Lenny Rachitsky: commitment

Transcript context

…First off, I have imposter syndrome like everybody else. So it's not like I have this crazy sense of confidence of like, "Oh, I can do anything." I definitely have the same doubts that others have. I think part of it was probably not even realizing what I was doing. When you're at a startup and things are moving quickly and you see a problem, and I've always liked solving problems, so I was like, "All right, how do I solve this problem?" It was like, "Oh, well, I need access to the data. I don't have access to the data. All right, I'll ask an engineer to get me the data. Well, this isn't going to scale. I can't always bother an engineer, so how do I figure out how to get the data myself? Well, let's learn Python." So I think it happened organically and I don't think I realized at the time what I was even doing. And then I think if you think about things from first principles about what you need right now in front of you to unblock yourself or solve a problem, and you just focus on that instead of thinking about a global org that you're trying to build. I think that that helps. So for me, it was always about solving the problem in front of me the best way I could. And if that meant I needed to hire an engineer to report into me through the finance org, then that was what we were going to do and nobody was going to tell me I couldn't do it. So I think it's a belief in yourself, and ultimately it's just my desire to solve problems and figure out what has to get done is, I think, ultimately how it came about. I love that so much. There's so many elements there that I think a lot of people can learn from. I feel like there's also this underlying current of you're just motivated for this to work. You wanted DoorDash to succeed, and you're just like, "I will do what I need to do to make this happen. I need to solve these problems. I'm not going to overthink. Do I have the skills necessarily to do these things [inaudible 00:33:48]?" Yeah, I think I'm competitive. I think that's a trait that you find in a lot of early DoorDash folks and current DoorDash folks, to be honest, just wanting to win and being willing to do whatever you need to win. So roll up your sleeves, do something that's not your job. I think back to early days of taking out the garbage on Saturday nights because it needed to get done. I think that that was something that is ingrained in our culture from Tony Xu, from our founder and CEO, and I think that really resonated with me, and I feel like I've always operated that way as well. And I think that that helped me in my career to be able to do what I've done without really thinking about it too much.…

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