DoorDash acquires YC-backed applied AI lab Metis to accelerate agentic commerce

I love that uh that this story has gone so broad that it is now being posted to the Instagram stories of New York restaurants, but that's where we are in this cycle. Uh anyway, uh let's move on to Andy Fang, the co-founder of Door Dash, who is waiting for us in the restaurant waiting room. Let's bring him into shop. Andy, how are you doing? Hey, what's up guys?

What's happening to see you again? Welcome back to the show. Uh oh, wait, actually, we did not have you on the show.

I was first on your show. I'm sorry. Uh Stanley and Tony were both on the show.

That's right. That's right,

boys. Uh

is it just the three It's just the three of you guys, right? Or is there a four?

Yeah, it's the three musketeers.

Three musketeers.

How's life these days? How's going?

2026 is good. I mean, lots going on. Um I mean I guess you know for us I think uh AI is like a big focus of mine personally at the company. So

um yeah I mean recently we just announced

Yeah. Maybe start with some background on your role, how it's changed over the the the period of building Door Dash and growing the company. Uh I'm sure it's been a wild ride, but I'd love to hear it from your perspective and then we can go into the acquisition.

Yeah, totally. Um I mean let's see 13 years in the making I guess. I mean so I've been always involved on the tech side. So

really focused on product and technology at Door Dash. You know I I helped scaled up our like product and engineering teams for

I don't know like eight nine years first eight nine years of the company. um more after that we brought on um you know more senior leadership to kind of manage uh the the growing organization and I've been more focused on how do we help Door Dash find the next big bets to help us keep growing you know I think whether it's uh our international businesses our Dashp pass subscription program more recently with the AI stuff and so I think really just like sinking my teeth into various technology and business problems and figuring out how we can like kind of continue to grow the business and find those next seeds.

So talk about so talk about how the how the the news today ties into your focus.

Absolutely. So yeah, I was just briefly mentioning so AI is like something that we're really trying to figure out at Door Dash how we can incorporate it into our business. And so earlier today we just announced that we acquired a company called Netis. They are an applied AI research lab. um they went through YC and um like we we met with them I want to say like six or seven months ago um and I think we were thinking about how to

was that intentional be honest

67

67's viral me

I don't know I was like

it really just pops into your brain it it's such a weird

I just oh my god I'm such an old head I I was I was reading through some Wall Street Journal article and I was I kept saying the the the two numbers that shall not be named together. And Jordy was like, "Are you doing this intentionally?"

September. September.

September.

September.

You meet them.

Absolutely. So, yeah. So, then September is when um we first started talking to them. Um and we were trying to figure out how to productionize AI use cases at Door Dash. And so, really, I mean, we kind of spread um uh in terms of talking to a bunch of different startups. uh there's a lot of startups like trying to figure out how to deploy AI for like the enterprise use case and we just like decided to be really open-minded about it and partner with a bunch of them. Um but Metis really stuck out to us. I mean we were working with them since September. Um there are some really cool use cases around HIT commerce and physical intelligence that I can talk about a bit that we're working with them on that we're super excited to accelerate with them joining the company. So, um, yeah. I mean, they're like a bunch of cracked 22-year-old like AI pill and they're like super, um, high hustle, very knowledgeable about what's going on in the space and, you know, we just want to inject a lot of the energy into how we're trying to innovate here.

Yeah. May maybe maybe take you through some of the the the history of AI at Door Dash because I imagine you were doing recommendation systems very early uh

matching.

Yeah. All all sorts of stuff. And then uh when the LLM revolution happens, like the obvious like bolt-on like chat box went into a lot of apps like did that happen and then uh and then everyone starts using coding agents and idees and so like what what have been the key turning points just internally at Door Dash in AI adoption?

Yeah, I mean so I think to your point I think there's two themes in terms of how we're trying to think about it. I think one is like employee enablement or like productivity.

I think obviously you guys are very well aware of like since November basically I think there's been an explosion especially on the the coding side in terms of people being much more productive.

