The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 54 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Zimmer: App-based drivers support California's Prop 22 by four to one
“Four to one driver support Prop. 22 versus the alternative.”
Zimmer proposes $500 monthly Lyft subscriptions to replace personal car ownership
“We want to offer you transportation as a service. Instead of spending 9000 dollars a year to own and operate your vehicle, we want to sell you, maybe it's a 500 dollars a month subscription plan. Similar to how you buy minutes, you'll buy a thousand miles. And…”
Zimmer: People will not drive cars in major cities in 20 years
“In major urban environments, I do not think so. I think maybe we'll go to amusement parks to do that.”
Zimmer predicted in 2017 that AVs would soon handle half of rides
“What's real is that over the next couple years, it'll be able to do A few percent of our trips, 10% of our trips, 50% of our trips.”
Zimmer: 3 percent of the US workforce had earned income on Lyft
“Yeah, there were, I think it was when I was leaving, like, three percent of the U.S. Workforce had, had earned on Lyft”
Zimmer: Lyft's pandemic cuts were healthy for the business in hindsight
“Some of which I think actually In hindsight, we're very healthy for the business, but very difficult to make, especially for people that are all in this tough time where, where, where the job market is difficult.”
Zimmer: 86% of California Lyft drivers work under 20 hours a week
“The majority, something like 80% of our drivers Maybe in California it's 86% of drivers drive less than 20 hours a week.”
Zimmer: Lyft avoids mandatory rider photos because it would reduce ride volume
“We don't want it to be a blocker in the sense that we don't want to get less rides, which would be less income earning opportunities for you and the company. But we have increased the percent of riders that are posting a photo and we're working on more feature…”
Zimmer: Lyft had $100M and months of runway when Uber raised $3B
“We woke up one day, it was about four or five years ago, and Uber has raised three billion dollars, and we had a hundred million dollars left in the bank, which is a lot of money, but only a few more months left, and now you have this Crazy competitor who want…”
John Zimmer: Congestion Pricing Is the Best Solution to Traffic Congestion
“Congestion pricing is the best solution. Getting more investment in public transportation is another solution, and those two things can be directly tied together.”
Zimmer predicted autonomous cars would gradually handle a growing percentage of rides
“An autonomous car is not going to drop out of the sky and be able to do a hundred percent of our trips. That's not real. What's real is that over the next couple years, it'll be able to do A few percent of our trips, 10% of our trips, 50% of our trips.”
Zimmer: Lyft rides among essential workers increased during the pandemic
“We've seen a lot of essential workers using this way more because there are other options, potentially public transportation are things that they're more concerned about from a health safety perspective. And so we've seen those rides increase.”
Zimmer: Lyft refuses to build a consumer food delivery app
“So we have no intention to be another kind of food delivery consumer app. We will not do that, but there's a lot of small and local businesses That are having to pay 30%, 20% of their revenue to be on those platforms.”
Zimmer: Americans spend $9,000 annually on cars used 4% of the time
“Americans spend 9000 dollars every year owning and operating a car that they use four percent of the time. They spend more money on their car than they do on food than they do on health care. The only thing they spend more money on than their car is their hous…”
Zimmer: Micromobility can become the fastest urban transit option
“In urban cores, micro mobility or bikes and scooters as those vehicles get better and better and safer and safer, and as the street infrastructure adapts to make the environment safer, absolutely, it can be the best way, the fastest way, the cleanest way, and …”
Zimmer: Autonomous vehicle adoption remains limited by technology and cost
“It's still a technology limitation and a cost limitation at this point. And so those haven't changed materially during this time.”
Zimmer: If founding Lyft today, I would start with a subscription service
“I think if we were starting over today, I might start with Pink, which we talked about as the subscription, as a way to get people to interact with Lyft. To say, hey, there's a membership service, it's gonna be more affordable than owning a car, and we're gonn…”
Zimmer: Lyft Introduced Driver Tipping and Weekly Rental Programs
“You know, we started tipping for drivers. We started rental cars that are completely flexible on a weekly basis for drivers.”
Zimmer: Lyft instructed employees not to gloat during Uber's crisis
“We told our team, this is not a time to gloat, and we mean that, and we meant that.”
Zimmer: Lyft prioritized US coverage over food delivery and global expansion
“We've chosen to be careful about international launches. We've chosen not to go into food delivery, but we did think having coverage in the United States for every American is a critical factor.”
Zimmer: US bus fares only cover about 30% of transit operating costs
“Across the country, when you pay to get on the bus, you're really only covering about 30% of the operating cost. So what that means is a three dollar bus fare actually costs the government 10.”
Lyft bypassed early taxi regulations by making passenger payments optional donations
“And so one of the ways that we saw around that was to say to make it optional for payment in the early days until we had forged through the right regulatory structure.”
