YouSaid · the spoken record

Jessica Lachs

lines on the record: 85
first: 2024-07-14
most recent: 2024-07-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Something I take seriously at DoorDash. It's a company value, but there's a lot of misinformation out there, and it's often up to us as individuals to figure out what's fact and what's fiction. So I have a sort of a plea for folks to do your best to search for the truth and speak the truth. And I think we'll all be better off for it. And of course, use DoorDash. Yes, I had three. There are three things that listeners can do.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so as you mentioned, to find me, LinkedIn, I don't have a huge social presence, but I am on LinkedIn and I am currently writing a series of blog posts about my experience building a global analytics org at DoorDash. Some of the lessons I've learned over the last 10 years. So definitely check those out. And as far as your second question of how listeners can be useful to me, I guess read read the post on LinkedIn and I'd love to hear what people think, whether you agree with my point of view or not. That being said, be nice. I want honest feedback, but I want kindness as well. So, yeah, just engage with the content and let me know what y'all think. I think I do have a broader ask, which is just to encourage folks listening to Truth Seek.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was like, we're in a book. So those little things when you become part of the kind of cultural lingo that I think are really, really special.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Boston, and I'd ask the audience, How many of you have used DoorDash? And there'd be like three people who would raise their hand. And then it was a few years ago, maybe like 20, 2018, 2019. And I was giving a talk and I asked the audience, like, how many of you have used DoorDash? And like almost everyone's hands went up. And that was actually pretty memorable for me because in my mind, we were still the sort of small startup that no one had heard of where I had to over enunciate the D's and DoorDash so people didn't think I worked for DoorDash, the 90s Denim Company. And so that was pretty meaningful to me when just so many people had used the product and or were consumers of DoorDash was pretty exciting. And I still get excited. I saw DoorDash mentioned in a book recently that I”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think there's sort of two moments that stand out. One was when the third party market share data showed that we had become the number one player after I think we started at number four or five. And I think that that was really exciting to see the trajectory and to see us gain in category share. That was exciting. I think I probably didn't see it until like months after it had happened because we don't spend a ton of time focusing on it. But I do remember somebody wanted to include the graph in some presentation, some sales material. Oh, we're number one. Like that's incredible. We used to be number five. So I'd say that that was one. The other one that stands out was I used to, the first talk I gave in a lot of these like startup talks in the early days.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be honest, I went into DoorDash. Because I wanted to learn for the experience. I thought it was interesting problems with interesting people. I never thought too much about whether it would work. I, of course, wanted it to work.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My mom was a statistician at the UN before she got married, and she actually chose to stay home and raise three children. But when I, so I'm the youngest. And when I was in, I think it was elementary school, she decided to go back to school, switch careers, and become a nurse. And so the fact that she embarked on this completely new career in her 40s after 15 years as a stay-at-home mom and my father supported this. I think that that was really, really influential and was probably the first time I saw that you can do whatever you put your mind to, no matter your age, no matter your circumstances. So that was really influential. And I don't think I've ever told her that. So hi, mom. Yeah, I think that was influential for my career, definitely”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think two answers. Multi part answer. So I think first my career has been in male dominated industries and I've worked with just some incredible women who've really influenced me when I was a banker. There were two senior bankers, Vanessa Roberts and Gina Tarone, who at Lehman Brothers where I worked, and they were just so incredible. They were just so good at their jobs. And I found that really inspiring. And then at DoorDash, Tia Sherringham, who's our GC and Liz Jarvisheen, who leads comms, are just like dominant in their field. And I think that that's really empowering and been big influences on me to just see strong, powerful women kind of kicking ass. And that helps me believe that I can do the same. So that's one answer. And then the other answer sort of cliche, but my parents.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You are emotional about something and you're able to put together a much better response to an email or to whatever problem you're handling. So sleep can solve lots of problems.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do. So there's a John Steinbeck quote, which I'm not big on quotes, but I like this one, which is that it's a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the Committee of Sleep has worked on it. I find that that's something I really live by. I think first off, I love sleep and I try to get as much of it as possible. But the other thing is that if I'm stuck on a problem or if I am writing a response to something like a tense issue or an emotional issue, often I find that if I put down my thoughts, go to sleep, check it in the morning, I end up with a better outcome. So all of a sudden, you have a new perspective and clarity on a problem. You were stuck on, or you realize that you weren't clear in the way you were communicating your thoughts because.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so beauty of Joseon is the brand. Another brand isn't tree, which also has a great sunscreen. But I'll be honest, almost every Korean sunscreen I've tried is just great”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is a bit of a curveball, so Korean sunscreens. So I burn really easily, so I have to wear sunscreen and I love Korean sunscreens. It was introduced to them by a friend of mine, and they're just far superior to what we have in the US. So I highly recommend people give Korean sunscreens a try. Particularly there's a beauty of Joseon branded sunscreen. It's just amazing and is delightful to wear, which is important when you have to wear it every day.