Category: Thoughts On Investing

DoorDash 2025 Q1 Results—My Comments

Jackson ZhuLeave a comment

[I own DoorDash stocks and I may change my opinion anytime. This is not investment advice and please do your own due diligence.]

DoorDash published its 2025 Q1 results earlier this month. Similar to the prior few quarters, DoorDash’s GOV exceeded almost all sell-side estimates and its AEBITDA landed within the range of its own guidance. The business continues to enjoy strong momentum, as reflected in its retention, order frequency, and market share. Thanks to the fundamentally human nature of “we have to eat” and “we like convenience,” DoorDash’s business so far has not been impacted by the ever-shifting macro environment.

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DoorDash 2024 Q4 Results — My Comments

Jackson Zhu2 Comments

[I own DoorDash stocks and I may change my opinion anytime. This is not investment advice and please do your own due diligence.]

DoorDash released its 2024 Q4 results last week. Total Orders grew by 19% YoY and Marketplace GOV grew by 21% YoY. Its reported GOV topped almost all sell-side estimates while its reported Adjusted EBITDA landed within its own guided range.

Changing Perspective

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DoorDash 2024 Q3 Results — My Comments

Jackson Zhu2 Comments

[I own DoorDash stocks and I may change my opinion anytime. This is not investment advice and please do your own due diligence.]

DoorDash announced its 2024 Q3 financial results a few days ago. Total orders, GOV and revenue grew by 18%, 19%, and 25% on a year-on-year basis, respectively. The company’s top line growth was so strong that its reported GOV number was above almost all sell-side estimates (source: Refinitiv; all sell-side estimates in this article come from Refinitiv).

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“What Is Your Edge”

Jackson Zhu3 Comments

In active investing, the word “edge” is often used. For about four years, I worked as an institutional allocator, meeting and studying investment managers, evaluating their strategies and capabilities. “What is your edge?” That is a popular question that allocators are trained to ask, and investment managers are trained to answer.

To this popular question, I have heard many popular answers:

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Some Wild Predictions

Jackson ZhuLeave a comment

[I own DoorDash stocks and I may change my opinion anytime. This is not investment advice and please do your own due diligence.]

Back in early 2022, I wrote and predicted that Instant Delivery companies “most likely will NOT work” (link). Today, most Instant Delivery companies have folded: Fridge No More (shut down); Buyk (bankruptcy); 1520 (shut down); Gorillas(acquired). Those still operating are facing significant challenges: JOKR (exited the U.S. market); Getir (reportedly in financial struggle); Flink (reportedly trying to sell itself); Gopuff (reportedly burned ~$400M in 2023).

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Types of Errors

Jackson ZhuLeave a comment

In recent days, probably from my learning to watch baseball games or from my reading of various books, I finally was able to crystallize into words some ideas that I long had about investing. These are qualitative ideas that are rooted in quantitative terms, such as “type I error,” “type II error,” “base rate,” and “hit rate.”

First, for the purpose of this article, let me define these terms:

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DoorDash 2024 Q2 Results — My Comments

Jackson Zhu3 Comments

[I own DoorDash stocks and I may change my opinion anytime. This is not investment advice and please do your own due diligence.]

DoorDash recently released its 2024 Q2 financial results. Its top line is growing at a clip of approximately 20% YoY with the bottom line rapidly approaching the point of GAAP profitability breakeven. User order frequency is at an all-time high and still growing; newer cohorts of users are ordering as frequently as the “pandemic” cohorts, if not more frequently. DoorDash’s strong operational results fly in the face of the general environment where consumer spending seems to have somewhat weakened.

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