This week Horace joins Oliver to riff on a recent mental model for thinking about the job to be done of micromobility, involving escalators, elevators and stairs. It’s Horace at his best - conceptual, funny, insightful as always. Specifically we cover: - Which customers pick escalators vs elevators vs stairs, and what insight that might provide to the job to be done of micromobility. - The importance of ‘earning’ an experience - Why Horace thinks that customers who climb escalators are the best ...
Mar 12, 2020•55 min
This week Oliver interviews journalist David Zipper again (following his appearance on Episode 32) about the latest in the war over mobility data that is being played out between cities and shared micromobility operators. David Zipper is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies. From 2013 to 2017 David was the Managing Director for Smart Cities and ...
Mar 09, 2020•38 min
This week Oliver interviews Colin Roche from Swiftmile. Shared scooters cluttering up the streets is one of these things that have largely been discounted in the hype of the recent explosion of these new vehicles. The Swiftmile team build scooter parking infrastructure and in this episode with Colin, Oliver’s initial skepticism is assuaged as he learns of the importance of the work that they’re doing in the ecosystem. This conversation really enlightening, and I really hope that you do to. Speci...
Feb 28, 2020•36 min
This week we have a timely episode with Horace being interviewed by Katie Zandbergen on The Disruptive Voice - a podcast produced by The Forum for Growth & Innovation at Harvard business School a few days after the passing of Clay Christensen. Horace strikes a reflective tone - it’s a great episode that goes into the core of why micromobility is really disruptive assessed against the theory that Clay proposed. For those who are more into the theoretical, this is a wonderful episode. Specific...
Feb 20, 2020•48 min
This week, Oliver interviews Kevin Talbot (@Talbot), a General Partner at Relay Ventures, a VC firm based between the Bay Area and Toronto, who are investors in Bird, Populus and Bird Canada, among others. It is a great interview with Kevin about how they’re thinking about micromobility investments and the wider context of venture capital in this Softbank dominated world. Specifically, we dig into: - how you got into VC/joined Relay Ventures - His thesis at the firm and why they're interested in...
Feb 13, 2020•43 min
This week Oliver interviews Sanjay Dastoor, one of the founders of Boosted Boards and subsequently Skip, who operate a shared scooter service in DC. Sanjay has been around this space longer than pretty much anyone, and has a wealth of insight and experience that were a joy to unpack. Unfortunately, the audio cut a little for Sanjay right at the beginning but we kick off right where it picks up. Specifically we cover: - Sanjay's journey as a Micromobility OG starting Boosted Boards and then on to...
Feb 06, 2020•1 hr
This week, Horace joins Oliver on the podcast to talk about hype cycles, capital formation and transport funding patterns historically, and what we can learn from them about the micromobility space now. Specifically: The parallels between the hype cycles for MP3 players, the internet and personal computers vs. micromobility. The perils of ‘being early’ in large scale technology adoptions. The history of funding for the auto, railway and canal sectors transport systems, and parallels to micromobi...
Jan 30, 2020•47 min
This week, Oliver interviews Joe Kraus, President of Lime. Lime are the largest players in the shared micromobility space globally, and this episode has been a long time coming. It was awesome to get Joe on to talk about their history and plans, the state of the industry and business model, regulation, the challenge of climate change and where micromobility can assist. Joe is an awesome guest, and in a world of hype, keeps a very level head about the potential of this space. This episode is well...
Jan 22, 2020•45 min
This week, Oliver interviews Emily Castor Warren, one of the first employees at Lyft and then Lime in the policy space. We have an amazing conversation about the history of rideshare and micromobility, especially as it pertains to regulation, and where operators are getting it right and wrong. Emily is currently working with Fontinalis, a VC firm investing the future of mobility. She has some of the deepest experience in the weeds with regulating new mobility, and yet at the same time able to se...
Jan 14, 2020•48 min
In today’s episode Oliver interviews Assaf Biderman, CEO of [SuperPedestrian](https://superpedestrian.com/), about his background founding the MIT Senseable Cities Lab and then Superpedestrian. Assaf has been thinking about micromobility longer than most anyone we’ve had on the podcast - this was a fun and very illuminating interview. This conversation convinced Oliver that the ‘intelligence’ that can be infused into micromobility devices has far deeper implications than first thought, especiall...
