Lyft CEO John Risher Talks Earnings

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We have the Lyft CEO, David Risher, standing by with Bloomberg Technologies Ed Ludlow out in San Francisco.

It was kind of astonishing, right is The stock as of yesterday's close was down four percent year to day and now we're up thirty percent in the session.

How things change? David Richard, good morning, Good morning. Let's see.

You know what I'm like. I don't want to get into numbers that have already been discussed on the call. You know, great outlook for the quarter, the full year, the future. What is different about Lyft now?

Well, so I've been in the job about eighteen months and I've been I think, laser focused since day one.

Customer obsession, customer obsession every time I come up, I mean, David, come on, yeah, so fair.

It means we want to provide a level of service that is above and beyond anything you have any reason to expect. And right now we're picking riders up faster than we've ever before. We have more drivers on the platform we've ever had before. Drivers prefer us twelve points over the other guy, which is fantastic.

So yeah, the guy's name come, I'm.

Not going to talk about those guys. I don't even know who you're talking about. Really, I got a little confused there. But anyway, the point being that the better you do for your riders, the better you for your drivers, the more people respond. And that's where we've got all the records that you're seeing.

Just very quick.

Detail matters when it comes to consumer behaviors psychology. My research and understanding is that LIFT is very much the commuter space right now. Urban area San Francisco is one example where we are. Tell me more about that.

Sure, so about you're right Monday to Friday, about half our rides.

Or commute rides, which is enormous.

Just think of the time people are saving not having to drive themselves and so forth. We introduce something called price lock a while back, which allows people to lock in a price get rid of surge pricing, which you know, I'm no fan of, neither is anybody else.

And that's had a.

Great effect on commute because commute people take the same ride every day, but they don't like to see the price bounce around.

So it's been a huge success.

We've got about two hundred thousan people who've got a price lock pass right now keeps.

Growing autonomous vehicles.

Yeah, okay, I want to have a really honest conversation about this. As you know, it's something that I work on every single day. Our colleagues at Bloomberg Intelligence, our research arms say that you face disintermediation risk because you're small. You announce the partnership with Mobili, which is a maker of sensors and system under chap. Don't see it. I don't understand how that gets you to market with offering autonomous rides on your platform.

Yeah, sure, love the question.

So first, I think avis are going to be a huge accelerant. Actually say a tam expander address them or an expander for a lift, because I think.

What it's going to do is it's going.

To bring new product onto the platform. If people are going to like some people are going to like being driven by human, some people are going to think being driven by.

Robot is pretty cool. Some use cases favor one or the other.

So anyway, I think the hybrid future is what we're looking at over time. Now, Mobili, they make the sensors, they made the tech. You probably have them in your.

Car right now.

Laying assist smart cruise control, all that stuff that's level two. Level four is full self driving. So imagine a world where mobile ie tech, which might drow up in a Honda or a GM or a Ford or a Stilantis or a Volvo or whatever.

Imagine that you could push a button saying, you.

Know what, push this button, and your car is now available on the lift platform to pick people up and pick them up.

Wherever they are whatever.

So it's a way to sort of, you know, today, if you want to drive for a lift, that means you're using your time and your car.

Tomorrow, maybe you just use your car. You're getting somewhere now.

Because what you're describing is very similar to Elon Musk's vision for the.

Tesla Proprietary Act.

If you're a Tesla owner, you can submit your vehicle to the fleet and when you're not using it works more like Airbnb, that's right, than any other platform. But again it's very hard for people to see the jump there. I'll let you answer, But you know Uber and Weimo for example, it's very tangible. You can summon a waim in those future markets next year Austin in Atlanta.

Yeah, where are we right?

I gottah well, so look, so we're doing both, right, So we just signed an agreement with me Mobility, which is also does full self driving in it Atlanta and that'll be available next year.

So that's fantastic.

So that means if you want to have that EXPERI and by the way, we've given one hundred and thirty thousand rides in Las Vegas with a prior partner as well, so we've got some on the ground stuff going on, which is great and I think it's really important. But I also think the future where a lot of us individuals, people who drive today people anyway, anyone who has a car, if it's a self driving car, should also be able to be put on the lift platform. By the way,

I mean, it looks to up twenty nine percent, and so I guess the market leaves this vision of the future. Yeah, any evidence that weimo in San Francisco is taking market share from yourselves and Uber.

So we look at Waymou much more as a potential partner than a competitor. Look, if you're a Waymo, you want to be and it's it's not.

