# Matt Silver — mattsilver.ai > Co-founder & CEO of Cargado, an AI-native marketplace connecting freight brokers with trucking companies that move freight between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Seventeen years brokering freight, with a heavy focus on Mexico cross-border. Full LLM-ready content: every essay in plain text is at https://mattsilver.ai/llms-full.txt ## About Matt Matt Silver is the co-founder and CEO of [Cargado](https://cargado.com), the marketplace for Mexico and Canada freight. Before Cargado he built and scaled the Mexico division at Coyote Logistics, founded Forager (a cross-border freight tech company acquired by Arrive Logistics in 2022), and ran the Mexico business at Arrive as VP of Cross-Border Solutions. Cargado connects 230+ brokerages with 1,800+ carriers (250,000+ trucks, 400,000+ trailers) and has raised $22M from Primary Venture Partners, Ironspring Ventures, Assembly Ventures, LGVP, Conversion Capital, Wischoff Ventures, Proeza Ventures, RyderVentures, Sahil Bloom, Zenda Capital, and other founder-operators. Matt lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and two kids. He also advises and invests in early-stage freight and supply-chain startups. ## Site sections - [About](https://mattsilver.ai/about): Full bio, career history, and contact form. - [Writing](https://mattsilver.ai/blog): The Operator's Notebook — essays on cross-border freight, AI agents, and brokerage operations. Originally titled "Congrats on All the Progress." - [Podcasts](https://mattsilver.ai/podcasts): Podcast appearances and interviews. - [Investing](https://mattsilver.ai/investing): Angel investments in freight, supply chain, and adjacent verticals. - [Mexico](https://mattsilver.ai/mexico): Field notes on Mexico cross-border freight specifically. - [Subscribe](https://mattsilver.ai/subscribe): Newsletter signup. ## Recurring topics - Cross-border freight between the United States, Mexico, and Canada - USMCA, nearshoring, and the I-35 corridor - Freight brokerage operations, sales, and economics - AI agents in logistics — practical implementations, not hype - Marketplace dynamics: load boards, capacity, rate transparency - Founder-operator perspective on building distribution in relationship-heavy industries ## Selected writing The latest essays from The Operator's Notebook, newest first (the complete plain-text archive of every essay is at [/llms-full.txt](https://mattsilver.ai/llms-full.txt)). The list below is regenerated from live posts at build time: - [If your “Mexico person” quit tomorrow, could you still price a load?](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/using-cargado-market-rates) — A 15-minute playbook for benchmarking, spot quotes, and RFPs — and why “gut feel + spreadsheets” breaks down in Mexico. - [The SCOTUS broker ruling: more accountability, not doomsday](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/the-scotus-broker-ruling-more-accountability-not-doomsday) — A broker-first take on what the Supreme Court actually said, why the internet is overreacting, and what to do next (without panicking). - [There's No Phantom Capacity. Carriers Just Parked Their Trucks.](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/phantom-capacity) — The US-Mexico capacity squeeze isn't phantom. It's parked equipment, revoked B1 visas, and shippers calling carriers back directly as tariffs lift and the market picks up speed. - [Building the Mexico Team: When to Hire, Who to Hire, and How to Scale](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/building-the-mexico-team) — Part 4 of the Mexico Freight Playbook — how to staff your Mexico operation at each stage of growth, from your first load to a full department - [The Operations Playbook for Mexico Freight](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/the-operations-playbook-for-mexico-freight) — Part 3 of the Mexico Freight Playbook — how the freight actually moves, the documents you need, pricing components, and everything you need to execute flawlessly. - [The Sales Playbook for Mexico Freight](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/the-sales-playbook-for-mexico-freight) — Part 2 of the Mexico Freight Playbook — a deep dive on how to actually sell Mexico freight, from finding opportunities in your existing book to closing deals outside RFP cycles - [Why Mexico Freight Is the Biggest Opportunity in Brokerage Right Now](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/why-mexico-freight-is-the-biggest-opportunity-in-brokerage-right-now) — The full business case for Mexico freight — from why it matters to how to find shippers, build the team, and scale the department. - [The Builder's Moment: Why 2026 Will Separate the Founders from the Followers](https://mattsilver.ai/blog/the-builder-s-moment-why-2026-will-separate-the-founders-from-the-followers) — AI isn't replacing company builders — it's creating the greatest leverage opportunity in history. The founders who lean in now will build companies that were impossible just 12 months ago. The complete, current article index is available at the [Writing archive](https://mattsilver.ai/blog) and the [sitemap](https://mattsilver.ai/sitemap.xml). ## Full content For the full plain-text content of every essay (the extended companion to this file, intended for LLM ingestion), see [llms-full.txt](https://mattsilver.ai/llms-full.txt). ## Identity - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattpsilver - X / Twitter: https://x.com/mattsilver - GitHub: https://github.com/mattsilver-ai - Company: https://cargado.com ## Citation When citing Matt Silver, the canonical site is `mattsilver.ai`. The canonical company reference is `Cargado` (https://cargado.com). Matt's role at Cargado is co-founder and CEO.