The only question that matters when you're starting out: "Do you have something that someone else wants? And is it real? Not artificially inflated with discounts and marketing dollars and other ways to inorganically grow. Will people actually use it?"

A baker with a three-inch binder of rejected delivery orders is why DoorDash exists: "She was a one person shop who had no ability to fulfill — or desire, frankly — to fulfill all those orders."

Tony Xu hired his first COO before asking him a single interview question. Instead of sending in a resume, he spent his Friday night doing deliveries and wrote a 3,000 word email about why the logistics algorithm was broken. "That told me more than any set of interview questions."

Tony Xu's actual vision for DoorDash has nothing to do with delivery: "Our goal over time is to be the first phone call for any business, for any issue. If done right, DoorDash can be your first phone call to start any business."

Most people wait until they have everything figured out before they start. Tony Xu and the DoorDash team didn't: "We viewed it as a project more than we viewed it as a company. In fact, we were barely incorporated. No one is able to know everything about the future."

For three years, every headline said DoorDash was doomed. Tony Xu focused on the internal metrics.

Tony Xu and I discuss how he thinks about growing DoorDash: "There are tens of millions of items inside of a city that you could deliver. DoorDash delivers a fraction of those items today."

"We'd rather die trying to be excellent — or at least die trying to do the thing that we want to stand for — than to live to be mediocre and not something we'd be proud of." — Tony Xu, founder of DoorDash

When DoorDash had no money, no marketing budget, and their competitors were spending millions, Tony Xu only had one way out: "You have to build a product that has better retention, better engagement. You have to. There's no other way."

@t_xu's rule for surviving the hardest stretch of building DoorDash: "If I obsessed over anything else — the markets, what people were writing about us, another rejection from an investor — if I just obsessed over what was not in my control, I think I was going to go certainly nuts."

In 2013 Tony Xu noticed that nearly 1 million restaurants in the US didn't offer delivery. Then he decided to fix it. "There were about a million restaurants in the States and maybe 20 to 25,000 of them offered delivery."

DoorDash started as a $9 website with PDF menus and a Google Voice number. "It was a static page where you saw eight PDF menus of restaurants we frequented in Palo Alto." — Tony Xu

"Every high quality minute of thinking has a million dollar impact." A half hour meeting improved Tesla's outcome by $100M. That's why Elon Musk runs no schedule. The jet goes wherever matters most.

"What matters to me is winning, and not in a small way." — Elon Musk Eric Jorgenson spent a year studying him: "His inherent personality would dominate whatever industry he went into. How lucky are we that he's working on some of the most important problems that humanity faces?"

"Failure is essentially irrelevant unless it's catastrophic. Elon Musk pushes these things to the breaking point, pushes the materials, pushes the designs. He wants to reach the point where he knows for sure that it's the most efficient version of the design." — Eric Jorgenson

If you put David Goggins, Richard Feynman's and Napoleon together you get Elon Musk. "He's David Goggins' level intensity, he's Richard Feynman's level of unconventional technical brilliance, and he's Napoleon's strategic genius and insane bias to action."

Elon didn't want to be CEO of Tesla. He was the main investor, the chairman, deeply involved in the product — but he resisted taking control. Until he had no choice: "If I didn't do that, the company would've died."

Elon Musk thinks we have too many lawyers and finance bros. "There is an over allocation of talent in finance and law. Too many smart people are going into finance. We should have fewer people doing that, and more people making stuff. I've got mad respect for makers of things."

Elon Musk doesn't meditate. He doesn't journal. He doesn't have a morning routine. He goes to war. "My way of dealing with mental problems is to make sure you really care about what you're doing and take the pain."

The biggest lesson of Elon Musk's life is we are all capable of so much more than we think. "I hope this book can generate 1,000,000 Musks." — Eric Jorgenson

If you're not failing, you're doing something wrong. "Being directionally correct — once you're zoomed out about the heading of the future, and what you're working towards — is massively more important than the specific break points." — Eric Jorgenson

"Something Jeff Bezos told me, which I've always kept close at heart because I've examined the things I've come into enjoying doing. He says, 'You don't find your passions, they find you.' And I've always believed that."

Michael Ovitz on what talking to Marc Andreessen is like:

Michael Ovitz on excellence: “I’m interested in excellence and will go to almost any end that’s not immoral or illegal to achieve it for myself and everyone that’s around me.”

Failure is not an option. There’s no option. Success or death. —Michael Ovitz

Michael Ovitz. Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Tomorrow. November 23, 2025. Available everywhere you get podcasts.

A common trend among history's greatest entrepreneurs is that they are always thinking about their business.

"Nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically." —Todd Graves

Todd Graves' equation: Fanaticism + passion + dream = purpose.

“The best thing for an aspiring entrepreneur to be told is ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’” —Todd Graves

“The people that are successful all have this common core: they’re never satisfied.” —Todd Graves, founder & CEO of Raising Cane's

Todd Graves' advice to entrepreneurs: "Imagine how hard it is to start your business, then multiply that by infinity. If you're still committed to do it, and you have the stamina to stick with that, then you'll be successful."

"You got to get the long-term trend right." —Brad Jacobs

Brad Jacobs' approach to combating negative thoughts.

"Problems are your friend. You don't want to just tolerate problems; you want to embrace problems. Problems are the way you succeed." —Brad Jacob's mentor, Mr. Ludwig Jesselson

"We are imperfection. We are the children of imperfection. Expecting perfection will cause you stress and strain." —Brad Jacobs

"The most important thing that a CEO does is recruit superlative people. There's no substitute for smarts." —Brad Jacobs

"We are imperfection. We're the children of imperfection. Expecting perfection will cause you stress and strain." —Brad Jacobs

Brad Jacobs on identifying A players

Brad Jacobs. QXO, XPO, United Rentals & United Waste. Tomorrow. October 26, 2025. Available everywhere you get podcasts.

Charlie Munger said durability is a first rate virtue. Michael Dell is a great example of that. Dell has been dominating so long he used to sell computers by fax machine!

"It's gut-wrenching stuff to reinvent and reimagine your business, but if you don't do it, you go out of business." —Michael Dell

"Wake up every day and go do the thing." —Michael Dell

Michael Dell: Most entrepreneurs were not taken out by competition, but by self-sabotage

"When it's a passion or an obsession, there's no end to it." —Michael Dell

"I never imagined myself doing anything else other than starting a business." —Michael Dell

"You can learn from just about anybody, whether they succeeded or failed." —Michael Dell