The Press Box - Ep. 129: 'The Ringer Tech Podcast' With Molly McHugh and Victor Luckerson

Episode Date: June 10, 2016

The Ringer's Molly McHugh talks to former Taxi Magic founder George Arison about making one of the first ride-hailing apps (5:00), Harry Campbell, 'The Rideshare Guy,' about the culture and business behind Lyft and Uber (17:00), Victor Luckerson about self-driving cars (32:00), and transportation advocate Sunday Parker about her optimism for autonomous cars (42:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, welcome to The Ringer Tech Podcast. It is still unnamed. If you have an idea for a name, please let me know. Hit me up on Twitter or find us on the ringer.com. Let us know. We need a name. Today we're talking about the future of transportation, everything from Uber and Lyft to buying cars,

how that's going to be different. And then, of course, driverless car technology. First, we're talking to George Erison, the founder of Taxi Magic and Shift. When Apple came out with the iPhone, we got an app on the iPhone, and that app had, you know, tens of thousands of downloads in the first day when it was released into the app store because it was completely magical. I mean, like the feedback on the technology was incredible. We're also talking to Harry Campbell, who is the ride chair guy, and he has a ton of insider knowledge and tips on the ride chairing industry. People are even starting to ditch their cars to take Uber and Lyft because, you know, according to AAA, actually, the average cost to own and operate a vehicle in the U.S. is $8,000. Then we're talking to Sunday Parker, who is a transportation advocate living in the Bay Area.

She is a disabled person who documents her commute on public transit every day, and she also has a lot of interesting things to say about what driverless technology is going to mean for disabled people. It actually can be the greatest thing for someone with a disability just because maybe they were able to do something that they weren't able to do before, and that's through technology. But first, we're joined by staff writer for the ringer, Victor Luckerson. Victor, how's it going? Hey, Molly. How are you doing?

Good. How are you? I'm great. So I know you just went across town to get into the podcast studio. Did you take an Uber or Lyft? I did the subway. Did it the old-fashioned way because I live right next to a subway track. Okay, fair enough. So when you do decide between the two, are you like more of an Uber user or more of a Lyft user?

I usually pick based on who has the best deals because they're both so aggressive in offering promotions, especially Lyft since they're, I guess, trailing Uber in most markets. So if I can get a Lyft deal, I'll do that. But I guess the Uber app has a few better features. And all my friends who come to New York always want to use Uber. So when they're friends in town, which is when I Uber the most, we're doing that one for sure. Yeah, what is that? Is that just, you know, they have better marketing so everybody hears about them or something?

It's become like the term for ride sharing. You use it like as a verb. I'm going to Uber this. It was in a Drake song. So, I mean, I knew they had arrived at that point. I mean, I think the user experience is a little bit. better on Uber and there's a few more features on it and it definitely expands the more markets faster. So I think which everyone sort of gets to the place first is going to often be the one that

people gravitate towards. Right. So you probably never drive because you're in the city. You're in New York City, right? Right. I have a car in Montgomery, Alabama where I'm from, but I haven't used it regularly in four years. I really thought you're going to say you have a car there that you keep parked somewhere.

No, that sounds like a nightmare. Do you miss driving or do you not care at all? I don't care, but I think I don't care because New York is such a great place for public transportation. I think if I lived in another place without a car, like when I have friends who live in places in the South, for instance, and the cars break down, it's like their lives are in chaos for a long time. Totally. That's not really an issue you do with New York. So I think if I lived somewhere else, I'd miss the car, but living here, I don't really miss it at all. Right.

I guess that makes sense. So do you ever, when was the last time you actually called a cab, a, you know, old-fashioned traditional? yellow cab? I mean, I do a mixture, honestly. I'm not... Like, go outside and hail a cab? Yeah, cabs are so relatively easy to get in New York City. So I will often, especially if I'm, like, not with friends who are out of town, sort of trying

to coordinate stuff. I'm trying to get home. I still try kind of like doing it the old-fashioned way. But I've been a mixture. I guess as time has gone on, I've done more and more of the Uberring versus the cab. But I would say I'm still Team Yellow Cab overall. Sure. It's my desperation move when it's like...

2 a.m. or something on a really popular night to get home and every single Uber is an hour wait or something. I'll stand out there and wait. It usually comes in handy. Right. I mean, another huge issue here is a surge pricing because I think, especially in extremely popular market, search pricing is like extremely common for Uber. So usually I'm trying to get it, it's going to be like 1.5 to 2x, whereas a cab is going to be a standard rate. So that's another incentive to go through the extra effort to hail a cab. That's totally true. All right, so now we're going to talk to a guy named George Arison who had a company called Taxi Magic way back before there were even iPhones. And it was this strange ride sharing meets cab system hybrid.

And we're going to talk to him about what it was like to have an app that was just a little bit ahead of its time when it comes to transportation. I'm now joined by George Arison, who previously co-founded a ride-haling app that predates Uber and Lyft. George, can you tell me about the origin of how you came to you. to develop taxi magic? So the story of taxi magic was, you know, back in the day, before 2007, the only way to get a taxi was to call a cab company in your particular city, and they would tell you where do you want the cap to show up, you'd give them the address, and then I'd say, okay, great, if the cab doesn't show up in 15 minutes, give us a call back.