I'd say I think at Door Dash our evolution in terms of AI on like the product facing side has been a longer journey in the sense that I think we've been trying to figure out how this all fits into our marketplace and how this would benefit our customers. Like to your point, I think a lot of people, ourselves included, were just trying to bolt on some sort of chat box just to see how it would play in. And I think one, when we did that a couple years ago, the LMS were not nearly as smart. But two, I think we just need to be more thoughtful, like how do we integrate this into the experience? And I think agentic commerce is something that a lot of people have been talking about and try to figure out. And for us, I would say like Agentic Commerce is basically figuring out how we can leverage this technology to make it actually easier for restaurants to run their business and for customers to like find what they want on Door Dash. You know, I think one of the big problems that we've had on Door Dash is and what people tell me all the time when I talk to them is like, "Look, Andy, like you guys got a ton of selection. I have no idea what to order." You know, it's like there's so much, you know, so many different restaurants and all these different cuisines. like I'm having like decision paralysis right now. And so I think like that's a very interesting problem where we feel like AI can be beneficial in helping you like find what you want and give you confidence in that as a customer. So

one of the one of the the the greatest luxuries uh or first world problems in life is is decision paralysis on what to eat. Comes comes for everyone.

Yeah. Have you been seeing folks like Vibe Code uh sort of like plugins or uh add-ons or features that then you can potentially use to adopt or roll into the actual road map? I swear I saw someone post something about this where they vibe coded basically a Chrome plugin that would filter Door Dash for vegetarian options and it was like a pretty mature functionality and they just went through like a series of prompts and got to like something that they were very satisfied with. But that feels like they're sort of doing the R&D on their end and then once it's working they you can actually bring that back. I'm wondering about this like primordial explosion of of you know people building custom software and then the pipeline to actually bring that into the business as new features. That's interesting because I think there's some I haven't heard of that one specifically to be honest, but I think there has been a lot of interest like hey let like can you figure out a way to like enable whatever my agent or like whatever software I'm building to integrate into the door dash ecosystem like I've gone to pings from founders be like yo when's the door dash CLI coming out and I'm like hold on like we need to figure what that what that means and I think I would say you know and we also did something with OpenAI in terms of like being early partner with our apps ecosystem and stuff. So we're trying to figure out how we want to play in this space to be honest.

So so so just walk me actually through that OpenAI partnership because like wouldn't that be the CLI? Like if I have codeex that's a CLI and then if you have a partnership with OpenAI, can't codeex CLI talk to Door Dash then or is there some break in the chain that needs to be resolved?

I think it's more like in chatbt it's like not it's not really accessible through Codex I don't So I have to tell Codeex to go use chat GBT, open a web browser, click on the chat GPT box. Uh it is weird like these unhoblings are so like intuitive and then you realize that okay there's actually some sort of business reason or whatnot. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean I think a lot of people are just trying to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. So I think one thing that we've been finding really like getting a lot of traction especially with like what we're working with meta on is like I think there's some actual

agentic workflows like customerf facing workflows that we're working on that like just like us playing around with it the past couple weeks like we legitimately think this is going to be something that's going to be beneficial to customers and help you find what you want and help you order like

how do you think about how do you think about even positioning these products cuz like obviously like broad public opinion on AI is not Great. Is this the kind of thing I'm assuming you're just like trying to deliver a great experience and not, you know, slap like Door Dash AI, the thing you've been waiting for.

Yeah, exactly. I think we want to introduce it in a way that's actually like beneficial to like conversion or like you finding what you want and being satisfied with it. And so that's why we've taken our time in some ways in terms of like rolling something out that we want to launch more broadly. But I think some of the challenges we've had historically is like these agents are not very smart at like finding you what you want. This was like a while ago, right? Obviously things have gotten a lot smarter. The question is how do we get leverage the intelligence that you know a lot of like harness building context engineering type stuff.

Um but it's also like how do you build a great experience around it? Like you know there's like obviously LM they're super smart. sometimes they like are slower with their reasoning, but um we're just trying to find that balance. And like I think to your point, it's like how do we create an interesting experience that doesn't just feel like we're slapping something AI on?

Yeah.

