John Zimmer

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John Zimmer
John Zimmer TCD.jpg
Zimmer at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY in 2015
Born (1984-03-14) March 14, 1984 (age 39)
Nationality American
Citizenship United States
Alma mater Cornell University School of Hotel Administration
Occupation(s)Co-founder and President of Lyft
PartnerCristina García Rivas
Children1

John Zimmer is the co-founder and former president of Lyft, an on-demand transportation company, [1] which he founded with Logan Green in 2012. [2]

Contents

In March 2023, Zimmer announced that in June he would step down as Lyft president and become vice-chair of the board of directors. [3]

Early life

Zimmer grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. [4] In 2006, Zimmer graduated from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration where he was a member of Sigma Pi Fraternity. [5] After graduation, Zimmer worked as an analyst in real estate finance at Lehman Brothers in New York City.

Zimmer left Lehman Brothers three months before it declared bankruptcy. [6] In 2007, while Zimmer was working at Lehman Brothers, he and Logan Green founded Zimride, a ridesharing platform across college campuses. [7]

Zimride

While at Cornell, Zimmer was inspired to develop a rideshare program by filling the empty seats he had during his rides home over school breaks. [8] Logan Green had also been thinking along those lines and had started "Zimride". [9] [10] Zimride launched the first version of its rideshare program at Cornell University where, after six months, the service had signed up 20% of the student body. [11] [12] Later in 2007, Zimride was active on both the Cornell and UCSB campuses. [13]

Zimmer quit his job at Lehman Brothers to work with Green full-time on Zimride. [11] Green and Zimmer focused the service on carpooling between connected users and making carpooling fun and interesting. [14] By April 2012, the company was renamed Lyft and had raised $7.5 million in funding and was active at over 125 universities. [9] [10] [15]

Lyft

After leaving his job at Lehman Brothers, Zimmer moved to Silicon Valley with Green to work on Zimride full-time. [16] Lyft was launched in the summer of 2012 as a service of Zimride, [17] [18] before Zimmer and Green officially changed the name of the company from Zimride to Lyft. Zimmer did not take a salary during the first three years of Lyft's operation, and he and Green worked on the company out of an apartment they shared. [16]

Personal life

Zimmer is married. He met his wife while studying abroad in Seville, Spain; [19] they have a daughter. [20]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyft</span> American ride-sharing company

Lyft, Inc. is an American company offering mobility as a service, ride-hailing, vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery in the United States and select cities in Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand at the time of the booking and are quoted to the customer in advance, and receives a commission from each booking. Lyft is the second-largest ridesharing company in the United States after Uber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shared transport</span> Demand-driven vehicle-sharing arrangement

Shared transport or shared mobility is a transportation system where travelers share a vehicle either simultaneously as a group or over time as personal rental, and in the process share the cost of the journey, thus creating a hybrid between private vehicle use and mass or public transport. It is a transportation strategy that allows users to access transportation services on an as-needed basis. Shared mobility is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of transportation modes including carsharing, Bicycle-sharing systems, ridesharing companies, carpools, and microtransit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zimride</span> American carpool program

Zimride by Enterprise Holdings was an American carpool program that matched inter-city drivers and passengers through social networking services. It was offered to universities and businesses as a matchmaking service. The company was founded in May 2007. After the launch of the Lyft app in May 2012 for intra-city rides, the Lyft app rapidly grew and became the focus of the company. Zimride officially renamed as Lyft in May 2013, and the Zimride service was sold to Enterprise Holdings in July 2013. As of July 2013, the service had over 350,000 users and had partnerships with Facebook and Zipcar.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logan Green</span> American entrepreneur

Logan D. Green is the chairman and former CEO of Lyft, which he co-founded with John Zimmer in 2012. Lyft grew out of Zimride, a ride share company previously founded by the duo in 2007.

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BlaBlaCar is an online marketplace for carpooling headquartered in Paris. Its website and mobile apps connect drivers and passengers willing to travel together between cities and share the cost of the journey, in exchange for a commission of between 18% and 21%. It also operates BlaBlaBus, an intercity bus service. The platform has 26 million active members and is available Europe and Latin America.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Via Transportation</span> Real-time ridesharing company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zify</span>

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The Drivers Cooperative or Co-Op Ride is an American ridesharing company and mobile app that is a workers cooperative, owned collectively by the drivers. The cooperative launched in May 2020 in New York City, with the first 2,500 drivers issued their ownership certificates in a media event.

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References

  1. ↑ "LA Looks to Rideshare to Build the Future of Public Transit". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
  2. ↑ Lawler, Ryan. Lyft-Off: Zimride's Long Road To Overnight Success. TechCrunch. August 29, 2014.
  3. ↑ Lyft's Co-Founders to Step Down as Company Struggles
  4. ↑ Bryant, Adam (2017-07-21). "Lyft's John Zimmer on Empowering Others to Help Them Grow". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  5. ↑ "Need a Lyft" (PDF). The Emerald of Sigma Pi. Vol. 99, no. 2. Summer 2015. p. 6.
  6. ↑ Shontell, Alyson; Lebowitz, Shana (18 October 2017). "Lyft's cofounders met on Facebook and lived on opposite coasts – here's how they launched a $7.5 billion startup long-distance". Business Insider . Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  7. ↑ "Zimride offers college students cheap, safe rides home". The Washington Post . 2011-12-31. Archived from the original on 2019-03-29.
  8. ↑ Shaughnessy, Haydn. How to Win Friends AND Cut your Travel Costs. Forbes. November 18, 2011.
  9. 1 2 Cohen, Deborah. Former Lehman's banker drives startup Zimride. Reuters. September 15, 2010.
  10. 1 2 Shah, Semil. Why Zimride's John Zimmer Left Wall Street to Start a Company. TechCrunch. April 19, 2012.
  11. 1 2 Sullivan, Colin. Startup Bets that Social Networking Will Spur Carpool Craze. New York Times. July 29, 2009.
  12. ↑ Schomer, Stephanie. Zimride: Carpooling for College Students Archived 2012-06-15 at the Wayback Machine . Fast Company. January 5, 2011.
  13. ↑ Booking a ride in someone else's car. Smart Planet. April 9, 2012.
  14. ↑ Kwan, Connie. Zimride's John Zimmer. Triple Pundit. November 1, 2010.
  15. ↑ Takahashi, Dean. Zimride raises $6M for ride-sharing car service. VentureBeat. September 21, 2011.
  16. 1 2 "Lyft is now worth $11 billion – its founder reveals how he went from taking no salary for 3 years to running a giant startup". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  17. ↑ "How Lyft Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Pivot". Inc.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-13. Retrieved 2014-10-08.
  18. ↑ "Lyft team gets $60M more; now it must prove ride-sharing can go global". venturebeat.com. 23 May 2013. Retrieved 2018-01-06.
  19. ↑ "15 questions with John Zimmer". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  20. ↑ "A New Year's Eve Ride With Lyft Co-Founder John Zimmer". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
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