Lyft co-founder Logan Green is stepping down as CEO with David Risher, a former Amazon and Microsoft executive, set to take his place.

Lyft co-founder Logan Green is stepping down as CEO with David Risher, a former Amazon and Microsoft executive, set to take his place. Cheddar News Senior Reporter Michelle Castillo talks to the new chief executive as he takes the helm amid some challenging times.

Incoming Lyft CEO on Tackling Challenging Conditions, Competition From Uber

Lift announcing that co founder, Logan Green is going to step down as CEO after nearly 11 years leading the ride hailing company and stepping into the chief executive position is David Richer, a former Amazon and Microsoft executive, but a bumpy pandemic recovery and certainly to company from its rival, Uber have pressure lift of late with a stock down about 70%. In the past year. Michelle Castillo sat down with Richer, asked about his plans to steer the company back into the good graces of investors. Take a look. Well, Michelle, thanks for having me on. It's awesome to be here. Um I mean, the first thing I should say is I actually haven't officially started. So what I say might, you know, change over time. But what I know is this, our riders want to be picked up on time. They want to pay a fair price, they want to be delivered quickly and our drivers want to be paid paid well and they've made billions of dollars on the platform. Uh and they want to have a great experience too. So we're really gonna start by focusing really on the basics of rideshare and making sure our customers have an experience, something, I, a great experience, something I learned in my Amazon days now, the company hasn't fully recovered its rider base since the pandemic. So, what do you think is its greatest obstacle right now? Inertia? I really do. You know, I think live for a period of time, really held a, a really nice position in people's heads, right. They thought of us as sort of the good guys. They thought of us as a frankly a good alternative to Uber. Um, that I think has faded a little bit. I think Uber has made some smart moves. Uh, over the years now, I think they've also made some moves that they may not fully love when they see how they play out. I think the decision to sort of deliver pizzas in the same car as passengers. I'm not sure that's gonna work out super well for them. We'll, we'll have to see. But, but I do know that there's a fair amount of momentum that Uber has gotten. And so I think we have to remind people why Lyft matters and who we are and remind people that they've got a great choice and, uh, and we hope they, they take us and choose us as often as they can. Now, speaking of pizzas and passengers, we do know that Lyft's main product is rideshare, but you guys have dabbled in bicycles and scooters. Are there any plans to branch out I mean, I mean, it's always hard to say, you know, are there plans to branch out because of course, we always look at sort of different opportunities. But what I can say right now is rideshare is our main focus and I think it sets us apart. It allows us to really wake up every morning and say, how can we create a great experience for our riders and for our passengers? Um So I think that's really gonna be our focus right now. Now many tech companies are looking at efficiencies and lifted, lay off 13% of its staff in late 2022. So do you think you're going to have to cut back again to continue to grow? So I won't comment specifically, you know, you probably understand why. But I can say in general, I think it's important for companies to look at their cost structure from time to time and make sure it works. You know, the only way for us to offer great prices to our riders is by having a cost structure that allows us to do so. And so it makes sense that we're gonna look at it but nothing to announce. Now, you led us retail for Amazon and you were a general manager at Microsoft, both when these companies were starting out. So what best learnings did you take from those experiences that you're gonna bring over to lift? Yeah, I mean, I love that question. So at Microsoft, you know, of course, Microsoft is a great technology company I joined back in the nineties. Uh it was, it was much smaller than it was today, but technology was right at its core. But, you know, something else I learned at Microsoft was frankly the value of competitive of spirit. You know, Microsoft is a very competitive company for a long, long time. It still is. And I got something out of that. I kind of understood how competitive energy can really create a, a certain amount of, kind of almost helpful, you know, helpful, friction, helpful energy um within a company. Um And I uh you can take it too far. But, but anyway, uh that's something I learned. And then in Amazon, you know, the focus on the customer so important and it's not just something that Jeff says, Jeff Bezos, it's something that the co the company lives and breathes every day. And that's one of the things I'm excited about here at Lyft. I can feel it here and I think we can do even more.