DoorDash联合创始人兼首席执行官Tony Xu表示，AI代理数量的增加将意味着对实体配送网络，甚至人力劳动的需求也会随之增长。他于周三在都灵举办的Wave by Vento活动上发表了题为“DoorDash的诞生内幕”的演讲。
DoorDash co-founder and chief executive Tony Xu says more AI agents will mean more demand for physical delivery networks, and even for human labour. He spoke on Wednesday at Wave by Vento in Turin, in a session titled “Inside the Making of DoorDash”.
Xu指出，AI代理在互联网上执行的任务数量可能已经超过了人类。他表示，为了让AI真正发挥作用，需要寻找那些人们会反复委托给它们的重复性任务。
AI agents have probably already overtaken humans in the number of things they do on the internet, Xu said. To be useful, he said, they look for recurring tasks that people ask them to do again and again.
“最实用的任务之一，就是那些日常生活中带有实体操作的部分，比如购物、用餐、取货或退货，”Xu说道。
“One of the most useful things to do is things in your daily life which tend to have a physical component, like shopping or eating or picking something up or returning something,” Xu said.
他进一步表示，随着AI代理数量的持续增长，对实体网络和人力劳动的需求也将同步上升。今年9月，DoorDash推出了一款可在Apple Messages内运行的点餐代理。
As the number of agents keeps growing, he said, so will the demand for physical networks and for human labour. In September, DoorDash launched an ordering agent that runs inside Apple Messages.
自2023年起担任DoorDash董事会成员的Diego Piacentini主持了此次访谈。他此前是亚马逊的高级副总裁。活动屏幕上显示，Piacentini是主办方Vento的顾问。
Diego Piacentini, a DoorDash board member since 2023 and a former Amazon senior vice president, led the interview. The event screen listed Piacentini as an adviser to Vento, the organiser.
从帕洛阿尔托的 driveway 出发：Xu表示，DoorDash的目标从来都不是单纯的送餐服务，而是希望帮助像他母亲那样的本地企业主——她曾从中国移民到美国。他说，2013年时，美国几乎没有餐厅提供送餐服务。
From Palo Alto driveways The goal of DoorDash was never food delivery, Xu said. It was to help local business owners like his mother, who moved from China to the US. In 2013, he said, almost no restaurants in the US offered delivery.
他和联合创始人当时开始亲自进行配送，开着他们自己购买的廉价汽车在帕洛阿尔托四处奔波，而那里正是他们求学的地方。他们完成了最初几百单配送，并坚持了整整两年。Xu提到，他在Y Combinator的申请中曾预测第七年营收将达到1亿美元，但他称这个数据是“编出来的”。他坦言，实际结果与预测相差了几个数量级。
He and his co-founders started doing deliveries themselves, driving their own cheap cars around Palo Alto, where they studied. They did the first few hundred deliveries and kept going for two years. Xu said his Y Combinator application estimated $100m of revenue in year seven, a figure he called made up. He was off by a couple of orders of magnitude, he said.
Xu还表示，在缺乏数据的情况下，公司必须首先确立一个明确的观点，然后快速推出产品并收集信息。DoorDash始终保持着较低的试错成本，让公司内部的任何人都可以在未经批准的情况下，直接通过客户验证自己的想法。
When there is no data, Xu said, a company has to start from a point of view. Then it should ship something fast and collect information. DoorDash keeps the stakes low so anyone in the company can test an idea with customers without approval.
机器人、无人机以及 DoorDash 的 Dashers 配送员使用的 Dot 机器人，都能够在道路上、自行车道上以及人行道上行驶。徐称其为全球首款同类商用自动驾驶车辆。他表示，该机器人已在凤凰城投入运行，并为数万名顾客完成了实时配送。周一，Deliveroo 开始在英国五个城镇的人行道上部署配送机器人。
Robots, drones and Dashers DoorDash’s Dot robot can travel on the road, in bike lanes and on the pavement. Xu called it the world’s first commercial autonomous vehicle of its kind. It is running in Phoenix and has made live deliveries to tens of thousands of customers, he said. On Monday, Deliveroo started putting delivery robots on pavements in five UK towns.
徐表示，制造自动驾驶车辆就像同时创办三到五家公司一样。这些车辆需要软件、硬件、政策支持、许可以及运营体系。车辆可能会发生故障，有时甚至需要救援。今年 9 月，DoorDash 还推出了自己的无人机系统。
Building autonomous vehicles is like building three to five companies, Xu said. They need software, hardware, policy and permits, and operations. Vehicles break down and sometimes need rescuing. In September, DoorDash also unveiled its own drone system.
他说，最重要的部分是支撑这些技术的平台。对于每一笔订单，平台都会决定由地面机器人、无人机还是人类配送员来负责。一个人和一台机器人也可以共享同一条路线。
The most important piece, he said, is the platform behind them. For every order, it decides whether a land robot, a drone or a human Dasher should take it. A person and a robot can also share one route.
“没有顾客关心技术本身，他们只关心能否收到自己订购的东西，”徐说。
“No customers care about the technology. They just care about getting what they ordered,” Xu said.
徐表示，DoorDash 在 40 个国家开展业务，进入每个城市时都必须从头开始重新学习。罗马、都灵或伦敦等城市的街道并非呈网格状布局，住宅密度更高，公寓也更多。此外，这类城市中的小型家庭经营餐厅和商店也比美国多得多。
Relearning every city DoorDash operates in 40 countries and had to learn each one from scratch, Xu said. Streets in cities such as Rome, Turin or London are not laid out on a grid. Homes are denser, with more apartments. There are also far more small, family-run restaurants and shops than in the US.
徐表示，五年内，他希望 DoorDash 能成为一个能够配送任何物品的“最后一公里”网络。他说，每个城市都包含数千万件物品，而目前还没有任何数字产品能够掌握它们的确切位置。
In five years, Xu said, he wants DoorDash to be a last-mile network that can deliver anything. Every city holds tens of millions of items, he said, and no digital product yet knows where they all are.
当被问及自己的失误时，他表示，大多数错误都源于在产品和招聘方面没有听从自己的直觉。徐同时也是 Meta 的董事会成员。他说，最优秀的董事会会提出尖锐的问题，但不会表现得像自己经营公司一样。创始人每周要花 70 小时或更多时间在公司上，而董事会成员每季度大约只花 10 小时。
Asked about his mistakes, he said most came when he did not trust his gut, on products and on hiring. Xu also sits on Meta’s board. The best boards ask tough questions without acting as if they run the business, he said. Founders spend 70 hours a week or more on their companies, he said, and board members about 10 hours a quarter.
皮亚琴蒂尼表示，DoorDash 以基点来衡量其利润率，这迫使公司注重细节并杜绝浪费。他说，在低利润率下经营一家企业非常困难。
Piacentini said DoorDash measures its margins in basis points, which forces attention to detail and a lack of waste. Building a business with low margins is very hard, he said.