Sustainable Business Practices and Ethics with Sam Berman
In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, Sam Berman, Founder and CEO of LARC, explains how sustainable business practices replaced one-time wood shipping crates with a reusable system, and why the company funds the fight against human trafficking.
Sustainable business practices started for Sam Berman with a napkin sketch and a question no one else in the room had asked. In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, Sam Berman, Founder and CEO of LARC (Logistics Advanced Research Center), joins hosts Stephen Sakach and Tullio Siragusa to explain why the world still ships its most advanced technology in one-time wood crates, and what it took to build a reusable alternative at hyperscale.
In this episode we explore:
• Why sustainability and ethics are becoming essential business responsibilities
• How innovation can challenge outdated systems and industries
• The role businesses can play in addressing human trafficking and exploitation
• Why operational leadership and purpose-driven action must work together
• The mindset required to build what does not yet exist
• How long-term responsibility creates stronger businesses and deeper impact
A Napkin Sketch Became a Category
Sam's origin story starts with a wood-crating company owner complaining about $1,400 server-rack crates. "Why are we using one-time wood crates?" he remembers thinking, "that didn't make any sense." That question became LARC, a reusable, leasable crating platform now used by some of the world's largest data center operators.
Sustainable Business Practices at Hyperscale
Sam is blunt about the math: "we don't save a little carbon, we save carbon in the metric tons," because a single hyperscaler can chop down hundreds of thousands of trees a year for one-time crates his company replaces with a container "used for a thousand cycles... without a single repair."
Logistics Meets Human Dignity
Sam connects LARC to Haven, an initiative funding the fight against human trafficking, after an investor asked him a question no one else ever had: "tell me what's on your heart." His answer became a mission: "cargo containers are for cargo, not for people." That same principle, that responsibility doesn't stop at the balance sheet, is the kind of leadership Zero Company looks for in the founders we help tell their story.
Sam's closing takeaway: love in business is giving, "leaders eat last." Learn more about Sam Berman and LARC on his guest profile or at larc.co.
Key Takeaways
• (3:06-5:25) The napkin-sketch origin story: why one-time wood crates for server racks made no economic sense
• (5:57-9:39) The investor conversation that led to Haven: “tell me what’s on your heart.”
• (15:23-16:28) Why marketing the mission gets 8 to 10 times the traction of marketing the product alone
• (20:14-22:21) From Egyptian-tomb wood crates to a thousand-cycle reusable crate: what sustainable business practices look like at hyperscale
• (28:14-29:34) Faith as the foundation of LARC’s culture, and Microsoft as an example of a company that practices its sustainability claims
• (37:16-38:30) The “militant mindset”: belief and purpose, not personality, is what lets founders keep climbing
• (41:10-42:19) The Love Question: “all of it,” love as the reason people build and keep building
FAQ
What inspired Sam Berman to connect LARC’s business to fighting human trafficking?
An early investor who asked him a question no one else had: “tell me what’s on your heart.” Sam Berman answered honestly, human trafficking, and discovered the investor felt the same call. That conversation became Haven, LARC’s initiative funding anti-trafficking organizations.
How much impact does LARC’s reusable crating have at scale, according to Sam Berman?
Significant. Sam Berman says a single hyperscale customer can require hundreds of thousands of wood crates a year, so replacing them with a reusable system that lasts “a thousand cycles” saves carbon “in the metric tons,” not incrementally.
What does Sam Berman say drives the most marketing traction for a business?
Authenticity and story, not the product alone. “When we market our products, we get traction. When we market ourselves, our stories, we get eight to ten times the traction,” because people want to be part of a mission, not just buy from a company.
🎙️ Hosted by Stephen Sakach and Tullio Siragusa
🎧 Produced by Martha Huerta
Read the full recap on Sustainable Innovation Wins When It Is Built on Purpose, or explore the Featured Guest Series.
CEO/Founder/Author
Sam Berman is the Founder and CEO of LARC (Logistics Advanced Research Center), a company redefining how the world moves its most valuable technology. Under his leadership, LARC has developed a high-performance, reusable crating platform engineered to replace outdated wood packaging with stronger, lighter, more secure, and fully sustainable solutions.
With a background that spans engineering, entrepreneurship, and global logistics, Sam has built LARC from a simple idea into a rapidly growing company serving some of the world’s largest technology and data center operators. His work focuses on solving complex supply chain challenges for hyperscale infrastructure, including AI, cloud computing, semiconductors, and aerospace systems.
Sam is also the author of Militant Mind: The Psychology of Building What Doesn’t Exist, where he explores the mindset required to challenge entrenched systems and create entirely new categories of innovation.
Known for his bold thinking and direct perspective, Sam speaks on disruption, resilience, leadership, and what it takes to replace legacy systems that no longer serve a modern world.
