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Lyft

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The profile

Lyft's revenue fell 35 percent in 2020, to $2.36 billion, and unlike Uber it had no delivery business to make up the difference. It took no PPP loan. Its drivers, independent contractors filing Schedule C, were the sole proprietors PPP and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance were extended to cover. Lyft steered them to federal benefits in 2020, which meant federal taxpayers rather than Lyft paid their unemployment, and in March 2021 it partnered with Bluevine on a PPP application for drivers. Lyft's own relief spending, as it described it, came to $6.5 million.

  • Type: Ride-hailing and micromobility (bikes/scooters) platform. Public company, NASDAQ: LYFT.
  • Legal entity: Lyft, Inc. (Delaware C-corp, headquartered in San Francisco).
  • Founded: Launched as Lyft in 2012 (out of Zimride, founded 2007) by Logan Green and John Zimmer.
  • Leadership through the pandemic: Logan Green (CEO) and John Zimmer (President); David Risher became CEO in April 2023.

In the archive

Before the pandemic (2012–early 2020)

Lyft entered 2020 as a newly public company built around U.S. ride-hailing plus a bikes-and-scooters arm (company filings). It had gone public in 2019, pricing its shares at $72 and raising more than $2 billion, TechCrunch reported, and had promised investors adjusted profitability heading into 2020. Like Uber, it classified drivers as independent contractors.

What the pandemic did to the business

Lyft's revenue fell $1.3 billion, or 35 percent, in 2020, from $3.62 billion to $2.36 billion, "driven primarily by a decrease in the number of Active Riders beginning in March 2020 and continuing throughout 2020 due to the implementation of travel restrictions and extensive social distancing measures," its annual report says. The net loss was $1.75 billion, against $2.60 billion in 2019. Insurance costs fell $371.7 million, driven in part by lower ride volume.

Relief: none for Lyft, some for its drivers

SBA's loan-level file of PPP loans of $150,000 or more lists no loan to Lyft, and no PPP-fraud finding or relief-fraud action names the company. Smaller loans in the same data went to drivers: eight loans, totaling $78,508, were made to borrowers named "Lyft" who gave the company's headquarters at 185 Berry Street in San Francisco as their address. Each reported one job and a sole-proprietor, independent-contractor or self-employed business type, and all eight were forgiven. The data do not say who the borrowers were.

On April 1, 2020, Lyft published "How the CARES Act can help drivers." It walked independent-contractor drivers through Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (up to 39 weeks plus $600 a week), the $1,200 stimulus payments, self-employed sick-leave tax credits, and SBA loans. The page named no lender and pointed to SBA.gov.

Lyft paid nothing into California's unemployment fund for drivers it classified as contractors. When the state sent gig drivers to federal PUA in April 2020, KQED reported, the benefits came from federal taxpayers instead. Lyft's annual report for 2020 lists unemployment-insurance audits over driver classification in California, Connecticut, Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois and New Jersey; Lyft said it would "vigorously contest any adverse assessment."

By March 2021 Bluevine was offering Lyft drivers "a digital Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application built specifically for them." Bluevine said many drivers had been eligible in the first round but "struggled or didn't apply." Bluevine's deposit accounts ran through Coastal Community Bank.

What Lyft paid for itself

In a March 19, 2020 note to drivers, Lyft offered funds to any driver diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed under individual quarantine by a public health agency, calculated on the rides the driver had given over the prior four weeks. It said it would suspend riders or drivers known to have tested positive, and handed out free hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies. CNN reported in April 2020 on the payout range and on drivers' difficulty qualifying.

On March 20, 2020 Lyft activated LyftUp, its access-program brand, for COVID-19, donating ride credits for essential trips through United Way Worldwide / 211, the National Council on Aging, Team Rubicon and World Central Kitchen. On April 20 it put a number on the response: a $6.5 million commitment. Nearly $1.5 million went to cleaning supplies and protective equipment for drivers, including more than 35,000 sanitizing products already handed out and hundreds of thousands of cloth face coverings on order, and $1.5 million to LyftUp ride credits. The rest covered the driver assistance funds. Lyft also waived fees and reduced rental rates in its Express Drive car-rental program, gave essential workers free bikes and scooters in 11 markets, and said the co-founders had donated their salaries through June.

