Stanford University students Tony Xu, Andy Fang and Stanley Tang had a revelation seven years ago in a Palo Alto macaroon store.
The shop’s owner showed them pages and pages of delivery orders she hadn’t been able to fulfill. Demand wasn’t high enough to hire a full-time delivery person, but there was no way she could drop off all the orders herself. It was a story the three heard again and again as they worked to understand how they could leverage technology to help small businesses.
They decided to build a basic web page with menus from local restaurants to see if there was demand for a delivery business. “It was super simple, ugly, and honestly we weren’t really expecting anything,” Mr Tang said at a Stanford lecture years later. “All of a sudden we got a phone call – someone called! They wanted to order Thai food.”
Now, those three are billionaires as the company they founded – San Francisco-based DoorDash – went public. DoorDash sold 33 million shares on Tuesday for $102 each in an initial public offering, raising $3.37 billion, then watched as the price jumped to $182 at Wednesday’s market opening.
Other investors who stand to benefit from the IPO include Sequoia Capital, Softbank’s Vision Fund and Yuri Milner’s DST Global. DoorDash, which was valued privately in June at $16bn, would be worth about $68.4bn at the opening on a fully diluted basis.
The founders made that first delivery of prawn pad thai themselves, juggling the rapidly growing business with the demands of their studies.
“We would go to class, and then after we would go deliver food,” Tang said. “We were the customer support. I sometimes had to take phone calls during lectures. We spent afternoons going down University Avenue just passing out flyers, trying to promote DoorDash.”
They continue to encourage all their employees to make deliveries, engage in customer support or other front-line tasks at least once a month.
The business grew rapidly, expanding across the US and into Canada and Australia, but it received an unexpected boost this year as the coronavirus pandemic kept people away from restaurants, instead ordering food on their smartphones. Total revenue in the nine months ended September 30 was $1.9bn, compared with $587 million in the same period last year. The company’s second quarter was the first profitable one in its history.
To support its merchants and delivery people during Covid, DoorDash said it cut commission costs for certain businesses and increased driver payments. Still, the company has been accused by some restaurants of squeezing them for profits when they’ve been otherwise unable to open for normal in-store service.
The three founders each own stakes worth $2.4bn to $2.7bn based on Wednesday’s opening price, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Mr Xu has voting authority over all Class B shares, filings show, giving him control of the company with 69 per cent of the voting power.
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Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
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Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Skoda Superb Specs
Engine: 2-litre TSI petrol
Power: 190hp
Torque: 320Nm
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SPECS
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Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
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Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
The Bloomberg Billionaire Index in full
1 Jeff Bezos $140 billion
2 Bill Gates $98.3 billion
3 Bernard Arnault $83.1 billion
4 Warren Buffett $83 billion
5 Amancio Ortega $67.9 billion
6 Mark Zuckerberg $67.3 billion
7 Larry Page $56.8 billion
8 Larry Ellison $56.1 billion
9 Sergey Brin $55.2 billion
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Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
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Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
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Company name: OneOrder
Started: October 2021
Founders: Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Industry: technology, logistics
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Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
How the bonus system works
The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.
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