The Key to Lyft’s IPO Could Be Happier Drivers
An unusual billboard above Lyft’s San Francisco driver hub.
Photographer: Carlos Chavarria for Bloomberg Businessweek
On Dec. 6, Uber Technologies Inc. filed paperwork confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. According to sources familiar with the filing, Uber’s likely investment bankers—Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.—believe the company could be valued at $120 billion. The news of the IPO was the latest achievement for Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi after a series of scandals, lawsuits, and embarrassments involving the previous CEO, Travis Kalanick. The biggest threat to Khosrowshahi’s turnaround effort: Lyft Inc., Uber’s smaller, friendlier, annoyingly persistent ride-hailing competitor.
At times, Lyft had seemed like a long shot just to survive. In 2014, Kalanick tried to buy the smaller company, proposing to give Lyft’s shareholders a little less than a 10 percent stake in Uber, according to two people familiar with the negotiation. When Lyft founders Logan Green and John Zimmer refused, Kalanick set out to crush them instead.