Like, that was the experience everywhere in the country. And we sort of created a different way of doing that. Most cab companies in large cities use a dispatch system of some sorts to manage the vehicles from going to location to location. And we thought that there was a way to build an integration into those dispatch systems to be able to connect the dispatch directly to the consumer. And so we put an app on a BlackBerry, which at that point was a primary smartphone. Again, it's not that much. No, amazing. People used to use them all the time.

No, that's totally how it was back then. Yep. And so we put an app on a BlackBerry that allowed you. to book a taxi and that app then connected to a, you know, obviously our servers and then to the dispatch systems at cap companies to dispatch a ride to the customer. And then we also enabled the functionality of getting, you know, an update about where the car was. And so, well, the update wasn't as awesome as when you now have an Uber and Lyft where you kind of see exactly where the car is.

You still could get kind of a basic sense. Okay, the cab is X number of minutes away. And here's the latest GPS location on the cab, things like that. So that was kind of the product we created. We actually came at it not just from the point of view of looking at taxi, but also paying for a taxi. So the idea was, can you try to create a non-cash way of paying for a cab because drivers didn't want to take anything but cash? And so we built this company, you know, starting in early 2007. And so we were very much ahead of the curve, I think, you know, native apps as such did not exist back then.

It was very uncommon. and definitely no one did anything like kind of using mobile for on-demand service. We were probably the first company to do that. In some ways, being the first mover, hurt us because we got stuck in a model that was very hard to innovate on. So, you know, we built a really amazing company. And, you know, when Apple came out with the iPhone, we got an app on the iPhone and that app had, you know, tens of thousands of downloads in the first day when it was released into the

app store because it was completely magical. I mean, like, the feedback on the technology was incredible. But it made us very tied to the cap companies. Sure. And, you know, there was a huge dependency there, obviously, since we were using their systems for booking the taxi and for paying for the taxi. And the way that worked, it was very hard to get out of that once it became clear that something else was needed. And cutting out the cab companies would have just pissed them off and cannibalized taxi magic, right?

Yeah. And that, I think, is actually like the most amazing thing about it. Uber is that Uber was willing to cannibalize its black car business in order to go after the peer-to-peer kind of Lyft-style model, right? Because the true innovator in this space is Lyft. Lyft is the one that invented the idea of any random person getting into their car and driving somebody around for on-demand ground travel. Uber then copied that, but in doing that, they were willing to kind of destroy their black car business and transfer to this business that was clearly much bigger opportunity, but also lower margin.

Do you wonder what it would have been like if Taxi Magic launched in like 2008, 2009? Yeah, it would have been really interesting. I mean, I think, you know, the best you can guess of what it would have been like is if you look at Asia, I think Get Taxi is sort of the best example. Like, I was in Indonesia this December, and we used Get Taxi to book a taxi. And the experience is very much like what Taxi Magic experience was like. and what Uber's experiences like, except that an actual cab showed up and picked us up

and took us to the restaurant. And so I think we could have expected something similar to the U.S. I mean, ultimately, quite honestly, I think what Uber and Lyft have done is incredible. It has kind of created a completely new way for freelancers to work. And I think that's awesome because it creates new opportunities for people, right? That can be, you know, how many drivers I meet are like,

oh, yeah, I'm a photographer, and I just use this as extra way of making money, or I'm a yoga instructor and I use this as an extra way of making money, I think it's really facilitated a lot of people towards being able to do what they really want to do and use this as a substitute source of income because whatever it is that they love doing isn't giving them enough money to be able to live on. So I think that's incredible. It's very revolutionary, and I think it should be applauded. So I don't at all think it's a bad thing that Uber and Lyft have been successful. I actually really admire. because that's exactly what sort of entrepreneurship should be about.

And, you know, the traditional taxi model wasn't a good model. It was a monopoly or a biopoly created by the state because the licensing requirements were completely useless. And, you know, 50, 100 years ago, somebody was able to get these licenses into their hands. And then that was it. It was a totally kind of state-created business. And so you have to really admire what Lyft and Uber have done and I certainly do. So where was Taxi Magic based?

Were you New York or were you in San Jose? Actually, neither. We were based in Alexandria, Virginia. Oh, all right. So, you know, that was where I lived in D.C. and all the other founders of the company either were from, you know, Northern Virginia or moved to the area when we got the company started. There was kind of just purely based on location. And there was definitely some benefits to being in that area.

There are also some detriments, right? If you are not in Silicon Valley as a company, I think you don't get the benefit of the kind of peer group and learning from that peer group because all the other companies that are doing something very innovative are most likely based in the Bay Area. And so here you kind of see that. You interact with other people who work at these other companies. You know, as an example I often like to use is Yelp. Yelp was very much an up-and-comer back in the day when Tax Imaguer was getting started. there was very logical interconnection between their business and our business. And had we both been in the same location, you know, you could have seen a possibility of

us working together to do something awesome for the users. But because we didn't have that, it was not something that we fought about doing. And so, you know, when I decided to, there was a bunch of different reasons why I left Taxi Magic in 2010, but I knew that I was going to do another company. I mean, I very much believe in myself as a kind of entrepreneur. wanted to do another company at some point, I was certain that I wanted to do that on the West Coast in San Francisco Bay Area because I think it's a much harder task to do a startup, you know, somewhere else versus versus here.

Sure. So now you're the co-founder and CEO of Shift, an app and online peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling use cars. Can you explain to me how that works? Yeah. Shift is basically, so when you think about buying a car, there's really two ways to go about doing it. You can go buy a car from a dealer.

Right. You can buy a car private party from another individual. Shift is changing how that second part of the experience happens, meaning if you're buying a car from an ever individual, how would you go about doing it? So if you're a seller that wants to get rid of a car, you go to shift, you submit some information on your car, and we automatically price that car for you with a very accurate pricing algorithm. Then if you want to give us that car to help you sell it,

we actually come to you, pick up the car, take it to our warehouse, where we do all the reconditioning that that car might require. We detail the car. We do a mechanical inspection on the car to make sure it's in really good condition. And we take photos of the car and then post those photos on our website and our mobile app for the car for sale. And then when the buyer wants to see the car, we actually deliver the car to the buyer for a test drive.

But during that whole process, at no point do we own the vehicle. So there is no added cost that we carry in terms of inventory. And, you know, there's no location that a person can come to to see the car. So we don't have a showroom and we don't have this massive amount of real estate that a traditional dealership model has. And so our cost structure is significantly lower than a traditional dealership model, which allows us to give the seller much more money than they would if they traded a car in at a dealer and allows us to offer the buyer a much lower price than they would if they bought a car from a dealer. So it is this like full stack experience for car purchasing through a marketplace model. I kind of think of it as like Airbnb and Uber model for car buying and car selling. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much. This was great. I really appreciate it. It's very interesting to like hear how you've gone from taxi magic to shift. But I really appreciate your time. This was really fun. Thank you. Great.

Great. Thanks a lot, George. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like. like George's idea was really, really good. And it honestly kind of like sounds like the honest version of a lot of these ride-sharing apps we're dealing with now because, you know, they went directly to the taxis. But do you think if something like that had launched before Uber, but like at the right time, it would have succeeded? I mean, I think Uber is definitely a right place, right time kind of situation. I feel like a lot of people when they see the new valuations for

Uber, I think they're above $60 billion now. Your first thought is I could have thought of that. That's like not that crazy of an idea. But they really hit the right moment when. smartphone penetration had gone really high. And this user experience on Uber is honestly really good. So I think it's kind of that mixture. I mean, I think doing that kind of thing on a Blackberry just sounds like a little bit more of a hassle versus an iPhone. I think it's also kind of interesting that the cab companies still weren't really in it. Like he had this idea to work with them and he still had a lot of resistance.

So it kind of feels like I don't know if it's true, but unless somebody came in and just totally disrupted that entire. system, there is going to be so much tension with like the old school way of doing this. Right. I mean, there's also the issue of scale, right? Because maybe in New York, if you had an app that could have done Uber type of thing, that would make sense. But if you're going somewhere like Atlanta or I'm from in Montgomery and there's no cabs anyway, that's not even going to work with the original taxi system.

So definitely the ride sharing portion that I guess Lyft innovated first, he said, and Uber brought later brings you a lot more scale than traditional taxis have. Yeah. I'm honestly much, I'm much more excited. about shift than his new business. Buying a car is just, it's the worst thing in the world. Like, getting a taxi can be annoying, but it doesn't fall under, like, worse days ever kind of a thing as buying a car does.

If that actually works, that sounds great. Oh, yeah, that could be, like, actual, like, life-changing kind of thing. So after I heard that, I was interested in checking, learning more about it, for sure. Yeah, I would, that sounds like a better way to buy a car. Every car buying experience I've had is just a painful, painful day. Right. Well, we're going to talk to Harry Campbell, who is the ride share guy. He used to drive Uber Lyft way back in the day.

Still does occasionally, but he has kind of become this guru of how to do ride sharing from the driver perspective. Has like a lot of tips and insider information, super knowledgeable about what's going on with the laws all over the country. So let's chat with him really quick and try and get a better idea of what's kind of going on with ride sharing. now. Now I'm joined by Harry Campbell, who runs the website the ridechair guy. How's going? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

Before we start, can you kind of explain ride share guy? Sure, definitely. So I'm founder and CEO of a blog called The Ride Share Guy and basically what I do is provide lots of tips and practical information for anyone looking to work in the on-demand economy, primarily as Uber and Lyft drivers. And then we also cover basically anything that's really going on in the industry itself. And you used to be a driver, right? Yeah, I actually signed up as an Uber and Lyft driver two years ago, and I'm still an active driver,

although now I do spend most of my free time and all of my time working on the blog. But I do go out there from time to time when I am bored or when I want to just kind of stay up to date with the app and see what's going on. I'm sure that you have a crazy story because every driver does. What's like the most insane thing that when you were driving more often ever happened? I mean, so I did have this one guy who was like obviously pretty drunk. And I mean, I drove in Southern California and that's where I live in just south of Los Angeles. So, you know, there are a lot of people obviously drinking and partying in general. And this, I think, was like a weekend out in Newport Beach. And I think this guy must have been dared by his friends or something. But he ended up like,

