Tony Xu, Co-founder & CEO of DoorDash, shares insights on transforming the food delivery industry, the war on bits and atoms, organizing the physical world, and building a culture of excellence at DoorDash. Discover his journey from childhood to entrepreneurship and the significance of self-discovery and uniqueness.

Tony Xu, CEO of DoorDash, and Miki Kuusi, Head of International at Wolt, share their journeys of building successful delivery platforms. They delve into the challenges of scaling operational excellence and maintaining company culture during rapid growth. Insights on navigating labor law reforms in the gig economy highlight the need for modernization. The conversation also touches on urban reorganization and the balance of physical and digital ambitions, offering a forward-looking perspective on the future of commerce in cities.

Tony Xu, the Founder and CEO of DoorDash, shares fascinating insights into how he built a delivery giant despite immense skepticism. Alongside Sequoia Capital's Alfred Lin and DoorDash's Keith Yandell, they discuss the pivotal decisions that propelled DoorDash, especially their focus on suburbia and local businesses. They explore the challenges of fundraising, navigating financial strains, and cultivating resilience during tough times. The conversation delves into how the pandemic became an unexpected opportunity for growth and innovation.

In this episode we catch up with Tony Xu, founder and CEO of the food delivery service, DoorDash. Tony and his cofounders were students at Stanford when they first launched DoorDash as a class project. Y Combinator funded them as part of its summer batch in 2013. In this episode, Tony takes us through version 1 of their idea to what is now a public company (DASH) operating in 27 countries across the globe.

My guest today is Tony Xu, co-founder, and CEO of DoorDash. Tony started DoorDash 7.5 years ago, and today it is one of the largest food delivery and logistics platforms globally, with operations in the US, Canada, Australia. In our conversation, we discuss the initial problem that DoorDash set out to solve, DoorDash’s counterintuitive approach to building their product, and the surprising benefits of capital constraints in DoorDash’s early days. DoorDash’s business model is an equal parts logistics nightmare and a human coordination problem, or as Tony puts it, a human and math problem. After talking to Tony, I feel his personality makes him a great candidate to solve those problems.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to get and maintain your SOC 2 report at a fraction of the typical cost. Founder’s Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. ----- This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. With LinkedIn, you get access to an active community of professionals with more than 722 million members worldwide. LinkedIn is the easiest place in the world to post a job and message qualified candidates. Getting started is easier than ever, and now you can do this all from your mobile device.   When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/fieldguide to post a job for free. Terms and conditions apply. ----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:03:07] - [First question] - The catalytic moment that inspired Tony to build DoorDash [00:06:33] - Network density and its role in scalability [00:09:15] - Solving a math and sales problem simultaneously [00:11:33] - Becoming aware of multiple problem sets for restaurant owners [00:14:34] - Designing a team to quantify friction and turn it into useable data [00:16:49] - How to approach difficult problems and compartmentalize them in a practical way [00:18:38] - Accounting for high-level variance in long-term goals [00:21:54] - Factoring in time horizons for variance and planning for the future [00:23:08] - Slowing down an action process to minimize a high-consequence decision [00:26:48] - Generating demand after completing their software infrastructure [00:28:15] - Strategic choices between network health and unit economics [00:30:32] - Why DoorDash struggled to raise financing in their seed-stage [00:32:23] - Solving a small fraction of a larger logistics problem [00:35:00] - Differences between local commerce and distribution centers  [00:36:44] - Creating the DashPass subscription service and how premium experiences influence user behavior [00:38:34] - Advantages and potential diminishing returns in servant leadership [00:40:41] - His broader philosophy on leadership and how it’s changed over the years [00:44:55] - Creating an incentive-aligned culture of ownership at scale [00:47:02] - The most surprising lessons learned about company building [00:50:38] - Unexpected positive outcomes that may emerge in other areas due to DoorDash’s growth in the coming years  [00:53:44] - Will DoorDash’s presence change behavioral patterns in where people choose to live or start their business? [00:55:36] - What has him most excited for the future [00:56:55] - Kindest thing anyone has ever done for him

In 2013, Tony Xu was brainstorming ideas for a business school project when he identified a problem he wanted to solve: food delivery. For most restaurants, it was too costly and inefficient, leaving most of the market to pizza and Chinese. Tony and his partners believed they could use technology to connect customers to drivers, who would deliver meals in every imaginable cuisine. That idea grew into DoorDash, a company that's now delivered over 100 million orders from over 200,000 restaurants across the country. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we hear from the winner of our 2018 HIBT Summit Pitch Competition: Ashlin Cook. She combined her love for dogs with an entrepreneurial itch to create Winnie Lou: a Colorado business that sells healthy dog treats in independent pet stores and from a food truck. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's 1990 in Champaign, Illinois, and 15-year-old Tony Xu is washing dishes in the Chinese restaurant his mother manages. He wants to help people like his Mom, but it'll be many years before he hits on his solution for small businesses. Across the Atlantic, Bastian Lehmann forgets his snowboard while moving house. He can't find a way to get it shipped to him cheaply, and the idea for Postmates is born. Meanwhile, Grubhub founders Matt Maloney and Mike Evans have decided local pizza should be as easy to find online as apartments. And eventually, Uber’s Travis Kalanick will recognize that food delivery is the next logical step in his booming transport empire.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/businesswars.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's December 2011 in San Francisco. Bastian Lehmann is getting ready to launch his courier app, Postmates. But when he and his co-founders discover people want food delivered, not objects, they pivot to a business already cornered by Grubhub. Meanwhile, 30 miles away in Palo Alto, a business school student called Tony Xu is trying to figure out how to help a small macaroon shop fulfill delivery orders. His solution? DoorDash. Along with UberEats and Postmates, it will help pioneer the gig economy—and change the restaurant business forever. Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/businesswars.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Tony Xu started DoorDash in 2013, he wanted to help local restaurants stay afloat by introducing them to online delivery. Today, his quest remains the same, now that DoorDash has become an essential business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Marcia Kilgore's footwear brand, FitFlop, is experiencing a downturn in sales as retail stores stay closed. However, Beauty Pie – her direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand – is thriving as the beauty industry goes digital. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tony Xu, the CEO and co-founder of DoorDash, and Christopher Payne, the COO, talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the delivery company's busy 2018 and why it's starting to think about delivering more than food. In this episode: (01:41) Where DoorDash is now and the delivery business; (05:25) Is Amazon a competitor?; (08:07) Xu and Payne's backgrounds; (11:32) Why DoorDash succeeded where Webvan failed; (15:10) Working with big restaurants and why they don't do it themselves; (21:03) How DoorDash makes money; (25:53) The gig economy and the future of work; (30:48) Where the business could go beyond food delivery; (34:09) Why Xu started DoorDash; (36:08) The current startup environment and the image of tech; (39:31) What does it take to be an entrepreneur now?; (43:05) Raising money from SoftBank's Vision Fund; (44:55) The future of DoorDash and the future of retail stores; (50:51) Trends in shopping and the delivery business Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices