Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news LIFT.
Speaker 2: It's been holding its first over investor day this week,
Speaker 2: with the company projecting growth bookings to grow about fifteen
Speaker 2: percent and a compound annual rate over the next three years.
Speaker 2: Investors liking that clarity a stick in a little bit
Speaker 2: more in the LIFT CEO David Rusher, who's here in
Speaker 2: New York City. It was a big event. It was
Speaker 2: lots of musical performances, and then the serious matter of
Speaker 2: numbers of margin. What gets you that fifteen percent compound increase?
Speaker 2: What gets you an improvement in margin and profitability too.
Speaker 1: So I don't think you're going to be surprised about this,
Speaker 1: but the answer is customer obsession is what gets us there, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're a scale business. We're a scale business.
Speaker 1: We do two million rides a day to day. We're
Speaker 1: going to get to twenty five billion dollars in bookings
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years. That just means doing
Speaker 1: more of customers, like picking them up faster, pricing better,
Speaker 1: and then innovating like with women plus connect and some
Speaker 1: of the other things we've talked about before. It's really
Speaker 1: the basics, but you do them really well. Over and
Speaker 1: over again, and you can grow an incredibly big and
Speaker 1: profitable business.
Speaker 2: I can see that helping bookings. How does it do
Speaker 2: the profitability? Do you have to start to charge people
Speaker 2: a little bit more to be able to get that margin?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, in fact, that's not a lot on the plan,
Speaker 1: and standward, it's in the plan are things like lift media.
Speaker 1: So this is such an interesting thing. Think about all
Speaker 1: the different ways brands want to talk to you today.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are online, right, They're through Google,
Speaker 1: maybe Meta whatever it is. Well, we actually have people
Speaker 1: in cars going to grocery stores. And is that interesting
Speaker 1: that maybe you know Cres versus Collgate. Maybe you don't
Speaker 1: care too much, but maybe there's an advertiser who'd like
Speaker 1: to talk to you. Is you're about to walk into Kroger,
Speaker 1: for example. So that's part of the way that we
Speaker 1: can kind of work with margins. We can also work
Speaker 1: with modes and some other things. A lot of good ideas.
Speaker 3: There, David, good morning, is ed. I'd like to look
Speaker 3: past the numbers a little bit. I understand the seven
Speaker 3: hundred and nine million rides you did in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: and you make this argument that your target market or
Speaker 3: total addressable market is based on the total miles driven
Speaker 3: in personal cars. But what I don't see is how
Speaker 3: you're going to go after that addressable market convincing people
Speaker 3: not to use their own vehicles but take you instead.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, you know I don't have to do a
Speaker 1: lot of that. To be honest, it's one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty billion trips that people take a year. Let's just
Speaker 1: look at the daily commute. Every single year, people commute
Speaker 1: to and from works work fifty five billion times, fifty
Speaker 1: five soul crushing billion times. So you don't have to
Speaker 1: take much of that to make a real difference in
Speaker 1: our seven hundred to eight hundred million rides. We've got
Speaker 1: a new product that we're just in the process of developing,
Speaker 1: for example, that will allow you to lock in your price,
Speaker 1: so every single day, instead of a pobace that bounces around,
Speaker 1: you get a consistent price. And that's something we know
Speaker 1: people stress about. Literally, people wake up early in the
Speaker 1: morning just to check a couple of different apps to
Speaker 1: figure out what the least expensive way to get to
Speaker 1: work is. So if we can take that off the table,
Speaker 1: that might increase us by call it a ride a week.
Speaker 1: But we ride a week, times fifty two weeks a year,
Speaker 1: times millions of people. It adds up pretty fast.
Speaker 3: David. When I said you were coming on the show,
Speaker 3: the majority of questions from the audience were about robotaxi.
Speaker 3: You and I've discussed this in the past, but Lift
Speaker 3: has a complicated history with robotaxi. I think at the
Speaker 3: core of their question is will you survive in a
Speaker 3: world where you know, Zeukes has a really big runway,
Speaker 3: Waimo appears to have a really big runway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so we will survive. Let's just take that
Speaker 1: off the table right now, because I think the way
Speaker 1: to think about it is this. You know, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to create a robotaxi, and both of those companies
Speaker 1: are doing really incredible work. I'm super super impressed with
Speaker 1: the technology and how it's coming together. But it's a
Speaker 1: very different thing to two million times a day, pick
Speaker 1: people up, drop them off, do it in weird weather,
Speaker 1: do it at airports, and so on and so on,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's a much more likely scenario
Speaker 1: that one displaces the other, that actually we work together, right,
Speaker 1: that we end up welcoming them to our network. Because
Speaker 1: if you're a ROBOTAXI company, and I know you've taken
Speaker 1: for example, the Zoukes ROBOTAXI. Gosh, you need a lot
Speaker 1: of volume to really drive the numbers. Otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean you make ten ten cars, you know, ten
Speaker 1: million dollars a car, it doesn't make any sense. So
Speaker 1: you've got to have someone like us as a partner
Speaker 1: who can really incorporate them into our network. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the most likely scenario that you know, a
Speaker 1: bunch of different companies. I think they're going to work on.
