Ride AI

This week Oliver interviews Laura Fox, Lyft's General Manager for Citi Bike in New York. Laura has an incredible background with stints in Qatar, working on Mexico cities planning regulations, time at Sidewalk Labs, and as editor for one of the best books on urban planning and economics we’ve found, Order by Design by Alain Bertaud, all of which is discussed, before digging in to the nitty gritty details of Citibike in NYC. This was a great episode - Laura is an amazing thinker and you’ll get a lot out of listening to her. Specifically we dig into: - an explanation of the Citibike setup - its coverage, size (15k bikes!!), characteristics and relationship to the NYC DOT. - How and why they price as the product as affordabiy as they do. - a discussion about the docked system and the benefits/challenges of this vs the more common dockless system ie. bike valets, load balancing with large numbers locked up and how they create ’capacity valves’. - the impact of electrification on the fleet - how the early data from bikes show both 2-3x utilisation, but also longer duration and distance trip durations. - A wider discussion about micromobility and its intersection with urban form, infrastructure and other planning requirements - How they think about discussions over kerbside allocation, the challenges of of competing with car parking and the data/storytelling needed to counter this. - where Laura sees the future going with regards to MaaS, how she think about Lyft's play in that space and who has the power to be the forcing function to promote widespread adoption. - How COVID-19 has impacted their operations, and the changes in ridership demographics and usage that they’re seeing. The book that we mention is called Order without Design, and can be found on Amazon here [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BSYX83S/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1]. Would also encourage you to check out Devon Zuegel’s great podcast with Alain and his wife Marie-Agnes about their lives as nomadic urban planners/economists here [https://devonzuegel.com/tag/order-without-design-podcast].

Something a bit different this week. Horace and Oliver host Anders Brownworth, co-host of the Critical Path, to talk about crypto, blockchains and markets for trust. Anders’ background working in telecom, finance and then crypto (developing USDC and now working at the Federal Reserve) give him a unique perspective. As Horace, Oliver and he break down what programmable trust can mean for markets, government and society. This came out of a discussion following a Micromobility podcast recording talking about Apple was functioning as an arbiter of trust with all its new key and payment building blocks, and how ‘trust’ carries a market premium, which gave way to a wider conversation about how trust can be priced. For those of you who aren’t that familar with the workings of Bitcoin/blockchain, Anders Brownworth has done a 101 video here (with more than 1 million views!) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8 Specifically, they dig into: - The history of money, and why trust-minimised stores of value are so valuable. - Markets for trust and how companies like Google or Uber are potentially threatened by distributed marketplaces/clearinghouses. - How the overall valuation of Bitcoin is the NPV of all future trust that will be accumulated to the protocol. - Why having immutable records is so important for the functioning of democracies. - What areas of blockchains both Anders and Oliver are most excited about. Finally, as mentioned in the news - here is the excellent NYT article on the reallocation of streetspace in New York, “I’ve seen a future without cars and it’s amazing” - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/opinion/sunday/ban-cars-manhattan-cities.html

This week Oliver interviews Andrew Salzberg, former head of Transportation Policy at Uber, and now a Loeb Fellow at Harvard about his work in radically decarbonising transport. Oliver worked with Andrew at Uber, and he’s been thinking about the intersection between climate, transportation and technology longer than most. It’s a great conversation touching on the challenge ahead and opportunities that abound. Specifically, they dig into: - his work at TfL, the World Bank and Uber and then now, focussing on decarbonising transport. - the challenges and opportunities for decarbonising the transport sector, and where Micromobility might be able to help - how can these modelling exercises actually get integrated into decision making processes and funded, and who in the US is talking about it. - The intersection of landuse change, PT, EV’s and Micromobility and others, and how the conversation can be ‘unsiloed’ - Why Andrew doesn’t think that decarbonization is inevitable, but how the renewable energy sector offers instructive examples of how tech can change the conversation. - The opportunity for ‘policy feedback’ in further accelerating and ratcheting up new technologies to reduce emissions - how EVTOLS/‘flying cars’ represent an asymmetric risk to overall decarbonisation efforts Editor note: Andrew’s audio got lost towards the end, so we reverted to the backup. Apologies.