"Essential Deliveries," launched April 15, 2020, let drivers opt in to make contact-free deliveries of meals, groceries and medical supplies across 11 markets, with partners including Dole and local food banks. Organizations, not individuals, requested the deliveries, and drivers were paid as for standard rides.

Its largest stated commitment came December 22, 2020: a Universal Vaccine Access campaign with JPMorgan Chase, Anthem and United Way, with a stated goal of 60 million rides to and from vaccination sites for low-income and at-risk communities. In May 2021 Lyft and Uber joined a White House initiative offering free rides to vaccination sites.

Proposition 22 and the classification cases

On May 5, 2020, California's Attorney General and the city attorneys of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco sued Lyft and Uber, alleging that they misclassified drivers as contractors in violation of Assembly Bill 5 and California's Unfair Competition Law. The state Labor Commissioner filed its own suits on August 5, and on August 10 the court granted a preliminary injunction, which Lyft's annual report describes as "forcing us and Uber to reclassify drivers in California as employees."

Lyft funded California's Proposition 22 alongside Uber, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates. The measure, which kept app-based drivers classified as contractors, passed November 3, 2020; Ballotpedia puts Lyft's contribution at about $49 million. In November 2020 Lyft formed the App-Based Work Alliance with the same companies. In Massachusetts, the committee backing a 2022 app-based driver ballot initiative reported $17.8 million of contributions in 2021; its largest donor was Lyft, with nearly $14.4 million in cash and in-kind contributions, Ballotpedia News reported.

Massachusetts's Attorney General sued Lyft and Uber on July 14, 2020 under the state's wage and hour laws. In the June 2024 settlement Lyft agreed to pay $27 million and Uber $148 million, most of it restitution to drivers, and to pay drivers at least $32.50 an hour for time spent driving to and carrying passengers. The settlement took no position on classification, WBUR reported, and the companies agreed to stop funding a ballot question that would have defined drivers as contractors.

Layoffs

On April 29, 2020 Lyft said it would lay off 982 employees, 17 percent of its workforce, furlough 288 more and cut pay, and put the restructuring charge at $28 million to $36 million. How Lyft handled layoffs →

After the pandemic (2021–present)

Lyft stayed a rides-and-micromobility company. On March 27, 2023 it said both founders would step down from their executive roles, and David Risher, a former Amazon executive, became CEO in April. The founders left the board on August 14, 2025.

Revenue fell from $3.62 billion in 2019 to $2.36 billion in 2020 and reached $6.32 billion in 2025. Lyft had an operating loss in every year from 2019 through 2025 ($188 million in 2025); its 2025 net income of $2.84 billion came with an income-tax benefit of $2.90 billion. Cash from operations turned positive in 2024 ($850 million) and was $1.17 billion in 2025. Lyft counted 945.5 million rides in 2025 and gross bookings of $18.5 billion. In July 2025 it bought Intelligent Apps GmbH, which runs the European taxi app Freenow, entering nine countries, and in October 2025 it bought TBR Global Chauffeuring. Lyft had 3,913 full-time employees at the end of 2025, against 5,683 employees at the end of 2019 (Forms 10-K for 2019 and 2025).

Since 2025

Public company, NASDAQ: LYFT, with David Risher as CEO.

  • Logan Green — co-founder and pandemic-era CEO
  • John Zimmer — co-founder and pandemic-era President
  • Uber — the ride-hailing peer with a parallel driver-assistance record and a delivery arm Lyft lacked
  • Bluevine — Lyft drivers' PPP application partner in 2021
  • App-Based Work Alliance — advocacy group Lyft formed with Uber, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates in November 2020.

Sources

Primary documents in this archive

External references

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