I looked back and he had his shirt off. And then he started taking his pants off and he got out of the car while We were at a red light and walked around, like, not walked, ran around the car and then got back in and acted like nothing had happened. And I think like his friends had dared him or something like that. But it was just kind of strange because he just didn't say anything and acted like nothing had happened. Did you say anything? No, I was kind of, that was like my first week of driving. So I was really weirded out. And I didn't know if this was like a common occurrence or something.

That's really awful. That's horrible. Well, okay. So then that kind of helps me ask. I wanted to know a little bit about raiding passengers. So, like, is that a guy who's going to get a bad rating or, you know, because I assume drivers kind of take that pretty seriously. Yeah, definitely. And I think that especially when you're first starting, I mean, drivers really, you know, a lot of those types of situations almost make for the best stories.

But once you kind of start seeing those, you know, that has never, nothing like that has ever happened to me. But more of the small stuff starts happening over and over like passengers start bringing it, you know, try to bring a beer into your car for like the 50th time. and you just can't take it anymore. And you're like, dude, you got to stop bringing beers into my car, right? Right. That's when I think drivers start to get a little jaded and they start rating lower for things like that. So yeah, definitely for drivers, I mean, that's really their only recourse is to rate passengers

lower for ones that kind of, you know, that they don't have a good experience with. Are there more drivers now, too, than they're, I mean, like I would assume. I feel like I see them more, but more people who are driving full time. Definitely. So I think the latest official number that Uber released was in the 4 to 500,000 Uber driver range in the U.S. And, you know, actually a majority of those drivers only work 10 hours or less. So a majority of Uber drivers in the U.S. are using it kind of in that part-time here and there.

You know, it may they only be doing two to three hours a week or maybe some weeks. They just drive weekends. And it's actually a minority of drivers that work full-time 30 to 40 hours a week. But those minority, you know, those 15 or 25 percent of drivers that do work 40 to 50 hours a week. So studies have actually shown, and I've kind of confirmed it with my own data, that those drivers actually work a majority of the total hours worked. So it's kind of interesting because, you know, those small drivers are doing a lot of hours on the road, basically. Okay. And it's also interesting to see how many kind of like side crop businesses are coming up because of ride sharing. Like I just remember

when I was living in the Bay Area and I had a car, which was kind of unusual. I was taking an Uber at some point and the driver was just like, oh, if you don't use your car that much, you should rent it out to an Uber driver. And they'll use it kind of like as part of their fleet. And he was talking about how he buys a lot of cars and then he rents them to Uber drivers and he has this like, you know, mini Uber fleet business going on. How common is stuff like that? Like are there people who are, you know, making these kind of businesses within Uber and

and Lyft and other services? Right. There are a lot of people who are solving what I like to call. A lot of these small problems, right? Something small. Like a driver needs to get on the road and they may not have the best credit or may they not have whatever. And so they go to one of these fleet owners who can provide them a vehicle and they might have 10 vehicles under their fleet. And they might know a lot about cars and can get great deals on buying and selling cars.

And then they come out cheap to drivers. And those are the stories that you probably don't hear about talked about a lot. But yeah, there are a ton of those like micro businesses out there that are really kind of popped up just. because of how big Uber and Lyft have gotten. And when you start talking about it like that, they don't sound that different from the consumer perspective than a cab business. No, and to be honest, to be frank, like, you know, when Uber and Lyft first started, it was really that model, your friend with a car, right?

You were having lots of people like me who had full-time good-paying jobs going out and picking you up. And over time, I mean, Uber and Lyft both have a big problem with retention. They both announced that they actually, half of their drivers quit after one year. And so how many drivers they're losing and also how many more drivers they're hiring every year, there's a lot of churn and a lot of new drivers. And I think that really what we're seeing anecdotally at least is that in a lot of cases, like the model, you know, inherently you still are going to be able to use an app. You're still going to be able to pay with a credit card.

So it'll never be like that when you think about taxis. But yeah, a lot of the drivers, you know, really are, you know, they're kind of almost reaching a little bit more of the bottom of the barrel and kind of having to reach farther and wider for drivers. and that may affect the experience, right, and may hurt the experience. And you have people who can't finance their own cars. Now they have to go to people where they pay $500 a week for a car or they pay a couple hundred dollars a week for a car.

And that's really identically the same as the old taxi model. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out for sure. Yeah. I mean, we're kind of starting to see them reaching a point here where we're going to have to start making decisions about whether this is basically just the new, you know, futurized version of the taxicab industry with all these legal battles over contracted workers and unionizing. They've both been investing in driverless technology and what I, everyone kind of is who's in the technology and car industry in some ways looking at like, okay, how do we do this?

