All right, so we'll try to keep everybody on schedule. Before we get started with the team from Lyft, I am going to read a disclosure statement. I wanted to note that David Risher and Erin Brewer may make forward-looking statements about Lyft's performance and expectations. Those statements are subject to risks, with a full list available in Lyft's latest 10-Q. David Risher and Erin Brewer may also reference certain non-GAAP financial metrics, and reconciliations are available on Lyft's Investor Relations website. So with that exciting part behind us, welcome David Risher, Erin Brewer, CFO of Lyft. Thanks so much for being part of the conference this year.
Great.
Thank you for having us.
Well, I'll start with you, David Risher, but it's almost interesting, I can ask the same question to both of you. David Risher, you've been in your role now for a couple of months, but you've been on the board for a number of years. Talk a little bit about the transition and what you saw as the opportunity that led you to go from being on the board to running the company day-to-day.
Yeah, it was. It's actually a big shift. It turns out that being a board member and being a CEO, totally different jobs. I now have learned. I mean, look, the reason that I said that I would throw my hat in the ring to be CEO is I just saw so much opportunity, and here's how I think about it. And let's talk super big picture first. So, you know, I worked at Amazon for a long time. I worked for Jeff Bezos. And one of, I think, Jeff Bezos' most powerful ideas is he said, "The best businesses are the ones that are built on very durable needs." Right?
And he would famously say, "No one's gonna wake up tomorrow and say, 'I wish I could pay more for something.' So we got to have a low-cost position, so we can offer products and services at, at the lowest cost." So if you look at what Lyft, the space we're in, I mean, we're in the space of transportation, of bringing people together. I mean, this is super low on the Maslow hierarchy of needs, like, super foundational. You've got your food, you've got your clothing, you've got your shelter, and then you've got to get out and be with other people. And so we're in a very durable place where it's... Again, people are not gonna wake up and say, "Oh, I don't ever want to go out again." That's - even during COVID, that was not a thing, and certainly it's not now.
And then you're in this really interesting position, which is it's only a two-player marketplace. It's only a two-player marketplace. That's very unusual. You don't usually, like clothing, there's a lot of good food, there are a lot of people, you know? But there aren't that many marketplaces, you know, markets where you only have two players, and both of us are fairly scaled. Now, we're gonna trade places maybe, you know, one's a little bigger, one's a little smaller, but, oh, and by the way, we're the underdog, and that's super interesting as well, because that gives us all sorts of opportunity to innovate, to differentiate. So I put all these things together, and then I put my customer obsession hat back on from my Amazon days.
I think if we can focus on our customers, our riders and our drivers, we can create, and if I partner super well with our CFO, you know, we can create an incredibly healthy, powerful business that is, you know, we're just getting started.
Okay. Erin Brewer, similar question for you. You just came into the company recently.
Yeah.
Talk a little bit about your background and what you see as some of the opportunities that you're trying to tackle in the CFO role?
Yeah, happy to, and thanks for having us. It's been a great day so far. So as I thought about the opportunity coming into Lyft, I think my first reaction was, "Oh, Lyft," you know, great brand. I had been a customer for many, many years, so just had a great affinity with the brand, and I think many, many people do. The second thing is, I thought about the market opportunity. You know, really interesting time to come into the space. To a large extent, we are still recovering Erin Brewer, if you will, from COVID, but I think far enough along that curve, you know, that the market is growing, use cases are growing again. So I just thought the timing was really interesting.
And then I could really draw a straight line between portions of my background and what I thought I could bring to the company. I spent a great deal of my career in a company called McKesson, whose headquarters used to be just right across the street from this hotel for many, many years. But that was a giant in healthcare services and technology, both here in the U.S. and in Europe, and had scaled over many, many decades into a three-player market here in the U.S., two-player market in Europe. So I really understood and feel like I grew up in, you know, companies that needed to focus on operating and executing in the best possible way.
And really understood the business model, where you could compete effectively, driving value for customers, driving innovation in an industry, and running a financially healthy model in a scaled market. From my time at Atlassian, where I joined about 18 months, I think, post-IPO, I really got to understand the depth and the power of scaled technology platforms. And so again, as I think about rideshares, I think about Lyft, very applicable. And then finally, right before coming to Lyft, I spent about two and 1/2 years at Schwab, and that was a really eye-opening experience in a business model that is very, Very , in that case, client focused, and has really built an innovative business model that is very passionate about serving clients' needs.