Are you going to do anything uh with with voice at all? Like I can imagine somebody in the Door Dash app saying like, "Hey, I want uh Chinese food. I want to avoid

tells you that they integrated with Siri a decade ago."

Yeah. Yeah. We do have some voice modality stuff, but uh I think

I would say that's a little bit more like just a modality in terms of how you

place your order and like I guess if it's more natural language with the technology like that's a

Yeah, I'm saying like yeah, it's a natural language. You're kind of searching over all the offerings in your area and and then it's like potentially putting together like a cart for you that you or an order you can check it out. Uh couple couple more things. How how does Metis tie into the physical

uh AI autonomy? You mentioned something about that earlier.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think Door Dash wants to play at the frontier of physical intelligence. I think that's something we talked about for a while. Obviously, our

You guys have your cute little robots.

Exactly. The dot delivery robots. So, my co-founder Stanley, who has uh been working on that full-time, like we're super excited to deploy those more broadly. Um, but you know, we have, you know, a large courier network. We have a large support network where we're collecting billions of data points in the physical world every day and it's like how can we leverage that to actually push forward um what's possible with robotics and physical intelligence. Um I think you know there's some interesting conversations we've had with various startups and um labs on how we collaborate to push forward the frontier together and I think Metis has some great experience uh doing that type of stuff in the expert data space. I mean um you know Arian the CEO is like a former Meror so I think there's some really interesting stuff there that um we're interested to explore and yeah we're excited to accelerate some of that together with them.

Awesome. Uh Matt from Tempo is coming on later today. Uh Tempo is launching today. I know you guys were an early design partner. Uh talk about kind of that decision to get involved.

It's funny you bring that up because Matt literally texted me before this hey we're going to be on the show together. I was like sick. Um, so yeah, uh, we're excited. I mean, I I'll let Matt talk more about that, but I think some of actually what Matt's working on is going to be synergistic with the AF commerce stuff we're working on potentially, but essentially like we are very excited to just partner with companies like Tempo to see how stable coins can be disruptive and innovative in our space. Um, you know, more to come in terms of what exactly our, uh, pilot use case is going to be. Uh but yeah, we've really enjoyed working with them and you know, Matt's been great. We've known Matt for a while. So,

awesome.

I want to ask one more about uh Agent Tech Commerce. I I'm I'm trying to think about like the product that I might actually want. I I understand like when most people say uh agent commerce, it's like open up chat GPT and fire off a query, say order me a burrito, and it goes through Door Dash and you handle the rails. Um, but I'm thinking more about like the the the the next version of that. And maybe it's something like, okay, I have I want lunch every day, but I need you to check my calendar because the show ends sometimes at 2, sometimes at 2:30. That information's on my calendar, but also sometimes I'm leaving to go to the airport and I'm flying, so I'm not available. And I could potentially like encode all these preferences. I have favorite things at different restaurants. I'd like some variety, but some consistency. Uh, maybe you should fire off a text message to me and and let me know that I can opt out of today's uh, you know, order. And I and I I feel like that's like the system that someone would vibe code if you gave them the CLI, but that should probably just live within Door Dash. So, how do you think about that sort of that sort of like operating at a higher level, like encoding all of your preferences and then putting your Door Dash experience like basically on autopilot? Totally. I mean, I think one thing we say to ourselves is like if someone's building Door Dash today, it would not look like Door Dash, you know, like it would be I think and when we think about a agents versus like just like outlines, like agents in an ideal world, they're not just telling you stuff, they're actually doing stuff for you. And I think

I would say from a consumerf facing use case perspective, in my opinion, I think besides the chat bots, I think OpenClaw is like kind of the closest thing we've seen to something that is like where Agentic Commerce is heading towards. And so we're very inspired by that type of um I don't know use case is the right word but that model and that paradigm of like agents doing stuff on behalf of you. And I think your example like kind of hit it on the head is like