Do you have any sort of like quantifiable way you see that playing out? Like how exactly Uber and Lyft would use driver technology that you can kind of like give us a picture. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. No, I mean, this is something that's obviously I've studied a lot and it's very important to drivers and just the industry in general. And you can see that by the companies that are investing. I mean, it seems like every company in tech and every car man, even the car manufacturers who traditionally have been very slow, you know, usually Fortune 500 companies are slow to adapt to change, right? And they're the ones who, you know, they're like, oh,

wow, the internet. Where did that come from, right? And all these companies that kind of, you know, weren't thinking these things were a fad. But what we've seen is really that a lot of automakers, a lot of tech companies are really seeing kind of what the future is coming, right? I mean, these self-driving cars. If you've been in a Tesla lately, today, these cars can basically drive themselves on the freeway already. And it's actually the software that prohibits the driverless cars from doing more, kind of for more legal reasons and things like that. So I think it's definitely happening sooner rather than later. But for companies like Uber and Lyft, I think the big thing for them is that the difference between a Tesla and like what they're after is that they need

completely autonomous cars, right? As long as a driver is still in the car, they have to pay them, right? So a driverless car like a Tesla, a self-driving car like a Tesla that 99.9% of the time can self-draft still doesn't do Uber and Lyft much good because for that 0.1% of time that they would need a driver in, you know, to take over or whatever happens. They still need a driver sitting there all the time, right? The passenger won't take over. So I think in that sand, Uber and Lyft are really much more after the completely driving cars and looking at that as a way to kind of take away their number one expense right now. I mean, they're already higher independent contractors instead of W-2 employees. And you can imagine the next step for them

is kind of getting rid of the driver to save even further and bring the cost down even more for passengers. There is going to be this really interesting transition period where Uber and Lyft are growing, right? They were at 100,000 drivers two years ago, and now they're at 400,000, and now they're at 500,000, and they're only scaling up, right? And more and more people are taking Uber and Lyft. And kind of like we talked about earlier, people are even starting to ditch their cars to take Uber and Lyft, because, you know, according to AAA, actually, the average cost to own and operate a vehicle in the U.S. is $8,000. So imagine once Uber and Lyft can kind of get to that price point where it's cheaper than owning a car, why would anyone ever own a car, right?

And so they're really going to be relying on their drivers more and more. Yet, as we go further into the future, their self-driving car technology is going to be adapting more and more, right? So you're going to start seeing these self-driving cars come onto the road when Uber and Lyft need drivers the most. And if I'm a driver, you know, it's kind of like, hey, the writing's on the wall. My worker is now a self-driving car. Am I still going to want to do this? Am I still going to want to invest any time or any money in learning this craft that may be gone in six to 12 months? The idea of not having a car to drive myself in at all other times would just drive me insane.

That said, like, for getting around in short distances in metro areas, I'm completely reliant on ride sharing. But obviously, if those were run by driverless pods that came and picked me up at the press of an app, I'd totally still be using it happily. So, yeah, it'll be super interesting to see what that looks like. And I don't know, six years, five years? It's really hard to say. When you learn or when you read a news story that a self-driving car got into an accident, right? Even if there's only five accidents a year and humans are causing 50,000 accidents, when those first few self-driving car accidents do happen, I think it's going to cause a lot of fear in people and kind of that fear of change and fear of unknown. And so I do think there are going to be big regulatory battles.

And that's what we're seeing along all the transportation fronts with things like Hyperloop and a lot of these really cool services. there's a lot of regulatory battles that happen in the U.S. And most likely we probably actually see kind of these future technologies developed outside or developed in the U.S. but implemented outside somewhere that's more friendly to businesses, basically. Yeah. And it's going to be a state-to-state battle too, just like Uber and Lyft have been, which just means taking a lot longer and people breaking laws. So are the driver communities pretty tight?

You know, I think the biggest thing is that, you know, kind of the unique thing with driving is that you do have a lot of interaction. When you first starting up to drive, you have a lot of interaction with your passengers, right, which is really cool. But at the same time, you don't have any interaction with other drivers unless you actively seek it. And I think that's a big challenge for drivers because, you know, let's say you start working at a new company as a regular employee. We needed to fill out your timesheet. We needed to figure out where a building is or how something works. You're not going to go read like a thousand page employee handbook, right? You're just going to ask your coworker, hey, how do I do this? Right. Something that's a lot more informal.

Totally. And so for drivers, the ones who kind of are out there doing it on their own, they're probably struggling a lot. But that's why there are lots of communities that I do think are pretty tight knit in the sense that drivers, they really don't have any other way to interact with their fellow employees or I should say fellow independent contractors. Yes. And, you know, so they do kind of turn to Facebook as a big area where drivers kind of meet

and chat up and there's groups with tens of thousands of drivers on it. And, you know, either national groups or local groups that are kind of dealing with more localized issues or sites like mine that aren't necessarily set up like a forum. But, you know, there's a Facebook page that's lots of interaction and people interact in the comments and with me directly. And then you also do have more traditional forums where people will hop on there or even like a Reddit type site where drivers will go and interact because they do need that information. And oftentimes there's certain things that you can't get out of Uber or that they're just not good at providing help on those topics. Every time I, you know, ask Lyft drivers, and I'll ask Uber and Lyft drivers, but I ask Lyft drivers kind of like what the community is like, and especially in San Francisco, I think it's a pretty big deal there. And they love to talk about how the CEO will always take rides on New Year's Eve, which is, you know, traditionally one of the most challenging times to be a ride chair driver. And it's kind of like become this tradition.

