‘We’re the good Uber’ says Lyft CEO

three years ago, Lyft was floundering. Always running to Uber was also at risk of running off the road completely. The founders were in charge, and in March 2023, they hired David Rescher, the former Microsoft and Amazon executive, to shake things up. The new CEO expanded his services into other countries and struck deals with them Waymo And Nvidia, reduced trip cancellations and paid drivers more. Just this week, Lyft Announce That customers in New York will also see taxis among their options. The company is now reporting earnings, but it is still in second place Ride sharingIts stock has declined this year. I recently spoke with Risher about Lyft’s prospects, his pessimistic view of Uber, and his plans to manage fleets of… Self-driving cars Owned by technology companies or civilians.

Steven Levy: Where are you on your transformational mission?

David Risher: When I came in, we were losing share, Lyft’s share was 26 or 27 percent compared to the other guy. We were losing money, $300 million a year. Things were not looking good. I went to the Jeff Bezos school, so when I came in, my entire focus was customer obsession. We spent quarter after quarter correcting our cost position, so we could lower prices. We raised driver rates, because if drivers aren’t paid enough, they tend to get very frustrated, don’t provide great service, and leave the platform. We started innovating again. So today, we are profitable. We have some of the highest driver satisfaction rates we’ve ever had, and our riders will come back again. Our share now reaches about 31 points.

However your stock decreased.

Our analysts and investors love the fact that we’re growing quarter over quarter, but they also see uncertainty in the industry.

Thirty-one percent is still in second place. I saw a headline the other day, “Is OpenAI on its way to becoming Lyft?“The story wasn’t even about sharing rides! What would it take for us to never see that title again?”

This may be a false assumption. We take 1 billion trips a year in North America. Maybe other guys do two. (Uber doesn’t break out numbers geographically but reports about 14 billion trips a year globally.) That’s 3 billion trips between us. But people make 160 billion trips in their own cars every year. So there is a huge market you can grow in.

The reason we’ve gained share over the last couple of years is because our service is better. On average, we’ll move you faster than these guys. We have reduced driver cancellations. The next stage is what we call “Save Money, Check Lyft,” which is based on a very basic premise that if you’re a passenger and you’re just checking out the other person, you’re leaving money on the table. If people checked every time, we would get a share greater than 50 percent. I promise you.

Yesterday my son was on a stuck train and needed a ride to the station a few stops away. Uber was $70 and Lyft was $130.

We try to beat them more than we lose, but we have different algorithms and different data. We religiously and obsessively check to make sure this is true.

I often hear from drivers — for both Uber and Lyft — that the two companies take too much of a cut. Is this complaint true?

The short answer is no. Sure, in the early days of this industry, there were huge, effective subsidies for drivers, and there are still drivers who remember that or have friends who remember those days. We will never, ever take more than 30 percent after getting insurance.