Lyft Co-Founders Tap Out – C-Suite Transitions

On a recent trip to the East Coast, I started reading the book The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale by John List. Dr. List is not just a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago but also had the unique experience of working with Travis Kalanick at Uber (UBER) as Uber’s Chief Economist and then later held the same title at rival Lyft (LYFT).

In the book, Dr. List describes how he worked with and challenged Lyft’s Co-founder and CEO Logan Green about a subscription product the company was planning on rolling out. It was interesting for me to see that both of Lyft’s Co-founders decided to step down from their roles as CEO and President this week. We have written about Uber several times in the past and I wrote the following in an article titled Insider Weekends: Dara Khosrowshahi’s $9 Million Purchase Of Uber in November 2021:

When I looked at my phone this morning, Uber was offering a discount on its $9.99/month Uber One subscription service that gives subscribers $0 delivery fees and priority service for Uber rides. This is another way Dara is attempting to build a sustainable and predictable business at Uber. When investors think of Uber, they are immediately reminded of its much smaller rival Lyft (LYFT). While both companies are in the ride hailing business, that is where the similarities with Lyft end. Uber is growing faster than Lyft, globally diversified and has better gross and net income margins.

While both companies have had a difficult couple of years, Lyft’s stock has been particularly hard hit, down nearly 77% over the last year. Decelerating growth and a disappointing outlook caused some serious damage to the stock last month when the company reported Q4 2022 results. It did not help that the company reported a massive GAAP loss of $588.1 million on revenue of $1.2 billion in the quarter.

Welcome to edition 34 of C-Suite Transitions, a weekly series on InsideArbitrage that tracks appointments and departures at publicly traded companies during the prior week. We highlight five appointments and departures each week by picking the largest companies from the full list of management changes.

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