I think it's like a really, it's a story they love to pass around. Yeah, on Lyft, right? Yeah, I don't think Uber does that. Well, that's actually brings up an interesting point because you are right. So John Zimmer, the CEO of Lyft, is kind of famous for taking rides on New Year's Eve and just driving in general. And actually a lot of employees, you know, I've met with lots of employees from both companies, Uber and Lyft. And, you know, one thing I found interesting is that a lot of Lyft employees have driven, right? I mean, they're probably not doing more than a few rides a week because they're out of startup and they're spending all their time working on Lyft. I could imagine the last thing they want to do is go out and drive for Lyft at the end of the day. But they do do rides and they actually do give rides and they're allowed to. Whereas with Uber, actually Uber employees, the ones up kind of in their corporate offices, aren't allowed to do rides. So you don't have Uber employees who have actually given rides as drivers. And I think that really shows in kind of the company culture and a lot of the features that are on the apps too. I will say, though,

that, you know, the big thing that you see on especially it's pronounced on the driver's side is that Uber is a very passenger-centric company, right? The passenger is kind of king at that company where Lyft takes a little bit more of a balanced approach. Not everything they do benefits the driver, but they definitely have features like tipping in the app or they have something where you can rate if I'm a driver and I rate a passenger three stars or below, I'll never get matched up with that passenger again because I probably didn't like them and don't want to see them again. You know, little stuff like that that I think sort of adds up and kind of really represents their culture will. Yeah, totally. Well, it's really fascinating because this is, it's all, you know,

just really introduced and changing so quickly. So thanks. Thanks. for coming on and explaining some of this to us. Definitely. Hopefully it was helpful and thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again, Harry. I have like a lot of respect for Harry with how much he has endured as a driver. I guess all drivers, right? Oh yeah, definitely. That story about the guy doing it, it's actually called a Chinese fire drill.

I'm familiar with that prank. Right. Not naked, though. I've never heard of it with losing your clothes. Right. That makes it a little bit more intense. Yeah. I mean, from that story to, I mean, there was that famous story about that executive last year,

who like fought his Uber driver and the guy recorded it, it just seems like these guys really have no clue where they're going to get into when somebody gets into their cars. Yeah, there's been a ton of coverage over, you know, since Uber and Lyft and ride-chairing companies in general have been around. And I guess maybe more just like on-demand economy stuff has been big of users getting, you know, taken advantage of or harassed or assaulted by these drivers or homeowners or whatever.

Because, you know, there's no, like, the background check system isn't great. So we talk about that a lot, but I actually feel like the drivers aren't getting enough in, like, safety measures. Like, they're in trouble too, you know? No, definitely. Yeah, I think it was like last, a few months ago, a girl, like, attacked an Uber lift driver in Florida. And, like, the guy, I don't, I don't think he got anything out of it. Maybe they, like, settled or something. Yeah, it's interesting also because we don't really have a sense of how common these things are with traditional taxis.

you know, those things just don't get as much press or attention. I know he's also talking about, like, the first driverless car accident is going to be a huge deal. Even though obviously the rate of those accidents is probably going to be much less than human error. But when we have these technology companies, people become very, like, fascinated by when things go wrong in a big way. Right. I mean, we've seen a couple accidents already with Tesla's autopilot system, but I don't believe so far, I don't think they've found that any of them were actually the car's fault, right? Like, there was always there was some human error involved. Yeah, I know when, I'm not sure about Tesla, I know when Google hit that bus earlier this year or late last year, a few months ago.

The Google had to sort of own up to some level of fault. It was also on camera because the bus had cameras on it. So I know at least in that case, Google acknowledged it. I think there was a specific statement was there where there was some fault by the Google car in that situation. But usually when there's an accident, Google was like very fast to say that that was the human's fault. Our car was not responsible, et cetera. Every single driverless car or even semi-autonomous vehicle should definitely have a dash cam. Right. Oh, yeah, for sure.