This week, Oliver interviews Chris Yu, Chief Product & Innovation Officer and Ian Kenny, global marketing for the Turbo e-bike brand at Specialized. They talk about how incumbent bike manufacturers are thinking of electrification, how that’s changing how the company is thinking about the job-to-be-done for their customers and what role companies like Specialized can play in the discussion to push Micromobility forward. Specifically, they dig into: - what differentiates the Specialized brand in terms of positioning, company ownership structure and customer type. - how their full stack approach, paired with their scale, compares to the rest of the bike industry. - How Specialized think about the Innovators Dilemma, and what framing they use to encourage self disruption within the firm to ensure that they can meet evolving customer needs and wants. - for design, what are the variables that matter for customers? They talk about the Levo family of bikes, and the learnings that can be ported over to other sectors. - How they’re thinking about urban or local transport, including a discussion on the competition such as Vanmoof. - How the business model to service the ‘consumption of miles’ might change the structure of how Specialized - The journey that Specialized made in e-bikes, including its first efforts as early as 2010. - How they’re seeing the supply-chain base change as the industry matures around ebikes/electrification.

This week Horace joins Oliver to talk about the news that Segway has ended production of the PT and the new announcements from Apple and how they pertain to Micromobility. They also trial a news segment at the beginning of the show. Specifically they dig into: - What didn’t work about the Segway, and comparable failures in history - The risks of over engineering products without feedback or specifically only asking for feedback from B2B customers when trying to build a general appeal product. - The innovations required to take the promise of the Segway to what we see today - The pathway for adoption, and the risks involved in ‘crossing the chasm’ between early adopters and the early majority. - The new announcements from Apple and how they might be deployed in the Micromobility industry including AppleKey and the forthcoming Apple tile/data network. - How to think about Apple’s efforts in Micromobility from a phone, wearables and accessories perspective - Whether the ‘platform-ization’ of Micromobility will happen in the vehicle or be captured at the phone level. If you like the latest news, check out the Micromobility Newsletter at micromobility.io - Luke, our editor and conference lead, is an utter master at finding the best and latest, and we also have a job board for jobs in the space. Can’t recommend it highly enough. Let us know what you think of the episode @asymco and @oliverbruce!

This week Oliver interviews Jake Sion, COO of Transit. We talk micromobility, mobility as a service and the interplay between the two as well as the wider mobility landscape and how software can infuse intelligence into it. After last weeks’ discussion on Adwords, Google maps and mobility, it’s a topical discussion. Specifically, they cover: - Transit - what they do, services they integrate with, number of cities, and who they consider their customers. - How Jake sees the landscape for mobility as a service developing  - The Transit UI starts with the question ’where are you going?’. They talk through that design decision and why it isn’t actually the primary use case for Transit. - They talk through data standardisation such as MDS and GBFS, why it matters, why it's such a political battleground and the importance of a non-profit organisation called Mobility Data in setting standards for interoperability. - The state payments and how Jake sees it developing. - Why the forcing function for mobility-as-a-service is unllkely to be driven by technology. - How micromobility plays into the discussion about mobility as a service. - They talk about funding for the mobility-as-a-service space and the long term viability of the business model.

This week Horace joins Oliver for a discussion about ebikes and the state of micromobility, including which potential other potential players might want to get into the industry. This leads to a discussion about the job-to-be-done of maps, and Horace’s dystopian warning that they will end up as the browser of the mobile era. Specifically they dig into: - How e-bike sales have been doing during COVID - The current structure of the industry for standard bikes and ebikes, including where the margins are - How this mom-and-pop style industry parallels the early days of the PC industry - A discussion about the Taiwanese ‘golden book’ for bikes - Why distribution is one of the great unsolved aspects of e-bikes - Whether micromobility best parallels the computer industry or the early auto industry, and what implications are there for either framing - Which players are likely to get into building the next generation of e-bikes, and why Amazon, Google or Apple are all potential contenders. - Why maps are so important, and why they might be the software layer that may start to drive the next Micromobility wave - The worry that Horace has about an Adwords approach being directed to Google Maps in the mobility routing, and the incentives that stem from distraction as we move from A to B - How and why micromobility operators should be aiming to participate in the forthcoming mobility-as-a-service layers - The implications of what software enabled transport will enable. The Micromobility Industries blogpost outlining e-bike recommendations - https://micromobility.io/blog/2020/6/1/best-ebikes

