Ep. #69: Harish Abbott, CEO & Cofounder, Augment

This week, Andrew sits down with Harish Abbott, CEO and cofounder of Augment, the AI teammate for logistics. Harish says, “Logistics is broken,” and in this episode, he goes deep into just how broken, talking about the inefficient ways information is shared between numerous parties on any given shipment. He talks about how overwhelmed operators are by emails and manual processes, leading to costly inefficiencies, a lack of time for creative work, high turnover, and burnout. The former CEO and cofounder of Deliverr, which was acquired by Shopify for $2.1B in 2022, is setting out to change that with Augment.

In this episode, Harish shares:

• Why the flow of logistics information is broken and the real-world costs of its inefficiency, including missed appointments, wasted labor, and asset underutilization.
• How Augment aims to solve these problems with an AI teammate named Augie that can understand SOPs, manage workflows like tracking and document collection, and learn from context, freeing up human operators for judgment-based tasks.
• The critical importance of living out your company’s values and deeply understanding operator pain points in building scalable businesses.
• Insights on navigating the rapidly evolving AI landscape, balancing innovation with delivering tangible business value, and Harish's approach to fundraising for a capital-intensive AI venture.
• A five-year vision for Augment focused on significantly reducing waste in the $10+ trillion global logistics industry and enabling more efficient commerce.