DoorDash CEO Tony Xu says he likes getting 2,000-word emails from delivery workers. It helps him fix their issues.

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu says he likes long emails from customers and delivery workers. Bloomberg/Getty Images 2026-03-30T18:04:08.575Z Share Copy link Email Facebook WhatsApp X LinkedIn Bluesky Threads lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said he likes getting 2,000-word emails from customers and delivery workers. The long messages typically provide details about needed improvements to the DoorDash app, he said. Sometimes, the CEO tries to debug the issue himself, Xu said on a podcast. AI-generated summary Summaries are generated by an AI model trained on Business Insider's articles. AI may make mistakes or provide inaccurate/incomplete information. We're unable to load that answer right now. Please try again. Why does Tony Xu value long emails? How can customers improve feedback quality? How does Tony Xu address app issues? What challenges does DoorDash face? What makes gig economy feedback unique? If you're writing an email to Tony Xu about a DoorDash issue, be detailed. Loading audio narration... The CEO told podcaster David Senra in an interview posted on Sunday that he appreciates receiving long messages from customers and delivery workers, whom the company calls "Dashers," particularly when they explain a problem they had with the app."I love the 2,000 word emails, especially from Dashers, who will give many use cases of why the logistics algorithm broke for them," Xu said on the podcast. Xu said that many of the short emails he gets don't contain helpful details. Longer ones, meanwhile, contain "a lot of gold" that he can use to figure out what went wrong on the DoorDash app.In some cases, he looks at the order data from DoorDash's backend to see where the delivery went wrong and how to fix the issue. Every time Alex publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Alex and get more of their work as it publishes. Sign up By clicking "Sign up", you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. "I go in through our debugging tools, and I literally track the order and every single step," Xu said.Xu's email responses are among the few ways CEOs in the gig economy say they keep tabs on what's happening among the gig workers who make their businesses possible. Xu, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and Lyft CEO David Risher say they've also driven passengers around or delivered food on their apps.Xu said last year that he gets hundreds of messages each week from DoorDash delivery workers and customers. Many address issues with specific orders, such as a delivery worker showing up in the wrong parking lot. Many of the messages "are not very positive emails," Xu said on Senra's podcast. He said he responds anyway because he feels a responsibility to solve the problems that they face."The greatest killer of a business is usually silence," Xu said. "Here, they care enough to actually let me know something went wrong in their experience." Do you have a story to share about DoorDash? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.