And so I thought about all of those experiences and thought, "Those are really applicable to Lyft and the opportunity for the company where it is at this point in time." The last thing I'll say is, obviously, before joining, I got the good chance to spend a lot of time with David Risher and really found that we were very aligned in the way that we think about businesses, the way that we think about making decisions, the way that we think about long-term health of a company. And so that really sealed the deal for me.
Great. Thanks, Erin Brewer. David Risher, coming back to the industry writ large, you know, I think- Even though we're a number of years into this, I think investors still struggle with the algorithm for growth.
Mm-hmm.
How to think about elements of rider growth-
Mm-hmm.
frequency, price. When you think about the growth opportunity that sits in front of Lyft within the broader transportation landscape, how do you think about those elements of growth and what you're trying to capture?
Yeah, I love that question because I think it's very apt. In other words, I think people have been locked into kind of this Uber-Lyft, Lyft-Uber thing, and not thinking as much as maybe they should about how does this whole category really grow. So the first thing to say is, a heavy Lyft user now might take one Lyft every week. That's nothing. That is nothing. Think of the number of times you go out of your house, you go to work, you go to a party, you travel. By the way, every time you go to the airport, that's four rides, to the airport-
Mm-hmm.
to your destination, back to the hotel, back to the airport, back to your home. So there's—I would say we are so under-penetrated in just fundamental use cases. Like, so many people think of us second, third, fourth, but not first. So that's, you know, for sure. Then the second thing is, I think there are so many segments that have not been addressed. So we have a basic rideshare product, and everyone here knows it. But that rideshare product can be tuned for different use cases. Let's just take a single one, back to work. Right now, every single person really in this whole country, in sort of September-
Mm-hmm.
You know, kind of post-Labor Day mode, is kind of in back-to-work mode. And so the question is, well, are you gonna drive your own car, which is not very productive and kind of frustrating and might take 40 minutes, where you can do nothing except maybe listen to a podcast, maybe take a call if you're good at multitasking? Or are you gonna let somebody else do the driving for you? Who's gonna pay for that? Maybe your business should pay for it, or at least help you offset the cost. So for example, we now have relationships with LinkedIn, with Netflix, with Starbucks, you know, with a bunch of others that are B2B relationships, where we're helping provide transportation services for their staff. So that's a long way of saying... But I don't think anyone has really focused on that.
I think they've been very focused on the competitive dynamic and then COVID, but not so much focused on how do we do that. So I think if you look at frequency, I think there's a big driver. I think if you look at new customers, of course, new people every single day turn, you know, whatever, an age where they start to take rideshare. That's, you know, a whole thing. And then I'll look just super briefly at the other end of the demographics. We're all getting older. As we get older, we tend not to want to drive as much. I as a child, don't want my, you know, parents to drive as much. So that's a whole other use case. So a nd, and that's barely penetrated.
So as you can hear, a lot of my enthusiasm, and then, of course, you can talk about worldwide ultra six. So I think if you really think about it, we're still in the very early days of how people think about rideshare and how many times a day, a week, a month, it can play into their lives.
So maybe I'll stick with that theme for one second, cause I do wanna talk about competition, but you brought up some interesting points on product. What are you most excited about in terms of how the core product might evolve in the years ahead? Is it segmenting the market in a way that has gone unaddressed today, or do you think the fundamental product can continue to evolve and change, either from a frequency standpoint or a pricing standpoint? How do you think about product evolution?
Yeah. Again, it's just such an interesting area. So first is, yes, I do think even the core product can evolve, and I look at the data, right? So when we started, you know, four months ago, you know, we had a certain market share, now our market share has grown, you know, fairly significantly. That's interesting only because it's a trailing indicator of when you operate in a very disciplined and focused way, you can move things. And it's not just about stealing shares, the whole market has also grown. So that's—I think there's some basic stuff that we can just do better, number one.
Number two, I think, as I say, and as we just said, there are these use cases, you know, on top of it, which we just sort of described, and I'm super excited about them. And it's, of course, frustrating as a CEO not to be able to reveal those just yet, but stay tuned. Maybe not even too long. That's number two. Then number three, any retailer. Okay, so you can think of Lyft as an operator, but you can also think of Lyft as a retailer, right? We are putting products and services in front of people. In our case, it's transportation service. Any retailer thinks so carefully about mix. What are the low-margin products that are sort of the doorbusters? What are the high-margin products that you're trying to upsell people to?
So in our case, you know, we have a Wait & Save product, we have a standard product, we have various, you know, kind of higher-end products. And, we can talk about them competitively, but what's so interesting, at least from my perspective, is I'd say not much attention has been paid to that, and that has really interesting, margin characteristics as well as differentiating characteristics.
Okay. Maybe bringing it back to competition-
Yeah.
You introduced this concept in one of your earlier answers, that it's a, it's a unique business and that there's two players. How do you think about the competitive landscape today versus maybe what you saw as the competitive landscape a year or two years ago when you were a board member? And how do you think the competitive landscape continues to evolve broadly between you and, and your other competitor?
Yeah. So I start with saying this is a two-player marketplace. And I say that because, not just because I want it to be, but I also, our riders want it to be, right? They want choice. And you know this. I mean, this, this is just a reality. You know, just, it's, it's just a reality. Like, you know, sometimes, you know, one of us is gonna mess up. It's gonna happen, and I hope it's never us. But anyway, you as a customer, as a rider, want two rideshare apps, for sure you do. And by the way, you as a driver want that even more, because you want two different ways to earn. Again, one's gonna be slow, one's gonna be fast, whatever it is. So that, and then, of course, regulators and cities want it too. So that's pretty structurally sound.
You've got a lot of stakeholders who sort of have a vested interest in having two, you know, players here. So then the question is: how do we compete? In the past, we've competed all kinds of different things. There was an early era. Well, in the black car era, there was kind of that thing. Then Lyft really innovated by saying, "We're gonna do peer-to-peer rideshare," you know, Toyota Priuses and, you know, your friend with a ride and all this sort of stuff. That was a, certainly, you know, massive growth. Then COVID came and, you know, Uber started to do a kind of thing with Uber Eats. Obviously, that's had a certain amount of success for them.
You know, we did some other things, and now here we are, kind of post-COVID, and kind of how are we gonna compete now, much more on service and differentiation than in the past. So I think this is gonna be a fairly dynamic competitive marketplace. One thing I don't worry about, though, too much is, and I'll bring it up because people always ask, is price wars. I don't really worry too much about that. I think it's much more likely that both companies will say, "You know what? Competing on price is kind of a, it's kind of a loser for everybody. And anyway, it's just sort of a waste of time, having people spend a lot of time going back and forth.
I think what both of us are gonna wanna do is create products and services within our app to keep people there more.
Just to put a finer point on this, because I thought I heard this message coming out of the last earnings call. For you, going forward, when you think about competitive differentiation, it's brand, it's service offering, it's not price.
You got it.
Perfect. Okay. You also talked on the last earnings call about strong demand in July. Obviously, we're coming off a travel season in the summer, and now we're back into return to work and return to school. But there still remains a lot of questions in the investment community about the strength of the consumer, broadly. Take the comments you made during your last earnings call, and just give us your sense of what you're seeing from a demand perspective right now in the business.
Yeah. I'll start with demand, but I have to mention supply as well.
Yeah.
In fact, if you don't mind, I'm gonna twist it around a little bit.
No, go for it.
Because if you don't have driver supply-
Yeah
... you know, you have a problem, right? Luckily, we don't have that problem right now. Drivers are back post-COVID, and they're seeing all sorts of good opportunities to drive on our platform. I can tell you more about that if you're interested. On the demand side, to your question, it's exactly as you say. As travel in the summer starts to fade, back to school and back to work start to press. As they start to kind of level off, now you've got winter travel, you know, kind of Christmas and holiday travel. So we think, I mean, just like, you know, again, to maybe slightly overuse the retail analogy, there are certain cycles in the retail world. You know, Black Friday is a whole thing, you know, yada, yada, yada. You know, Valentine's Day, President's Day, pick your favorite thing.
For us, it's much more around when are people kind of coming out and changing their habits? That's really quite interesting. When people, like with back to school, all of a sudden they change their habits. They've got a whole new, you know, framework of their day, and that's where we can get kind of, you know, frankly, sort of aggressive about reintroducing ourselves.
I want to stick with that supply comment you made, because, you know, we started the day today with Jan Hatzius, the Chief Economist here at Goldman Sachs-
Yeah
... and we're clearly in a very different labor environment today than we were 12 months, 18 months, 24 months ago.
Yeah.
Talk about elements of what the industry had to do from an incentive standpoint in supply 12 months- 18 months ago, how some of that incentive dynamic has changed in the last 12 months, and how you see the broader labor environment feeding back into supply.
Yeah, happy to do it, and Erin Brewer-
Yeah, sure.
Would love your perspective on this as well.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, yeah, I'd say broadly speaking, you know, let's be clear. During COVID, people didn't want to drive other people around. That's pretty clear. You didn't want two people in one car, so that was not a thing. You know, and so therefore, that labor pool started to look for other opportunities. Because something that is quite foundational, and I wanna underscore this for a second, is millions of people are participating in the rideshare economy as earners. Millions of people making billions of dollars. This is not a trivial side thing. For these people, it. Now, the vast majority of them, by the way, it's sort of add-on money, right? They're saving for their kids' college, or they're saving for a wedding or whatever it is. They're always saving for something, but it may not even be their main job.
The point is, it's supplemental income for a lot of people. And so what does that mean? What that means is it needs to be flexible because it needs to fit around maybe a different schedule. Maybe it's your kids' schedule, maybe it's your other job schedule, whatever it is, and it kind of needs to have sort of a lot of upside. In other words, one of the things that Lyft drivers tell me regularly is, "I like driving for Lyft because I'm never gonna go broke. I just drive more." Like, so that's really interesting, and those characteristics are not true in most jobs. Okay, so the characteristics are good, but the temporary problem around COVID was terrible, and so we had to spend really quite a lot of money reminding drivers of the opportunity that they had to drive with us.
And then, of course, you know, making sure they were coming on at the right time and doing all the things that you use incentives for. I'll turn it over to Erin Brewer now to talk about kind of where we are in that, in that cycle, but I would broadly say that we're not seeing problems with driver supply right now. We feel good about where we are.
Okay.
Yeah, there's certainly been a focus in the company just on that really, you know, core experience, focusing on drivers, focusing on riders, and really aligning our teams around that purpose and that mission. And that, you know, if you think about that shift in focus and what it's led to, is it's been really fascinating for me to see, coming newly into the company, how some of those changes have influenced what we call the health in our marketplace, right? The balance that we see, the way that we're able to leverage driver incentives. They are a tool in our industry, and they're used very purposefully. But we've been able to see, and we've talked about leveraging that amount over time. I think that happens when you get into a better marketplace balance position.
You have, driver hours going up, organic driver hours improving, which we talked about on our recent earnings call. So it creates this sort of virtuous loop, and it allows you to then grow that base off of what is effectively the same or diminishing, if you will, incentives over time. And so some of that change in focus over the recent quarters has really been, you know, exciting for me to see coming newly into the company.
So you talk about health, the marketplace, and this will lend ourselves into a conversation about unit economics as well. But maybe first, I think coming out of the last earnings call, probably the most confusing topic to the investment community was what the broader messages were on insurance. You gave a little bit of a look forward beyond what you normally would into Q4, and how some of the renewals around insurance would impact the financials later in this year. Maybe just first, let's take a step back, and what were the broader messages you were trying to tell the market about the current state of insurance with respect to the broader ride-sharing industry and Lyft in particular?
Sure. You know, I think what we were trying to, you know, discuss is really how this has evolved over time, right? How did we get here? Where are we right now, and where do we want to be going? And so, you know, if you look over the past, couple of years, well let me, let me start by just saying, if you think about the underlying trends in auto insurance, there are a number of different factors, but certainly a couple of the larger ones are things around auto repair costs, so auto replacement parts being a big part of that, and then medical costs. So if you think about an accident that might require medical care, underlying medical costs.
Not only has the foundational level of inflation been high, certainly over the recent period, but those two things have been growing significantly above the level of the rate, you know, the core rate of inflation. All of that has had an impact, and so trying to weave the story of a year ago in our Q4, we saw some very significant increases on a per-ride basis. I talked about that being about 45%. As we go into our current renewal cycle, we expect that to be about 17%. So abating, certainly, from the period that we saw a year ago, but still relatively high, still factoring in, I think, some of those underlying drivers, that are growing faster than the core rate of inflation.
