Lyft CFO Says Company Focused on Investing

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00:00I think what would be really interesting is, okay, this current period, the outlook is strong,

00:04but what are the underlying behaviors that you're seeing driving that from riders and the different

00:10products that they're using? Absolutely. You know, a couple things. One of the nice things is this

00:14acceleration and the foundation of our performance is multifaceted, really. So we've got, we reported

00:20in the third quarter, an 18% growth in active riders. And yes, that does incorporate our recent

00:25acquisition. But even in North America, we're seeing the strongest active rider growth hitting

00:30all-time highs. That's led to gross bookings at all-time highs, adjusted EBITDA up 29% for the

00:36quarter, and then a billion dollars in trailing 12-month free cash flow. We've got our partnerships

00:43with the highest penetration rate ever. That's even before we announced the United Airlines deal.

00:48We've got, of course, the acquisitions flowing in. And we've got loyalty programs that are,

00:53you know, differentiated in the industry. And all of this is driving, again, highest retention rates

00:58ever. So your job's difficult. It's great to have you on the program. You know, and when we have a CFO,

01:03you have this balance, right? Investing for growth and then discipline. So in Europe, that's been the

01:08strategy. Invest, M&A. In the United States, you're chasing Uber, you know, and you need to be

01:14disciplined. And you're very keen to talk about the bottom line performance. You personally, how are you

01:18managing that right now? What's the priority? Absolutely. You know, a couple of things that

01:22I would say. Our market is so large, right? That's what we focus on, the penetration and the

01:28opportunity that exists broadly in the market. 300 billion personal vehicle trips that exist across

01:34the markets we serve. We're not even close to getting, you know, as an industry, even let alone

01:39lift where we can potentially be. As it relates to investment, you know, it's pretty easy when you're in a

01:45growth industry because you've got lots of opportunities. So you're right, as a CFO, you're

01:49thinking about how do you do that in a disciplined manner? The great thing is, is we're sitting here

01:54today in a position with the strength of our free cash flow to be able to do that, to take advantage

01:59of opportunities where we can drive shareholder value. We've also been buying back shares. We'll

02:04complete a $500 million share repurchase in 2025. So a nice balance, and we see that continuing going

02:11forward. The opportunity many see, Erin, at this moment is AV. And you've taken interesting

02:16partnership routes. You're also doing things with Baidu. And there's a real commitment here to

02:19almost own part of the fleet of robo-taxis. How does that change sort of an asset-like model that

02:24you've had thus far? Yeah, you know, one of the things I think that's really interesting to

02:29highlight is that Lyft today owns cars across multiple cities in the U.S. through our subsidiary

02:36FlexDrive. Drivers can come and rent. So we really understand this model of owning assets. We have

02:41assets on our balance sheet today. And of course, as the AV market develops, and we've been very

02:46purposeful about the partnerships that we are entering, you know, we're absolutely going to do

02:52that in certain cities as we scale, as we learn. Baidu, as you mentioned, is a portion of that.

02:58We'll be doing a little bit of that in some of our other partnerships. So it's something,

03:03again, we know how to do. We still see ourselves long term as an asset-like company. But as the

03:08industry develops, we're going to make some of those investments. What's interesting is,

03:12I think it's by 2027, you want some of these AVs on the road. I mean, Uber's got a commitment for

03:17100,000 car goal by 2027. How realistic are these, Erin? You know, that's, you know, I'm not going to

03:24comment on necessarily their goals. But we absolutely see if you might, you know, look five,

03:29seven years down the road, you know, perhaps 10% of the volume we serve could be served through AVs,

03:36both the combination of partnerships that we're in and maybe assets that we own. So it's a huge

03:41opportunity. I think the other important thing in that stat, though, is you're still going to see

03:46huge volumes served by drivers. That's why we're really focused on the hybrid network. That's what's

03:52going to make the difference and be economically viable. Erin, very quickly, what's the timeline to

03:57integrate the chauffeuring business into the core Lyft app? Yeah, if at all. Well, look, that it

04:02augments what we've been growing in terms of our own business. We have high value modes, premium modes

04:07on our platform today. They're up 50% year over year in Q3. So this is a great extension to, you know,

04:14continue to build out that offering. As it relates to the way that TBR Global Chauffeuring will operate,

04:20they've got incredible clients all around the world. It's a fantastic business. It's not going to be on the

04:26app in the near term, but the synergies that we see with the 1,500 independent fleet operators that

04:32they engage with across the globe, we're going to drive some synergies there. And the service

04:37capability they bring to our company is incredible.

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