I remember our CTO calling me and saying, look if this continues, we won't be able to sustain ourselves.

Our website won't be up and running in a matter of days.

This was an insurmountable challenge that we faced when we were entering COVID.

We saw that the demand for our service was first growing at 10% week or week,

which at our scale was very significant.

And very quickly we realized that it wasn't just that it was growing at 10% day over day.

The only thing that's going to matter for us is how we respond to this crisis.

We had a choice to make.

That's a poor Vameda, founder and CEO of Instacart.

He saw a future of tech-enabled supermarkets years ahead of others,

and with COVID-19 lockdowns, Instacart became an essential service

as online grocery and delivery demand boomed.

I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company,

founder of the Flux Group and host of Massager's Scale Rapid Response.

I wanted to talk to a poor Vameda because a year after an extraordinary and stressful period of adjustment in growth,

Instacart faces yet another crucible moment.

With vaccinations proliferating in the U.S., many are hopeful that in-store buying will revive.

A poor Vameda is that the advantages of digital access to groceries

will retain and extend their appeal well beyond the pandemic.

For his own model to shine in a post-lockdown world,

he'll also have to outpace a slew of competitors,

including Behemoth Amazon.

...