Zimmer: California does not require background checks for limousine drivers
“We've gone above and beyond on the background checks, which actually still to this day for, ah, limos in, in California are not required.”
Zimmer: Lyft will likely offer monthly subscription miles plans for all transportation
“In fact, what you'll be able to do is buy, you know, likely a miles plan from us, a monthly subscription to handle all your transportation needs.”
Early Lyft bypassed taxi regulations by relying on optional passenger donations
“It was in the early days. You got to remember, again, one, that this was very, very new and not normal, and you know, I'd say would, was fall, would fall in a regulatory gray area, and so one of the ways that we saw around that was to say to make it optional f…”
Zimmer: California CPUC required $750k insurance while Lyft provided $1M
“We've gone above and beyond on the background checks, which actually still to this day for, ah, limos in, in California are not required. We've done driving record checks with more strict criteria, and we've created an insurance policy that's a million dollars…”
Zimmer predicted Lyft would sell monthly subscriptions mixing human and autonomous rides
“In fact, what you'll be able to do is buy, you know, likely a miles plan from us, a monthly subscription to handle all your transportation needs. And over the next few years, some of those trips will be done by human drivers, and others will be done by autonom…”
Lyft co-founder Zimmer launches Yes to build positive consumer businesses
“How could we Create multiple consumer businesses that are tuned to the modern world of social media, internet, and AI, but that have self-fulfilling, very positive outcomes. So simply, you know, we're creating a platform to help more and more people build thos…”
Zimmer uses the Light Phone III as his sole SIM-enabled device
“Light Phone Three, their third device I'm using as my, it's my only phone that has a SIM card”
Zimmer: Lyft created a system for drivers to receive IPO equity
“We did something at IPO. We recreated a system for drivers to get equity.”
Zimmer: Lyft rides fell 75% at pandemic peak, recovering to half down
“We were down about 75% at the peak in terms of rideshare rides. We, we've now returned to a little under half down which is actually good progress.”
Zimmer: Lyft had nearly $3 billion in cash entering the pandemic
“We're lucky that we went public when we did and have, you know, nearly, nearly three billion dollars in the bank.”
Zimmer: Citi Bike hit a record of over 100,000 daily rides
“And for City Bike in New York, I believe it was last weekend, we hit our record of over, over a 100,000 rides in one day.”
Zimmer: Lyft delivers over 50 million rides every month
“So, every month we do over fifty million rides.”
Zimmer: US vehicles sit parked 96% of the time
“There are, ah, two hundred and fifty million vehicles in the United States, I believe, and they're used, each car is used four percent of the time. 96% of the time it's parked.”
Zimmer: Social identity and ratings make carpooling safer and scalable
“If you tied something to a social network like Facebook, you could have a profile of the individual you're going to share a ride with and follow up with ratings. Of how that ride experience was which would create a safer and more broadly used environment for c…”
Zimmer: Zimride sold annual carpooling networks to 150 universities and companies
“And we were able to, over a few year period, sell to a 150 universities and companies that would pay us an annual fee for this private carpooling network.”
Zimmer: US cars sit parked 96% of the time, costing $9,000 annually
“The average American household spends over 9000 dollars every year on owning and operating a car. This equates to over two trillion dollars annually in the U.S., and the car sits parked 96% of the time.”
Zimmer: Original Lyft app was built in three weeks
“Before we launched it, the working title was Zimride Instant, but while going through, it was actually really a three-week period that the Lyft app, the original Lyft app was built.”
Zimmer: Enterprise bought Zimride assets while team pivoted to Lyft
“So we sold Zimride to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and basically the assets the contracts with the universities, and retained the entire team, and went all in on, on Lyft.”
Zimmer: Lyft received its first cease-and-desist a month after launch
“Yeah, so about a month into launching Lyft, this was in later we received our first of many cease and desist from various different governments and it basically said, you need to stop operating.”
John Zimmer: US bus fares cover only about 30% of operating costs
“Across the country, when you pay to get on the bus, you're really only covering about 30% of the operating cost. So what that means is a three dollar bus fare actually costs the government 10.”
Zimride sold private carpool networks to 150 universities and companies
“We were able to, over a few year period, sell to a 150 universities and companies that would pay us an annual fee for this private carpooling network.”
US cars sit parked 96% of the time, costing households $9,000 annually
“The average American household spends over 9000 dollars every year on owning and operating a car. This equates to over two trillion dollars annually in the U.S., and the car sits parked 96% of the time.”
Lyft founders sold Zimride assets to Enterprise Rent-A-Car
“So we sold Zimride to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and basically the assets, the contracts with the universities, and retained the entire team, and went all in on Lyft.”
Zimmer: Lyft takes a 20% to 25% commission on ride fares
“So the rate is calculated based on distance and time, and then Lyft receives a commission off of that 20 to 25% off of the overall rate, the rest goes to the driver, as well as a trust and service fee.”