls those satellites? Private companies. Okay. [00:11:00] They sell that information. Okay. And we're leaving the Navy at this time, and I'm thinking What year is this again? 2009 ish. Okay, so you're leaving, you and Mattan are leaving the Navy. 2009. We sit together and say, well, what could this mean and what we could we do with it?
And at the same time, there are new types of satellites and we're like, we can bring visibility to the ocean. But at this point it is basically air traffic for maritime, right? That's what, before you see, see an opportunity, what this is providing is the equivalent of the way any air traffic controller anywhere, say in the United States where I live, any, any plane in or near its space, they can identify who that plane is, where it's coming from, where it's going.
So now this exists for the first time. Yeah. For the sea. Yes. However, it's amazing. By the way, this didn't exist before. I agree. However, and we'll talk about amazing and talk about Shanghai and talk about Shenzhen and talk about all these things. Yeah. However, I think what's even more [00:12:00] amazing and you can see is that 90 percent of the world's trade, which is about 14 trillion or so, is going through ships.
And still today in 2022. So you just pause that because even with all the tech and dot com and software and all the ways we think about commerce, transacting 90 percent of our economy moves on the sea. Yes. It's an extraordinary statistic. And last, by the way, I'll give you another statistic. Um, last year, Maersk was more profitable than Amazon.
And most of the people listening to this podcast wouldn't even know that. So, and the reason is, by the way, that 90 percent is transported by sea. It's very simple. It's cheaper. By the way, it's also more carbon efficient. So when you go to Amazon and you order a notebook, a pen, whatever, And it comes to you like that, it comes on air freight, which is why predominantly, [00:13:00] which is why it's very expensive, which is why you're willing and unwilling to pay six bucks more per whatever, anything.
And they have their own warehouses. However, if you're a, what's called shipper, which is a cargo owner, in other words, Walmart, Adidas, Nike, all your supply chains are built on ocean freight. And. Fast forward the last two years, I think we've seen what we, my co founder and I, built 10 years ago, to a large extent, I wouldn't say wasn't needed, I would say wasn't very needed for many years, because nobody cared.
And I'll give an example, an Israel example, by the way. Zim, the Israeli liner. Israeli shipping company. Shipping company. Yeah. Container line. Yeah. Went broke five years ago. It printed money last year, 4. 5 billion of profit. But it went broke five years ago. What's the difference? Did Zim get better? I'm sure it did get better.
But it didn't [00:14:00] get better to that extent. The answer is the world changed. And I think Michael Eisenberg, the guy who introduced us once, uh, Mike Eisenberg, who has been a guest on this podcast. Oh, really? Israeli venture capitalist for our listeners, uh, from Aleph VC. Michael's listening to this and his ears are burning.
Okay, so go ahead. And he's on, he's on the minutes list, by the way, consistently. He taught me a good, a good sentence for venture capital investing and for building companies. Cards get turned. So, uh, uh, it means in this case, when we built the company, it was great for a lot of years, the take up was predominantly from governments.
For your company. For our company, because all the rest of the people didn't really want visibility. We went to commodity traders. Okay, so just hold on, because I just don't So, so, so just explain briefly the, the service and product you were offering to customers when you built this company. So our thesis was very simple.
We could bring visibility across the oceans to what ships are doing. It's a very broad statement. And we went with that broad [00:15:00] statement to insurance companies, to traders, to shipping companies, to governments, to banks, basically to everybody. And you were saying for the first time, we can give you real visibility.
Yep. And, uh, and explain where artificial intelligence fit into this solution predictions. I got to say candidly, when we built a company, we didn't do a I so we were not reading into a I would still was a visibility. A I is. After you gather the data and you have a lot of data and you have analytics on it, AI is, can I predict stuff?
And we'll talk about it because today we do hardcore AI. But back then was about visibility. So I think what we've seen in the first, whatever, six, seven years of the company, most of the take up was from governments. Who said, Whoa, these bad guys have a way to, to smuggle drugs, do bad things across the oceans.
This company can help us, uh, catch them. Smuggle drugs, move, do dark shipments of commodities. You know, oil, let's look at, uh, uh, um, uh, the, uh, DPRKs. And this is, this show is about [00:16:00] geopolitics. So let me touch upon that a bit. So you have the JCPOA with Iran, which I know you discussed before with previous guests.
So this is the Iran deal of 2015. Indeed, uh, which is, which is limiting the export of oil. Uh, uh, and you have Venezuela and the sanctions on PDVSA, which is, are limiting them from selling oil to some extent, to most extent. And you have the sanctions on DPRK. Uh, and by the way, you have something in Myanmar, by the way, it's not very well spoken, but you do have Myanmar and suddenly you have Belarus and now Russia.
