I'm Rex Woodbury, one of the view from the top student leaders. On behalf of the leadership team, thank you for joining us today. We're excited to be able to bring in outstanding, diverse, slate of speakers to Stanford this year to inspire all of us as future leaders.
And now it's my pleasure to welcome Dean Levin to introduce our guests today. Welcome to view from the top. Today, I'm delighted to introduce Tony Xu, MBA class of 2013, the co-founder and the CEO of Dordash. It's a special pleasure to have Tony given the history and close connection that he and Dordash have with the GSB. I know we've all developed an even deeper appreciation of Tony in his company over the last 12 months.
And I will say that in the Levin family, I think his reputation peaked just after my son Ben's 13th birthday in December. So Ben received a bunch of gift cards from Amazon and Nike. And he came to me after his birthday and he said, I want to cash these in. And I said, why? You love Amazon and Nike. And he said, yes. But I want to swap them for Dordash gift card. So we're all looking forward to hearing from Tony in today's conversation with our own Joy Wang MBA class of 2021.
在莱文家族中,我认为他的名声在我儿子本13岁生日的12月份达到巅峰。因此,本收到了一堆亚马逊和耐克的礼品卡。他在生日之后来找我,说他想要兑换这些礼品卡。我问他,为什么?他喜欢亚马逊和耐克啊。他说,是的。但我想要换成DoorDash礼品卡。所以我们都期待听到Tony在今天与我们的Joy Wang MBA 2021年班级的谈话中说什么。
Thank you, Tony, for joining us. It is really wonderful to have you at the virtual GSB. It's always really exciting to have an alum join us, especially for a product that all of us are so familiar with. That's good to hear. Yeah, my guess is a lot of audience styling in or watching this interview with food they got from Dordash right now. Send me feedback at any point in time. I'm just Tony at dordash.com. Be careful. You wish for Tony.
I know people are probably really eager to hear about all the lessons you learn from the GSB. So this might come as a bit of a surprise for some of the MBA students. But you once said that more things growing up as a kid, prepare you to start a business than anything else. Could you tell us more about that?
Sure. I think it's really hard to follow maybe a curricula or some prescribed set of steps to do something that has very high variance. Obviously, when we started the company out of my apartment off campus, we weren't thinking about what Dordash would look like seven, eight years later. That's really what starting a company really is. So when I think there's lots of variance and you're learning pretty much on the fly, a new job every week in the beginning later on, maybe every month, every six months, you really have to find other maybe first principles that have accumulated in other parts of your life to really get you over the hump at times.
And so for me growing up as a kid, I came to this country with my parents when I was very young. I was five years old. We emigrated here from China. You know, mom and dad really came here to make a better life for me. And for dad, that meant going to school, getting his PhD and working a job actually at a restaurant on campus at the University of Illinois. For my mom, I meant working three jobs a day for the first 12 years of her journey here. And so I didn't see them that often. And so most of my time was pretty unstructured. And I think as a result, that unstructured time was what was able to, obviously, I wasn't thinking about becoming an entrepreneur when I was five years old. Nor did I ever think what would happen from my unstructured time. But I think some of the benefits really came from trialing up a bunch of new things. And I think that it's that time that really taught me a lot of lessons about how do you learn things for the first time. You know, for me, that meant language, that meant earning income, to buy Nintendo. That meant many small things. But when I put them together, those are some of the lessons that I remember most.
You mentioned that your family moved from China to Illinois when you're young. And a little did you know you would soon move again this time from Illinois to San Jose. And when you got to San Jose, one of your teachers told you that you were two years behind your class. And in response, you said that you would become the valedictorian of your class, which you did. What was going through your mind when you said that to your teacher?
I don't know what probably went through my head. Obviously, I wasn't thinking that clearly when that comment came out. Because in some ways, he absolutely was right. I was behind. You know, I grew up in I grew up in a community in Illinois that prioritized other things beyond the classroom. A lot of it was in sports.
And that taught me a lot, you know, playing basketball, for instance, was really how I one of the main ways in which I learned English. But when I came to San Jose, in high school or to finish high school, I really was in a world of culture shock. The Bay Area, I later found out, is a very competitive area, especially in the classroom. And you know, the school, I went to, I think students were studying, you know, all the time during the school day after hours.
