Why I'm joining Instacart 🥕

My first experience using Instacart was in its early days while ordering groceries for my then girlfriend, now wife, Donya. She was struggling with a bad cold while I was traveling and I wanted to take care of her but I couldn’t due to being out of town, so I decided to try Instacart. I was able to deliver groceries including an exorbitant amount of healthy juice to Donya! It was a magical moment as there was no other way I could have taken care of her while being a few thousand miles away.

Fast forward a few years later when we had our first child. We signed up for Instacart Express to help with our weekly shop for the essentials. Soon thereafter, I noticed something very interesting about our behavior. We had switched our entire grocery shopping experience to Instacart but the impact was way beyond that:

• We were eating healthier because we could get ingredients delivered to us at any time.
• We were having more free time to spend with our little boy, family, and friends.
• We were saving money by ordering far fewer takeout meals.
• We were also not wasting as much food. Before using Instacart, we would do big weekly grocery runs and often would over buy certain items for fear of running out, but then some of those items would inevitably spoil.

In short, the impact of Instacart on our life was profound. My family and I also felt an intimate connection with the app and with the shopper community as they enabled us to live a healthier and happier life while having access to the foods and products we loved and enjoyed. This type of “intimate connection” with a brand is extremely rare and special. Only a few products and companies in our lives reach this status.

Over time Instacart became even more deeply integrated into the way we ran our lives. For example, the first thing we do on family vacations is use Instacart to order items we may have forgotten to pack (think toothbrush, shampoo, diapers, toys, etc). But a distinct moment that made me pause and think about Instacart as a generationally defining company was when Donya and I were looking to buy a house in what is unquestionably an insane housing market in the Bay Area. At one point during a tour of a property, which was on the outskirts of San Francisco, we were talking through the many factors that go into buying a home in such a market. One of Donya’s first questions for me was “Can you check to see if Instacart delivers here?” I was blown away by this serious question when there were so many other things to think through for a home purchase! That moment cemented the belief that Instacart is going to be an iconic company and staple of life in the world. The pandemic has only accelerated my conviction in the company as it became the lifeline for our elderly parents as well as immunocompromised members of our family.

For these reasons and more, I’m deeply excited to join the team who has built this life changing product and service for me and millions of other people, for hundreds of thousands of shoppers, and for the majority of retailers and grocers! Despite all of the success, Instacart is still so early in its journey with so many new things yet to be invented. So, that makes me equally excited to join Fidji Simo and Asha Sharma as they and the rest of Instacart’s talented leadership team chart the future of this iconic company. Fidji and Asha are the two best leaders and executors I have gotten to know. From my time at Facebook, I had observed how they had built some of the most successful products in the company, inspired an incredible following, and built high performing organizations with strong culture. We spend so much of our life at work that working for leaders who inspire us and our organization makes all the difference.

Let’s go! 🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕

P.S. My 402nd Instacart order, from over this weekend, included paper cups, paper plates, ice, wrapping paper, and a birthday card as I rushed to get out of the house to celebrate my father’s 75th birthday!