Federal Express founder Frederick Smith saved his dying delivery company in the 1970s by taking the final five thousand dollars of corporate funds to Las Vegas and gambling it on the blackjack tables.

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Federal Express founder Frederick Smith saved his dying delivery company in the 1970s by taking the final five thousand dollars of corporate funds to Las Vegas and gambling it on the blackjack tables. The company literally did not have enough money to fuel its planes for the upcoming Monday operations, so Smith completely ignored all rational business advice and essentially bet the entire logistical future of his startup on a card game. He miraculously turned that desperate gamble into twenty-seven thousand dollars, keeping the cargo planes flying just long enough to secure actual legitimate funding. Business schools love to teach about supply chain management and optimized routing algorithms, but they usually skip the part where one of the most successful transport networks in global history only exists because a desperate executive got incredibly lucky at a casino. It proves that behind every great logistical empire is a reckless decision that could have ended in bankruptcy