I had not really done my homework prior, you know, when I was growing up. So I was, um, you know, I probably didn't have the model preparation for coming into school. And, but I think one thing that I've always really believed about, you know, both my family as well as, you know, many of the different moves I've made as a kid. Because I moved a lot, actually, even when I was in Illinois, I'm different schools, things like this.
It is really that, I gained confidence even by then that I could survive in new environments. I, you know, whether that meant making friends, whether it meant becoming a chameleon and learning maybe what it was that was, I guess, important to that community. And so I'd confidence that even though I didn't really study, you know, versus some of my peers at that time, that if I kind of really put my mind to it and maybe took all the attention I used to spend, you know, maybe playing sports, but putting it towards the classroom that, I could actually be successful. So that's probably what I was thinking.
I doubt any of that, you know, was what was in my mind when the comments flipped out. But, you know, ultimately it worked out. It's truly impressive to see that you took a lot of what other people might see as obstacles in stride and then built this stride that we will also see in the story of how you created Doidash. And Tony, you were mentioning that your mom and your dad had a lot of influence on you as a child and your mom really is an entrepreneur and she opened her small businesses subsequently that you had worked in.
So it seems like they really instilled this entrepreneurial spirit in you with their own examples. I'm curious, how did that shape the type of business that you then wanted to create? Yeah, I mean, I really don't think this is a story you can tell, you know, back then looking forward, it's only a story maybe you can connect the dots looking backward.
You know, for me, my parents, you know, Journey really is the classic immigrant story. And, you know, many folks I think can appreciate coming into this country with without much. And when my parents came here with maybe $200 in the bank and it was, you know, we're going to make it or not situation. There wasn't really much of an in-between road. But I think when you have nothing to lose, you also have a lot of upside as a result. And I think that that was probably one of the earliest lessons I took where I think on one hand for me it was just hanging out with my mom.
That was really what I was doing when I was working inside of her restaurant or washing dishes alongside her and things like that. But on the other hand, I learned that, you know, this was the way that you can earn your way into better things. You know, for me, it's why, you know, it's why I worked at a really young age. It was to save up enough money to buy Nintendo to buy the games that came within Nintendo.
So I'm not talking about big things per se. But that's what I, you know, thought a lot about as a kid. It's why I decided to mow lawns, you know, when I was nine years old and, you know, effectively knock on doors so that I can, you know, create different shapes because if you cut grass to different heights, that's how you can create different shapes. And in places like Illinois where there's a lot of land, there's a lot of grass you can cut, which means that you can earn your way to more video games.
And so, you know, I think that these are small things when I look backwards. And I think what it taught me was that if you put your mind to whichever new thing it is, and you maybe either because of reality or because of putting yourself in that frame of mind, think that you have nothing to lose, there's a lot of upside. Yeah. And we were just talking about how this young, inner prising side view, and I thought that's a great segue into how you later than also learn about other aspects of entrepreneurship at the GSB.
And I know many of us in this audience are taking startup garage right now, which is famously the class where you started DoorDash back then was still paulaltodelivery.com. And true to this lean startup MVP methodology, you and your co-founders were really scrappy at the beginning. One example that I really love was how you guys tracked drivers with the Find My Friends function on the iPhone instead of voting out of your sophisticated back-and-technology for it.
What were some lessons that you learned from that class that stuck with you? Yeah, well, I think the first lesson that we learned is, you know, what's the, what's ultimately the almost overly simplified problem that you're trying to solve? And if you can ask yourself that question very crisply, I think that's a very clarifying way to really test ideas very, very quickly.
You know, I think one of the, you know, earliest things that made DoorDash, I think a fast-moving place was that we always try to simplify the question we were trying to solve. We knew, for example, that if we wanted to ultimately build last mile delivery, that's way too big of an endeavor for, you know, just four of us inside of a classroom or inside of my apartment, right? And so, instead, we asked ourselves, you know, three questions, we asked.
ourselves, you know, is this a service that students or people, customers would actually want and would they actually pay for it? And I believe at the time we said, you know, would they pay $6 for it? Is this a service that restaurants would actually pay for? And I think at the time, you know, we're trying to remember, this is, you know, in 2012, maybe the start of DoorDash class that we took, so almost eight years ago, I think it was like 15% or something like that would restaurant and would drivers, you know, want this job enough to earn, to, you know, see it as an opportunity to work. And that was it. Those were the three questions that we were trying to answer. And I think the first lesson, again, is to really simplify what you're trying to do because I think oftentimes when you try to solve a really hard problem as the first, I guess, quote unquote, go to market to test your ideas, you might not even know what it is that you're actually trying to solve.
