brian moto

@FreightByers @thefreightnerd I think a lot of the SONAR haters (a majority of the top 20 pricing folks, ya boy) would be fired up if we found out the data’s always been legit. But none of us have ever received straightforward answers to straightforward data contribution questions

@thefreightnerd lol. A lot of SONAR haters about to be upset when they realize the data’s always been legit.

I woke up today feeling dangerous.

@maybedanielleee They’re scrambling, as they should be #FortuneOneNotIncludingAWS

"AI is going to replace the freight broker." Amazon: Hold my beer.

@FreightAlley #mean

Yellow is a bad theme for transportation firms

@thefreightnerd Trust fall season

It's typically difficult to quantify the risks of gambling on inferior data. There's a recent example that's fairly simple so I wanted to share. After winter storm Fern cleared up, there was a lot of bold statements that the rally wasn't showing any signs of slowing and rates would continue on to levels never before experienced. Let's roll the tape back and see how that played out. In the reefer space, rates started to cool pretty much right after temperatures warmed. They're still well above last year, but no longer on their way to the moon. I've charted where the 'Rally Not Stopping' trend would have put us vs. where we are today. The variance is nearly 23%! The area between these curves is what we call deadweight loss and represents tremendous to risk to your business as a shipper, broker, or carrier. Is it worth the risk to be correct on the occasional early call? Don't guess. Know.

@thefreightnerd From an actually credible source, apparently the current gap between class 8 order to hitting the road is 4-6 weeks. Wild

It's incredible how responsive fleet counts are to short-term rate movements. It also speaks to how low current barriers to entry still are within the industry. In the 5 months preceding February, the market net attrited over 1,000 interstate motor carriers per month. The preliminary data for last month shows the count almost breaking even. This is a sharp snap back towards expansion compared to the prior few months.

@FreightAlley How would you compare DAT and Sonar’s growth and relative market share in the analytics space over the last 5 years?

You can tell that DAT was never meant to be a data company. Freight market data is secondary to the load board. That is their focus.

@FreightAlley What kind of tech buyer pays for something they don’t know the source data?

@BWKMOTO Happy to set you up with OTVI

Someone is going to vibecode a way around their marketplace. I’m happy to provide marketdata to any developer for free during the pilot for anyone that wants to get after it.

@FreightAlley Build don’t buy and on prem being the 2026 trends is wild… and true

SONAR is having the best quarter in years. One of my board members asked if I were concerned about the rise of AI and if it would be a drain our data business. I told her that we are seeing the opposite. As companies adopt AI, they need data to feed into their products, whether it is a vibe-coded application or enterprise grade. Whats interesting about this tech cycle versus tech cycles is that smaller, non-VC backed, companies are building their own tech, that is new. In the last freighttech adoption cycle it was either the VC-backed firms or the largest enterprises. Now, it is small shops that are creating applications and they are looking for data to do so. We are so early.

@robbo_wcs @FreightAlley it’s not the story the incumbents would like you to believe. Top 5 shippers talking about firing top 5 brokers

@BWKMOTO @FreightAlley Which ones

The largest brokers are gaining markeshare as small brokers give back freight to shippers that is underwater. I’ve had 4+ top 10 3PL CEOs in the past week share stories about how they are winning a lot of business because shippers trust scale, compliance, resources, and balance sheets in this market.

@FreightAlley Work at a $300MM brokerage and was thinking about giving SONAR another look with the new APIs last year. But your consistent lack of due diligence makes me question the validity of anything you touch. Maybe next year

@garrett_makes who said its a rivalry lol

DAT vs SONAR is by far my favorite rivalry in freight.

@thefreightnerd @LogTechEric

Just got a text from the Vice Chancellor of Freight Vibes

@FreightAlley So what you’re saying is CHR shifting their freight mix from 65/35 in Q1’25 to 70/30 currently may not be working? Shocker!

"a freight market that is a broker’s worst nightmare: a sudden rise in spot rates."

No. 1 most read news story on Ohio Tech News in 2025: The O.H.I.O. Fund invests in Dublin-based @EaseLogistics to expand AI innovation ohiotechnews.com/ohio-fund-ease…

@thefreightnerd Until we all got accused of “taking advantage of the market” from some procurement folks by Q3!

@BWKMOTO Brokerage pricing people were the employees of the century in 2022.

The biggest misconception I see in freight brokerage pricing is that you're competing against the most sophisticated competition to win shipper bids. In reality, you're competing against your dumbest competitors who either don't know or don't care about market dynamics and will bail as soon as the market moves against them. Outside of driving the truck, pricing freight as a broker is the most difficult job in logistics.

@FreightAlley Here’s more context

I've been approached by a dozen PE firms about joining a board to help them roll up freight brokerages, using AI to cut opex. At first, I was intrigued. But after the 4th fund to reach out to me, I realized it was going to be a crazy race to the bottom and opted out.

How does the home run derby not have a shot tracer/track man behind it?