So the way people. Uh, circumvent sanctions to a large extent, and actually the Trump administration, uh, um, was very adamant about that and did a very good job in closing that loop from the regulatory perspective. They were the first ones in May 2022, nine years after we built the company, to define something that's called deceptive shipping practices, which is in other words, how do people circumvent sanctions?
of goods transported through the oceans. They turn [00:17:00] off transmissions of liberty, they do ship to ship transfers, they change the name, like there's a famous movie by Nicolas Cage, uh, uh, the, uh, uh, um, uh, Lord of War, I think, I believe that was, where he exports, uh, uh, drugs in a vessel and they paint over the name and paint over a new name, but that That is how people do that.
So 2020, the Trump administration, uh, comes out with this, with this regulation that starts creating a lot of traction on our side. People like BP and Shell and banks like OCBC, HSBC, all our customers start actually saying, well, we can't do business with anybody. We need to do due diligence on who's traveling the oceans.
And then COVID happens. And when COVID happens, supply chain crumble. And we need to talk about that. Before you get to that. Yep. Just get back to the predictions piece. Yep. So when did you, when did you and Matan and your team say, wow, there's this thing called artificial intelligence. And so we are now, [00:18:00] you identify this, this innovation in terms of effectively an air traffic control capability for maritime, for the maritime economy.
And then. . And then you say, we could be part of that air traffic control. Mm-Hmm. At least have visibility into it. Yep. And then AI comes in and, and you say, now we can take what, like, what can you do with the ai? You say it's, it's all, it becomes predict predictions. So, so it starts with a small step, by the way, ai, there's a difference between ML and ai.
Mm-Hmm. , um, to our list machine, machine learning and, and artificial to our listeners. I think it's really important that that difference, I think. A lot of people say AI, not many people actually do AI, so it's a branch of machine learning, but it's more advanced branch. So basically we've been doing machine learning for years, so we start by bringing machine learning into predictions for marine insurance, was three, four years ago.
And we helped marine insurance companies, which still work with us, many of them like score or guard, um, travelers, which is a US company, um, to, we help them predict the propensity or the probability of a vessel to have an accident. That's machine learning. That's great. [00:19:00] So, it means you have a risk score, like a credit score for every vessel in the world and they price their policies based on that.
But that's not a hugely big market. By the way, a lot of the pushback from users in the marine insurance market was, Okay, the machine tells me three, why? And when you do machine learning and even, especially when you do AI or deep learning, which is another word for artificial intelligence, it's a black box.
So explainability is not the, the, the great, you know, the greatest feature of artificial intelligence. It gives you great output, but not necessarily explainability. But then in the last couple of years, really artificial intelligence in the world, by the way, technologies like GPUs and Amazon. Uh, um, uh, and, uh, uh, the availability of availability of tensorflow from Google and a lot of knowledge in Israel, people who used to work for Microsoft or in other companies, which really took AI to production are coming back to [00:20:00] Israel.
And now we're seeing this huge need with a crunch in the supply chains. And I have to say when COVID started, it made me and other people, obviously, but also me as well and our CFO and all executive team take a step back and think about life. Because it wasn't about could we just do business, it's what business are we in?
Okay, great. We have this visibility. We have governments. We have more insurance companies. We have traders, but could we go bigger? That defining moment when you stay in home, you can't leave And you need to think And for some reason, you know, it's, uh, uh, obviously Warren Buffett is basically maybe the greatest example of that, of, you know, the oracle of Omaha that stays in and thinks and we stayed in thought.
And then we came up obviously with two main areas where we now apply AI, which I think are revolutionary. So one is supply chain. Uh, and I think it's all connected. This is, again, a podcast about geopolitics. So I think [00:21:00] Geopot geo geopolitics, and supply chain are closely connected. Um, and maybe you wanna double click on that, but if you think about what's happening with Russia Mm-Hmm.
And with, with China, I think they're both really influential on the global supply chain. Before you, before we get to 2020 and 2021, when you were building this company over the previous decade Mm-Hmm. , did you ever imagine. There would be this moment for your company, and obviously for the world, where we have a, a pandemic that puts huge pressure on supply chains, and we would have a land war in Europe, the first one in, you know, the first major land war in Europe in 70 years, all happening at the same time, which obviously has direct implications for what you do, but could you have, like, did you guys, obviously you couldn't have predicted this thing or that thing, but just predicted, um, Something as so earth shattering as those two events happening at the same time effectively.
