How a data and tech strategy fueled DoorDash’s rise

• StockStory Top Pick DASH +5.55%

Good morning. Tony Xu and three fellow Stanford students began developing the idea for DoorDash in late 2012 and officially launched the company in 2013. Twelve years after its founding, DoorDash is the clear U.S. market leader in restaurant delivery, with Xu as CEO leading a data- and tech-fueled, forward-looking trajectory.

DoorDash controls roughly 60% of the U.S. food-delivery market—more than twice the share of its closest rival, Uber Eats. A new Fortune feature by tech correspondent Jason Del Rey, “How DoorDash became a $85 billion behemoth and won the delivery wars,” offers a deep dive into the company.

DoorDash is pursuing expansion both into new retail categories and into additional geographies. Xu showed Del Rey how the company’s in-house-built mapping technology advises Dashers on everything from the optimal place to park near a customer’s door to the specific entrance they should use in a large corporate building. DoorDash leaders believe the data adds up to meaningful advantages in the delivery-app wars.

“[With] all of this data, we are trying to build the catalog for the physical world,” Xu told him. “This repository of information does not exist on Google Maps. It doesn’t exist on ChatGPT.”

Xu’s approach to leadership is being closely watched and admired by his peers, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to Del Rey. Xu serves as a director on Meta’s board.

Some advice for tech leaders: “If you’re in technology and you are not making improvements, you are actually decaying. Until it’s over all of a sudden,” Xu told Del Rey.

There is plenty of risk but also a huge opportunity for DoorDash if the company’s meticulous strategy continues to be effective and it can stay ahead of its competitors, according to Del Rey. You can read the complete article here.

The AI engine powering DoorDash’s next phase

DoorDash has experienced a meteoric rise over the past five years and is currently No. 394 on the Fortune 500, after debuting on the list in 2024 at No. 443. When I spoke last year with CFO Ravi Inukonda about the company’s debut, he also pointed to DoorDash’s use of data and technology, noting that the company has built a “very efficient logistics engine” that has been powered by machine learning for the past decade.

A recent report by Klover.ai argues that DoorDash is strategically positioned to sustain dominance in the AI-driven local commerce sector. This is rooted in a self-reinforcing flywheel composed of a vast and proprietary dataset; a purpose-built, high-velocity AI and machine-learning infrastructure designed for rapid iteration; and a deep, holistic integration of AI across every facet of its operations.

Inukonda, who became CFO in March 2023 and has now been with the company for about seven years, also told me that the company has three customers: consumers, merchants, and Dashers. In addition, every quarter, everyone on the leadership team spends a day with merchants.Sheryl [email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com