Trying to level set people where we have been, where we expect to go in terms of how our insurance costs are evolving. But then maybe thinking, you know, so what are we doing, right? There's a foundational level of this and costs as it relates to auto insurance that happen in the industry. There's an active piece that we take as a company in terms of, trying to improve things like product safety. We've had a track record of introducing features within our product, and we have a roadmap to continue to do so, that we have data that proves to us that that reduces accident frequency. That's great for our drivers and riders, first and foremost, but it's also beneficial as we think about managing insurance costs overall. We think about just managing our core cost infrastructure in a very efficient way.
That's going to help us over` time. And then as I think about, you know, if you think about rideshare, it's been around, what, 10 years or 11 years? That's a substantial amount of time to, I think, get incredibly smart from an actuarial lens on how to think about the foundational cost. But it also gives us an incredible amount of telematics data, which we can further leverage, I think, to inform safety in our driver and rider experiences. But we also are increasingly using, as we work with our third-party insurance carriers, on the most effective way to adjudicate claims. And so we'll continue to, you know, attack this from all of those angles.
You know, it's a relatively, I know, complex story and maybe not embedded in some of the other companies that you cover, but an important part of our model and something that we'll continue to, you know, go the extra mile to help people understand.
Maybe just one follow-up here, and I'll take either one of you wanting to answer it. When you think about the active pieces you can put in place to manage this cost input, how much of it is elements of deploying tools in your marketplace in the years ahead, versus how much of it are elements of just educating the insurance market about how some of these tools might make your platform, you know, improved from an insurability standpoint?
Cool question.
Yeah, sure. So look, one of the things that excite- that's exciting for me to see, and the risk team falls under the CFO org, is just the plethora of ideas that we have in collaboration with our product organization to continue to bend this curve. And so, you know, we are definitely not at the end there. And we have data to show that the effort that we've put into this in the past has made a difference. And so I still think there's a lot of opportunity there. You know, as it relates to educating the overall insurance market, the third-party carriers that we work with are very long-term relationships. And so it's clear that both we and they have been learning as this industry started and was nascent and therefore matured.
But I think that we're at a place now with the data, the experience that we have, where it's relatively known, I would say. I think we've learned collectively, most of what we need to learn. Where we still have an opportunity to continue to work more collaboratively, and our third-party carriers are very interested in continuing down this road with us, is again, sort of leveraging the telematics data. They've seen, we've seen in our own captive, they see in their book, how that has improved the efficiency and the effectiveness with which they can adjudicate claims, and so I think there's still opportunity there.
Can I, can I add something?
No, sure. Go for it.
Super fast, because Erin Brewer just mentioned we have captive insurance, and we have third-party insurance.
Mm-hmm.
The ratio, of course, will adjust over time in a sort of arbitrary way. But I think that that structure is so important because it lets us have a direct insight on the captive side into what's driving the problems, which then allows us to deploy the solutions, which then saves us across the board. So there's a-- and frankly, the insurance companies want us to have some skin in the game, just like we want to be able to risk it, you know, transfer it to them. So it's actually quite interesting, and I think it's, I think part of the reason it's been so confusing is because the insurance companies, they've, as Erin Brewer said, they've had to learn along the way, too. They've had to learn how to price this. They were kind of underpricing for a while, so that was bumpy.
And then, as you say, auto parts. So there's so much noise, but I think a lot of the noise is kind of getting settled, and now it's really kind of an execution game.
Maybe just one follow-up on things that are inside your control. We talked a little bit earlier about supply incentives, but the broader unit economics in the business, when you think about things scaling from a platform standpoint, a lot of people will point to ads that can improve unit economics. How do you think about some of the things that are inside your control that could actually improve the unit economics of the platform that you, you guys are running today?
Mm-hmm. Maybe I'll take it-
Yeah.
Oh, no, please. Yeah, wow. We both are very excited about this topic.
I know.
Yeah, go, you go for it.
Sure, I'll start.
Yeah.
