Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Let's stick with earnings
Speaker 1: more broadly and shares a right hailing company. Well, Lift,
Speaker 1: we're currently up two point one percent. That's called it
Speaker 1: after the company reported first called a profit. Actually, so
Speaker 1: there's some anxiety among Wall Street about the expectations, but
Speaker 1: it was all being ramped up by spending on international expansion.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what was hitting in the near term, the
Speaker 1: preprofitability metrics. You've got to talk to the person who
Speaker 1: knows all Lift CEO, David Risher. Look, we've had a
Speaker 1: volatile trading day for Lift. There was some pressure as
Speaker 1: people worried about, well, the amount that you're spending to grow,
Speaker 1: but you're managing to push back on that. You see
Speaker 1: to investor base that this is the right use of capital.
Speaker 2: I really think it is. Yeah. I mean, look, we
Speaker 2: had a record quarter, which is always wonderful, almost five
Speaker 2: billion in bookings. You bit up thirty seven percent a
Speaker 2: year on year, one point one billion dollars of free
Speaker 2: cash flow. So that's great. So when you're in a
Speaker 2: position like that, that allows you to grow and grow
Speaker 2: even more. And as you noted, we've done some international
Speaker 2: acquisation just in fact one announced a couple of days
Speaker 2: ago GET in the UK. Look, I think it's a
Speaker 2: great time to be franking in the rideshare business because
Speaker 2: we're a really important part of a lot of people's lives,
Speaker 2: and we're.
Speaker 1: Growing like a weed, growing like a weed. Mandy blue
Speaker 1: Bag intelligent sort of saying that supply growth for lift
Speaker 1: perhaps is likely to trail some larger peers. I mean,
Speaker 1: I talked to us about the adoption rate, the adoption
Speaker 1: rate of your offerings, but the adoption rate in particular
Speaker 1: of autonomous vehicles that you're starting to dabble in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So look, I think if you zoom wagh in,
Speaker 2: you can always find little things, right. So we delivered
Speaker 2: about two hundred and thirty seven million rides this last quarter.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of rides, a lot of commuting rides,
Speaker 2: a lot of rides to the airport and so forth. Now,
Speaker 2: the quarter started off a little bit slow. There's some
Speaker 2: really intense storms, particularly in New York City where you live.
Speaker 2: As you know, that brought ride share and beg share
Speaker 2: to sort of zero. So that was an early kind
Speaker 2: of headwind. But look, Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: these were all all time highs, and then we had
Speaker 2: our highest ride month ever in March. So I think
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of reason to believe that there's
Speaker 2: still a huge, huge amount of growth here. And then,
Speaker 2: as you say, autonomous vehicles, that's a great product and
Speaker 2: that's going to be one of the next big kind
Speaker 2: of growth vectors up mart Mahine.
Speaker 1: Over a Evercore really liking the fact that you've got,
Speaker 1: you know, a record six straight quarter in terms of
Speaker 1: active riders. But I think what he's liking to see
Speaker 1: is maybe consumer incentives to just moderate a little bit.
Speaker 1: Are you being able to do that.
Speaker 2: David, Yeah, we are. We've gotten a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: we think of it is a sort of leverage off
Speaker 2: of consumer incentives. And I'll tell you a particular thing
Speaker 2: that I'm starting to see more. I think it is
Speaker 2: rewards maxing. Okay, so, oh no, you've got right there,
Speaker 2: you go, there, you go. Be careful about where we're
Speaker 2: going to go with this one. So anyway, no, but look,
Speaker 2: we've got to deal with United right, which allows people
Speaker 2: to both earn points and also spend points on left.
Speaker 2: We have a deal with Hilton, we have an arrangement
Speaker 2: with alask Airlines. We have an arrangement with door Dash
Speaker 2: are super super important program there that just expanded to Canada.
Speaker 2: And so what we're seeing people do is they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're taking lift rides, they're earning points and they're
Speaker 2: spending them elsewhere or they're even spending them back on
Speaker 2: our platform. And Yeah, I think it's going to be
Speaker 2: a thing, and I think it's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why we're saying high margins sort of like black and
Speaker 2: luxury rides rise. Even with some consumer concerns, still this
Speaker 2: rewards maxing thing, I think is working for people.