It just seems totally necessary. I mean, have you ridden in the Tesla autopilot or any of those, like, you know, we're getting their autonomous kind of cars before? No, I need to get out to California to do that. I mean, I feel like a lot of the activity happening, I guess we're going to talk about this later, but a lot of activity happening is in California. and New York actually has a law that makes driverless cars really difficult to implement here. So it's hard for me to get in one in New York City, basically. Yeah, speaking of kind of these, you know, very contentious laws around driverless cars, you recently wrote an article for us on the ringer.com about how different it is by state,

you know, when we're going to actually get some of these cars. Right. Yeah, it's going to be a giant mess, basically, over the next decade. In general, states have the most legal authority to implement laws about highway drive and just the rules of the road, basically. And the federal government right now seems pretty comfortable sort of being like a partner or maybe like offering them guidelines. But not necessarily saying, hey, these are going to be the federal laws that determine how we operate driverless cards. So you're seeing some states like California, for instance, they're allowed for testing of cars, but anybody can't just get in an autonomous car. yet. There are some states that are just doing studies at the moment. I think Utah falls in that

category. And then Florida has decided to be very extra, and they passed a lot in April that said that anybody with a valid driver's license can operate an autonomous vehicle. That's insane. It hears to whatever federal regulations, but the federal regulations don't exist. So it's kind of like a really weird, great area where this probably going to be a lot of experimentation in that state, I would imagine. That is the most Florida thing to do. Like, of course in Florida. They're just like, yeah, let's just do it. It's fine. Who cares? Right. Now, I think a lot of these states probably are trying to attract new industry, and everybody wants to be the next Silicon Valley, you know. So, and this is going to be one of the biggest technologies of the 21st century. So I think a lot of states

are sort of opening their doors to the good and bad that might come, and it hopes of bringing a new industry in. Yeah, and it's really interesting how, I mean, so the best states to be in right now are Florida, California, and I think you mentioned Detroit. Yeah, that was because Michigan is, they just introduced a bill. It's not law yet, but it's kind of similar to Florida, where they would be about the commercial operation of the vehicles and sort of letting regular people use the cars. So if that ends up passing, they'd make Michigan a big state, which makes sense because Big Auto is there. And a lot of the places where it's happening the most are places where initially lean on legislators, honestly. California, that makes sense. And in Austin,

they have a big driverless car initiative going. And Google lobbyists actually wrote the talking that the mayor of Austin used and you were sort of hyping up the situation. So definitely it's a situation where the locations where the companies who are interested in this decide that they want to focus, those are often places where we're going to see the driverless cars first. Yeah. And I also, you wrote another article about the power rankings of autonomous cars and, you know, there's certain levels of how driverless a car actually is.

Are the laws like taking that into account? Like, it's okay to drive a level two or a level five. Yeah, I don't know they're using the specific levels because I think that's more of like an industry techy thing. But they're definitely like a lot of the laws are defining what does autonomous mean for this state and sort of whether that means a person has to still be behind the wheel, for instance, to take over the car in case something goes wrong or that kind of thing. So they're definitely, they're using the same attentive dev defining this technology without necessarily using that jargon. So level zero is no automation, just a car. that all of us are generally driving. Right.

Pretty much everybody's first high school car, that's probably a level of zero, most likely. Okay. Generally. And a level one is more, what is, a level one is like, I don't know, has backup camera? No, so even that kind of stuff is actually level zero or traditional cruise control because you're still like controlling everything about the car. But for instance, adaptive cruise control where the car can like slow down in front of a moving vehicle, like while you're on the road.

That's an example of level one or a car that can park itself. So that's kind of like a very, very small level of car smarts, basically. The level two is kind of what Tesla just introduced, right? The autopilot mode? Right, the autopilot. The main thing about that is you can sort of control, I guess, two planes and once. So like the Tesla car can decide how fast or slow to go in one lane, but also can move laterally across lanes.

So you kind of be able to control two different motions of the car one time, which is what generally defines level two. But the driver is still at the end of the day response for everything to. it happens. Like Elon Musk has said you're not supposed to do crazy stuff with the Tesla and autopilot, even though people are sleeping and stuff. They're not supposed to be doing that. That's like definitely against the rules. The rules. I love that level two is still like wildly out of what we, you know, we're doing like two years ago. I know. What is, so we haven't even like seen a three, four, five. What are those? Yeah. So level three is sort of like the moment when the car is responsible.

It's still like it would honestly operate pretty similarly to autopilot, which is like a pretty advanced level automation already. But at the end of the day, like the car is responsible. And then if something goes wrong, the car has to like alert the driver to take control. But check you're supposed to be able to just chill basically. If you're in a level of the car, you should be doing mostly just chilling out while your car drives you around. Okay. And then level four is sort of like, that's what Google wants to do, where there would be no human involvement. Google's prototype cars actually have no steering wheel or brake pedals, so you can't, like, you would have no control over the vehicle.

And that's the kind of situation where you could be like, okay, Google, take me to the bar, the car whisked you from your driveway all the way to your location. And so that's basically the most advanced version or the most advanced version we're going to see in the next like 10, 20 years. And that would be the one that would sort of really change a lot about how we travel and lots of other things about the way. cities operate. It sounds like a, and I know it's not as fast, obviously, obviously, but it sounds like a mini personal hyperloop. Yeah, definitely. There's a lot of other things that will happen when there are a lot of level four cars going around that can sort of like provide you your own sort of personal public transit almost. That would change a lot about the way cities operate. One of the research that spoke to was talking about how cities need to be thinking more, not just about like

the cars, but like, okay, so if I can get in a car and travel 200 miles, I was like why would I take a short flight? So maybe like short flights would become obsolete if I can just travel in a car otherwise. And that's a lot about the way airports operate. So there's a lot of other issues that would be affected if you have cars that are that advance that may be a lot of the laws they aren't addressing. So we're going to see more and more legislation that's to deal with all kinds of things

that sort of spin off of this technology. Yeah. And is level five just like sending yourself via hologram? I don't even know what that would be at this point. Level five basically means the car can travel like any road anywhere. So that's like straight Batmobile basically And I think the general thought is that we're very very very far off from that So you think about a level four