Jan 07, 2020•55 min
In today’s episode, Taco Carlier, CEO of Vanmoof joins Oliver to talk about building beautiful e-bikes, the role of design and how to get the next billion people on bikes in our cities across the world. It’s a great discussion with someone who’s been in the space for a long time (Vanmoof was founded 10 years ago!). Taco is also the first Dutch guest we have had, and so we also dig into Amsterdam and it’s transport system. Specifically, we dig into: * Vanmoof’s story from the early stages through...
Dec 27, 2019•50 min
In today’s episode, Felix Jakobsen and Enrico Howe from Unu Motors join Oliver to talk about the Global Scooter Sharing Market Report (for clarity, we’re talking mopeds), a recent publication on the state of the shared moped market globally. It’s a great discussion about the expansion of a space that often gets overlooked compared to it’s more well funded kick scooter cousin. Specifically, we dig into: * The history of Unu Motors, and how they came to be tracking the shared moped market. * The c...
Dec 20, 2019•39 min
On today’s podcast, Oliver interviews Bharath Devanathan, SVP, Growth at Bounce Mobility, about their moped sharing business in India. They recently raised a $150m round to expand their operations across India. It’s an amazing conversation - one of the best so far about the potential of shared micromobility to change transport systems for good in fast growing and highly constrained urban environments in the developing world. Specifically we dig into: - The history of how Bharath came to Bounce, ...
Dec 13, 2019•41 min
On today’s podcast, Oliver interviews Sam Baker, COO of Wunder Mobility, about their software platform that underpins a number of carshare, carpool, Micromobility and other services players in Europe, and is about to expand to the US. Specifically we dig into: - Wunder’s early success in carpooling, and how their strategy differed from Oliver’s experience watching commuting products being built at Uber. - Sam’s thesis around ‘digitizing the 99%’ of transport operators, so that they can connect i...
Dec 06, 2019•39 min
Today, Horace and Oliver talk about the newly released SAE Micromobility Standards, the Cybertruck announcement and Horace’s latest thoughts on the boondoggle of autonomy. Specifically, they dig into: - Why the new SAE Micromobility standards matter, what they’re competing against and why definitions like this default to lowest common denominators. - The Cybertruck announcement, including discussion about what appears to be a new type of body manufacturing, and the implications of the radical de...
Nov 30, 2019•50 min
Today on the podcast, Oliver interviews William Henderson, CEO of Ride Report about micromobility data and mobility-as-a-service systems. Ride Report is the reporting dashboard for over 50 cities globally for their dockless shared micromobility operations, and William's team work very closely with regulators and operators globally to build trust among all the different parties. William also has a great historical context for urban transportation and what has/hasn't worked in the past. It's a gre...
Nov 22, 2019•48 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver talk though the flood of news post-Berlin, and how the micromobility is being circulated around by the giants of automotive and large tech, as they work out how to best participate. We also explore: - the parallels between feature phone experimentation and the extensive discussions over form factor experimentation we’re seeing in lightweight electric vehicles (ie. the rise of the Scoot/Bird Cruiser) - why that has the potential to lead to unifying operating sys...
Nov 15, 2019•58 min
In today’s episode, Oliver interviews Mark Frohnmayer, CEO of Arcimoto, a new 1100lb+ electric trike that has just gone into production in Eugene, Oregon. Arcimoto is aiming to a hit a US$12k production price point for a vehicle with 70+ miles of range and able to conform to all roading infrastructure, including highways. We unpack why this is a disruptive solution to the market. Specifically we dig into: - The origin story for Arcimoto and why Mark launched the company - The specifics of the ve...
Nov 06, 2019•36 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews David Hyman, CEO of Unagi Scooters about the market for premium, lightweight owned micromobility. David’s background is in software and marketing, having previously been the CEO of Beats by Dre. Unagi has really nailed the owned scooter brand experience, and it’s a great discussion. Specifically we dig into: - Features and tradeoffs that they made in order to deliver the best ownership experience - The origin story for the Unagi Scooter - The overall market pot...
Oct 31, 2019•37 min
In today's packed episode, Oliver interviews Dmitry Shevelenko, CEO of Tortoise, an autonomous scooter software company about the potential of self driving scooters in clearing clutter, improving economics and unlocking the suburbs for shared micromobility. Specifically we dig into: - Dmitry's background at Uber leading business development in micromobility, and how that led him to coming across his co-founder. - The promise and potential of self rebalancing micromobility networks, and how that ...