So you know, starting from where we are, from a unit economics perspective, you know, we've talked about our strategy, pricing competitively and roughly in line with the market. You know, I would start there. And then, you know, beyond. And then we've talked a little bit about insurance, and obviously, we've talked about the expected impact that will have on our contribution margin here at the back half of the year. So maybe starting from a place where we are, to go directly to your question, what's in our control? So I think about it just kind of flowing down, if you will, from a P&L, very CFO-minded way to think about it. But from a revenue perspective, it's around volume, right?
It's around continuing to increase frequency, which David Risher touched on, and I'm sure he can add a little bit more, too. Continuing to evolve modes and differentiated products. So that's how I think about it from the top line. If I think about it from the cost side, you know, Lyft went through, you know, a couple of very painful cost restructuring activities, the largest one which was announced in April, and I think executed more fully in May. As I think about it, coming into the company in July, you know, I think we are at a cost structure where I feel good that we are in a good place. It's the right place for us to be able to continue to grow off of, and so I think that is helpful overall as I think about unit economics.
And then I touched on Marketplace Health, right? That, again, has a really virtuous cycle as we improve density, as we get better about having drivers stationed where riders want to be. That improves, if you will, insurance economics on a per-ride basis, right? Less distance to go, less distance to go pick up the rider. So all of those things are things that I think about as I think about our evolution of our Contribution Margin over time and our ability to leverage it.
Okay.
I can say more if you want, but you tell me-
Let's-
How much time you got?
Let's keep moving along-
Sure
... on some of the product initiatives, because there's only a few minutes left. But you talked a little bit about pathways to open up new product initiatives, healthcare, school, work, things like that.
Yeah.
When you think about the current state of your subscription offering or even elements of offering micro mobility on the platform and having multiple products-
Yeah
... How do you see some of this opportunity set of products position the company competitively today within a subscription and a non-subscription offering-
Mm-hmm
... versus how it might evolve in the years ahead?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I mean, a lot there, super interesting to sort of unpack. The first thing I'll say is when people think of subscriptions, I think they quickly go to things like Amazon Prime or, you know, various loyalty programs, like membership programs. But what those—how to say this distinctly? What you really want, of course, is you want a product or service that is so good that people will come back and use it over and over again. Right? That's where you need to start. All the other stuff is frankly layered on top of it. If you don't have that, you don't have anything, and that's really where our focus is right now.
Basic execution, so that when you take the ride to the airport, you're then gonna take the ride from the airport because you know it just works. It just pulls down. So then on top of that, you can do certain things to kind of promote loyalty. Some of them can be subscription-based, like Pink is or Uber One is. Some of them can be more just, behavior-based, right? Like the Starbucks program or the, Sephora program, for example. Those are very strong loyalty programs. You don't pay anything for them, but they sure do drive your behavior, right? They make it more interesting for you to get that next cup of Starbucks or the next, you know, concealer. I made that word up, I think that's a word. Anyway, so-
It is.
Is that a thing? I think it's a thing. So anyway, so the point is that, so there's that. And then there's the kind of membership programs that you're talking about. If I'm honest, that's the stack rank I do. I do first, what are the basics to make sure we've got a great product? Then, what are the things we can do where we can, the more you use us, the better we get? And only then do I really get to, how can we try to, you know, get people, you know, locked into sort of a membership program? I think that's gonna be... We've got one now. I think we're going to evolve that a lot to make it, you know, even better over time.
So if I could summarize there, it feels like the messaging is product innovation first, rising utility on the platform second, would be with the elements of aligning some of those-
I think that's right.
... dynamics. Okay.
Yeah.
How does Micro Mobility fit into that?
Mm.
So it's obviously a very different product.
Yeah.
It's much more seasonal in nature.
Mm-hmm.
You know, how do you think about offering multiple products versus just the core ridesharing product?
Yeah. So, let me start by saying this: microm obility is a rising thing. There is no question. It is becoming a much more important part at the city infrastructure level than anyone might have thought, you know, five years, 10 years ago. And I think the reason for it is twofold. I think, well, it's actually really onefold. When you put it in place, and you do a good job, it takes off. And Exhibit A in the United States, of course, is New York City, where we're now giving over 100,000 rides a day. On many days, it's 130,000-140,000 bike rides. This is on the Citi Bike system, which we own and operate.
