On Strategy & Annual Planning

  1. The Goal is a Single Number: The most effective annual strategy is a single, clear metric (e.g., total deliveries) with a key constraint (e.g., minimum unit economics). This provides ultimate clarity and focus.
  2. Clarity Trumps Expansive Vision-Speak: When asked for a grand vision, the CEO’s best answer can be, "No, let’s just go out and hit the number." The leader's job is to set the objective; the team's job is to figure out how to hit it.
  3. A Single Goal Eliminates Indecision: When there is one clear goal, you never waste time on trade-offs. You always pick the option that gets you closest to hitting the number.
  4. Who Sets the Number? The CEO: The CEO is singularly responsible for setting the company's one, overarching goal. This decision is too important to be made by a committee.
  5. The Goal Must Be Ambitious but Not Impossible: The annual goal should be a "jump ball"—a 50/50 shot you can hit it. It needs to be ambitious enough to stretch the team but believable enough to inspire them.
  6. The CEO Owns the "Why": The CEO must be able to explain why the number is what it is, connecting it to the company's long-term ambition and market potential.
  7. Strategy is What You Don't Do: True strategic focus isn't about what you do, but about the hundreds of other good ideas you consciously choose not to pursue.
  8. Stop Saying 'World-Class Customer Service': This phrase is meaningless. Instead, define the specific service level required to win in your market and what you can actually afford. Is it a 1-minute response time or a 24-hour one? Be precise.
  9. Service is a Product, Not a Cost Center: Customer service should be viewed as a product feature that can be optimized. Determine the "minimum viable love" required from your service to retain customers and win.
  10. Don't Build a Roadmap, Build a "Walk": Instead of a traditional roadmap, build a waterfall chart ("the walk") that shows how the fewest, most impactful initiatives ladder up to the goal. This forces ruthless prioritization.

On Quarterly & Weekly Execution

  1. Avoid "Underpants Gnomes" Planning: A great business needs more than a desired outcome (Profit) and a list of initiatives (Collect underpants). It needs a rigorous, mathematical plan connecting the two.
  2. Build a High-Confidence Plan with a Metric Tree: Deconstruct your main goal into its component input metrics. This allows you to see exactly which levers you need to pull and to sense-check if your plan is mathematically possible.
  3. Ladder Every Initiative to a Metric: Every single project must be mapped to a specific input metric it's expected to move. If it doesn't, you must question why you're doing it.
  4. If There Are Too Many Steps, You Don't Understand the Problem: A famous quote from DoorDash's COO: "if there are too many steps in the walk, you don’t understand the problems well enough yet." Simplicity demonstrates understanding.
  5. The Weekly Cadence is the Cornerstone of the OS: The entire operating system hinges on a strict weekly rhythm: analyze on Monday, plan the fix on Tuesday, review with leadership on Wednesday, and execute on Thursday/Friday.
  6. The WBR (Weekly Business Review) Drives Focus: A single WBR meeting and its corresponding document focuses the entire company. If it's in the WBR, it's important; if it's not, it probably isn't.
  7. The WBR is for Problems, Not Updates: The WBR should focus exclusively on the 3-4 areas where the business is off-plan. It's a forum for problem-solving, not for sharing good news.
  8. The DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) Owns the Narrative: The DRI for a metric that is missing its goal must come to the WBR with a clear diagnosis of the problem and a plan to fix it.
  9. Clarity of Ownership is Everything: For a high-performing team, there must be absolute, unambiguous clarity on who owns what metric and what their objective is. This prevents diffusion of responsibility.
  10. Who Drives the Bus?: The DRI model ensures that a single person is "driving the bus" for every important metric and initiative, eliminating confusion about accountability.