And then the second thing is just that you learn by doing, you know, I think none of us really had a background in logistics or delivery. We learned by doing deliveries, we learned by, you know, working alongside restaurant tours, we learned by doing customer service. And when I think of, you know, that's kind of what we were doing when we were in startup garage. I don't necessarily know if we like, like, link those two ideas when we're doing it, but that's, but, but the learning by doing and the simplifying the question that you're trying to solve, I think we're pretty important principles.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting because they're almost a contrast where you're trying to really simplify, but also at the same time you want to embrace the complexity of all the operations that is entailed in the business. And I like to expand on the second point a bit too, because like you mentioned, the four of you drove as drivers for FedEx and Domino's to learn about how delivery works.
And you drove all the delivery for DoorDash in the first year to year and a half. You have now synthesized this into a core principle for DoorDash that you call getting to the lowest level of detail. Could you help us first understand what this principle means? Yeah, so, you know, I, I, I, I mentioned that we didn't really, we were really students or, or we weren't really experts in logistics per se.
So we had to be students of it. And the only way we thought we could be students was by actually doing the work. And so when we started doing deliveries, we started noticing that, wow, some restaurants are really, really fast and efficient, and other restaurants take a little bit longer. Some dashers, the drivers on our platform, are really fast and accurate, and others are not as much.
Some customers really seem to care about a certain type of salad, for example, versus versus, you know, what others may just consider to be a mundane meal. And, and you start realizing that, fully to bring something to you, something, especially that parishes in minutes, whether it's ice cream melting or pizza is getting cold, and doing that over and over again consistently, because, you know, this is something that you don't really get any points for the, you know, first set of deliveries that you got right.
If you got the current one wrong, that tends to be what customers remember. There's a lot of steps, you know, we ultimately identified about 20 steps in the process. And, and it really came from, you know, doing the work. And, and when problems arose, it classic asking five wise, you know, analysis to get to the lowest branch of what the actual problem is, because most of the time, what we realized was, in something that seems as, quote, unquote, easy or mundane as delivery, if you're at the surface level, you're never going to actually realize what that problems are.
They're always hidden somewhere. And, and, and maybe a restaurant is, you know, a delayed one day actually because someone didn't show up to work, but you never would guess that. If you're just looking at the data of how long it takes them to prepare something, for example, that would never probably register on your dashboard. So operating at the lowest level of detail is pretty much trying to find your way to the right problem. And it almost never is at the surface.
That's really interesting insight. And I'm curious, once you have learned this, how do you then impart this on the employees and to make sure that this principle actually makes the company more successful? Yeah, I, I, I don't think it's, you know, necessarily one mechanism or two mechanisms. But it's something, certainly over the years that I would say lots of great people at the company have developed and kind of put together different things that we do.
You know, one of the things that that we found effective is, is really writing things down. DoorDash has a pretty strong writing culture. You know, we tend to start meetings by reading documents that people have written. And, and really these documents are, you could think of them almost as hypothesis trees, almost, where we're guessing what the problem is. And we're trying to get to the lowest level, branch and to, to really understand. And we're really looking for the disconfirming evidence to try to see whether or not we're just confirming our own bias or actually, you know, we're on the right path to seeing what the, the right problems are.
I would say, you know, other mechanisms that, that DoorDash have found to be maybe helpful in this endeavor is to actually do the work. So this is why, for instance, we have everyone at the company do deliveries once a month or do customer service. Once a month, I do customer service actually every day. Because, you know, sometimes it's really hard just looking at the data to get to the, to the digging. And when we find that the data, you know, I guess, conflict with what customers are saying, that it just probably means we're missing something. We're missing the measurement of something.