Just to put that in perspective, that's more people than take the subway in L.A. every day, which is obviously a huge city. But, you know, maybe 100,000 people take the subway in L.A., we do 130,000 rides. So it's and e-bikes, as we introduce e-bikes, that's like a supercharger. That's like e-bikes. I think of it this way, like, anyone here play pickleball? Okay, if you play pickleball, like, if for some reason it's like a requirement, then you tell, like, 20 other friends. Like, "I just discovered pickleball. It's so fun, it's really social," all this sort of stuff. Same with e-bikes. So like, once you take an e-bike, you tell 10 friends about it and all the rest. So it's growing because people like it.
Okay, so why do I say all that? I say all that because the fundamentals are important to cities and to individuals. Now, it's a capital-intensive business. It's, as you say, it's a seasonal business in a different way. And so we're very actively looking at different types of partnerships where we can both, where frankly, the partner can invest in the infrastructure in a bigger way than we can ourselves, but we can still offer it to our customers because we know it's something that's going to grow for customers.
Got it. Maybe next to last one would just be the regulatory environment-
Mm-hmm.
always an area of interest from the investment community.
Yeah.
-and how the regulatory landscape might evolve. What's front of mind for you that you're watching to make sure that industry and government get this industry right and aligned over the next couple of years?
Yeah. I'll give you a short-term answer and a medium-term answer. The short-term answer is we're very active in California, of course, with, you know, Prop 22 and all this, which is now kind of going to the Supreme Court. We're active in Massachusetts as well, where there's a ballot initiative. Well, what's the issue here? The issue is there is a perception that drivers... that we're not serving, this is incorrect, but I'm telling you what the perception is, that we do not serve drivers well. Now, there are ways we can improve, for sure, but the vast majority of our riders, and I promise this isn't spin, this is just like ask 10 riders, and nine riders will tell you this: love the flexibility, love the earnings, love the fact that this is basically, you know, it's under their control.
They could drive as much as they want to or as little as they want to, whatever. Okay, so, so now what we have to do is we have to both tactically work with individual states and attorneys general, just like we've done in the state of Washington, super well. We've come up with an arrangement there that works really well. We're in the process of doing something similar in Minnesota. We'll kind of go state by state and try to work with attorneys general to say, "Hey, we're actually the good guys here. We actually want the right thing for our riders and our drivers, and let's work together." But the bigger picture, I would say, is helping the world see that people are making $ billions on this platform, and they like the terms.
While we can absolutely do better, we shouldn't be thinking of this as sort of a shameful thing off to the side, and we need, you know, unions to come in and fix this problem. No, nothing like that. We just need to figure out a way for the world to see, and we need to play our part here, where driving for Lyft and even for Uber is actually a pretty good way to make money, and we got to make it even better.
So just in the last minute we have-
Yeah
... for you and the team, biggest priorities, either in terms of allocating capital or execution over the next 12 months, that we should be talking about a year from now.
Next 12, and maybe Erin Brewer and I can each take 30 seconds on it.
Sure. Yeah, go for it.
I mean, from my perspective, and I suspect we'll say versions of this, from my perspective, it's doing the basics right is really important. It really is. This is an operationally complex business. Got to do the basics right. And then you're going to start to see us, and again, this will come sooner rather than later, start to launch fairly significant differentiated products and services. Whether or not they catch hold in this product or market fit, you know, the market will tell us pretty quickly.
Mm-hmm.
But we're going to try. We're going to try because we think that's how this market fit gets even healthier, is we really start to innovate on behalf of riders and drivers in really significant ways. And then, and so I hope a year from now, we're a financially healthy business. Of course, we are. We're growing to that, and we're even more customer-obsessed, and you're starting to see people really differentiate between Uber and Lyft instead of thinking of this as a, as a single thing.
Yeah y ou know, just saying the same thing, maybe in more finances. We, we've got, you know, ample positive ROI opportunities here as we think about the long, the near- term and mid-term. And so, you can expect to see us, you know, to deploy capital, I think, efficiently against those things. Longer- term, as we reach sustained free cash flow positive, you know, we'll have a conversation more broadly about capital allocation. But in the near-term, we like the opportunities we see, and so you can expect to see us deploy capital that way.
Great. Well, please join me in thanking David Risher, Erin Brewer, and the whole Lyft team for being part of the conference this year.
Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you.
Nicely done.