On Daily Improvement & Culture

  1. Play Until the Clock Runs Out: A culture of "we hit our goals" means that if you are at 90% of your target with 3 days left, the question is always, "what can we do...in the next 3 days to close the gap."
  2. Small Improvements Compound into Greatness: Companies become great not just from big projects, but from "the compounding of all the tiny, seemingly inconsequential wins that every teammate accrues over the course of a year."
  3. You Can Always Fix Faster: If a team is missing its weekly goal, the correct response is, "great, let’s start a daily stand-up and meet back tomorrow with an update." This increases the reps from 52 to 365 a year.
  4. Get Loud: Great Companies Talk a Lot: High-velocity companies are "loud," with constant, high-frequency communication through public channels like Slack. This replaces slow, formal meetings.
  5. Embrace a "Full Send" Bias to Action: Don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. The default should be to act, test, and learn. Develop a bias for action and be willing to "huck it."
  6. Get Into the Weeds: True understanding and big insights don't come from a 30,000-foot view. They come from digging into the details of the business where the real problems and opportunities live.
  7. Root Out Bureaucracy with "Minimum Viable BS": Actively identify and destroy processes that slow down execution without adding commensurate value. Constantly ask if a process is the absolute minimum required.
  8. Culture is an Output of Your Systems: A culture of accountability, speed, and learning isn't built from posters on the wall. It's the direct result of the operating systems you implement, like the weekly WBR.
  9. Discomfort is a Sign of Progress: The early stages of building a company are filled with uncertainty and a feeling of being overwhelmed. This discomfort is a sign you are pushing boundaries, not a sign of failure.
  10. Lead with Optimism: Especially during challenging times, a leader's optimism is a powerful force for motivating the team and maintaining momentum. It's a prerequisite for achieving ambitious goals.

On People & Hiring

  1. Hire "Grinders, Sickos, and Lunatics": Look for people who are intrinsically motivated, obsessed with getting things done, and have an incredible work ethic. These are the people who drive outsized results.
  2. Bonuses are Dumb: Don't use bonuses. They encourage short-term thinking and can be demotivating. Instead, pay a strong salary and give meaningful equity to foster intrinsic motivation and long-term alignment.
  3. The Best People Want to Be Managed: High performers crave structure, clear goals, and direct feedback. They want a manager who can help them clear roadblocks and hold them accountable.
  4. Your Job as a Manager is to Be a "Remora": Attach yourself to your top performers and clear the path for them. Your success is their success.
  5. The VP Role is a Fundamentally Different Job: The transition to VP is a promotion no one teaches you for. It requires a shift from managing individual contributors to managing managers and influencing the entire organization.
  6. A VP's Job is to Be a "Shock Absorber": VPs must absorb the pressure from above and the chaos from below, creating a stable environment where their teams can execute.
  7. Hire for Slopes, Not Intercepts: Prioritize a candidate's trajectory and rate of learning (their slope) over their current knowledge or experience (their y-intercept).
  8. The Interview Question to Ask: "Tell me about a time you took on a project that was 100% your idea." This reveals initiative, ownership, and whether they are a true builder.
  9. Don't Outsource Your Thinking to Consultants: Consultants can provide data, but they can't own the outcome. Your internal team must own the strategy and the execution.
  10. Great Talent Wants to Join a Rocket Ship: The most effective recruiting tool is success. When you are winning and have a clear, ambitious mission, the best people will want to join.

On Product & Growth

  1. Your First Product Will Be Terrible: The first version of any product will likely be embarrassing. That's okay. The goal is to launch, learn, and iterate as quickly as possible.
  2. Solve a Real, Painful Problem: The foundation of a great company is solving a problem that is so painful for customers that they are willing to overlook your early product's flaws.
  3. Growth Can Mask a Leaky Bucket: Rapid top-line growth can hide serious underlying issues with unit economics or retention. You must fix the leaks before you scale.
  4. Focus on Input Metrics You Can Control: You can't directly control revenue. But you can control the inputs: the number of sales calls, the conversion rate of a landing page, the price of a product. Focus your energy there.
  5. Product, Ops, and Finance Must Be in Lockstep: In a business like DoorDash, the product roadmap, operational capacity, and financial plan cannot exist in silos. They must be developed and reviewed together.
  6. Launch a New Feature to Drive a Metric: New features shouldn't be built just because they are cool. Every major product launch should be directly tied to moving a key input metric on the "walk."
  7. Technology is the Ultimate Scalpel: Use technology and automation to solve operational problems and improve efficiency, allowing you to scale without linearly increasing headcount.
  8. Find Your "Magic Moment": Identify the single action or experience in your product that makes users "get it." Double down on getting as many users to that moment as quickly as possible.
  9. The Market Always Wins: You can have a great team and a great plan, but you can't fight the market. Be brutally honest about whether the market is pulling for your solution.
  10. It All Comes Back to the Number: The entire operating system—the strategy, the weekly reviews, the daily improvements, the hiring philosophy—is designed to do one thing: "go out and hit the number."

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