Sam Altman should take Niklas Ostberg's number-what the Delivery Hero founder doesn't know about taking a company public and handling grumpy shareholders isn't worth knowing | Fortune

"Roll forward to 2025 and it has been far from a good year on the markets for the owner of Talabat (Gulf, North Africa), Glovo (Europe, Africa) and Foodpanda (South-east Asia). Delivery Hero's share price fell to a low of €16.05 ($18.94) in November, from a high of €31.39 ($37.05) nine months earlier, a nearly 50% drop. Competition from the Chinese giant, Meituan, and regulatory fines for poor employment practices in the cutthroat world of moped and cycle delivery weighed on share price performance."

"Delivery Hero Chair, Kristin Skogen Lund, was obliged to write to shareholders announcing a strategy review, a streamlining of costs and continuing exits from underperforming regions. "Despite this significant progress and our relentless focus to always deliver the best possible customer proposition, we acknowledge that the share price performance has been disappointing for all of us," she said. Östberg was the letter's co-signatory."

"We know how this movie is meant to end. 'Founder-CEO struggles to scale on the public markets, shareholders become impatient for returns, founder-CEO departs.' Östberg's story arc is different and provides significant lessons on the value of long-term thinking, management style, and intense knowledge of the business. He has survived a number of storms around the company's business model and valuations and has survived each of them."

Niklas Östberg founded Delivery Hero and led a €7.65bn IPO in 2017, the largest float on the German exchange, with an initially strong share performance. By 2025 the share price plunged nearly 50% from €31.39 to €16.05 amid competition from Meituan and regulatory fines tied to employment practices for moped and cycle couriers. The company operates Talabat, Glovo and Foodpanda across multiple regions. The board launched a strategy review, cost streamlining and exits from underperforming regions, with Chair Kristin Skogen Lund and Östberg co-signing shareholder communications. Östberg has endured repeated valuation and business-model storms through long-term focus and deep operational knowledge.

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