- 11 hours ago
Lime spent nearly a decade as a private company before going public in July 2026, and CEO Wayne Ting has been along for most of the ride. He joined in 2018, became CEO in 2020, and led the micromobility pioneer from growth at all costs to a business built to turn a profit. Ting sits down with Editor at Large Katie Roof to explain why now was the moment to list, what it took to get there, and what he learned along the way.
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00:05And now for something that's not about AI, I mean, scooters, the rare thing that won't be
00:11replaced by AI, right? Or will they? Yeah, I think we're an AI resilient business, which is
00:17good in this market. I remember when I was raising money five years ago, one of the investors was
00:24like, can you turn Lion into a software as a service business? I'm like, how is that possible?
00:30And then the funny thing is this time everyone's like, thank God it's a physical product that you're
00:34not going to be displaced by the future of AI. Yeah, I'm glad for your sake that it's not SaaS,
00:40kind of a dirty word in San Francisco right now. But so tell me, I mean, you went public this
00:45summer,
00:46you know, all the attention was on SpaceX, but you guys didn't IPO. You're still above your issue
00:52price, which is more than many companies can say. Including SpaceX. Yeah.
00:58So what's the secret? How did you pull off an IPO in this, you know, the last five years
01:05have been a little difficult for the IPO landscape? I do think these markets go in cycles and
01:11in a strange way in a world of like everybody is AI and everyone wants to spend trillions of dollars
01:16in capital expenditure. Having a physical product, having a profitable business, sustainable business
01:22model. It's actually attractive. It's kind of counter marketing to everything else that is
01:27happening in the market. And I think it was a perfect time to be like, as long as people need
01:34to leave their homes, there is going to be space for transportation. And we have a affordable,
01:40sustainable form of transportation that I think is going to be around for a long time. And Lyme is the
01:45global leader in this space. We've proven out a business model when lots of other companies have
01:50not. And I think that story actually was quite attractive in a summer where everybody's talking
01:57about SpaceX, Anthropic, whatever else, like AI IPO that's coming. Yeah. And not only did you pull
02:04off an IPO at a difficult time, but, you know, as you noted, some others did not fare well. I
02:09remember
02:09breaking the news of Bird SPAC over five years ago. And, you know, that they eventually went bankrupt.
02:16Did having a competitor go first and frankly bungle their debut, did that make it harder for you to go
02:24to the public? It was definitely a, one of the most common questions we got on the road show, which
02:30is
02:30like, like Bird was, was the market leader. They were perceived as like creating this industry. And
02:39they were public for, I think less than two years before they filed for chapter 11. The good thing is,
02:45we, I think in the world of growth at all costs, and now it sounds quaint, but there was a
02:52time when
02:52micromobility was the hottest industry in Silicon Valley. Everybody wanted to fund the next scooter
02:58company and capital was cheap and we're in another hype cycle now. And we were focused on unit economics,
03:06sustainability, building a good business when everybody else was just trying to raise
03:09the next round. And I think we had a good answer to the bird question, which is, we are now
03:15the market
03:15leader. We are four times bigger than bird. We were EBITDA positive. We generated a hundred million
03:20dollars of free cash flow. So the difference is in the numbers. And I think investors can tell
03:26a shitty company from a good one. So I think even though that was a question, I think we were
03:32able
03:32to navigate it. So it wasn't like venture-backed subsidization that you usually see with,
03:38you know, discounted consumer products coming from venture-backed companies. You made the numbers work.
03:46But how did you make the numbers work? Because there's high depreciation for these scooters.
03:52You know, people were throwing them into the bay. Like, how did you make the numbers work? I mean,
03:56I just, that was hard to do. Yep. So when I first joined Lime, Lime was a negative 300%
04:04gross margin
04:05business. Oh my God. So for every dollar revenue, we lost $3. That is a really bad place to be
04:11because
04:12the bigger you get, the more money you lost. And I think it's, this is the part of like running
04:19a
04:19business that is not sexy. It really comes down to the game of interest, figuring out what's going
04:24wrong. I remember my first month I went to, I was out on the road every single day, just sitting
04:30in our
04:30warehouse, trying to figure out why are we losing so much money? And it was things like our hardware only
04:38lasted a month. Every single month we had to buy an entire new fleet for the world. And you can't
04:45make money if you have to buy a brand new scooters and bikes every 30 days. Our operations was a
04:51mess.