That's most of the time what is actually happening. And so it just teaches us how to, you know, improve our audit mechanisms in our measurement methods. And so, you know, I don't think there's a silver bullet here. I think it's a maniacal focus on, you know, making sure that we can work the inputs to each one of these branches. And that's really, I think, the spirit of, of how DoorDash operates.
Yeah, that's a really great insight because it's something that's seemingly on scalable on the surface. But it actually has been one thing that's crucial to the way DoorDash has been successful. Yeah. And I think over the over time you find that there are certain patterns that you can actually, you know, build products for or build tools to automate. But I think if you started that way, it'd be really, really difficult because most likely you'd be automating something that doesn't even exist.
Yeah. I think we are really obsessed with data today. And it's really good to keep that in check and know that it's really worth it to deliver and order once in a while. I know Tony, many of us have been following DoorDash for a while and seen the Wally successful IPO that you recently had. Congratulations on that, by the way.
Thanks. That big team effort. I think sometimes we forget that DoorDash wasn't always a sure bet. And in fact, the company almost ran out of money by the end of 2017. So if you could take us back with you to that moment, the investors have soured on the delivery space. And you had spent six months trying to get a lead investor for the next round. And all you heard was no. What kept you going during that time? And how do you convince the others to follow you?
Yeah. I think, you know, again, there isn't a silver bullet. And you're right. DoorDash had many ups and downs. And we still do. I don't think the journey to solving some of the problems we want to solve of, you know, transforming every brick and mortar business, for example, is going to happen overnight. And you're undoubtedly going to get your doubters along the way.
And so, when I think back on some of our toughest years, I think the first is actually really centered around this value of the company in which we call truth seeking.
And, you know, at the company, we tend to like to say, you know, bring your data and your insights, but not necessarily your opinions.
在公司里,我们通常会说,你可以带来你的数据和见解,但不一定是你的个人意见。
And when we looked at, when we looked at, you know, what was happening with the company, you know, the data and the insights would suggest that we had a very healthy company. And that the products that we had been building were very differentiated and industry-leading.
当我们观察公司的情况时,数据和见解表明我们的公司非常健康。我们所开发的产品非常独特,领先于行业。
Now, on the flip side, you're right. A business like DoorDash requires quite a lot of capital in order to scale. And, you know, we were effectively operating a portfolio of markets, you know, some which were much the majority of which were younger and therefore not yet profitable.
And I think, because of the transparency that we had for many years, even prior to the difficult moments that DoorDash had, I think people in the company knew that there was a disconnect between, you know, what was actually happening with our customers and the growth of the business and maybe what some outsiders had written about us or thought about us.
I think just being transparent with information, which was something that happened far before, I think, we had difficult moments then when the difficult moments inevitably came.
And then I think the second thing was, you know, there isn't anything you can, you know, fully do to control this in terms of what external, you know, validation or lack there of, you know, hits you.
然后我认为第二件事是,你知道的,在这方面,你无法完全控制外部认可或缺乏认可所带来的影响。
For us, it was this value of, you know, choosing optimism and building a plan.
对我们来说,这个价值观是选择乐观和制定计划。
You know, we were prepared for pretty much any scenario, regardless of what amount of capital was going to come into the company.
你知道,我们对于公司获得的资本数量准备好了几乎任何可能的情况,无论金额大小。
I think by demonstrating that, not just to, you know, a small group of people at the company, but really to pretty much everyone at the time, I think people had confidence that, regardless of which way, you know, things were going to go in terms of, you know, what was going to happen externally, that we would find a way out of it.
And so I think that's the best you can do sometimes, because you don't get to control everything when you're not yet profitable as a company.
因此,我认为有时这是最好的选择,因为当公司还没有盈利时,你并不能掌控一切。
And so I think the second best thing when you don't have full control is that you plan for the variance.
因此,当你没有完全控制时,第二好的方案是计划考虑变量的影响。
And whether that's up variance or down variance, you should be prepared, you know, whether that means it's difficult to raise financing or whether a global pandemic hits.
无论是上涨方差还是下降方差,您都应该做好准备。无论是融资困难还是全球瘟疫肆虐,都需要有所应对。
And I think those are the things that are really, really important with the tough moments come.