It's more likely to be something that's geo fenced so like you know limited to certain streets and roads and that kind of thing And where the cars that I mapped out everywhere they could possibly go Whereas a level five would literally be you press the button wherever you want to and the car shows up to you So then level four is gonna make more sense for at least at first for things like an uber where they can sort of travel in a defined area to pick people up. Or maybe Google wanted to have, expand their Google shopping experience. They could use Level 4 cars to deliver goods to people, that kind of thing. We haven't heard anything by Amazon being in this, but you can imagine them doing something similar, I guess.

So Level 4 is going to probably be more for, like, company using the cars for specific services at first, versus me buying a Google car and... Using it to go to work or whatever. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited about driverless cars because it's going to be super convenient for my life. but we actually talked to Sunday Parker, who is a transportation advocate and lives in the Bay Area, and she's disabled. And driverless technology for her means like an entire different level of independence in her life. So we're going to talk to her really quick about transportation in general and kind of the future of this and how it could help a lot of people like her.

All right. So there are a lot of people out there who document their public transit experiences. Yours is a little bit different and unique. I think I'm talking to Sunday Parker. Sunday, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and kind of what you've been doing, documenting how you get to San Francisco from Oakland every day? Yeah, sure. So I think like everyone has their, you know, poor experiences on transportation.

I mean, it's really not pleasant. You're, you know, in a huge group of people that you're, you know, you don't necessarily know. And it's always, you know, a bit challenging for everyone. But in a wheelchair, when I'm commuting, you know, the overcrowding. trains are just really, really difficult to manage. And so a lot of the times having to navigate through four different elevators to get down to the station as well as to get down to the train, that can really take a lot of time. So my commute can often be double. If it's during rush hour, I have to wait three or four different trains before I can actually get on one. So it can take,

you know, up to an hour with what would take, you know, 20 minutes. That's crazy. I can only imagine how awful that might be. And I also wanted to ask you a little bit about ride sharing services. I know that they have more accessible vehicles now, but I've kind of been wondering how that's working and if like one company is doing a better job than the other or if they're, they have some like design flaws or anything. Yeah, so car sharing, you know, in general is, you know, I was hesitantly optimistic because as someone who cannot physically drive myself, I think there's a lot of opportunity where it can really, you know, have a positive impact on people with disabilities.

However, with the way that it's turned out, you know, the whole movement of TNCs or transportation network connections, what that has really created is a group of people. that are driving their personal vehicles and using it as transportation. And as someone who uses a power wheelchair that needs a ramp or a lift in order to get into a vehicle, this solution does not work for me, you know, to be very straightforward about it. I cannot just enter into someone's personal vehicle. And also the training aspect behind it, you know, working with people with disabilities, you know, taxi drivers or, you know, private companies are often. and train their employees. And Lyft and Uber has failed in that in a lot of ways, and it's

relevant in the lawsuits that have come up. You know, I can only speak as someone who, you know, has a disability that I am in a wheelchair, and I cannot speak to all people with disabilities. However, my experiences with Uber and Lyft, the lack of available cars, or just the complete disregard of, you know, having those vehicles available. Right. And having people who know how to help because it's not something everyone knows. I mean, you might know how to drive a car, but you might not know how to help someone into that car.

Yeah. And they aren't, you know, legally really allowed to train people. So it's a huge, it's definitely an oversight. It kind of got me thinking about like driverless and semi-autonomous cars that we're seeing come out more and more, especially in the Bay Area. You know, I saw so many Tesla's there. I couldn't even. I'd never seen one before I moved to San Francisco.

But is that something that you're kind of looking at as being super accessible for everyone? Or do you have like any hesitation with that? Yeah, I mean, I hope so. You know, I work in the tech industry. So I definitely follow it. And I love everything that's coming out. And a lot of it, you know, it's funny. A lot of the things that make people's lives easier.

it actually can be, you know, a really the greatest thing for someone with a disability just because maybe they were able to do something that they weren't able to do before, and that's through technology. Yeah, it's definitely a market that's innovating really, really quickly, and it's pretty amazing how many different companies have a prototype already. Thank you so much for talking to me a little bit about this. I will keep following your Twitter feed. All right.

Thanks for your support. Yeah, thanks a lot, Sunday. Bye-bye. All right, bye. Yeah, obviously, driverless technology is exciting for us, but Sunday has a ton of reasons to be, you know, totally invested in this technology. It means a ton of independence.

Oh, you're definitely right. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about cars today. It was great. I had a great time. Thanks. Thank you to Victor Luckerson, George Arison, Harry Campbell, and Sunday Parker for being on today's show.

And to Tate Frazier and Joe Fuentes for production. We'll be back soon. Thanks for listening. Thank you.