04:51And there were some markets where we made money, some markets where we did not. And I went to the
04:58worst markets and I just sat in the warehouse for like a week watching our mechanics. And the,
05:04what I learned is that like the quality of the local manager was highly correlated with our
05:11financial results. And it wasn't any, it wasn't rocket science. It was just the basics.
05:17Like, are you walking the floor? Do you know what the mechanics are doing? I remember sitting in
05:22Marseille in south of France. And I watched this one mechanic screw on a screw and screw it off and
05:28screw it back on for an entire day. And the entire day, the manager of that warehouse did not walk
05:33through to be like, what are you doing? You're, you're not actually fixing the scooters. And I
05:38think the insight that we had was what if we use software to replicate the, the things that our best
05:45managers were doing and built it into our app that today actually manages and operates our global
05:53operations. And that was a huge breakthrough in terms of operational efficiency. And we redesigned
05:59our hardware. So today our scooters and e-bikes last more than five years. We realized that we had to
06:05bring our hardware in house because in a capex intensive business, if we couldn't control
06:10the durability and the life of these vehicles, we can't make the economics work.
06:14Could you actually use AI to help identify flawed scooters?
06:20Yeah, we, I would say we use AI in more like generation one, like machine learning algorithms,
06:26rather than LMS in our core operations. And so example of this is in every city we're in,
06:33we have more data than anybody else about micromobility. And we use that data to inform
06:39how we run our operations. So every city we're in, we build a demand forecasting map. So block by block,
06:45we predict how much revenue do we expect to generate on this corner based on all the historical data that
06:52we have. And when we know that, then we can ask the question for all the bikes and scooters we
06:58have
06:58in San Francisco, is there a better place to put that bike or scooter that can generate more revenue
07:05in the course of the next 24, 48 hours. And if the incremental revenue is greater than the cost of
07:10hiring somebody to move that bike and scooter, that's an ROI positive move task. In every operational
07:17task, we do over 30 million operational tasks. Every operational task is algorithmically created,
07:23and we're constantly looking for incremental revenue opportunities. And so it's not like the,
07:30I feel like today when people say AI, they think of the LMS, but some of these early iterations of
07:35like machine learns, and the more data that has, the smarter it is about how we do our supply positioning
07:40is actually how we run our core operations. And one of the reasons why Lime is where we are,
07:46and most of our competitors are bankrupt. So what's the long-term roadmap here?
07:50Are you gonna just stick with scooters? Do you have other products down the line? Do you, you know,
07:56expand in new markets? Like, what's your opportunity for growth? Yeah, I think the biggest opportunity
08:02we have is deepening in our existing markets. So that's, so Lime is still growing at like over 20%
08:09year
08:09over year. We are the global leader by far. But what we've seen is that in our oldest markets,
08:15we actually oftentimes grow the fastest. San Francisco, we've been in for eight years now.
08:20The last three quarters, we've been growing at more than 100% year over year in San Francisco,
08:26one of our oldest markets. Because you have to, in transportation, you have to first have reliability,
08:31because if you're going to rely on Lime to go to work, then you need to make sure when you
08:35walk out
08:36your house, you can access a bike or scooter. And so once you have reliability, at some point,
08:42the adoption really tips. And this is when we see like the higher growth rate. And so I see so
08:49much
08:49opportunity, even in our existing markets to further deepen reliability to get more people
08:54onto micromobility. Most people in San Francisco still drives a car, or they use Uber, or they do
09:02something else. And the fastest, cheapest, and the most sustainable way to move around is on a bike or
09:07scooter. And they haven't explored, they haven't tried it yet. You said, you know, when we spoke
09:12earlier, that you learned a lot from your mentor at Uber, Dara. What did you learn from him that helped
09:18you run your business more effectively? You said something about you didn't want to grow at all costs.
09:23You? Yep. So I was chief of staff to Dara, the current CEO of Uber before I came to Lime.
