"A year ago, DoorDash Inc [looked moribund] * * * it had recently sold shares that valued the company at less than its previous funding round. Then something strange happened: Excluding overhead expenses such as salaries and rent, DoorDash started turning a profit. * * * it was enough for Saudi-backed SoftBank Group Corp, which swooped in to lead a fresh round of investment totaling $535 million. * * * Researcher Second Measure says DoorDash is now the fastest-growing business in its field [major (and bigger) competitors: Uber Eats, GrubHub Inc].
"While most rivals spend their time trying to appeal to the people ordering the food, [DoorDash's Chief Executive Officer Tony] Xu has consistently focused on the businesses making it. 'He was asking the question "How can we help this restaurant increase its sales?" ' says Sequoia Capital 红杉资本 partner Alfred Lin 林君叡 [male], an early investor.
"Xu grew up in Champaign, Ill, after emigrating from China at age 5. His family often relied on food stamps. Dad worked as a graduate aeronautical engineering researcher at the University of Illinois, while Mom waited tables and eventually took part ownership in a nearby restaurant. * * * [Xu says his mom 'worked hard to create a small business.'] He started his own [small business] while at Stanford Business School in 2013, with two friends on the undergrad side, taking fellow students’ orders over the phone for restaurants that didn’t deliver and making the deliveries themselves.
Note:
(a)
(i) summary underneath the title in print: DoorDash was left for dead ntil its strategy of wooing restaurants started to oay off
(ii) The Polish, Ukrainian, and Belorussian surname Zaleski refers to "someone who lived 'on the other side of the wood,' from Polish [preposition: Wiktionary] za beyond + [noun masculine] las forest, with the addition of -ski, suffix of local surnames [meaning 'from']," Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.
(iii) Print and the online version are the same.
(b) There is no Chinese name for DoorDash or Tony Xu.