Good morning. Automation, AI brokers, and M&A are high of thoughts for the on-demand supply platform and tech firm DoorDash.
Throughout Fortune Brainstorm Tech, which kicked off on Monday in Park Metropolis, Utah, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu spoke with Fortune’s Jason Del Rey about M&A, noting he has realized the significance of partnering with working groups that share DoorDash’s values.
“That’s what we found when we met Wolt in 2021—a team with very shared values, which to me is probably the hardest thing to get right in M&A,” Xu mentioned. “M&A is very easy to get right on a sheet of paper; it’s very hard to get right in practice.”
Earlier this 12 months, DoorDash closed the $1.2 billion acquisition of SevenRooms, which helps companies acquire a 360-degree view of their friends with advertising as a service, he mentioned. Additionally this 12 months, the corporate acquired ad-tech platform Symbiosys for roughly $175 million. And DoorDash has additionally agreed to amass UK-based Deliveroo for about $3.9 billion, anticipating to shut in This fall 2025, pending regulatory approval.
Automation and AI
DoorDash has been engaged on autonomous supply, akin to drones and sidewalk robots, since 2017. However there have been challenges, Xu mentioned.
“Candidly, it’s mostly been filled with lots of pain and suffering,” he mentioned, explaining that attaining dependable, scalable autonomous supply requires excelling throughout a number of domains: {hardware}, software program, community constructing, and repair high quality—few corporations grasp all of those concurrently.
Xu in contrast the method to studying a multi-level sport and emphasised that DoorDash continues to be early in constructing these broad capabilities. Nevertheless, he famous that DoorDash is starting to see industrial progress, with profitable assessments and pilots within the U.S. (together with partnering with Coco Robotics for robotic supply), and drone deliveries with Alphabet’s Wing in Australia, for instance.
DoorDash builds and deploys AI brokers, developed each in-house and with companions. Key use circumstances embody customer support, voice ordering, logistics, and service provider help. “We launched an AI agent to help merchants better buy advertisements and promotions,” Xu mentioned.
Based in 2013, DoorDash debuted on the Fortune 500 final 12 months. “We have three customers: consumers, merchants, and Dashers,” CFO Ravi Inukonda instructed me in 2024. “When we first started, our goal wasn’t to build a food delivery business. The goal was to build a local commerce business.”
The corporate has gone past meals supply, enabling purchases and supply from eating places, grocery shops, pharmacies, pet outlets, retail shops, and extra.
This 12 months, DoorDash climbed 49 spots to No. 394 on the Fortune 500. The corporate reported its Q2 2025 earnings final month, beating expectations: Income was $3.28 billion, up 25% from $2.63 billion a 12 months earlier. Earnings per share have been 65 cents, versus 44 cents anticipated. Whole orders elevated 20% year-over-year to 761 million.
DoorDash additionally introduced on Monday an unique partnership with Waffle Home for the rollout of all-night supply (9 p.m.–8 a.m.). It’s the primary supply service in Waffle Home’s a long time in enterprise.
The objective is to ship in underneath quarter-hour from when the meals is prepared, to “offer a quality experience,” Xu mentioned.
Leaderboard
Fortune 500 Energy Strikes
Yvonne McGill, CFO of Dell Applied sciences (No. 44), will step down from her position after a profession at Dell that spanned practically 30 years, efficient Sept. 9.
Dell has named David Kennedy, SVP of Dell International Enterprise Operations, Finance, to function interim CFO, efficient Sept. 9. Kennedy can also be the previous SVP and COO of Dell International Gross sales and SVP and CFO of the corporate’s Consumer Options Group. He has 27 years of expertise at Dell.
McGill will serve in an advisory capability by means of Oct. 31, 2025, as a part of the transition interval. The corporate has additionally initiated a search course of to discover a everlasting successor.
“As I replicate on my 28-plus years with Dell, I’m extremely honored to have labored alongside such a proficient world workforce,” McGill said in a statement. “I’m pleased with all we now have achieved collectively and consider that, after such lengthy service with one firm, that is the best time for me to embark on my subsequent chapter.”
McGill began the CFO role in August 2023, making her first woman to become finance chief at the company. There will be different times in your career where you’re given “alternatives—or you may name them dangers, nonetheless you need to see it”—and you should take them because they will help you grow, McGill instructed CFO Day by day in 2023.
Each Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Energy Strikes column tracks Fortune 500 firm C-suite shifts—see the newest version.
Large Deal
A brand new report from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and North Carolina State College’s Enterprise Threat Administration Initiative finds that simply 11% of senior finance leaders think about their group’s threat administration course of to be a strategic instrument that gives aggressive benefit. In the meantime, 64% say it offers no or solely minimal benefit.
Moreover, 61% of finance leaders acknowledge that the amount and complexity of dangers have modified “mostly” or “extensively” over the previous 5 years.
To strengthen a corporation’s threat administration, executives and boards should first establish cultural obstacles, based on the report. The respondents cite competing priorities and inadequate assets (each at 41%) as the commonest obstacles, together with a scarcity of perceived worth in threat administration efforts (29%). The findings are based mostly on a survey of 273 U.S. organizations.
Going deeper
“How Financial Frictions Can Delay Firm Growth” is a brand new report in Wharton’s enterprise journal. Wharton’s Thomas Winberry explains how monetary constraints can delay innovation and long-term development for companies, in addition to the economic system.
Overheard
“AI is only as effective as its inputs, and the interpretation and action steps that follow are only as sound as the skills and contextual understanding of the people involved. In short: reducing human oversight creates breeding grounds for security gaps.”