09:31And
09:31Dara came in, this now probably is ancient history, but there was a lot of brouhaha around the former
09:37CEO. And then the board decided to move in a different direction. Dara came in at a moment when
09:43there was a crisis of culture and ethics at Uber. And what I saw with Dara, and I was at
09:50Uber for five
09:51years before, I was the general manager for the Bay Area, which was Uber's first market, biggest market
09:56for a long time. And what you were taught for a long time at Uber was, we need to grow,
10:04we need to
10:05win at all costs. And I was like, really, there's no line that we're not willing to cross. Nothing was
10:13too much. There was no ethics we're not willing to violate. Win at all costs is an insane idea. And
10:20I do
10:20see lots of Silicon Valley startups in pursuit of maybe fame or wealthy justify this win at all
10:30costs mentality. And when I saw with Dara was, one of the first things he said was, we win while
10:36doing
10:36the right thing. We, we win while, while making sure we're doing the right thing by our employees,
10:43by our customers. And it sounds very, it doesn't sound like a breakthrough thought, but it was-
10:50It's a little cliche, but it is a little cliche, but it was shocking for the people who worked at
10:54Uber
10:55when he came in. And, and the thing that it's been amazing to see what Dara has been able to
11:00accomplish
11:01at Uber is that Uber is now one of the most profitable like startups from that generation.
11:07It's still growing rapidly that you can win and do the right thing at the same time. And I think
11:14that's
11:14been- Compete, but ethically. For sure. In fact, if you are, you can, you, things catch up to you.
11:22If
11:22you're, if you don't, if you're not doing the right things, you can win for a long time, but things
11:27will
11:27ultimately catch up to you. That's a good point. So, you know, I would have, I would imagine that you
11:35probably had M&A interest at some point, given that you made your financials work, you know,
11:41what made you decide not to sell if that was on the table and go the IPO route instead?
11:49Um, I, I believe that Lime would be stronger as an independent company. I think it's, it's hard. Like
11:57what Lime is doing is actually very difficult because as you can see from all the bankrupt companies,
12:02selling a bike or scooter trips for like three or $4 and trying to eck out a margin is not
12:07easy.
12:07There are still so many cities, so many communities that can benefit from it. So I saw
12:12a lot of growth opportunities ahead. And I think we have a unique mousetrap that frankly,
12:18it's been hard to replicate when we were on the IPO roadshow. An investor said to me, you know,
12:23there are barriers to entries to an industry based on the number of dead competitors. And we have a lot
12:29dead competitors, right? Because nobody is starting a company because they want to go bankrupt. And so
12:35if it was easy to do this, to build a successful, profitable business, lots of other companies would
12:40have done it as well. It must be hard if Lime is the only profitable free cashflow at this point,
12:47only publicly traded company in our industry. So I believed in our future. And I actually think we
12:52would be worse off as part of a bigger company because focus does matter. And when you're in a
12:58larger company, you are competing for the limited resources. And if you're not the thing that is
13:05making most of the profits, you're going to get second place on resource allocations, you're going
13:11to get second, you're going to play second fiddle on what is the kind of the strategic purpose and the
13:17focus of the companies. And I think Lime would do worse, it will be easier to cash out. But that's
13:23not the reason why people do a company like Lime. And so I just I believe in the future. And
13:30I think the
13:30best way to realize our full potential was to stay alone, stay as an independent company.
13:37And you, you know, you mentioned that you went through a major personal struggle that you wanted
13:42to talk about. You had a stroke getting into the IPL. I mean, what a life challenge to deal with
13:51on top
13:51of, you know, very demanding job. How did you, first of all, I'm glad that you're improving and you're on
13:58the path to recovery. But how did you juggle, you know, having a stroke with IPO readiness plans?
14:05Yeah, so I, I think folks, I have still a bit of a trouble walking. So I suffered a
14:11pretty life threatening stroke. At this point, two years ago, I had to go through two brain surgeries.
14:18And I was in a wheelchair for months. And, and I think a lot of my job is thinking on
14:25my feet,
14:25like, information is coming my way, and I have to react. And it's hard to do that when you're,
14:31frankly, suffering from severe brain damage. And I don't know, I, I, I, you can't tell.
14:38Sorry, you can't tell. I appreciate that. I, I can tell. And I still feel like whenever,
14:44especially in events like this, I see all the, all the ways I'm not where I used to be. But
14:50I'm very
14:50lucky that I'm even having a chance to sit here versus, um, versus being dead. And I would say,
14:57like, one of the things that when I was in the hospital, I was Googling, trying to see who,
15:01what are the other CEOs have gone through a life changing, like health crisis, and certainly a
15:07stroke. And I couldn't find another example. And there, I know there's absolutely CEOs have gone
15:14through this. And not many people have publicly talked about it. And I actually remember resolving
15:20that I want to make sure if I'm healthy enough to be at an event like this, that I talk
15:25about
15:25my own health struggles. And I think a lot of this comes from, especially in Silicon Valley,
15:29you want to be hardcore. You can't just be pumped. You have to be super pumped.