Oct 24, 2019•50 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Frank Reig, CEO of Revel, an e-moped sharing system in NYC/DC that has just announced a $27.6m raise to expand to 10 new cities. It’s a fascinating interview as shared e-mopeds have a number of key operational improvements over the more popular kick scooter/electric bike shared systems that we’ve seen. Specifically we discuss: - Their recent raise and plans for the next 12-18 months. - Their origin story from Frank’s experiences in Argentina and his background ...
Oct 15, 2019•35 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver host a live podcast recording at The Drivery, an incubator in Berlin in front of an audience. They discuss the upcoming Micromobility Europe conference, disruption of the German car industry and what will disrupt micromobility itself in the future. It was a great conversation! This week we discuss: - Germany’s micromobility explosion and why it’s different from other countries - Why we chose Berlin for the Micromobility Conference in Berlin - Why the intellectu...
Oct 06, 2019•50 min
In this episode, Oliver and Horace talk about cost-per-mile calculations for micromobility, and the implications of the recent blogpost that Horace published on the Micromobility.io blog (https://micromobility.io/blog/2019/9/9/the-cost-of-a-mile). In short - what happens when the marginal cost per additional km collapses towards zero with Micromobility. We think there are lots of lessons we can take from the telecom industry. Specifically, we cover: - The cost-per-mile calculations from New York...
Sep 24, 2019•41 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Martin Mignot, a general partner at Index Ventures and panelist on our ‘Capital in Micromobility’ panel at the upcoming Micromobility Europe conference in Berlin. Index Ventures were early investors in Bird, and have a long history of investing in the micro and macro mobility space over the last 15 years. Specifically, we dug into: - His thesis around investing in mobility companies, and why the smartphone/internet has proved so transformational - Index’s inves...
Sep 17, 2019•45 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Jeff Russakow, CEO of Boosted Boards, makers of the famous electric skateboards and now scooter. Boosted focuses on vehicle-grade owned micromobility, which provides a refreshing counter to the hype around shared models. It’s one of our best episodes to date--highly recommend checking it out! Specifically we cover: - the origins of the company, and how it proves out Horace’s early thesis on the disruptive potential of modularized componentry. - Jeff’s history w...
Sep 09, 2019•50 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver run over Horace’s insights from his recent research using UN data into city-level potential for micromobility markets globally. We run through the most interesting growth trends in 1800+ cities. Specifically we look at: - Contextualising the rapid growth in car-based urbanisation as part of a 5000 year trend - Why Africa is one of the most interesting potential markets between now and 2035. - The cities positioned for both the fastest growth and largest increas...
Aug 17, 2019•43 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Lawrence Leuschner, CEO and co-founder of Tier, one of Europe’s largest scooter operators with over 6 million cumulative rides to date. Specifically, we cover: - Lawrence’s background as a successful entrepreneur and his motivations for starting Tier - the landscape for micromobility adoption in Europe, and why Europe is better placed to adsorb these transport innovations - we unpack the reasoning behind their unique operational model and more recent moves into...
Aug 11, 2019•38 min
In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss Donald Shoup’s work, The High Cost of Free Parking, and why micromobility offers such a compelling counter to the dominant mindset that has existed around parking for the last 70 years. Specifically, we cover: - the financial and spatial impact of parking minimums in the US - The Catch-22 of parking legislation - parking creates sprawled landscapes that increases the need for them to move around. - The importance of pricing parking appropriately - The o...
Aug 01, 2019•43 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Sampo Heitanen, CEO of MaaS Global/Whim on their mobility as a service subscription model they have in Helsinki and a number of other markets. Specifically we cover: - How MaaS Global came to be started - The unique context of Helsinki’s regulatory environment and the enabling factors that made it a great first market - The challenges and opportunities of scaling mobility as a service offerings - ticketing, API’s, regulatory barriers and walled gardens - The im...
Jul 19, 2019•44 min
In this episode, Oliver interviews Tiffany Chu (@tchu88), co-founder and COO at Remix to discuss the role of software in helping cities plan for better use of their streets and help them harness the benefits of micromobility. Specifically we cover: - The story of Remix and how they came to found it. - The predominant use cases for cities in utilising their software, and how this helps break down silos within city governments. - The challenges she sees with the rapid growth of micromobility and c...
Jul 10, 2019•34 min
