Fred Smith, then an undergraduate at Yale University, wrote a paper for an economics class that proposed overnight delivery service in which one carrier is responsible for a piece of cargo from pick-up through delivery. To accomplish that, the carrier needs to fly all of its own airplanes, operate its own depots, posting stations, as well as delivery vans.
At the time, cargo shipment was handled by a chain of companies – the journey of a box would include being picked up by a local agent, flown by an airline’s cargo department, then handed over to a local van company for delivery, so Smith’s idea was unorthodox, and he got a grade of “C” for that paper. The professor wrote: “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.”