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Technology Stocks : Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (144)	5/7/2020 10:04:36 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 266

Lyft shares jump 15% as company reports more riders than last year despite coronavirus Published Wed, May 6 20204:06 PM EDT Updated Wed, May 6 20205:30 PM EDT Lora Kolodny @lorakolodny CNBC.com Key Points -- On Wednesday, Lyft reported losses of $398.1 million, and revenue of $955.7 million for Q1 2020. -- Citing Covid-19 impacts to its business, Lyft recently laid off about 17% of its workforce, and slashed pay for remaining employees by 10% to 30%. -- Heading into Q2, Lyft is facing a new lawsuit in the state of California, which alleged that the ride-hail company is misclassifying drivers as contractors, and should categorize them as employees instead. Lyft shares shot up as much as 17% after hours as the company reported Q1 revenue and rider numbers that beat expectations. Here’s how the company did: Loss per share: $1.31 Revenue: $955.7 million Active riders: 21.2 million Revenue per active rider: $45.06 Wall Street was expecting an adjusted loss of 62 cents per share and revenue of $893 million for Q1, according to a survey of analysts by Refinitiv. However, estimates ranged widely. Comparing Lyft’s actual results with estimates isn’t straightforward either, given the difficulty of predicting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lyft’s losses marked a dramatic improvement from the year-ago quarter, its first as a public company, when Lyft reported losses per share of a staggering $9.02. But GAAP net losses expanded from last quarter, coming in at $398 million vs $356 million in Q4. However, its active rider number represented a 3% year-over-year improvement, despite the impact of Covid-19 to travel and transportation in the U.S. During a Wednesday earnings call, CEO and co-founder Logan Green acknowledged that Covid-19 had a “profound impact” on Lyft’s customers and core business; he revealed that for the month of April, rides were down around 75% year-over-year, and were still down 70% last week. The CEO listed ways in which the company has tried to promptly control costs. For example, last Friday, Lyft cut headcount by 17%, laying off nearly 1,000 employees and furloughing around 300 others. The company also slashed pay for its non-hourly employees by 10% to 30% and said its board of directors would give up 30% of their cash compensation during the second quarter of 2020. The company does not anticipate a need for further workforce reductions, executives said on the Wednesday call. In another effort to save money, Lyft has turned off “virtually all” ride coupons, and stopped spending on recruiting new drivers to its platform, at least until rider demand rebounds. While Lyft’s autonomous vehicle division, Level 5, was impacted by the layoffs, Green said the company would continue to invest in research and development of self-driving technology. “Our investments in AV are critical to Lyft’s future and we expect they’ll deliver strong returns in the future despite Covid,” the CEO said. Analysts have suggested that self-driving cars could make Lyft and other ride-hailing businesses profitable on a long-term, consistent basis. On Tuesday, Lyft and its biggest competitor, Uber, faced a new lawsuit in the state of California. Three California cities, and the state’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued Lyft and Uber alleging that they wrongly categorized drivers as contractors, but should be classifying them as employees under a new “gig economy” law (Assembly Bill 5) that went into effect in California earlier this year. Like other ride-hailing companies, Lyft pays a significant portion of revenue to its drivers but has not generally provided them with employee benefits like paid sick leave, a matter of greater urgency for drivers affected by Covid-19. cnbc.com

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (144)	5/27/2020 6:47:31 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 266

Not really material, but indicative of Uber's narrowing focus: Uber just destroyed thousands of electric bikes As it gets out of the bike-sharing business, Uber decided the issues with giving its bikes away were too complicated—and so just sent them to the dump . By Adele Peters Fast Company May 27, 2020 [Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images] ------------------------- Two years ago, Uber acquired the bike-sharing startup Jump for a reported $200 million. Three weeks ago, it offloaded the business to Lime, another micromobility company, as part of a deal that also involved laying off most of Jump’s staff. Some of Jump’s electric bikes went to Lime—but nearly 20,000 others are now being unceremoniously scrapped. A new series of videos shared on Twitter shows truckloads of the bikes at a recycling yard, where recyclers are now removing the electric batteries and tires and then recycling the metal. Entrepreneur Cris Moffitt, who shared the videos after receiving them from a friend who works at the recycling company, asks the obvious question: Why weren’t these bikes donated, so they could be used instead of wasted? Bikes on bikes on bikes just being needlessly recycled instead of repurposed🚲🚲🚲🗑️ pic.twitter.com/6eHNfyimwv — Cris Moffitt (@CrisMoffitt) May 22, 2020 “As part of our recent deal, Lime took possession of tens of thousands of new model Jump bikes and scooters,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement. “We explored donating the remaining, older-model bikes, but given many significant issues—including maintenance, liability, safety concerns, and a lack of consumer-grade charging equipment—we decided the best approach was to responsibly recycle them. It’s our understanding that Lime has already begun deploying many of the bikes and scooters they’ve acquired from us, and will continue to do so in other markets.” Lime didn’t respond to a question about why it chose not to buy the older-model electric bikes. But could they have been donated? There would certainly have been logistical challenges, though none are insurmountable: Lime now owns the IP for unlocking and operating the bikes, which might have made operating them solo more complicated. They were designed specifically for use in bike-sharing, which means they require special equipment to charge and so would have required modification for home uses. And while the battery could be removed, the size and weight of the bike means that it’s difficult to ride without electric assistance (the bikes are also sized for adults, so they can’t be donated to children). It’s an ironic end for the technology that was designed with sustainability in mind—and at an ironic time. Jump launched with a goal to get people out of cars and make cities more sustainable and equitable. Now, at a time when demand for bikes has rapidly grown because of the pandemic, and when many people who are struggling financially could make use of donated bikes, functioning bikes are being dismantled. It’s a reminder of one critical piece of sustainable design—it isn’t just about making a product from the right materials, or designing for durability or saving energy, but making sure that if a product outlives its first use, it can be reused and not destroyed. fastcompany.com