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another one I don't actually watch a lot of TV. Definitely don't watch a lot of movies. In fact, haven't seen some of the movie greats. I get yelled at a lot by my friends. I can't believe you haven't seen that. I tend to rewatch things, so series from the past over and over again. I think it's just like how I shut my brain off. So I've recently rewatched The West Wing, which is one of my favorite shows of all time, probably for like the 50th time. And alias, which was like a Jennifer Garner series from like the early 2000s, also spy. So I'm noticing like a theme, I think. I really love these spy, the spy genre. But yeah, I watch those. They're both great, but not at all current.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I tend to read fiction, particularly historical fiction, and I love spy novels. So I think my brain is always in problem solving mode, even when reading. A recent book that I read that I enjoyed was The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. And it's about women code breakers in World War II. And I just, I really enjoyed that. Rather than recommending a book, I guess I did just recommend a book, but rather than recommending another book, I am going to recommend the Libby app and supporting your local public library because I love the library and I love Libby. So I'll give that as my other recommendation.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, and also people who have experience at different size companies. I think I love folks from startups who have that hustle and grit, but I also love folks who've seen what scale looks like and can help us see around corners as far as what problems we will encounter as the business is growing. And I think it's not just about a diversity of skill and a diversity of background. It's also, you know, diversity of sort of prior company and stage that can be really a unique way to think about structuring your team so that you get the best of both worlds.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Model in Excel, and I can learn how to make kick ass slides from someone who has a background in consulting. And I can learn about common gotchas in statistics from someone who comes to us with a master's or a PhD in statistics. And we've got our econometrics folks and we've got our economists. And we just have a group of people with different backgrounds who can all teach each other. how to be better. And we're not all carbon copies, you know, of each other.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My own experience coming over from operations, from being a GM and making that transition into analytics, I find that I'm drawn to other folks who want to make a similar transition. Now, again, you have to have the technical skills and most of these folks have acquired these skills on the job, you know, whatever job they are doing at DoorDash before they transition to the analytics team or they had maybe some formal training in school. But I love seeing the folks that make that transition and actually want to join the analytics team, even if they're not a career data scientist. I think it creates a really unique environment where you have folks on the team from different backgrounds with different expertise who can teach each other things. So I can teach you how to build a discounted cash flow.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the only thing that I sort of want to reiterate is that you don't necessarily need a formal training in whatever it is you're building. And I think that also goes towards the folks that you hire onto the team. And so I mentioned earlier that we've had a lot of folks go to product or go to ops from the team. What I didn't mention is how many folks we've actually had join the analytics team from partner teams. So whether that was from engineering or from our ops team or marketing or finance, we've had a lot. We've actually had a lot more import. We are a net importer of talent as opposed to a net exporter of talent. And I think that that's because”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it's not clever. It's called ask data AI and that's named for our internal Slack channel that used to be the open kind of Q&A for people to ask data. So it's not at all clever. But again, the theme of very, very specific naming conventions. That we have at DoorDash. Never delivered and ask data AI.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The things I'm excited about is being able to really empower some of the folks that are still coming to office hours for one thing or another to be able to use AI to help edit queries on their own, for example, to be able to say, here's a query, I want to make this adjust this to our grocery business so that I can see the Gov for grocery. And so working to build these tools that will help not just our team in terms of time saving, and also, to be honest, folks are going to use it on our team, but really to be able to empower non-technical users to be able to do things on their own and not have to take up bandwidth for the analytics team.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think that there are opportunities in both. I think one of the things I'm really excited about is actually so the former. So in helping to make the team more productive, we do something called office hours at DoorDash, the analytics team. And it's something that we started eight years ago. And it was a way to provide support for teams that at the time we just didn't have the bandwidth to support. So we would go, we would in the early days, we'd go sit in a room and we'd say, come on in and we'll help you with anything you need help with. We'll help teach you SQL. We'll help look at some of your work. We'll be a thought partner. You could just come learn what we're working on, whatever it was. We would do two hours every week of office hours at different times to be friendly to different time zones. And I think one of”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It feels a little bit like going into a test with having seen the answer key. And so for me, there are problems we've encountered at Volt through Volt Analytics, where I'm like, oh, I feel, you know, we've had a similar problem. I have an instinct for what the answer might be. Let's still test because there could be differences, cultural or otherwise. But I feel like I know where we're going to end. And then sometimes there are problems where it's new for one reason or another and it's exciting. You're like, all right, let's see if things are different here. Let's see what ideas might work in a vault country that don't work in a DoorDash country and vice versa. So I think I tend to focus more on what's the same. And then pleasantly surprised when I find things that are different.