Let's Talk Logistics with Michael Caney

SEASON 2 E5 — MICHAEL CANEY

Michael Caney, co-founder of Highway, built the identity and compliance infrastructure that the freight industry should have had a decade ago — and grew from zero to 1,200 broker customers in four years because there was simply nothing else. In this episode, he breaks down the three types of freight fraud, how organized crime has turned cargo theft into a scalable operation, and why Highway is building less like a startup and more like Visa. Plus: why AI in carrier sales is the wrong first use case, what actually moves a broker’s P&L, and why posting loads in public is intelligence leakage.

Key Chapters:

(0:00) Intro to the Ep

(1:00) What People Did Before Highway — RMIS, Packets, and a Broken System

(3:00) Chattanooga, Michael’s Background, and How Highway Started

(5:00) Zero to 1,200 Customers in Four Years — The Problem Was That Bad

(8:00) Double Brokering Then vs. Now — From Margin Game to Outright Theft

(13:00) The Three Types of Freight Fraud: Direct Theft, Change of Control, Impersonation

(16:00) Email Inbox Compromise, Impersonation at Pickup, and Organized Crime Behind It All

(21:00) How Highway Was Built — Capital Efficiency and a Technical Founder

(29:00) The Problem with VC Funding in Freight Tech

(33:00) Highway’s Three Business Units and the Trusted Freight Exchange

(38:00) Risk as a Transaction Variable — For the First Time Ever in Freight

(45:00) Voice AI Security Risk and Why Carrier Sales Shouldn’t Be First

(53:00) AI Needs New Software to Work in Freight — MCP and Legacy TMS Problems

(1:00:00) How Highway Onboards a Broker — The Impact Report and the 80/20 Problem

 

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