Lyft went public six weeks before Uber in 2019 and rose on its first day while Uber fell. Today Uber is worth about 143 billion dollars and Lyft about 6.4 billion, roughly 22 times apart. This film follows both companies from a snowy night in Paris and a carpool site for students, through the funding war, the 2017 crisis that cost Travis Kalanick his job, the IPOs, the pandemic layoffs and the road to profit, using company filings and major outlets. Market values are as of October 19, 2026.
Sources: Uber and Lyft Q2 2026 results releases (Aug 5 and Aug 6, 2026) and SEC filings; Uber and Lyft IPO pricing releases (2019); Uber newsroom, "Uber's Founding" (Dec 22, 2010); Andreessen Horowitz, "It's Time for Lyft Off" (Mar 23, 2013); Susan Fowler (Feb 19, 2017); the Holder Report (June 2017); Bloomberg Second Measure; Reuters, AP, CNBC, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, BBC, NPR, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reporting (2013 to 2026); StockAnalysis, StatMuse and CompaniesMarketCap market data. Company claims are attributed in the film.
Photo credits: Garrett Camp: Joi Ito, CC BY 2.0. Travis Kalanick, 2014: cellanr, CC BY-SA 2.0. Travis Kalanick at LeWeb: Heisenberg Media, CC BY 2.0. Logan Green, 2013: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0. Logan Green and John Zimmer: Zimride, CC BY-SA 2.0. Dara Khosrowshahi, 2019: The Presidential Office of Ukraine, CC BY 4.0. David Risher: Web Summit, CC BY 4.0. Phillip Burton Federal Building: Sam Wheeler, CC BY-SA 3.0. New York Stock Exchange: Arild Våg, CC BY-SA 4.0. Public Investment Fund logo: CC BY-SA 4.0. Uber, Lyft, GV and Andreessen Horowitz logos: public domain. All via Wikimedia Commons. Logos are trademarks of their owners, shown for news commentary.
Some scenes are illustrative AI generated visuals, which are depictions and not real footage. No generated faces of named people.