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone always asks about the differences. What I am surprised by is how similar things are, how similar people are, the data scientists themselves, but also consumers and dashers and couriers, as we call them at Volt. There's a lot more similarities than differences. I do think that when you built a business in the US and then you introduce new countries having different currencies and different languages adds complexity that you weren't necessarily familiar with, I think similarly in EU countries versus non-EU countries in Europe, there's different regulation. So that adds a fun layer of complexity. So I do think that it adds complexity to what you're to the problem set, but ultimately so many of the problems are the same.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you weren't really looking for it. And then I think the other thing is with something like login errors, sometimes you don't see it in the data because people can't even get into the data if you're not able to log in, right? You're not making any purchases. You're not ordering. And so you may not see it in the data that you're looking at. And so that's also something that I think is important for data folks to think about, which is what data don't we have? What data might we be missing? Where might there be opportunities and things that we actually need to identify and fix that we may not see because in this case with login failures, they're not able to log in. And so we're missing out on their, they're not in the denominator. And so we're missing out on them from the data set entirely.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think it's a couple things. So just because something doesn't happen frequently doesn't mean that it's not important. So the never delivered example is a great one in that this is leading directly to churn. And it's also costing a lot of money, far more than its frequency would suggest. And I think that the fact of the matter is, is when you have things that cause churn, you're losing all of that consumer's subsequent orders. And that is not necessarily observed. You're just seeing one bad experience. You're not seeing all of the lost orders because they're lost. And so I think that sometimes this is an area where the data doesn't show you the full picture. And being able to quantify the impact on engagement on profitability will make it stand out as something that really matters that you would, you know, maybe miss.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. So we have part of our quality analytics team, and we have Product engineering and ops on it as well. Their goal is to eradicate, never delivered. And in order to do that, you have to understand why they happen, right? Sometimes it's human error, sometimes it's fraud, and then figure out ways that you can prevent them, that you can kind of fix them while it's happening and ultimately just get rid of them from the system. And you're never going to completely get rid of them, but you can make a meaningful impact. Make them even more rare than a fraction, you know, a fraction of a fraction of a percent.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're terrible experiences for consumers, they lead to churn, they're incredibly expensive because you're refunding an order or repurchasing food and having to send another dasher to deliver that repurchased food. So they're very expensive. They're costly from a consumer experience standpoint. And I think if you're not looking for these fail states, they are often missed. I think when you're picking metrics, yes, you want to improve engagement and you want to improve conversion. And there's a lot of things that are Kind of averages overall that you want to move, but it's so important to find these edge cases and these fail states and actually set concrete goals around eliminating them because it can be really powerful.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With metrics, we are often looking at the average. And I think we talked about this a little bit earlier, but making sure that you're looking at the edge cases and your fail states is also really important. And so we often will set goals actually and create metrics around those edge cases. So the disaster deliveries, the ones that go terribly wrong, right? So we have this concept of never delivered, which is orders that are never delivered. We're really great at naming things at Tor Dash. And they're very rare, right? And so if you are just looking at the average effect or the average consumer experience, it would never come up if you were just measuring quality based on sort of average values of delivery times and lateness and sort of those. These wouldn't show up because they are so rare, but they're terrible. I mean, they're just.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. I think in hindsight, for the example you give, like which of those six things are actually the most important, right? And if you're able to then quantify which one matters most, you work on that one first and you materially move that one. And then you work on the next one. You want to move them all, but like being able to prioritize and know what you're going to get for a 20% improvement in, say, your cancellation rate, right? That's where analytics, I think, can add a lot of value because, yes, ultimately you'll get to all of them. But the way you do that and the time. Can have a meaningful impact on your growth. If you can target the most problematic things first and solve those, you get more bang for your buck and that compounds over time. And so doing the things that matter first and most quickly.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Instead of one, it ultimately was better for the team because folks knew what they were trying to move. And so, yeah, maybe we missed number four, five, and six on the list of things, but you got one through three, and that's 95% of it anyway. So once we get success with that 95, then let's talk about figuring out the other 5%.