Tony Xu - A Human and Math Problem - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 28]

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Founder's Field Guide. Founder's Field Guide is a series of conversations with founders, CEOs and operators building great businesses.
I believe we are all builders in our own way and this series is dedicated to stories and lessons from builders of all types. Founder's Field Guide is part of the Colossus family of podcasts and you can access all of our podcasts including edited transcripts, show notes and resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:00)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:25)
My guest today is Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO of DoorDash. Tony started DoorDash seven and a half years ago and today it's one of the largest food delivery and logistics platforms globally with operations in the US, Canada and Australia. In our conversation, we discussed 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 human coordination problem or as Tony put it, a human and a math problem. After talking to Tony, I feel his personality makes him a great candidate to solve all of these interesting issues. Please enjoy my conversation with Tony Xu.
So Tony, where to begin? Such an incredible business story since 2012 when you started DoorDash. Let's just start at the beginning. I love the founding insights or aha moments early on in a company's history that make you know you're going to chase after something. What is the first of those moments that you experienced in the DoorDash journey?

**Tony Xu** (3:25)
Our founding store didn't really start with delivery. It didn't even start with food. It really started with a desire to help local business owners, people like my mom. I grew up in a really classic immigrant family story where my family came to this country from China, came to the US from China when I was five. My dad was getting his graduate degree and my mom was working three jobs a day to put food on the table. She worked for all local businesses, three of them, 12 hours a day for pretty much 12 years.
I was able to moonlight as a dishwasher alongside her inside of a local Chinese restaurant. For me, that's kind of how I got motivated in the first instance to help brick and mortar businesses and for my co-founders, there were similar stories and pursuits. That's really what got the co-founding team together. I think for us, the founding motivation really started with a customer segment before we actually identified any problem.