Glue Guys The Championship Mindset of DoorDash CEO Tony Xu - [Glue Guys, Ep. 60]
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Nov 24, 2025 
Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO of DoorDash, shares insights on building successful teams and organizations from humble beginnings to massive growth. He discusses the importance of humility and teamwork, recounting the challenges faced during DoorDash's early days. Tony emphasizes a culture of experimentation, revealing how small, iterative improvements can lead to significant success. He reflects on the importance of protecting new initiatives and nurturing small businesses, while also drawing parallels between leadership and jujitsu.
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Hiring Shows Up In Actions
- Christopher Payne took his 13-year-old son and did DoorDash deliveries the night after talking logistics with Tony Xu.
- He then emailed a 2,000-word critique showing initiative and deep attention to detail.
Enjoyment Drives Early Perseverance
- Early DoorDash treated the startup as a project they enjoyed, not a guaranteed success.
- That camaraderie and intellectual honesty kept the team going through long stretches of limited traction.
Hire For Humility And All-Hands Ownership
- DoorDash selected for humility and willingness to do any task, even deliveries, in engineers and early hires.
- That cross-functional ownership helped them manage messy real-world constraints.