This week we share a recent TripleM webinar where Oliver interviews Ryan Rzepecki. Ryan was the founder of Jump which sold to Uber and as of a few weeks ago, was sold to Lime. Ryan is a wealth of knowledge and understands this space inside and out. It’s a great discussion. Specifically, they dig into:  - The Social Bike / Jump journey story including how it started, pivoted and what Ryan learnt along the way - The behind the scenes story - the highlights, lowlights and things people were not so privy to. - A discussion of why design was so important and how that came through in the scooters and bikes. - What Ryan thinks of the industry today, and why he believes it still so early.  - What his favourite Micromobility products are.  - His opinion of blitzscaling and the impact that had on Jump.  - A discussion of how the fundraising environment changed over time.  - Where he’s bullish on the industry overall, and their next steps. - Why the Jump hardware team was the best in the business. If you like this, you’ll like our Micromobility Membership, or Triple M. We do exclusive calls like this on a regular basis. We’ve had Kara Swisher and Felix Salmon, the founders of Spin, the head of Segway’s business development and head of Lime Joe Kraus on the current state of the industry, along with webinars on things like insurance and city data.  We have a Slack channel to talk with the others like you with an interest in building the future plus you get discounts on the Micromobility Conference, swag and more, all for $100 a year. Check it out at micromobility.io

Today Oliver interviews Taco Carlier, CEO of Vanmoof, about the recently released S3/X3 bikes and the company’s recent venture fundraise. They’re one of the largest and fastest growing urban bike manufacturers globally, and this was a great discussion about the state of the industry in these tough COVID times. Specifically they dig into: - A summary of Vanmoof for those that haven't had a chance to listen to the last podcast, including their brand and design strategy, as well as basic facts about the company. - How they’re looking at COVID, including a discussion about sales, supply chains, how they’re seeing cities react, and how ridership has been changing. - An extensive discussion on the new S3/X3 which has been reviewed exceptionally well, including deep dives on the components, the pricing, the design, end-to-end service packages, sales channels, powertrain and theft protection, and what the driving considerations were for each. - A discussion on the venture capital market vis-a-vis their recent 12.5m Euro raise, and how he’s thinking about the funding opportunities and challenges for both shared and owned companies in the space? Taco is a legend in the space - excited to share this one! Thanks to our sponsors for the episode - Onyx Motorbikes - some of the coolest, most beautiful micromobility designs out! Check them out at onyxmotorbikes.com

This week Oliver interviews Ben Bear, Chief Business Officer at Spin, the micromobility company backed by Ford and which operate in 65 markets across the US. They dig into their service and how they’re different from others in the industry. It’s a great discussion - Spin really come across as a the tortoise in an industry of hares. With micromobility adoption being a long term prospect their focus on sustainability for what will inevitably be a decades long play is an interesting counter to others in the industry. Specifically: * Spin’s approach in COVID-19 * The difference that Spin has in market, including: * Their use of Swiftmile charging stations (Swiftmile) from a tendering and business operations perspective. * the efforts to integrate into MaaS * Why being backed by Ford makes them more resilient and able to focus on longer-term planning and outcomes, and why this is attractive to cities. * How has he seen the regulatory environment change in the time that they’ve been operating. * How do they see the owned and leased micromobility business model competing in the ‘market for miles’, and whether they have plans to expand into these area leveraging Spin’s brand or Ford’s distribution. * Their efforts at lobbying for better street infrastructure in the cities that they operate.