Business
Episode #6 In this Foundercast episode, DoorDash Co-Founder & CEO Tony Xu has a fireside chat with Vicky Howell during our SCET Newton Lecture series in the Fall of 2018. Tony shares his journey from student at Berkeley to starting DoorDash, along with thoughts on cofounder strengths, keys to validate his business, and more. DoorDash is the restaurant industry’s “last-mile” solution and has grown into a more than $4 billion leader in the on-demand space. Today, the company is also focusing efforts on an issue particularly important to Xu, using that same logistical expertise to reduce food waste with the recent launch of Project DASH. In just five years, DoorDash has become the industry standard for restaurant delivery, and recently expanded to grocery through its newest partnership with Walmart. 00:55 - Tony introduction 03:17 - Growing up in Illinois 05:49 - Family immigrant story 06:57 - Major at Berkeley 07:42 - On entrepreneurship 09:27 - Keeping sane in school 11:38 - Going to McKinsey 14:41 - Business School 18:42 - Soft skills 19:28 - What you can't fake 20:18 - DoorDash - what was not obvious 24:38 - Cofounders and backgrounds 21:23 - The first city 29:21 - Competition 31:22 - Stickler for detail 35:19 - Delivering good 39:10 - Q&A