Top all-time · #1046
Ranjan Roy, Can Duruk
Personal blog · themargins.substack.combusinessstartupseconomics
Ranjan Roy, Can Duruk writes Margins by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk, a personal blog at themargins.substack.com about business, startups and economics. Since 2019, 65 different Hacker News readers have linked it 144 times, most often “Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-07-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (27) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ranjan Roy's Substack mostly for its food delivery economics pieces, such as the 'pizza arbitrage' article, and for its writing on zero-interest-rate policy and meme stocks.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 27 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The technology of business and the business of technology, by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk.
Most-linked posts?
- Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-05-18
- Taboola, Outbrain and the Chum Supply Chain7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-05-04
- Facebook, the PR Firm4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-08-31
- 'Product Manager' means having empathy for the stakeholders of your product4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-09-16
- Facebook is censoring me and most of you too3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-03-06
- The Risks of Distributing Risk3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-02-23
- The Internet Is for Porn3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-12-14
- Game. Stop. It's not what you think3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-01-28
- The Other Digital Divide3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-08-16
- Bitcoin and Buying Things3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-01
What Hacker News says?
Similar story but with Door Dash. Explanation: Door Dash charged lower than actual price, so owner placed an order and sent just plain dough. Their profit was higher than cost of making the pizza. https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement”Submitted Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage as a story · 1393 points
HN discussionCoups in the 21st century may not look like coups of the 20th century. This article may interest you - https://themargins.substack.com/p/the-first-phygital-coup
Comment linking /p/the-first-phygital-coup
on “Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support”Submitted Software will eat software in a remote-first world as a story · 619 points
HN discussion> The courts proved exactly the opposite. The system of checks and balances worked. I don't follow your assertion. The courts worked as a balance. But they can only do as much as the laws allow. The tendency of the executive is heard loud and clear. No serious student would want to jeopardize their lives in an environment and society that displays xenophobia. I cannot explain it much better than this https://themarg…
Comment linking /p/the-international-student-bait-and
on “U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas”Submitted Facebook's PR feels broken as a story · 352 points
HN discussionI love this paragraph from the pizza arbitrage article, link below. If capitalism is driven by a search for profit, the food delivery business confuses the hell out of me. Every platform loses money. Restaurants feel like they're getting screwed. Delivery drivers are poster children for gig economy problems. Customers get annoyed about delivery fees. https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “People think they're calling restaurants directly but Grubhub is getting a fee”Submitted The Internet Is for Porn as a story · 266 points
HN discussionreminds me of the pizza arbitrage article and discussion from a few months ago... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852 https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission”Submitted Robinhood and How to Lose Money as a story · 255 points
HN discussionIt's a bit more nuanced than that. The best way to think of food delivery businesses funded by VCs is to think of them as payday lenders. Some background reading: https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra... Be sure to also read this insightful comment left by a former GrubHub employee: https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage/comments
on “Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission”Submitted Taboola, Outbrain and the Chum Supply Chain as a story · 208 points
HN discussion> Or Uber doesn't tell you the whole story of what you're actually going to make after gas, maintenance, repairs and insurance. It's mainly this. I did a deep dive on Doordash during the pandemic/lockdown while I was going back to school for Supply Chain and Logistics as I wanted to take a better look at how it worked. I even did a few dashes myself. And the people I spoke to, including the owners of the resteraunts…
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California”Submitted The international student bait-and-switch as a story · 144 points
HN discussionSomeone mentioned their surprised at the negativity in this essay. I agree, Paul’s frustration is coming through which is new to me as a long time reader of his. It got me thinking of the recent article [0] the other day about someone analyzing Facebook’s latest PR, with Sandberg, Boz, and Zuckerberg seemingly speaking out a little more “off the cuff” as usual, as if they’ve been letting their frustration get the be…
Comment linking /p/facebooks-pr-feels-broken
on “Haters”Submitted DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage as a story · 129 points
HN discussionGotta love the illustration in the original post: https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra... Not to mention some horrifying numbers: > Doordash reportedly lost an insane $450 million off $900 million in revenue in 2019 (which does make me wonder if my dream of a decentralized network of pizza arbitrageurs does exist). > Uber Eats is Uber's "most profitable division” . Uber Eats lost $461 million…
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “The Unicorns Fell into a Ditch”Submitted The Silicon Oligarchy as a story · 76 points
HN discussionRelevant read: How Zero-Interest-Rate Policy explains the world https://themargins.substack.com/p/zirp-explains-the-world
Comment linking /p/zirp-explains-the-world
on “The stock market and economy have parted ways”Submitted Ex-Grubhub exec calls delivery apps “payday lenders for restaurants and drivers” as a story · 50 points
HN discussionCongrats to Doordash! The pandemic certainly helped accelerate this process, but I will add that within the bay-area, anecdotally, my first circle were all Dashpass subscribers for a while before 2020 too. Their partnerships with Chase, amongst others were smart, big moves. I do want to link here a super insightful/funny article that calls out how Doordash acquires new restaurants( amongst other ways of course) , an…
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “DoorDash from Application to IPO”Submitted Exasperated Exuberance as a story · 45 points
HN discussionCan't help but think of this article[0], which summarizes the food delivery market pretty nicely. "You have insanely large pools of capital creating an incredibly inefficient money-losing business model. It's used to subsidize an untenable customer expectation. You leverage a broken workforce to minimize your genuine labor expenses. The companies unload their capital cannons on customer acquisition, while this week’…
Comment linking /p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitrage
on “DoorDash S-1”Submitted Is Fake News Spam? as a story · 31 points
HN discussionSomewhat related, from Daring Fireball's clipping of https://themargins.substack.com/p/facebook-the-pr-firm : > So, in that way, I read Facebook less as a tech company, but instead a communications one. Not a telecom communications, but more like a PR / marketing consultancy. There’s nothing original about Facebook. It’s a company that hires people to build others’ ideas, and, more often than not, it does that bette…
Comment linking /p/facebook-the-pr-firm
on “An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia”Submitted The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Startup Options (2019) as a story · 25 points
HN discussionThis is actually a very interesting point that I've come across on a few different platforms recently (Patreon, for example, [also targets their homepage to creators, not consumers]( https://www.patreon.com/) ). I wonder if Substack just doesn't want to deal with opening the door to some newsletters getting "free promotion" by being features on their homepage? Nonetheless, I'd love to see "trending" or "editors pick…
Comment linking /
on “Reporters are leaving newsrooms for newsletters”Submitted The Internet Is for Porn as a story · 18 points
HN discussionIt’s also been said that zero-interest rates has led to an economy awash in dumb money looking for a place to invest: https://themargins.substack.com/p/zirp-explains-the-world > Treasury investors shift to corporate debt. Public equity hedge funds shift to late-stage private equity. Late-stage private equity shifts to mid-stage, mid-stage to early stage. Seed rounds become bigger. Angel investors become a thing. Uni…
Comment linking /p/zirp-explains-the-world
on “The frustration of trying to invest in my hometown”Submitted The Risks of Distributing Risk as a story · 14 points
HN discussion
