DoorDash

DoorDash started in 2012 as a Stanford business school project called PaloAltoDelivery.com. The four founders, Tony Xu, Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, and Evan Moore, personally drove orders to customers in a single Palo Alto neighborhood. Within a year, the service rebranded to DoorDash and began expanding city by city. By late 2020, it connected 450,000 merchants with 20 million consumers, supported by over one million delivery couriers. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2020 under the ticker DASH, and in 2024 it joined the Fortune 500 at No. 443.

DoorDash dominates the U.S. food delivery market with a 56% share. It has pushed beyond restaurant meals into convenience delivery, where it holds a 60% market share, delivering groceries, alcohol, pet supplies, and retail goods from partners like Ulta Beauty, Petco, and Walgreens. The company operates in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. Its 2022 acquisition of Finnish delivery company Wolt for $8.1 billion expanded its footprint into over 20 countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

DoorDash has faced significant legal challenges. Lawsuits have alleged withholding tips, reducing tip transparency, antitrust price manipulation, listing restaurants without permission, misclassifying workers as independent contractors, withholding sick time, and illegally selling personal data. In 2019, the company reversed a policy that used customer tips to subsidize driver base pay after widespread backlash. These controversies have sparked debates about labor practices and market dominance in the gig economy.[edit]