Your partner that Uber's partner.

Oh, but they'll be both over time. I'm not making a prediction exactly. I'm simply saying if you're in the business of creating very expensive assets like self driving cars, you want them utilized. You want them on the road, and the way you put them on the road.

Is you don't just do it yourself.

You end up partnering with a couple of other people who've got that demand built in, which we we do two million rides a day as it is. So I think if you're one of those companies, your whole job is get the tech, reliable, safe, inexpensive, and then commercialize it in a bunch of different ways. And we want to be one of the best partners for them we can be.

David, I have a.

Question about New York City since I'm here. I saw ad somewhere online yesterday that said Uber drivers make thirty five dollars an hour per online hour, which I thought was kind of cheap because I know that Uber and Lyft are locking drivers out of the platform for some part of the day that they can't possibly calculate or know, so they end up spending hours at their job in which they don't make money. How much longer are you going to be doing that to drivers and why?

Yeah?

So it's frustrating as hell. We do not want to do this. Drivers don't like it.

We don't like it. What's going on?

First, I don't know about that thirty five dollars an hour. Actually, I think the number that I know for New York is more like forty an hour engaged. But anyway, they've got their numbers, we've got ours.

But the drivers we followed around are making more like fifteen dollars an hour, right, because they end up being in their car and locked out of the platform for a considerable portion of the day.

Totally.

Yeah, super super frustrating. It's not something that we want to do. It's something we feel like we're forced to do because of a particular regulatory framework that only exists in New York City, doesn't exist in New York State, doesn't exist in the rest of the country, and in the rest of the country, even in New York State. We've done all sorts of work to make sure that

And I think it's just having the opposite effect. Lift's doing more.

I think about some of the partnerships we had the Doors CFO on the show this this past week.

It's an example.

But again, you and I have had this conversation, let's say, what a dozen times now, what's the next thing for LIFT? The new business lines, for example, Like some people find it really interesting whether you sell more of your data to the OEMs. It's a really interesting case study.

Well, I mean, let me talk about partnerships in general.

So you know, we're Our focus is ride share, right, That's what we focus on. So when you focus, you can do great work, which means you can have more riders, more drivers, better experience, better service. But it also means if you want to really meet your customers where they are, you need to partner, right, So we just as a partnership with Door Dash. As you say, I think if it is two great tastes to go great together, I think it's an old resents peanut butter thing.

Maybe it doesn't land.

In the UK, but anyway, in the US we talk about been long enough. You be here long it o you kind of know you've you've drunk the col you've eaten, you've eaten the cup. But anyway, the point is you can save up both as a dash pass user. You can save on lift is Lyft, you can save on dash Pass. So that's a great you know, type of partnership. We've already announced and I encourage you to link your accounsel. So but anyway, we'll do more and more of that.

Bigger David president electrom what's Lift's plan for the next administration and what the world looks like?

Well, I don't know exactly what the world looks like, but I can tell you this.

Look.

We work at the federal level with you know, with all of the administrations over the last ten years, right, And our big focus at the federal level actually gets back to an asked question, how can we have sort of federal level legislation that actually helps us recognize that drivers are they're not full time employees. Frankly, it doesn't exactly feel like independent contractor either.

Fully, it feels like a blend of both.

And how can we find a national strategy that kind of gives them better fits and so forth. That's what we're focused on the national level. We also do a ton of work at the state level and the local level. Here in San Francisco. We met with the mayor a couple of months ago. We don't know if she'll be the mayor of the future or future person, but anyway about how can we bring more life to San Francisco.

Just really quick.

HeLa Musk, on Tesla's last segning Schools, said that in the scenario of its Department of Government Efficiency. He'd use that platform to work towards federal level regulation of autonomous cause do you support that idea and what do you want to see happen?

I absolutely support it.

Of course, you know a lot of work has to be done to come up with smart regulation there.

But the reason we support it is simple.

It's not super fun to have fifty different states to work with with fifty different regulations.

Nobody likes it. You've got to test the things and so forth. A certain point.

Though, you need to take a stance, you know, at the country level.

You know, I don't know.

Look, I think autonomous vehicles are going to be safer. They know the laws, they follow the laws that you know, they've got eight eyes to our two, so you know they're.

Going to be safer.

But it's going to be one of the things we're gonna have to step in its step by step so that you know, Frank, it works for all of humanity.

Not just for the robots.

David Richard LIPSI thank you very much for being here.