我认为当困难时刻到来时,这些确实非常重要。
I love your choice of wording, which is you can choose optimism. And I think that sometimes we tend to forget that because of the outside validation that we inevitably crave, that we forget that it is actually something we can consciously have.
And then just focus on doing what is right to move forward.
然后只需要专注于做正确的事情来前进。
Yeah, I think it goes both ways, right? And when things are going really, really well, you should also make sure you're truth-seeking, because you're never as good or as bad as people say you are.
And I think that, you know, maybe the customer information is probably the most telling, but even that sometimes, you know, can be, you know, swayed by macro events like a pandemic, for example.
我认为,客户信息可能是最具有说服力的,但有时候,例如像疫情这样的宏观事件也可以影响它的准确性。
So I think it's really important to be intellectually honest.
因此,我认为保持智诚非常重要。意思是说要诚实地表达自己的思想,并坦率地面对自己的知识和疑惑。
And I think if you can do that, and if you can set that at the beginning of your journey, if you're, you know, building a team or building a company over time, I think that lays the foundation to carry you through the really difficult times.
And speaking of things going really well, after that difficult period for you, Dordash, again, was on this trajectory of rapid growth where, if I remember the numbers correctly, I think Dordash's market share grew from 17% to 50% in just two years, which that kind of grows, it's just crazy.
You know, in some ways, much of the, you know, performance or the outperformance of the company came in many years before, I think, when you saw some of the results.
There's probably lots of other things that were happening that maybe had not yet, you know, demonstrated the fruit yet of the progress, because I think this is the hardship about, you know, starting a company really, or really, frankly, doing anything that will take a period of time, which is, you know, what you do today, may or may not pay off right away.
And I think your ability to, I think, articulate that to those around you, that it is really important.
我认为你有能力把这个理念表达给周围的人,这非常重要。
And I think the best way to make sure that your, I guess, you know, on the right path is to look at the inputs, because the outcomes may not always be there every month or every week. And, and so, you know, at DoorDash, you know, for us, it's always been about improving the selection that we offer customers, the quality of the delivery in terms of our timeliness and our speed and our accuracy as well as the affordability of the service.
You know, that's what we were focused on. We weren't looking necessarily at outcome metrics per say. We were looking a lot at the input metrics. And, and, and that maniacal focus on that was the bet that we made that ultimately would translate into things that maybe others might appreciate or care about. Because at some point, you do have to, you know, show your card, so to speak.
And make sure that maybe some of the ideas you have would translate into real results. And for us, I think we always understood that, you know, relationship between what we were working on and what the outcomes would be. Maybe they wouldn't happen at the same time period that we were working on improving the inputs, but I think having that understanding and then having the patience, if you will, to keep working the inputs and letting the score take care of itself.
I think those are things that we both had to solve. And as that business grow and like you mentioned at the very top, it's kind of a different company every six months, right? So how, how did you consciously think about adapting your leadership style and making sure that you are still the best person for this company for this specific stage?
Yeah, well, I think in the beginning, it's really about learning how to build a product and how to build a product that people really want. You know, it took some time to figure out, you know, how do you actually improve these inputs? And, and you're almost making tweaks along the way.
And over time, you're trying to build a repeatable system in which you can take that product to more and more segments of the population. For us, that happened city by city, but for other types of products that can happen, you know, maybe customer group by customer group, something like this.
And then I think the next evolution was really learning about skills and different teams. You know, I'd never worked in a day in finance before in my life. So it's really hard to hire to see a foe sometimes when yes, I know I went to the GSB, but I probably am not a finance expert.
So, you know, what does it mean to be a world class CFO? What does it mean to be a world class head of engineering or head of sales? This is what I mean by skills. These are not necessarily skills I had, but these are skills that I had to go and try to learn from those who were the best to kind of form my own view of what that meant.
And then, you know, how that might translate into a successful outcome in an environment like door ashes. And then over time, it's about learning how to build systems. Because, you know, once there's a sufficient number of people, it's pretty hard to just rely on your memory or on, I guess, your stories to, I think, allow people to make great decisions very quickly with high quality.
And so the obsession then kind of morphs towards what are the mechanisms we're going to build to allow speed, as well as the audit mechanisms that we're going to create to maximize quality. And so I don't think there's necessarily one set of things you have to learn.