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not 35%, so what is that? What is that 0.35? I don't know what it is. So instead of that, we said, what are the most important factors in order, first let's measure how many of the new merchants are getting in order within their first, say, seven days on the platform? And then let's look at how many of our merchants are doing these things we know are important, so these inputs. So let's goal our team on getting like merchant photo coverage up. Let's gole the team on making sure that we have open hours, accurate hours, right? So figuring instead of, yes, someone might say it's simpler to have a composite metric, but it was so hard to understand what it was and how to move it that it became meaningless and ultimately moving to something that was simpler to understand, even if it meant having three metrics.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so we had a score from merchant health, which we tried experimenting with, which was a combination of factors that we had found would lead to a merchant being on the platform and getting an order. So we wanted to make sure that the merchant had active hours on the platform and had images and had a full menu that was accurate and robust and a number of different inputs. And we created a composite that weighted all of these different inputs. And then we were like, what is our merchant health score, right? And you were like, it's, you know, 0.35.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On improving conversion or spending more money in marketing or onboarding more dashers or signing more restaurants or adding more grocery stores, right? So we were able to look kind of across the whole business and figure out what is the right mix of actions to take to achieve our goals.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so everything from the example that you started with, which is like an improvement in the login flow, right? How many more consumers are getting onto the app and ultimately placing orders? And so you can translate that to, of course, orders N-GOV. But then something is interesting is selling a Thai restaurant in Sacramento, right? We're able to say, what do we think that that gets us in terms of GoV? from the consumer by selling that Thai restaurant. So it's every area of the business. It's mobilizing more dashers on the road. What does that do to our quality metrics in terms of delivery times? How does that translate? And so because of that, we're able to figure out if we want to spend the dollar or spend the time, the team's time.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On where we put it over what time frame. And I think that that helps us make decisions more quickly because we sort of know what our options are. We know we have our inventory of things that we can do short-term, long-term, and what we get for it. So it definitely helps us to make decisions more quickly and hopefully better decisions.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Score that nobody understands. So I think keeping things simple is also really important. And then I think the last thing I'll say is It's important to understand how metrics across the company equate to one another. And so we spend a lot of time quantifying things in terms of a common currency. So for example, if I were to lower price by a dollar, what would I get in terms of, we'll say, volume? Well, what if I lower delivery times by a minute? What do I get for that in terms of volume? And so now you can make trade-offs between maybe your marketing team and your logistics team because you have this common currency that everyone can talk about. And so we've done that. We've tried to quantify all of the levers of our business, price, selection, quality in common terms so that if we have say a dollar to spend, we know what we get depending on.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's one thing. I think keeping things simple is another thing I've learned over the years. Maybe it's data scientists, but they tend to love these like composite metrics. Like, you know, with a coefficient, we're going to weight this input, you know, at x and this input at x plus 2. And then you end up with a metric that nobody really understands that doesn't actually mean anything. And you're like, I don't know if a 0.1 increase is that is it a lot is it good is bad so they're just hard to work with and so i always encourage folks just pick something simple even if it's not perfect and your composite would be more perfect if people understand it if they have an intuition around it if it's something that people can talk about across the company it's going to be a much better metric in terms of driving real outcomes than you're made up”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've learned a lot of things about metrics, mostly from bad metrics. I actually think you learn a lot from picking the wrong metric. Ultimately, you want to find a short-term metric you can measure that drives a long-term output. So people always talk about, oh, we want to drive an improvement in retention. Retention is a terrible thing to go on because it's like it's almost impossible to drive in a meaningful way in the short term. And yet you want to be able to experiment and iterate quickly. So what are the things that drive retention? What are the inputs? So I think it's really important to find the right inputs and then through experimentation, test whether or not those short-term inputs are driving the long-term output.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Experience parts of that job and get a good sense for what that's like, and then realize it's something that they love. So I think it's definitely something we encourage at DoorDash.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Supposed to do. It's like, no, no, that is what our team, anyone's team is supposed to do because that's what's needed to unblock us from this next test that we want to run because we need to know what we're testing. So I think that it happens. It happens every day. I think I really love when I see team members go outside the sort of traditional bounds of what the data science role might be and do some product management work, right? Do some engineering work. I think that that's part of what keeps the job interesting. I think it's part of what makes our team special is that that is not only allowed, it's encouraged, which is and probably also a reason why we've had folks who've gone from my team to the product org and to the ops org and to the finance org is because they get to do.