No, however, our [00:22:00] chairman, Laura Brown, taught me a good lesson that says the world always gets more complicated, not less complicated. And it's accelerating in its complexity. So, and I think everybody who lives in the world can see that. Everything is happening much more quickly for us as human beings.
Look at inflation. Inflation is rising really quickly now. And people are starting to react really quickly. So, um, I couldn't imagine them. However, I can tell you, and actually it's a good reference to my Navy days. So, in the second day of the war between Ukraine and Russia, and by the way, I think it's important to talk about the human element for a second.
We have 10 employees in Ukraine. Uh, every podcast, every time I speak about this, I mention it. I think from the human perspective, it's a tragedy. These are normal dudes. You know, they have nothing to do with politics. They get paid money to write code. That's it. They don't, they're not fighting. They don't want to die.
They have babies. And they fled, some of them to Moldova, some of them to Bulgaria, some of them to Lviv in Western Ukraine. One of them [00:23:00] stayed in, stayed in Chernihiv. And, and I spoke to him a couple days ago and he said, That it was basically like living in the Stone Age. So, when you ask him, how, you know, how did you go through it?
He says, we had no convenience, we had no water and no food. So, I just want to mention that to everybody out there because it's nice to talk about geopolitics, but at the end of the day, they are absolutely normal people. When you see these images out of, out of these cities in Ukraine, and you change them from color to black and white?
Yep. It literally could look like World War II. Yeah. With throngs of people crashing into train stations trying to get out. Millions of people, refugees trying to get into Poland. Theaters, schools, hospitals being bombed to smithereens. It literally looks like from another century. So, now, now let's talk about what you're seeing.
What have you learned through the lens that you have that is happening? Let's start with with Russia and Ukraine and then we'll get to the pandemic in China. [00:24:00] What, what, what are you learning and seeing that, that we may not see? Sure. So first of all, I have to say, uh, people think of them as, as, as two different events.
I think they're one of the, in the same, because from the global supply chain perspective. It's two events converging and impacting the trade and the shipping. Um, so I think that's a very important point. So so first of all, let's take a step back russia and ukraine are not big exporters of containerized goods They're absolutely big Ukraine is a big exporter of wheat, which you think is one of the biggest impacts on on the global food prices Russia is obviously an energy powerhouse um, uh for russian Gas and russian oil.
I think that's that's Really material. We'll talk about that. And I think these are big events. Now, what we're seeing is first of all, since the, the, the war started, um, effectively, the trade in Ukraine has ground to a halt, and we've seen about 20 percent increase in the trade of Romania and [00:25:00] Bulgaria, which are in the western shores of the Black Sea.
And our expectations, our understanding is just goods being exported there. The same events we're seeing in the Baltic. So in the Baltic, less Uh, uh, trade is going into Russia, more is going into the neighboring countries. And just for our listeners, so the Baltic Sea encircles Russia, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia.
Yep. We're missing Lithuania and Latvia. Yep, yep. Okay. And so, and so suddenly there's far less trade in the Baltic Sea, or far, far fewer ships in the Baltic Sea going into Russia, and they're increasing in all these other places. Yes. Why does that matter? So first of all, it matters because if you want to look at trade flows and everybody looks at different for trade flows, trade flows.
So containerized goods, you've seen the biggest liners in the world basically, um, take Russia off the map. Maersk, CMA, CGM, one are not trading with Russia anymore. And I think That is what we're seeing. We're seeing a two tier world coming into effect on containerized goods, but also on oil. Some of our customers like BP [00:26:00] and Shell announced they're not going to trade with Russia going forward.
Some of the world's biggest trading houses, Vital, for instance, said it's not going to do business with Russia beyond the end of this year, because there's a bit of a wind down period. They have long term contracts. Um, um, So I think what we're seeing is a two tiered world in which Russia is continuing to doing business.
By the way, oil exports from Russia were thought to be down. We know now that they're up since the beginning of the war. And I, you know, and it's, it's a crazy phenomenon. And the reason is that it's exporting more into India, Pakistan, and China. And is that well known to decision makers and policy makers around the world or you're seeing it because you're tracking all these ships so you actually see what's, what's actually moving?
So we're seeing what's actually moving. We're also publishing it on our blog and we have about 250 journalists subscribed to that. I would expect [00:27:00] policy makers to know that. I don't think that's a secret. However, what I think is, um, I think a lot of the policy makers right now are thinking week by week.
And we're not involved obviously in the decision making, we're a tech company. So we can take a step back and showing, tell you where this leads. And I think this is leading towards a two tier world. I know some of our customers, shipping companies, who've been offered eight to ten times the rates to pick up and what's called lifting cargoes out of Russia.
