Lyft executives only earned $300 as Lyft drivers

Last year when Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi got behind the wheel to understand life as a driver for his ride-hailing company, he failed miserably. And it was all filmed. After Lyft filed to go public Friday, we learned that like its competitor, ride-hailing executives also gave rides on its platform in the past two years. 

While disclosing executive pay, Lyft shared that in 2017 and 2018 some of the executives, like the co-founders, executive vice president, and chief operating officer “provided rides to riders…in a similar manner as other drivers.” While we don’t know how they fared making turns and following app directions, we do know that they earned the company a dismal amount from these rides: less than $300 each year. 

That’s small potatoes compared to the $10 billion drivers have earned since Lyft started. But Lyft says there’s value beyond the earnings, “We believe that these driving activities provide the named executive officers with substantial practical insight into how our platform serves drivers.”

The execs couldn’t have given too many rides considering the average Lyft trip is about 6 miles or so, which in San Francisco is a trip from City Hall to Ocean Beach and costs about $20 bucks. Needless to say, no matter how many trips they gave, those earnings didn’t mean much for their annual income.

The average Lyft driver earns about $30 an hour before expenses, while co-founder and CEO Logan Green made over $41 million in 2017 including stock options. His 2018 salary was just over $400,000.

Here’s the light-hearted video of Khosrowshahi missing turns and struggling to follow directions as he drives around for Uber last year:

For the Lyft executives, you have to wonder how much riders tipped and what their driver rating is…