I think, ultimately, the way that I try to measure myself is how we're actually doing along these dimensions. Maybe it's tough to see in one day or one week, you know, grading period, but you can see it, you know, I think over six to 12 months. And you can see a year on year, are you improving on the product, are you improving on the skills, are you improving in some of the systems.
And then, you know, what kind of morphs, even over time, is how do you actually scale this culture that you built? Some of it intentionally, and I'm sure some of it, you know, co-created with all the folks that are joining the company. And so, I think there are ways in which you can, you know, look at rates of progress, but I think it's first and foremost recognizing what is it that you're actually trying to get better at? Because it's hard to get better at all of those things at once.
But that's at least what I found in our journey thus far. That's a really good mental model to have. And Tony, I know you say a lot that you really started DoorDash out of a passion to help small business owners like your mom. And today with more than 300,000 restaurants and 200,000 dashers on the platform, this passion has also really evolved into a responsibility.
So, what is your vision and your plan for helping the local businesses and get workers thrive, not just during the pandemic, but beyond?
那么,您的愿景和计划是什么,以帮助本地企业发展壮大并让员工在疫情期间以及之后蓬勃发展?
Yeah. So, the goal of the company has has always been more about, you know, been more about food delivery. It's always been about how do we grow and empower local economies? And the way we do that is really with two types of products, you know, the grow part of our mission is really exemplified by the marketplace. You know, that's our app. And I think what most consumers know us for, in which we bring you lunch or dinner, or now increasingly, so, you know, convenience items and grocery supplies and things like this. But there's, that's one half of the goal.
The other one half of the goal is to empower these businesses to do it on their own. This is our platform in which we're taking products from our marketplace and we're giving them to merchants so that they don't have to rely on us, that they can create their own digital channels. So, for example, there are, you know, many, many, many, you know, businesses that actually just, they sell through their own channel. They don't necessarily sell through DoorDash, but they use the dashers on our network and the software that we've created to facilitate their own on-demand or same-day deliveries. This is called DoorDash Drive.
In the event that they don't have their own engineering teams to create their ordering systems, we have DoorDash Storefront that powers them to, you know, create their own online stores that will integrate into all of their backup house systems so that they can compete in e-commerce for the first time. So, and obviously, you're going to have to do more than just logistics or ordering in order to actually build a full stack service that we have on our marketplace. There's a lot of work that's left to go.
So, you know, responsibility, I think, is not just to help grow and build the largest local commerce marketplace, but also to teach and actually give these tools so that they don't have to rely on us one day, because that's really, really important in order for their longevity. With respect to dashers, I think dashers are talking probably the most of any audience over the eight years that we've been working on DoorDash. So, DoorDash has millions of dashers actually every month, and it's been very fascinating to see how the vast majority of 90% of them work fewer than 10-hour week.
This, in many ways, is a, at least in what I've observed, never have I seen this type of, you know, behavior in any work environment before. And, you know, the vast majority, you know, over 80% of them have full-time jobs of some form, and what they're looking for is flexibility to pick and choose when they want to work, and they're looking for value, I think, in the hours that they're actually seeking to work on the platform. And so, our responsibility is very, very deep, not just to taking care of, you know, those opportunities, also making sure that we can work with everyone, such as elected officials, regulators, and anyone's interested, frankly, in creating the future of work, which I think looks very different.
I think, in many ways, dashers on DoorDash look very similar to consumers, in the sense that they value their time as much or sometimes more than money. And, and they, in effect, are choosing, you know, some of these part-time gig opportunities, so that they can, you know, say for a project, whatever that may be, whether that's, you know, buying a gift for someone or starting an orphanage or using the money and, and buying their kids, you know, something for school. And so, I think that responsibility is very, very serious, and it's one where we have to help them achieve their goals of flexibility and value, but also, you know, work with, you know, everyone else who created this labor system over the last seven decades, eight decades in the, in the U.S. and change it in a way that actually gives them also the protections that they deserve.
And so, that's what we're trying to do. I think it's not going to happen overnight. It's a very important part of what we do, and it's a very important part of making sure that our work with merchants and our work with dashers can continue the following statement, which is that the vast majority of GDP in most cities is still produced by businesses on the streets, small, medium, and large. And that's, that's why it's so important to us.