Speaker 2: No soul crushing commute for Ed when he's in that
Speaker 2: zoos about heading around that, David, I'm interested in you
Speaker 2: can work together with robotaxis, but you're not going to
Speaker 2: work together with Uber And I'm interested is to Ultimately
Speaker 2: they're really focusing on this advertising focus too. Is there
Speaker 2: room enough of both of you? How are you going
Speaker 2: to compete for that?
Speaker 1: I don't think we have to compete for them because
Speaker 1: I think this. You know, one of the things I
Speaker 1: learned from Jeff Bezos is work on things that are durable.
Speaker 1: If you're going to build a big business, work on
Speaker 1: something that's durable. Okay, I can predict in five years
Speaker 1: ten years, one hundred years, there are going to be
Speaker 1: companies like the ones we work with today, Chase, You, NBC, Universal,
Speaker 1: Delta with their skymiles program, Kroger, Ihop. These are five
Speaker 1: companies that we're working with today. Every single one of
Speaker 1: those companies or their siblings or their brethren are going
Speaker 1: to want to talk to customers in new ways. And
Speaker 1: we've got two million rides every single day. So no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that this is one of the zero
Speaker 1: some things. I think actually this is a whole new
Speaker 1: category of mobile advertising. I think we're going to get
Speaker 1: their first. I think we're going to do it better.
Speaker 1: But if other people want to follow us, and more
Speaker 1: power to them.
Speaker 2: Of course works Famaz and you work for Microsoft. Do
Speaker 2: you learn a lot from those businesses? And both of
Speaker 2: those are plowing forward and artificial intelligence, I'm sure you
Speaker 2: are too. How much can you use my data as
Speaker 2: a lift user to dictate what ads I'm seeing? Make
Speaker 2: it more specific for me without wading me out?
Speaker 1: So great question. I mean I would actually turn it
Speaker 1: around a little bit and say, of course, artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: is going to revolutionize a lot of different businesses. I
Speaker 1: would start actually with our drivers. Look at all the
Speaker 1: different ways drivers interact with on our platform. Right now,
Speaker 1: by the way, forty one percent of our drivers don't
Speaker 1: speak English as their first language at home. So imaginal
Speaker 1: world where artificial intelligence can help with simultings translation. Every
Speaker 1: single one of our drivers wants to earn more our platform.
Speaker 1: Imaginar world where drivers can use an intelligent assistant to
Speaker 1: help them figure out how to spend their time so
Speaker 1: they can earn even more on the platform. And then
Speaker 1: you get to the targeting side, and our goal is
Speaker 1: going to be to make the targeting so seamless. You
Speaker 1: think of it as a benefit, like, oh wow, this
Speaker 1: is fantastic. I'm literally getting a coupon off of my
Speaker 1: fe what's your favorite toothpiste? Out of curiosity.
Speaker 2: I'm using some weird one made in India that doesn't
Speaker 2: have fluor ride in it. I'm like going into that
Speaker 2: big rabbit hole on.
Speaker 1: You're one of those people, Okay, fair enough, Well you
Speaker 1: know what, I use a product called David Toothpaste. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're on the line now, Sorry, I've
Speaker 1: got a personalized it's not personalized, it's just pure coincidence.
Speaker 1: But there also I think they have a different formulation
Speaker 1: than Florid. I don't know. I'm not so focused on that,
Speaker 1: but it's a very nice tube I can tell you that.
Speaker 1: So imagine I'm going to CVS and I get five
Speaker 1: dollars off my David's Tuesdays instead of the big, long,
Speaker 1: ridiculous thing that you get after you check out there.
Speaker 1: I think it's a better experience.
Speaker 3: David on the AI note, I got a very specific
Speaker 3: question from an audience member on X how is lift
Speaker 3: leveraging AI? Is it truly a buzzword for them or
Speaker 3: are they really making use of it in a meaningful way?
Speaker 3: And you gave the example or a couple of examples
Speaker 3: there from the driver's perspective, what about the rider's perspective?
Speaker 3: And what about your internal use?
Speaker 1: Sure? So all three? Right? So internal is really about
Speaker 1: productivity and quality? Right? We use AI to check our code.
Speaker 1: We use AI to come up with different ideas, sometimes
Speaker 1: as kind of idea starters. Anyway, a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: things there. For drivers. I just mentioned a great way
Speaker 1: I think to sort of maximize earnings as an example,
Speaker 1: and I think for riders, imagine a world. Here's a
Speaker 1: scenario that I bet has never happened to anyone listening.
Speaker 1: You ever leave your iPhone in the car, and how
Speaker 1: how fun is that experience is? You know two minutes
Speaker 1: later when you realize you don't have it, well, you know,
Speaker 1: AI is pretty good at detecting patterns and understanding the
Speaker 1: gosh the car is moving one way. You know, you've
Speaker 1: just gotten out of the car. What's going on here?
Speaker 1: Maybe you can reroot the driver back to drop the
Speaker 1: phone off for you. So I think, look, you can
Speaker 1: overhype AI. You know, maybe it's not going to cure
Speaker 1: cancer tomorrow. Probably isn't, to be honest, but I do
Speaker 1: think that every single day. If we're customer obsessed and
Speaker 1: that's going to be our focus, customer obsessed AI, we
Speaker 1: can use it in really innovative ways.
Speaker 3: Let's see it. David Richard, thank you so much. We
Speaker 3: appreciate you coming into a well head quolt.
Speaker 1: It is always a pleasure.
Speaker 3: You'll good to see