Speaker 1: Rewards maxing, of course, is a play on all the
Speaker 1: maxing that we have with looks maxing, all the tons
Speaker 1: of phrase that gen Z use. Is it genders? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean how much you see how much you're seeing
Speaker 1: the idea of different age groups responding to your new offerings,
Speaker 1: because in many ways, I see the more premium offerings
Speaker 1: coming to an older cohort, a more obviously a wealthier cohort,
Speaker 1: in many ways a corporate cohort.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's something that's changing over time.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, back when I was you know,
Speaker 2: early in my career. You know, you didn't have an amex,
Speaker 2: you know, platinum card or Chase Sapphire reserve card until
Speaker 2: you're you know, old like me now. But no, it
Speaker 2: turns out actually a lot of kids, a lot of
Speaker 2: sort of gen y gen z folks, are early in
Speaker 2: that ecosystem because they realize that there's a lot of
Speaker 2: value to be unlocked if they kind of play the game.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of them think of it
Speaker 2: a bit of as almost to play in the game,
Speaker 2: Like I, how can I do this rewards maximum thing
Speaker 2: to be able to afford a lift black even when
Speaker 2: I'm in my twenties.
Speaker 1: Savvy is what they are, and I'm interested, David, and
Speaker 1: how savvy you are about the landscape for M and A?
Speaker 1: Right now you've made acquisitions. This is where you've been
Speaker 1: spending your money. Is there more to come?
Speaker 2: You know, never say never about these things. It's always,
Speaker 2: you know, a fool's game to predict M and A.
Speaker 2: But I will say that it's it's a part of
Speaker 2: our strategy. Now. We were not a very inquisitive company
Speaker 2: for a long time, but now that we've got you know,
Speaker 2: the fastest pickup times, great pricing, great service levels all around.
Speaker 2: We're really thinking of bringing that abroad, and that's really
Speaker 2: where our M and A focus has been is overseas.
Speaker 1: Any warries about the consumer right now?
Speaker 2: No, No, And I know that sounds glib. Of course,
Speaker 2: people are feeling some pain. Our drivers feel a lot
Speaker 2: of pain at the pump, and so that's why we
Speaker 2: were the first to get out there with a nice
Speaker 2: cash back program at the pump saves about a dollar
Speaker 2: a gallon. So you the reasons, I think, of course,
Speaker 2: are to be concerned. But when we look at the data,
Speaker 2: you know, we're we're not seeing that play out.
Speaker 1: It's been a week where I feel that you haven't
Speaker 1: actually mentioned AI yet much. I mean, autonomous vehicles is
Speaker 1: inherently AI. How much there were your workforce using it?
Speaker 1: How much your workforce responding to having to use it?
Speaker 1: And is there any stretch at which point you are
Speaker 1: able to reduce your headcount or hiring on the back
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: You know, I love this question, and I think it's
Speaker 2: really important for people to sort of get their arms
Speaker 2: around this. Absolutely. Something like eighty six percent now of
Speaker 2: our developers, our software engineers are using actively, like every
Speaker 2: single day, using AI to write code for them. We're
Speaker 2: also using it in customer care, We're using it all
Speaker 2: over the place. But I think there's a way of
Speaker 2: thinking about it which is not so much about cost reduction,
Speaker 2: but about velocity increase and capacity building. You know, our
Speaker 2: imaginations are huge, and we're a customer obsessed company, so
Speaker 2: we have no shortage of great ideas to innovate on
Speaker 2: behalf of customers. I think that's really where AI is
Speaker 2: going to give us a big edge. Not so much
Speaker 2: on this sort I mean cost. We can maybe save
Speaker 2: a little bit money, but there's so much more value
Speaker 2: if we can figure out new great ways for riders
Speaker 2: and drivers to use our platform.
Speaker 1: Is it a more competitive backdrop right now? To say
Speaker 1: one more time, is it a more competitive backdrop right now?
Speaker 2: Well, it is, you know, but only in the following sense.
Speaker 2: You know. Remember there one hundred and sixty billion rides
Speaker 2: that people take in their private car every single year,
Speaker 2: and I think that's ultimately going to be the real
Speaker 2: competition for us. Look, it's fifty thousand dollars to buy
Speaker 2: a car eight hundred bucks a month plus insurance, plus gas,
Speaker 2: plus maintenance, whereas Lyft is you know, twenty bucks a ride,
Speaker 2: so in a funny way, I think the competition is
Speaker 2: going to shift a little away from the other guys
Speaker 2: and a little bit more towards what are good ways
Speaker 2: for you to spend your money and how can you
Speaker 2: live your best life? And rewards Max and rewards Max exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you picked up on that