DoorDash’s CEO has slammed social media claims that a food delivery service is rating its drivers based on their “desperation” for work, saying he would fire any individual who thought that was acceptable.
The co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based DoorDash shared a screenshot of an unverified Reddit post made four days ago, in which an anonymous user claiming to be a developer for a food delivery company makes allegations about internal practices.
The legitimacy of the post is up for debate: Having gone somewhat viral on the social media platform, it was then declared a hoax by tech and democracy site Platformer. But by then, it had already garnered the attention and denunciation of one of the CEOs leading the pack in the food delivery space.
The Reddit user claimed an unnamed delivery service holds weekly meetings in which product managers discuss how to squeeze more out of “human assets”—their delivery drivers. “They talk about these people like they are resource nodes in a video game, not fathers and mothers trying to pay rent,” the post claims.
The user, who said they had recently quit their role and made the post on a burner laptop from a public library, alleges drivers are given a “desperation score” depending on their behavior at work. The hidden metric supposedly flags drivers who accept low-value “garbage” orders without hesitation, and then prevents them from viewing higher-paying orders.
Other unverified claims include that priority orders are no faster than timings on what were previously standard orders—regular orders were simply slowed down by five to 10 minutes so that priority seemed quicker by contrast. The post also alleges that the wording for a driver “benefit fee” is kept deliberately vague, so that users believe they are helping drivers when in fact the money is funnelled into a “corporate slush fund.”
The post, which ends: “I’m drunk and I’m angry,” caught the attention of DoorDash’s Tony Xu. On X, Xu reposted a screenshot of the thread captioned “holy fucking shit.”
Xu replied: “Holy fucking shit is right! This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post.”
Holy fucking shit is right! This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post. There’s so much wrong with this post.
— Tony Xu (@t_xu) January 3, 2026
– Dashers are not “human assets.”
– Having a metric like a "Desperation Score” is an… https://t.co/tStwfQAcpI
Xu—worth $2.7 billion, according to Forbes—continued “dashers are not ‘human assets'” and “having a metric like a ‘Desperation Score’ is an abomination.” DoorDash has never had a driver benefit fee, he added.
He concluded: “We’re not perfect by *any* stretch of the imagination, but we work every day to make our platform better for everyone who comes to it. What’s described here is appalling, and if true, whoever is operating in this manner should be ashamed.”
Fortune contacted DoorDash for further comment.
Legislation is slowly catching up to the pace at which food delivery services have taken off in recent years. For example in California, in 2026 it will now be unlawful for a food delivery platform to use tips or gratuity to offset the base pay of the person delivering the food.
The law, AB-578, also requires a food delivery platform to disclose to delivery drivers an accurate, clearly identified, and itemized breakdown of the pay received for a delivery, including the base pay, gratuity or tips, and any promotional bonuses.
