Leading with empathy | Keith Yandell (DoorDash, Uber)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2023
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Keith Yandell started at DoorDash as Chief Legal Officer and during his tenure has also led the HR, Customer Support, Marketing, and now Corporate Development teams. In today’s episode, we talk about leadership, and how to lead with empathy. We dig into DoorDash’s unique culture and touch on the WeDash program, which requires every employee to complete four deliveries a year in order to better understand the customer experience. Keith shares his “How to Work with Keith” document and discusses the importance of openness in the workplace. He also gives some tips for founders on hiring, engaging with legal, and how to make big decisions when teams are competing for resources.
Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/leading-with-empathy-keith-yandell-doordash-uber/#transcript
Where to find Keith Yandell:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kdyandell
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yandell-2a947432/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Referenced:
• Gokul Rajaram on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product-development-process-when-and-how-to-hire-your-first-pm-a-playbook-for-hiring-leaders-getting-ahead-in-you-career-how-to-get-started-angel-investing-more/
• Ryan Sokol on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-sokol-00b2333/
• Tony Xu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xutony/
• About WeDash: https://doordash.news/culture/wedash-doordash-employee-program-how-does-it-work/
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World/dp/0735214484
• How to be successful working with Keith doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12yTpBZFab6SPAruSpSD6CB_qLOu5L8kpQ4CCmX9pDx4/edit?mode=html
• Kofi Amoo-Gottfried on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kofi-amoo-gottfried-3802bb3/
• Tia Sherringham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiasherringham/
• Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity: https://www.amazon.com/Amp-Unlocking-Hypergrowth-Expectations-Intensity/dp/1119836115
• Ted Lasso’s quote on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TedLasso/status/1426932132417576967
• Rajat Shroff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajatshroff/
• Micah Moreau on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micahmoreau/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Keith’s background
(03:41) The time Keith asked a potential hire if he was an a*****e
(06:39) DoorDash culture
(08:40) The WeDash program
(13:16) How Keith was able to lead so many different teams at DoorDash
(16:08) Hiring the best experts and then getting out of their way
(18:21) The “How to Work with Keith” document
(21:52) How and why Keith helps his employees land new jobs
(27:22) How he leverages empathy to unify board members
(29:26) The importance of assigning a decision maker and a time horizon for the decision
(31:15) One-on-ones with Keith, and the T3 B3 framework from Uber
(33:12) How to encourage constructive criticism from employees
(34:49) What it’s like to lead in tough times and why it can actually make your org stronger
(37:42) How creating urgency compounds gains
(39:11) IPO day at DoorDash
(40:20) The characteristics of top founders
(41:33) How the pandemic impacted DoorDash
(44:40) Advice for new parents that is applicable in business
(45:24) The difficulty of gaining funding
(46:58) Advice for founders struggling with fundraising
(48:02) How Keith developed a strong relationship with the VP of Product and Design
(50:27) Building an effective BD team within a product company
(52:36) How to engage with legal teams
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Every business that you have heard of has gotten rejected by at least a handful of venture capitalists at one point or another. |
| 0:10.0 | And so that drive to keep going if you believe in the business is critical, absolutely critical. |
| 0:15.8 | I mean, we were weeks of runway situation and had been told no by everyone. |
| 0:22.1 | And it was just Tony's drive really to keep going and the way he |
| 0:25.2 | explains it to me is it's just a difference between a founder and a non-founder like |
| 0:29.2 | if you're really a founder you just have to find a way you have to keep going there's no question and I mean that |
| 0:35.3 | that's the only advice I can get folks is it only takes only takes one yes but you |
| 0:40.1 | got to keep going. Welcome to Lenny's podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth |
| 0:48.6 | experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. |
| 0:53.7 | Today my guest is Keith Yandel. Keith is a long time leader at Door Dash where he's |
| 0:59.1 | been for about seven years and in that time, get this, he's led the legal team the HR team the marketing team the |
| 1:06.7 | customer support team and currently he leads the BD and corporate development teams |
| 1:10.8 | before DoorDash he led litigation at Uber. He's also managed |
| 1:15.1 | folks like Goku Rajaram who was previously on this podcast and who suggested that |
| 1:19.9 | I have Keith on and damn was he right. Before I had this chat with Keith I didn't know that |
| 1:24.5 | much about him but now you can count me as a huge Keith fan boy I suspect you'll |
| 1:29.0 | feel the same way after you listen to this episode I'm just to jump right in and bring you Keith Yandel |
| 1:34.7 | after a short word from our wonderful sponsors. |
| 1:38.4 | Today's episode is brought to you by one schema, the embedable CSV importer for SAS. |
| 1:43.0 | Customers always seem to want to give you their data in the messiest possible |
| 1:47.0 | CSV file. |
| 1:48.0 | And building a spreadsheet importer becomes a never-ending sync for your engineering and support |
... |
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