The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 21 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Xu: Takeaway generates 3x to 5x higher incremental margins for restaurants
“Rough math, you know, for every dollar of food that if you and I bought inside of a restaurant, you know, from the cost structure, you're gonna have 30% of that in the food and the packaging. You're gonna have 30% of it in the rent. You're gonna have 30% of it…”
Xu: DoorDash's Dot robot uniquely navigates roads, sidewalks, and bike lanes
“And the sidewalk and the bike lane. And so it's the only vehicle in the world that does that.”
Tony Xu: Ghost kitchens fail without large brand customer acquisition power
“It just turns out it's extraordinarily difficult, however, unless you're a large brand, or, you know you know, a house of brands, someone like DoorDash, to be able to attract enough customers to make that math work.”
Xu: Chat interfaces fail in commerce unless they solve the end-to-end job
“It's not obvious to me that it's just a chat interface, that there are, you know, all of these different components that have to be solved. And so I think You know, the way I think about it is, okay, regardless of whatever we ship whether it's on our own you k…”
Xu: DoorDash's alert system warned NYPD of a Manhattan shooting first
“Within minutes of a Dasher seeing the shooter walk in to the building, you know, we have an alert system that doesn't just alert all Dasher's and consumers and merchants within that vicinity, but also all local law enforcement. And actually we were the first t…”
Xu: DoorDash cut COVID commissions 50%, costing over $100M
“Or in COVID, we were the only company to cut commissions by 50%. When we were not yet profitable as a company, that was an expense over a hundred million dollars.”
Xu: DoorDash is only platform saving drivers $1.40-$1.90 on gas
“And we're the only platform today to take care of Dashers when there is, you know, these increasing gas prices and making sure that, you know, we have their back and that we're actually trying to help them save a dollar 40 to a dollar 90 per gallon for Dashers…”
Wu: Cognition uses Devin to order DoorDash and Amazon packages
“Devon is obviously entirely focused towards software engineering, but like we order our DoorDash on Devon, you know, we order our Amazon packages with Devon, and it's like, there are pieces of that that turn out to work nicely anyway.”
Xu: Fast-food chains' core IP is process innovation and workforce management
“That's on the, you know, big brand, you know, QSR side where a lot of the innovation, if you will, is in the process innovation, and then also how do you run large groups of people
And have very high and consistent standards of service.
Extremely difficult, an…”
Xu: High bar for AR smart glasses to aid delivery navigation
“That the human is pretty good with their eyes, you know, at some of this stuff. So the bar is pretty high, you know, in order to do some of the things you're talking about.”
Xu: DoorDash spent 40% of cash on refunds in 2013
“This was a Stanford football game in 2013, and I had trouble raising the seed round. We made the decision to refund everyone that cost us over 40% of the bank account.”
Xu: DoorDash struggled to raise capital relative to peers from 2016 to 2018
“In fact, you know, between 2016, 1718, we barely were able to raise a dollar, you know, relative to our peers.”
Xu: Eating out in China is as affordable as cooking at home
“Eating out in China is about as affordable as cooking, you know, at home.”
Tony Xu: DoorDash tanked 80% then doubled in one week during early COVID
“COVID, you know, the first week actually the business, you know, tanked 80%. It tanked massively because everything was shut down. And then, you know, the next week, you know, Everything all of the dining rooms were closed, but the kitchens were open. And so, …”
Xu: DoorDash has over 100M annual and tens of millions of monthly customers
“Our product with now, you know, over a hundred million plus annual customers, tens of millions of, ah, monthly customers, they shop at various frequencies”
Xu: Displaced items make tracking physical store inventory extraordinarily difficult
“We know that consumers move around items a lot, which makes it extraordinarily difficult, you know, for any store to track their own inventory”
Xu: DoorDash has run drone deliveries in Australia and plans US/EU rollouts
“We've been doing drone deliveries actually for a couple years now. Mostly outside of the United States. Outside of the U.S. Places like Australia you know we're gonna bring them to Europe, bring them to the United States as well.”
Xu: DoorDash built proprietary maps to pinpoint apartment doors precisely
“We have our own mapping system, for example, that we built. Why did we build our own? Well, it's because we care much more than any, you know, third-party mapping system of exactly where the last two feet, forget, 20 or 200 feet of some apartment unit door is,…”
Xu: DoorDash delivery fleet in London is predominantly non-automotive
“You know, we predominantly are non-autos in, in the city of London which is very different in, in, in the States as an example.”