It appears that Lyft is undergoing a change in management as co-founder and CEO Logan Green will be stepping down. Former general manager at Microsoft and Amazon executive David Risher will take the helm for day-to-day operations.
Lyft is Shifting Seats
Lyft just announced that its co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer will step down from their executive positions in the company. The CEO and President will now serve as chair and vice chair for Lyft, respectively.
Green will be leaving the position effective by April 17th, 2023, while John Zimmer will do the same on a later date on June 30th, 2023. David Risher, an already experienced technology executive, will be taking over the operations of the company.
As Green takes over the chair position, Lyft's current board chair Sean Aggarwal will transition to lead independent director. The soon-to-be former Lyft executives will assist Risher as he transitions into the position of CEO.
Risher expressed that the competitive spirit he learned at Microsoft, the customer obsession he got from Amazon, and the "do-more-with-less" lesions he attained from Worldreader are the qualities that Lyft needs right now.
He added that he was honored to step in as the company's CEO, particularly at a time when the company is at an important moment in its history. Risher stated that he was prepared to take Lyft to new levels of success.
In terms of succession, the Lyft board and executives believed that it was one of the company's most important mandates, according to current chair Aggarwal. He claims that Risher knows the strengths and weaknesses of the company, and has a clear vision for its future.
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Lyft's Financial Troubles
The co-founders have gone a long way since then. Lyft was founded in 2012 and it wasn't until 2019 before the company became public. Although the two have done a great job at expanding the company into what it is today, the company has seen better days.
Lyft saw its highest stock value back in 2019, with a price of $78.29 per share. However, it has drastically dropped and hit its lowest stock value of $9.60, according to Engadget. The company's Q4 results revealed that Lyft lost 36% of its value.
Analysts forecasted an estimated $1.09 billion in regard to Lyft's revenue in its fiscal first quarter of 2023. However, the company expects to make around $975 million in revenue, which is lower than what the analyst expected.
The company had 20.3 million active riders in the third quarter. While there's not much improvement, there is an increase of 8.7% year over year. Still, it's far from the number of active riders it had back in 2019, which was 22.9 million.
Lyft's CFO Elaine Pail stated in an earnings release that the Q1 guidance is brought by seasonality and lower prices, including less Prime Time, as mentioned in CNBC, which was a time when passengers are more in demand than drivers.
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