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I actually had a meeting yesterday morning with the team that's working on some of our affordability initiatives. And we had chipped something that we expected to work and it didn't. And instead of, you can dig into the data to understand the segments of consumers that you would expect it to work with and those that it wouldn't. Of course, we did that. But ultimately, it was like, I don't know why, right? And that's where qualitative research is superior to quantitative research, like asking for the context, actually talking to people to figure out what was the motivation, what worked, what didn't for them. And so the team, data scientists included, just sat and made phone calls. And so they were talking about what they found from those phone calls. And that's going to inform kind of future decisions. And I think rather than saying, well, that's what the qualitative research team.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's both. I mean, it's definitely cultural. I think it comes from the top. And I think that Tony exhibits this extreme ownership and looks for it in others. So I think that that helps. But I think even today, I expect of my team that same kind of extreme ownership over the outcomes. And so I'm more interested in our team figuring out how to solve a problem than sort of the box that someone fits in like I am a data scientist. And so I only do these things, right? It's like, no, yes, I mean, yes, you are a data scientist, but your goal is to figure out what's happening. And if that means that you're going to pick up the phone and call customers, then that is what you're going to do. And I think that expecting that and setting that as the norm for the team, this sort of ownership of the outcome is something that.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With merchants and seeing the experience from their point of view, I think it's just incredibly important. And of course, we find a lot of bugs. Like, this doesn't work the way it should. Let me report this. So I think it's also just great for catching bugs in the product.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so we have a program, a We Dash program. And Keith Yendell, who's our chief business officer, did your podcast last year. He talked about this. But four times a year, all the employees go out and go dashing or do customer support. And it's part of our culture that I love. I actually go par dashing. So I go together with one of my colleagues. We've done it for years now. And it's sort of a fun thing that we do together four times a year. Actually, usually more than that. And it's important because you get to use the product. You get to, you build empathy with all the audiences. I mean, I think all of us order DoorDash a lot. So we've built empathy with consumers. But being able to go and understand what it's like to go out dashing and when you're in the restaurants going and talking.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Refunds and do what we had to to make sure that we were serving our customers well. And I think that that night was one of the largest refunds, like as a percent of our bank account that we had ever given out. And I think Tony's talked about, there were sort of two examples that he's talked about where we just gave a lot of money back to customers because it was the right thing to do because, you know, our service failed and we wanted to do right by them. So I think that those are sort of two stories that stick out in my mind and really highlight culturally what makes DoorDash unique and what I think has been a really important part of our success.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the office headquarters in Palo Alto, which at the time was in an animal hospital. The first time I went there, there was a huge site outage. And the whole company at the time, you know, the whole company jumped online to do customer support, to answer the phones, to make sure that folks were getting refunds for orders that weren't going through, make sure the orders that were out there were getting delivered, just dropped everything and hopped on to do support. And I was brand new, didn't really know how to use tools. And so was like, how can I be useful? And so back in those days, we used to order dinner to the office using DoorDash. And so in order to preserve about three dashers who would have had to deliver food to us, I was like, I'm going to go out, go out dashing, go get everyone pizza so that we could kind of feed the masses doing credits.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he was gold on signing merchants onto the platform. That was how he was gold. His compensation was tied to that. And yet in the morning, when we would go out, he was with us handing out promo codes because he was part of the team, because he wanted to win. We wanted to grow the business. And I think that that is just a great example of kind of the culture that Tony and the early employees and Stanley and Andy, other co-founders, really instilled in all of us early in those days. So I think that that ownership, that extreme ownership of the outcome is definitely one of the things. I think the other is just being very customer first. And I say customer, I mean, consumers, dashers, and merchants as all being our customers. And the first time I ever went.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh man, there's so many, including so many mistakes that we've made. But I think something that really stands out to me is before I move to the analytics area, I was actually a GM. I was the first GM at DoorDash and I was in Boston in 2014 watching the city of Boston when nobody knew who we were. And we would wake up early in the morning 5 a.m. and we would go out in the in it was the winter of 2014. We'd go out and we'd hand out promo codes to consumers outside of the tea in Boston. And these promo cards would be attached to kind bars so people would take them. And the whole team, it was a small team. There were four of us, but the whole team would go out in the morning to do this. And I think back to our sales guy, shout out to Joey G. So Joe Gracio is our sales guy in Boston.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 being really 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, right? I think that that kind of that was something that's ingrained in our culture from Tony Xu from our founder and CEO. And I think the That really resonated with me, and I feel like I've always sort of operated that way as well. And I think that that helped to help me in my career to be able to do what I've done without really thinking about it too much”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“in front of you to unblock yourself or solve a problem, and you just focus on that instead of thinking about like, you know, 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, you know, 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.”
2024-07-14 · Lenny's Podcast · Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source