10 times the money. And the reason is that Russia really needs to export oil and the way it works with energy and oil is you can't just shut it off. If you shut off a well, you can't just start it the day after. Everybody knows that. Um, so they have to export oil somewhere. They're selling the crude at a 28 to 30 dollar discount.
Um, or recruit for instance. Um, and I think that has a very big impact. So some of these ship owners, [00:28:00] traders will continue to do business with Russia and some of them won't. And I suspect that this is having a broader effect in the world of ESG and we should talk about that. ESG used to be, are you good for the environment?
Actually now I think people like Nike who pulled out of Russia or Apple pulled out of Russia are thinking of ESG as, who am I? What will my customers think of me? Where am I standing on the lines of history and some companies like shell, you know In the second world war I had heard this from shell themselves Shell did not take a stand They provided fuel to both sides This is the first time ever shell has taken any side switzerland has taken sanctions in Russia.
It has never happened. Singapore, it has never happened. So I think we're really seeing a defining moment in life right now. Um, but I'm not sure, personally, it leads to stopping Russia from doing it because their [00:29:00] economy is not, you know, they're still exporting oil and gas to India, Pakistan and China. So until somebody shuts down, uh, that faucet and these lines, not sure what's the effect.
Okay. And now let's talk about the. What China supply chains, um, and, and what you are seeing, I know you've written a lot about Shenzhen. Um, so, and the pressure from, from the zero COVID tolerance policy in China and the implications for what it means for China doing maritime business with the world. Sure.
So first of all, uh, when we talk about ships, I think it's important to understand they're a part of the chain or not all of the chain. So the way this goes for our listeners. Um, is you have somebody, um, um, you have somebody exporting something, the The truck picks up the container out of the Um, uh, out of the storage and it takes up, you need to [00:30:00] choose a liner, you need to choose Zim or Mersk for instance.
And then you choose that, they pick up that container of that line and they take it from the storage area, they take you to your factory or your, your whatever storage, they put your cargo in that container and then they drive the box, the port, they put it into the gate into the ship and then it goes out.
So China has a manufacturing. Perspective, but also in exporting perspective, and I think the lockdowns are affecting both so people can, uh, export less, but they can also manufacture less, if that makes sense, meaning China. Yes, I know. I'm meaning companies, uh, inch that have factories in China. Okay, so, so what the implications then going forward?
You talked about with Russia. We're seeing that like a two tiered system setting in. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That's a long term trend that you see locking in. Is there a long term trend coming out of the supply chain crisis? So, yes, so first of all right [00:31:00] now we're seeing 200 percent more container vessels, I did it twice, waiting outside of Chinese ports versus February.
Okay? So lockdown is China, lockdowns in China doubled the congestion outside of ports. So as we speak, one out of five container vessels in the world is stuck in congestion. Let me just repeat that. One out of five container vessels in the world is stuck outside of port because of congestion and in China represents almost 28 percent of all vessels waiting outside ports.
So absolutely it's having an effect. But I think you should also think about it as a butterfly effect. So the fact that there are more people waiting outside in China um, Means there's absolutely going to be an effect on LALB, for instance, in the U. S., uh, uh, Long Beach in Los Angeles or Rotterdam and other places.
And that's where then AI really comes into the picture. Because I think the supply chain problem, which [00:32:00] we saw with AI, like the, uh, uh, carbon emissions problem for vessels, are things humans can't really solve in their head. And this, this is where I've learned to turn to AI. There are problems which, which have too many factors of complexity and congestion supply chain is one of them.
Uh, and I think what we've done is we've built AI that is able to predict when a cargo will, a container or a vessel will come into the port. Or will be unloaded on a global scale. So all the vessels, all the world, all time, up to 30 days out. Um, as far as I know, I don't, I don't know if any other organization had really solved this problem.
Um, because it is humongous and it, it, it influences a million organizations around the world. And it only came about in the last two years. You didn't have that. two years ago. Nobody cared. There wasn't a demand or the freight rates. Freight rates are up 15 times for containers over the last two years and Reliability is down from 80 percent to 30 [00:33:00] percent So it has never been less Reliable to ship a cargo and hasn't been ever More expensive to ship a cargo if that makes sense.
Yes, which has its own inflationary pressure. Sure Okay, I want to switch gears before we wrap You run a startup, what is effectively a startup. Yep. We are watching right now what looks like some kind of correction shake up in the tech markets. Uh, we, we all cite this statistic. Something like 50 percent of the companies on NASDAQ have lost something like 50 percent of their value.