Yeah, you mentioned the future of work, I think, in the process of transitioning to that more flexible kind of work, it's really on us to really think about the dashers, the gig workers that we work with and think more broadly than just our business, but also how we're impacting other people's lives. So that was a really good reminder to have. And because of the pandemic, Tony, I think all of us had to face unexpected challenges this year.
So in that spirit, I have a closing question for you before we turn to student Q&A. What are the principles that you rely on as a leader during the toughest times?
Well, I think the first is, you know, to do the right thing, which often is probably the hard thing. And, and, you know, during this pandemic, the right and the hard thing to do was to shelve some of our business plans. And actually make sure that that the community was safe, that the dashers would be safe, that merchants would have liquidity, that we can help the community, any organization that may need our help, whether it's, you know, delivering meals to children who no longer can get them anymore because schools are closed, or to give healthcare workers, you know, free meals because, you know, they're working 24 seven. So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that you have to have a bias for action. Because you can't let the uncertainty, if you will, necessarily, I guess, stop all things or stop all activity. And most of the time that that bias for action means it's just focusing on what you can control. It's not trying to say by doing this, we're going to control some outcome. But by doing this, that we will have some influence. And maybe, you know, that work combined with maybe, you know, luck a lot of times, that that's what will yield the good outcome.
And, you know, for us, for example, when we, at the beginning of the pandemic, it wasn't obvious to me that even the restaurant kitchens would be allowed to stay open. Actually, if you looked at what happened across the world, some countries, whether it's China, and some others like the UK actually shut down restaurants altogether completely, including the kitchens, which meant the takeout or the delivery business would be stopped as well. And those are things you have to be prepared for. And so, and this is what I mean when I say you can't influence that. You can work alongside, you know, governments and elected officials on that, but you can't control that outcome, but you have to be prepared for, you know, what the consequences are.
I think the third thing is you have to trust your team, because no one person is going to get you through a pen, you know, any sort of difficult situation, and certainly not a pandemic, you know, to give you a sense of what it felt like a door dash. I mean, it pretty much was 24-7 from March through June, where we had, you know, twice a day meetings across probably 20 or so work streams.
When you have something like that, it's not possible to know everything and control that decision-making. And so, I think a lot of this obviously, you know, starts from preparations that you made a long time ago, such as building great people up, allowing them to make many decisions prior to when a big moment like this happens, but you have to trust the team, and you have to trust the process that they built to solve the hard problems. And that's what I'm most proud of, you know, when I look back at, you know, 2020, it wasn't necessarily, you know, what happened with an IPO, it was, you know, how we responded during a difficult time for everyone.
That's really valuable advice. And Tony, thank you for sharing your grit, your scrappiness, and growth mindset with us. With that, we'll now turn to student Q&A. I believe that Jenna is up first.
My question is about cities and how they'll evolve. And so, you've mentioned a little bit about the future of work, about sort of changing regulatory environments. I'm curious how else do you see cities evolving over the next 10 years, and what is Dora Dash's role or place within that evolution?
Sure. Well, you know, the first thing I would say is, I think cities are always going to get better. I mean, I think I forget who studied this. Maybe I'm going to blank on the author, but cities have been one of the most enduring, I guess, organizations that I've ever made through the history of time. You know, far more enduring than businesses have.
And I think, again, you know, I mentioned earlier that most of GDP still happens inside local communities. You know, I think in the US, that's north to 50%. That number has been true in pretty much every decade that it's been measured. And I think it shows you the resilience of how cities go through, you know, obviously economic cycles as well as even, you know, pandemic cycles.
I'm very optimistic. And I think, you know, what you're going to see is, I think you're going to see more consistency across cities. I think we used to maybe think, oh, well, you must live in a certain city in order to access certain things. You must live in New York City to access delivery. You must live in San Francisco to work in technology. I think you're going to see more of that spread.
You're going to see a greater distribution of all the things that I think we each want, you know, convenience, for example, or access to different types of jobs in more places. And this kind of growth of almost hubs, if you will, of all the things that, because we're all human, we all want similar things at the end of the day. I think it's going to be more consistent, not less consistent. And so I think our role is to play our small part in making sure that we can make every small, medium, and large business, you know, brick and mortar business, make this transformation from doing pretty much everything from customer acquisition to customer service inside stores to a world where they do this also with digital channels.
