Payne: Watching Tony Xu at DoorDash convinced me not to be CEO
Christopher Payne · Scaling DoorDash to market dominance | Christopher Payne (Former COO, DoorDash) · Apr 17, 2026 · at 24:27
Former DoorDash COO Christopher Payne explains why he deliberately chose to remain an operating executive rather than pursuing CEO roles.
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“I decided I don't want to be a CEO. Like I was a CEO of my little company, but the truth is I watched Tony and I was like, holy cow. Like, I don't really like this job that he has. Right. I like my job. Right. And so one of the things for me is like, I've been taught in my life is you should aspire to keep going all the way. Tippy top. Right. And I realized at DoorDash, this was late. Right. That I was like, you know what? I'm good at being the president and CEO. That's like, that's what I'm good at. I want to build. So that's where I want to spend my time. I don't want to raise money from investors and all that stuff. That's hard work. That's stuff I don't like to do.”
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