Mm hmm. Uh, in the, in the last few months. Mm hmm. You're, you're on the front lines of building a startup. You're in an ecosystem of a lot of startups. Israel has the highest density of startups in the world. So you are in this world. You're spending time with a lot of entrepreneurs. What is, what is the implication for people, young entrepreneurs like you building companies?
So I got to [00:34:00] say, I think that long term, I don't think it matters because so much riches have been created and so much capital here in Israel, for instance, over the last five years. People look at it, I think, as a correction, um, from an insane to really, really big, but it's still really big from the, from the entrepreneur perspective.
Actually, from the employee perspective, there is a difference, I think, um, because I know many people who are on paper very rich, but in reality, not very rich. Um, so, so I think the lesson is, I don't think there are shortcuts and actually we've been offered, we went public in London December, uh, which is very out of the ordinary because this company is not, unfortunately, uh, it's not cookie cutter.
I'm saying unfortunately because it's much easier running a company which is cookie cutter. Um, and we're, we're, I think we're okay because the London market is very different than NASDAQ. Um, but I understand that, uh, um, [00:35:00] I understand that to build a company, you need to create long term value on long term revenues.
And actually, the flip side of what you just said is people are expecting NASDAQ companies to be profitable faster and they're, they're, they're running away from companies who are going to lose money forever. So I think that's part of that correction. So it's not just correction in tech, it's correction in loss, big, big, uh, uh, big deal loss making tech.
So I think that's one thing. The second thing is there are no shortcuts. People have done SPAC. We've been offered to do a SPAC before. We've walked away from it because I didn't think it was a good deal. And I think doing a SPAC for a company, which is IPO ready, has a hundred billion dollar revenues and growing quickly.
That's great. Doing a SPAC for a company with 300, 000 of revenues, which was never meant to be public in the first place. That's not a good idea. So, so I think in building a company, I'm not sure there are many shortcuts, uh, about that. I, I do want to, and I think it's, I've been, I read a lot and I think, uh, and thank you for having me on the [00:36:00] podcast.
I think. For us, what this means is focus on execution. We have the capital we need in the bank. I think we now have the brand, we have the board, we have the tech. Now it's about execution, execution, execution. I'd like to recommend a book, um, Amp It Up by Frank Slootman. I thought you were going to recommend Startup Nation.
You're running the show. You already recommended Startup Nation. No, but really, as a founder, I think What's the book called? Amp It Up. Oh, Amp It Up. Okay, got it. By, uh, by, uh, Frank Slootman, the chairman and CEO of Snowflake. And I think Um, when, and people don't talk enough about that, but building a company, there's a difference between a founder and a CEO.
Some founders are also CEOs. Um, I think I only understood what it means, it means to be CEO in the last three or four years. And unfortunately have, you know, a mentor and a coach in the form of our chairman, um, uh, Lord Brown. But I would really encourage a lot of entrepreneurs, which are Lord Brown, you should say for his full name.
So people know he's the Lord Brown. of Mattingly or the right, the [00:37:00] honorable, the Lord Brown of Mattingly, John Brown. He was CEO of BP, CEO of BP. And, uh, he was, he was, he was invested into our board, became our chairman. And I'm fortunate to have him as my mentor because making that transition from a founder entrepreneur to a CEO.
It's not such an easy feat and I believe the CEOs are the glass ceilings of the company. So you need to grow faster than anybody else and learn faster than anybody else and execute better than anybody else and flip the switch like LeBron James used to do before playoffs. Uh, uh, I guess, uh, uh, better than anybody else.
And I think, uh, this Slootman really makes a difference. Wow. Well, leave it there. You squeezed in a book recommendation, a dig on LeBron James for not making the playoffs. By the way, the Brooklyn Nets just got swept out. Oh, of course. We can talk about that. Kyrie, my man. Yeah, heartbreaking. And Katie. And you also shoehorned in An incredible pop [00:38:00] culture reference, which was the Nicolas Cage movie from 2005, which is the first time anyone has referenced that movie on this podcast.
Lord of War? Yep. Lord of, yeah, yeah. So that was impressive. Thank you. We will put the book in the show notes. Ami Danielle, thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
That's our show for today. To follow Ami Danielle, he's on Twitter at AmiDanielle. That's A M I D A N I E L and the number one. You can also go to his website, W N W D dot com, W N W D is short for Winward. I'm a big fan of Ami's, so much so that in a personal capacity, I was an early investor in him and Matan as they were building Winward.
I have no involvement in the operations of the company, but Just wanted to provide the full disclosure. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.[00:39:00]