Supply chains are under tremendous pressure to perform better. The average consumer now spends considerable time researching the best prices for the products they want, they’re comfortable ordering online, and they expect swift delivery at a time that suits them.

We never seem to lack for proposals to fix the nation’s broken transportation infrastructure. But the money to make it happen is always missing.

The computer on which this article was written is sitting on a laptop stand that tells you everything you need to know about how Amazon does business.

Decades ago, Bradley Jacobs studied math and piano (classical and jazz) at Bennington and Brown before dropping out to make money. Now the balding 61-year-old CEO of XPO Logistics invokes that background to explain how he's parlayed sequential roll-ups in the gritty businesses of garbage collection, heavy equipment rentals and delivering stuff into a $2.6bn net worth.