DoorDash CEO Tony Xu: M&A is easy on paper—’very hard to get right in practice’

Good morning. Automation, AI agents, and M&A are top of mind for the on-demand delivery platform and tech company DoorDash.

During Fortune Brainstorm Tech, which kicked off Monday in Park City, Utah, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu spoke with Fortune’s Jason Del Rey about M&A, noting he has learned the importance of partnering with operating teams 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 said. “M&A is very easy to get right on a sheet of paper; it’s very hard to get right in practice.”

Earlier this year, DoorDash closed the $1.2 billion acquisition of SevenRooms, which helps businesses gain a 360-degree view of their guests with marketing as a service, he said. Also this year, the company acquired ad-tech platform Symbiosys for roughly $175 million. And DoorDash has also agreed to acquire UK-based Deliveroo for about $3.9 billion, expecting to close in Q4 2025, pending regulatory approval.

Automation and AI

DoorDash has been working on autonomous delivery, such as drones and sidewalk robots, since 2017. But there have been challenges, Xu said.

“Candidly, it’s mostly been filled with lots of pain and suffering,” he said, explaining that achieving reliable, scalable autonomous delivery requires excelling across multiple domains: hardware, software, network building, and service quality—few companies master all of these simultaneously.

Xu compared the process to learning a multi-level sport and emphasized that DoorDash is still early in building these broad capabilities. However, he noted that DoorDash is beginning to see commercial progress, with successful tests and pilots in the U.S. (including partnering with Coco Robotics for robot delivery), and drone deliveries with Alphabet’s Wing in Australia, for example.

DoorDash builds and deploys AI agents, developed both in-house and with partners. Key use cases include customer service, voice ordering, logistics, and merchant support. “We launched an AI agent to help merchants better buy advertisements and promotions,” Xu said.

Founded in 2013, DoorDash debuted on the Fortune 500 last year. “We have three customers: consumers, merchants, and Dashers,” CFO Ravi Inukonda told 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 company has gone beyond food delivery, enabling purchases and delivery from restaurants, grocery stores, pharmacies, pet shops, retail stores, and more.

This year, DoorDash climbed 49 spots to No. 394 on the Fortune 500. The company reported its Q2 2025 earnings last month, beating expectations: Revenue was $3.28 billion, up 25% from $2.63 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share were 65 cents, versus 44 cents expected. Total orders increased 20% year-over-year to 761 million.

DoorDash also announced on Monday an exclusive partnership with Waffle House for the rollout of all-night delivery (9 p.m.–8 a.m.). It’s the first delivery service in Waffle House’s decades in business.

The goal is to deliver in under 15 minutes from when the food is ready, to “offer a quality experience,” Xu said.

Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]

Leaderboard

Fortune 500 Power Moves

Yvonne McGill, CFO of Dell Technologies (No. 44), will step down from her role after a career at Dell that spanned nearly 30 years, effective Sept. 9.

Dell has named David Kennedy, SVP of Dell Global Business Operations, Finance, to serve as interim CFO, effective Sept. 9. Kennedy is also the former SVP and COO of Dell Global Sales and SVP and CFO of the company’s Client Solutions Group. He has 27 years of experience at Dell.

McGill will serve in an advisory capacity through Oct. 31, 2025, as part of the transition period. The company has also initiated a search process to find a permanent successor.

“As I reflect on my 28-plus years with Dell, I am incredibly honored to have worked alongside such a talented global team,” McGill said in a statement. “I am proud of all we have accomplished together and believe that, after such long service with one company, this is the right time for me to embark on my next 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 “opportunities—or you could call them risks, however you want to see it”—and you should take them because they will help you grow, McGill told CFO Daily in 2023.

Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.

Big Deal

A new report from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and North Carolina State University’s Enterprise Risk Management Initiative finds that just 11% of senior finance leaders consider their organization’s risk management process to be a strategic tool that provides competitive advantage. Meanwhile, 64% say it provides no or only minimal advantage.

Additionally, 61% of finance leaders acknowledge that the volume and complexity of risks have changed “mostly” or “extensively” over the past five years.

To strengthen an organization’s risk management, executives and boards must first identify cultural obstacles, according to the report. The respondents cite competing priorities and insufficient resources (both at 41%) as the most common barriers, along with a lack of perceived value in risk management efforts (29%).

The findings are based on a survey of 273 CFOs and senior finance leaders at U.S. organizations.

Going deeper

“How Financial Frictions Can Delay Firm Growth” is a new report in Wharton’s business journal. Wharton’s Thomas Winberry explains how financial constraints can delay innovation and long-term growth for firms, as well as the economy.

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.”

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