I don't want to just like you tell me stuff like do stuff for me. And I think we have a ton of information on your preferences. We have a ton of information real-time information on what's going on logistics wise in your neighborhood and your city

like real time inventory information and restaurants and retailers. And so like we can create some magical experiences there. And again for us, it's not just about slapping this technology on just for the sake of it, but it's like actually stuff that's like restaurants would really appreciate because we can help them run their business better. Like a concrete example on the restaurant side, just and I'll get back to your use case in a second, but on the restaurant side, it's like I don't know how to price my pad thai in my neighborhood, you know, like or um like what deals or promotions should I be running right now, you know? cuz like I just want to figure out how to grow my sales or um like help me figure out how to you know the lols between lunch and dinner help me figure out how to like you know get more demand there and then on the customer side I think to your example it's like you know like I don't want to think about like ordering my lunch to the office every day or like my weekly groceries

the the groceries

which is a crazy thing to say because like you basically invented the I'm hungry button on your phone and it's literally like two clicks for me when I use Door Dash and I'm like we still

I'm I'm in the I don't want the horse anymore. Give me the car.

Lunch yesterday.

I didn't have lunch yesterday. We actually messed it up somehow.

We at the office forgot to order.

Yeah, we forgot to order actually.

No, I did have a salad, but it was like hours later and I figured it out.

How How rare How rare is it to be 13 years into a business that has been as successful as Door Dash to still have three founders in the business?

Yeah.

It feels like I was trying to come up with an example. narrative violation

of a business at this

Yeah.

at this stage.

That's an interesting. I did not expect that. But um I I don't take that for granted at all. I mean, in fact,

they secretly hate each other, right? But there's like some weird contract. There's some weird contract where if any of you leave, the whole company shuts down, so you're locked to each other, handcuffed on the Titanic together. No, I'm messing with you.

Uh I I I think like I I'm very grateful for the dynamic and the relationship we have. I mean, I think Tony is like, you know, one of one CEO and I think like we have a really good dynamic together and um we put a lot of trust in each other to like just do the right thing.

Um

you guys always had the same the same roles basically and sort of known okay I'm not going to step on this person's toes in this particular region because then there's mutual trust as opposed to like a lot of founding teams they get in trouble when it's like there's three people that want to be CEO and they're like fighting over it constant. I mean that's usually what happens.

Oh yeah, it's true. I mean, um, I would say we delineated our responsibilities pretty early on and I think

Tony's role has stayed consistent. I mean, CEO is CEO, but I think Stanley and I, our roles have evolved around both how to stay on the forefront of innovation, but also just making sure like we're thinking about like what are the most important problems to solve. But no, I think we have a really good relationship. I think it's high trust. Um, we I mean we're getting dinner tonight. We we try to catch up every so often. Um, but yeah,

door dashing dinner tonight.

No, we're gonna go out. I don't know where we're going out, but we pick a spot. But, uh,

fun boys.

It's a Yeah, it's a it's a special relationship. I I did not expect that, but yeah, it's right there.

No, it's cool. Um, last last question. After the the very silly Catrini piece, did you guys have you thought about doing a hackathon and getting your best engineers to be like, "Hey, just vibe code

Door Dash. Make the agent native Door Dash." cuz I think it would actually be really interesting to just actually try to do it

and see.

You know, it's funny you bring that up because there's uh that Satrina report like blew up out of nowhere. Um

and I don't know. I mean, honestly, we didn't react too much to it. I mean, I tweeted something in response to it just in terms of my own thoughts there, but

I would say like in general like

two words, network effects.

Yeah. I mean, I would say in general, like we just try to focus on growing our business and focusing customers, but

um I don't know. Like we try to get people to vibe code a bunch of different use cases, but not try to vibe code Door Dash.

Uh yeah.

Yeah, there's more to it. More to it. Uh a Bits and Adams company. Well,

awesome. Great. Great to meet you, Andy. Next time, bring bring all three.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'd love to have all three of us.

Yeah, we'll do a round table. We got chairs and mics. We'll do the whole history. Awesome.

Well, yeah, congrats. Give our best to the Mattis team. Congrats on on uh on the partnering up. It's very cool.

We'll talk to you soon.

Cheers.

Have a good one.

Yeah.

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