Thirty-seven days after agreeing to pay $115 million for underpaying its drivers, DoorDash finds $17 billion for Instacart

…(cont) Set the two figures beside each other, since they belong to the same company five weeks apart. One hundred fifteen million dollars for the workers. Seventeen billion dollars for the competitor. Divide and the second is about a hundred and forty-eight times the first.

What the $17 billion buys the customer, according to the companies: 50,000 additional stores. Instacart shoppers will be able to order from 150,000 stores where they could order from 100,000. DoorDash's chief executive said grocery delivery is "one of the hardest things to get right online."

What it buys the company is harder to itemize, because nobody has published that schedule. One date is public. On Wednesday, the day before the announcement, the FTC ordered DoorDash, Instacart and other companies to turn over detailed information about their "use of personal data to set prices and compensation." The agency asked the two companies on Wednesday how they set pay. On Thursday the two companies proposed to become one company. That is a one-day gap, and one day is the count that matters here.

Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, called the merger brazen and pointed to the investigations both companies face at the state and federal levels. Opponents asked the FTC to block it. Their phrase was "food delivery monopoly."

A settlement is paid once and closes. A network of 150,000 stores is a position, and it does not close. The person carrying the bags up the stairs appears in both documents, hon, on the same line, which is the expense line.