And so I think we have long ways to go. And we're excited about the journey ahead.
因此,我认为我们还有很长的路要走,我们对未来的旅程感到兴奋。
And what other industries or verticals could you see door dashes last mile fulfillment model be applied well and why?
你觉得DoorDash最后一英里交付模式可以成功应用于哪些其他行业或垂直领域?为什么?
Sure. Well, again, crawl walk run, as I like to say. And it's tough doing one thing well. And so as you kind of go forward, you want to sequence that appropriately.
But what, one of the reasons why we started with, there are a few reasons why we started with restaurants. You know, one of the reasons why we started with restaurants was, you know, if the goal ultimately is to bring you everything inside your city in minutes, not hours or days, we thought it would make sense to start with, well, we had a guest to be the highest frequency category first. So that we have lots of activity. Because when you have lots of activity in the same geography, you have basically the greatest density of work, if you will.
The greatest density of work is what allows you to be more efficient and also achieve a lower cost way of bringing things to places.
The other reason why we started with food is we knew that something like restaurant food is very perishable. Obviously, you have minutes to get this right. And if you get it wrong, you kind of have to solve it then and there. You can't wait to give you your password the next day or something.
It's not like that. You kind of have to solve it there and then. And so we thought that if we can tackle the hardest problem first, that other categories, at least from a pure last model, logistics perspective, would be easier to do.
Obviously, if you have more time to deliver something less perishable, that's easier than the more time pressure and greater pressureability. And so, you know, for us, you know, we found that to be true as now we're starting to deliver convenience items from places like CVS, Walgreens 7-11, as we're delivering grocery items from places like smart and final or Meyer, Hyvee and other places that seems to be true. But we have a lot of work to do.
很明显,如果您有更多的时间来运送一些不易腐烂的东西,那就比有更多的时间压力和更大的压力更容易。因此,对我们来说,我们现在开始从CVS、Walgreens 7-11等地方运送便利商品,从smart and final或Meyer、Hyvee等地方运送杂货商品,似乎也是如此。但我们还有很多工作要做。
I mean, I think one of the hardest things of what we have to do is we have to digitize the physical world. There does not exist, for instance, some easy structured catalog where you know how long it takes to bake a deep dish pizza versus making a salad or how many apples are left in aisle six. Or what are the prices for this item as they are changing maybe by the hour by certain stores because of a promotion or something like that. And so or I mean, I know we're in a pandemic, but post pandemic, whereas the last, you know, parking space in San Francisco or Los Angeles, I mean, these are tricky questions where we first have to almost study the world first before we start, you know, bring value to different people inside that world.
So that's still a big part of the journey for us right now. But I'm confident that, you know, based on where we started, that that gives us quite a lot of opportunities to deliver everything else. Thank you both for the questions.
Tony, I'd like to wrap up with a custom review from the top lightning round. I think we have maybe 30 seconds left. So I'll be quick. It's only three questions.
托尼,我想以顶尖的闪电环节结束我们的对话。我想我们只剩下大约30秒。所以我会很快。只有三个问题。
The first question is, what is your favorite class at the GSB? I don't know if it's taught anymore. It was called, I think, it was called a lightning startups in their markets, taught by Andy Rackliffe and Mark Leslie. I don't know if that class is still there, but that was that was a highlight. And what does your go to food delivery order? Oh, actually, I don't have one.
So my, my, my wife and I, we actually try a different place almost every time when we were so we've ordered from about 1100 places so far in the Bay Area. I guess the most recent order was a a new sushi place that we discovered in San Francisco called Sasawa Japanese restaurant. Nice. Last question. In just one sentence, what would be your word of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs at the GSB? Well, if you're an aspiring entrepreneur, I would say find something you're obsessive about.
And that's, and then that's where I would start. Because, you know, the journey to building anything of meaning, I believe will take years, maybe decades. And so I think unless you are, when I actually focused on it, I think it is difficult to maybe make it all the way through all the ups and downs. And so find something, find something that you're obsessive about. With that, Tony, it's been truly a pleasure. Thank you again for joining us. Of course, thanks for having me.