15:34Showing weakness and showing that you're a human is, frankly, not the image that a lot of CEOs want to
15:42portray. And I just wish when I was in the hospital, there was somebody that I could reach out to.
15:46And certainly if you ever suffer a health issue, feel free to reach out to me. And I remember the
15:52hardest moment was just when you're in a hospital bed, I can't, I don't know how I'm going to get
15:58out of this moment. Certainly IPO preparation was the last thing on my mind, but just focusing on the
16:05things that I can get better today, the next day, I think about limes where we are, where we are,
16:12because it's a game of inches every single day. If you can improve 1%, 2% on your operations over
16:18the
16:19course of a year, you're going to be in a very different spot than your competitors. And that's
16:23certainly what it felt like going through my own stroke recovery. Just like, I just need to be 1%
16:30better
16:31tomorrow. And hopefully in a year, I'll be sitting here with Katie Ruth.
16:37Oh, well, it's impressive. But did you ever have a moment where you're like, this is too much? I
16:45need to step aside. Obviously, you made it happen. But did you have any like doubts when you're going
16:51through such a giant personal struggle?
16:53Well, of course, and I think the biggest challenge that I was dealing with was that
16:59I also want to make sure I'm not doing this out of my own ego. Like if I'm not the
17:04right person to
17:05run to manage Lyme, the right thing is for me to step aside and have somebody take the company through
17:11an IPO. And it's hard when you're in the middle of it to see it clearly. And I'm not even
17:18quite sure if I
17:19fully saw clearly, but I was constantly asking myself, am I still the right person? If I'm not,
17:24I actually, it's not even like my own health. I think for the employees, for the shareholders,
17:28for the people that rely on me, the best thing for me is to step aside.
17:34I did think at some point, I felt healthy enough to come back full time and to do the IPO.
17:41But even at
17:42the beginning of this year, I just wasn't sure I had the stamina, the energy. Because when you're on an
17:46IPO,
17:46you're like going meeting after meeting, you're on the road talking to investors. And if you don't
17:54have the right energy, it's kind of like putting on a high school play. Every show you need to be,
17:59you need to like put on your jazz hands. And I want to make sure if I was going to
18:05go do it,
18:06that I am the best person to tell that story. And at some point, I felt healthy enough when I
18:11was like,
18:11I think I am the best person to tell this story. I think Lime's story and my story feels
18:18linked in many ways. And part of what Lime has been able to achieve is not giving up
18:24when it wasn't clear if we were ever going to be profitable. Certainly during the pandemic,
18:29our revenues were down 95%. And when lots of companies were not surviving through the pandemic,
18:35I think our resilience was part of our story. And I felt like maybe in some ways, me showing that
18:43same resilience actually amplified the kind of key strings that Lime wanted to tell in the IPO.
18:49So you've been public for three months. What's the biggest change to being a public CEO versus being
18:57a private CEO? You know, what's anything surprise you or anything, anything feel different? You know,
19:04waking up, seeing that ticker and that, that moving stock. Yep. So I would say like the, that's
19:10definitely one, every public company CEO's advice was like, don't check your stock. Like, don't look
19:16at it. And then they all check it every day. And I check it every day as well. It's hard
19:20not to look at
19:21it, but then you have to manage your own emotions because it's easy to believe that the daily
19:27fluctuations is a reflection of your own self-worth and the company's success. Definitely not a
19:33reflection of your self-worth. Yeah. And sometimes it is oftentimes the macro environment, the,
19:44the president, something else is moving to stock. So that's one, I think, big challenge. And from a
19:50employee morale perspective, how do you keep the main thing, the main thing, how do you make sure
19:55that companies still focus on, um, our mission and building a great business when there's this
20:02stock that goes up and down? So I think that's one change. The second one is the quarterly cadence
20:08is a very, I think there's lots of good arguments for why it's not the best cadence to run a
20:15company
20:16because most of the time you don't have anything new to share every three months. But when you're a
20:20publicly traded company, you need to have a quarterly earnings call. You need to like deliver some sort
20:25of new thing, some sort of breakthrough every three months. And it forces you to act in a slightly shorter
20:31cadence than I was used to as a private company. And then there are lots of things that feels the
20:38same,
20:38like the core of this business, great operations, great government relations, we need, and, and hard,
20:46great hardware, great software. That feels like it hasn't changed. But then this quarterly cadence,
20:51the daily moving stock price are definitely new things I'm getting used to.
20:56All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Great chatting with you.
21:00Thank you. Really appreciate it.