Good morning. When David Risher became CEO of Lyft, he drove part-time to get a feel for the job. Two and a half years later, he still drives at least once a month to, as he puts it, “learn, not earn.” In the latest episode of Leadership Next, taped at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Deer Valley earlier this month, Risher talked to me and Kristin Stoller about how his part-time gig has shaped policy:
Fixed Prices: Risher says a passenger named Anne from Sausalito inspired him to let customers lock in a price for their morning commute after she talked about the stress of not knowing what she would have to pay every morning. “I began to realize people really don’t like surge pricing,” he says, “so we developed a product called price lock that allows people to lock in a price over a given route, and it’s been a game changer for commutes.”
Earnings Guarantee: “One of the things that really frustrates drivers is when they make too little versus what the rider pays,” he said. “Last year, we put in something called a 70% earnings guarantee. It means over the course of a week, drivers will never earn less than 70% of what riders pay after fees.” One result: “We now have a 19-point advantage over the other guys in terms of driver preference.”
Accountability: “If we want to develop the best possible service product, the highest-level service, we have to implicate our drivers.” So Risher’s team did a deep dive into why some drivers cancel, and which customers faced longer wait times, and then they worked to get those numbers down. “We’ve got 25% more riders and we’ve gone from losing share to gaining share,” he says.
Driver Choice: “You can say, ‘I only want to drive within this area,’ right? Because I know that I don’t want to go over the bridge, or I know I need to get home by seven o’clock. You learn to really value those things as a driver.” And being in the same neighborhood often allows drivers to forge connections with the people they serve, so Lyft introduced a feature that lets riders have favorite drivers, allowing those relationships with customers to deepen. Having done it himself, Risher understands the gig: “Being a driver is a little bit like being a therapist and a bartender,” he says. You can check out our full conversation on Apple and Spotify; we’ll share video clips across our social channels. And a shout out to our producer, Lydia Randall, because podcasting—like every other part of journalism—is a team sport.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]
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The markets
S&P 500 futures were down 0.16% this morning. The index closed up 0.26% in its last session. STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.32% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 down 0.19% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.25%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.45%. The South Korea KOSPI was down 0.19%. India’s Nifty 50 was flat before the end of the session. Bitcoin rose to $113.5K.
Around the watercooler
Ford CEO warns there’s a dearth of blue-collar workers able to construct AI data centers and operate factories: ‘Nothing to backfill the ambition’ by Sasha Rogelberg
Trump’s tariffs are already spurring Japanese companies to shift more production to the U.S. by Jason Ma
OpenAI rolls out ‘instant’ purchases directly from ChatGPT, in a radical shift to e-commerce and a direct challenge to Google by Jeremy Kahn
Top crypto regulator Adrienne Harris steps down from the New York Department of Financial Services by Leo Schwartz
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
