A Question That Changed How Tony Xu Built DoorDash

Tony Xu had a problem.

The DoorDash CEO knew that the leader needed to lead a four-person team is fundamentally different from the leader needed to run a thousand-person company.

He could feel it. His team was growing. His company was scaling. And if he didn't grow faster than both, he'd become the ceiling that stopped them.

John Maxwell said it best: "Everything rises and falls on leadership."

Your leadership sets the ceiling for what your company and people can do. If you're not growing, they're not growing. If you're not improving, they're not improving. If you're stuck, they're stuck.

Tony knew he needed to get better. Fast.

But here's the challenge: He couldn't put in the 10,000 hours to become excellent at every aspect of leadership if he wanted his company and team to grow at the pace they needed to.

So he got obsessed with finding a shortcut.

Not a shortcut to skip the work - a shortcut to compress the learning curve.

He made it a habit to ask everyone in his network, friends, colleagues, board members, the same question:

"Tell me who two great executives are. It doesn't matter which field or function."

Then he'd study them.

He wanted to learn what excellence looked like in a number of roles. He wanted to build a picture of the right inputs and behaviors. So as he built his own team, he could be mindful of what the best pieces to field were.

He wasn't trying to copy anyone. He was trying to model excellence.

And that made all the difference.

The "M" in COMPETE: Model Excellence

This is the "M" in our COMPETE Framework: Model Excellence.

You don't have to reinvent what already works. Excellence has a blueprint. Success leaves clues. World-class performers follow patterns that you can study, extract, and adapt.

The question is: Are you paying attention?

Most leaders don't. They're so focused on doing things "their way" that they miss the opportunity to learn from people who've already solved the problems they're facing.

They waste years figuring out what someone else could teach them in an afternoon.

Tony Xu understood something critical: Modeling excellence isn't about imitation. It's about extraction.

He wasn't trying to become someone else. He was trying to identify the patterns that separated great executives from average ones—then adapt those patterns to his own context.

What Excellence Actually Looks Like

Here's what modeling excellence requires:

1. Identify who represents world-class performance in your arena.

Tony didn't limit himself to CEOs or tech executives. He asked about any great executive in any field or function.

He wanted to see excellence in finance, operations, marketing, product, HR—everywhere. Because excellence in one domain often reveals principles that apply everywhere else.

Who represents excellence in your field? Not just the obvious names—but the people doing world-class work in the trenches. The ones executing at a level most people don't even notice.

2. Extract the patterns that separate elite performers from everyone else.

Tony wasn't studying resumes or accomplishments. He was studying behaviors. Inputs. Decision-making frameworks.

What specific habits did these executives practice? What mindsets did they maintain consistently? What principles guided their choices?

He was building a mental model of what excellence actually looked like in action—not in theory.

3. Adapt what you learn to your own context.

This is where most people get it wrong. They try to copy someone else's playbook verbatim and wonder why it doesn't work.

Modeling excellence isn't about becoming someone else. It's about extracting the principles that make them great and applying those principles to your own situation.

Tony wasn't trying to lead like those executives. He was trying to understand what made them effective, then translate that into what would make him effective.

The Growth Gap You're Ignoring

If you're not actively studying excellence, you're actively settling for average.

Because average is everywhere. Average is easy to find. Average doesn't require study or intention.

Excellence? That takes work to identify, understand, and model.

Most leaders plateau because they stop learning. They hit a certain level of success and assume they've figured it out. They stop asking questions. They stop studying. They stop seeking out people who are better than them.

And then they wonder why their team stops growing.

Your team can only go as far as you're willing to grow. Your company can only scale as fast as your leadership can expand. Your people can only reach the level of excellence you're actively pursuing yourself.

If you're not getting 1% better every day, you're getting 1% worse. There is no standing still.

The Question You Should Be Asking

Tony Xu's question was brilliant because it was simple and repeatable: "Tell me who two great executives are. It doesn't matter which field or function."

You can ask this question today. Right now. To five people in your network.

Then you can study what you learn. Extract the patterns. Adapt the principles.

But here are a few more questions worth asking:

Who represents excellence in my field, and what specific habit of theirs will I adopt today?

Not someday. Today. What's one thing you can implement right now?

What organizations set the standard in my industry?

Study them. What are they doing that you're not? What systems do they have that consistently produce extraordinary results?

What principles guide the decision-making of the people I most respect?

This is where the real gold is. It's not what they do—it's how they think. What framework are they using that you're missing?

Excellence Is Out There

Excellence exists. Right now. In your role. In adjacent fields. In completely different industries.

The patterns are there. The blueprints are available. The people who've already solved your problems are willing to share what they've learned.

But you have to be intentional about finding them.

You have to be humble enough to admit you don't have all the answers. You have to be curious enough to ask the questions.

And you have to be disciplined enough to study what you find and apply it to your own work.

Because everything rises and falls on leadership.

And if you're not rising - if you're not actively pursuing excellence - then you're the ceiling that's keeping your team from reaching theirs.

Model excellence. Study it. Extract it. Adapt it. Become it.

That's how Competitors grow.