Professor Zeynep Ton is the driving force behind the Good Jobs movement. She’s a leading advocate for excellence in leadership and the creation of ‘good jobs’ – those that offer a decent wage, dignity, and room for career advancement. She is the author of The Case for Good Jobs and The Good Jobs Strategy. She believes in the power of good jobs combined with robust operations to boost productivity and make businesses more competitive. In an increasingly tight labor market, failing to offer good jobs can harm your business, and Ton is here to guide you out of that danger zone. As the president of the Good Jobs Institute and a leading academic in this field, Ton has helped numerous business leaders implement a good jobs system. Her hands-on experience working with frontline workers and managers gives her a unique insight into the challenges that keep businesses stuck in mediocrity. Implementing a good jobs system, she argues, not only makes businesses more resilient and competitive, but also helps them attract and retain dedicated employees and loyal customers. Stay tuned as we delve deeper into Ton’s insights and strategies. In this interview I speak to MIT Sloan Professor, Zeynep Ton. We discuss the need for a fundamental rethink on the nature of today’s jobs, and how adopting ‘Good Jobs’ can make our businesses more profitable and improve millions of lives in the process.

Thought Economics

DoorDash is a remarkable business. Founded in 2013, the business now has millions of monthly active users, across 27 countries, who utilise the services of millions of Dashers on the platform to get, ‘restaurants and more, delivered to their door.’ DoorDash is empowering a whole new economic model – In the period from Q1 2020 through today, the platform has generated over $70 billion in sales for merchants, and over $25 billion in earnings for Dashers. It took 7 years for DoorDash to complete their first billion orders (from founding through October 2020), it took 10 months to complete their next billion – the scaling continues – in Q3 2022 alone, DoorDash delivered over 430 million orders. DoorDash IPO’d in 2020, and is regarded as one of the most valuable consumer businesses on the planet. In this interview, I speak to Christopher Payne, President of DoorDash. He served as COO from 2016-2021, and prior to joining DoorDash, he led the North American business at eBay, ran development of MSN Search (now Bing) and mapping (Virtual Earth) for Microsoft. He also led Amazon’s expansion beyond books into video, electronics, wireless, PCs and software. He is one of the world’s most accomplished technology leaders.

Thought Economics

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