“We’re woke. Our community is woke, and the U.S. population is woke,” Lyft president John Zimmer told Time magazine for a story that published yesterday about how the ride-hailing company is capitalizing on Uber’s many scandals.
Most people define “woke” as being alert to social injustice, especially racism, and expressing a commitment to stopping it. But is Lyft, a multi-billion dollar technology startup that’s main product is an app, actually woke? Well, let’s check the woke scoreboard, shall we?
Ties to the swamp
For starters, I think we can all agree that Donald Trump is the antithesis of woke. Lyft has deep ties to the Trump administration, much deeper than any of the connections that helped kick off the grassroots backlash against Uber last month. Quick refresher: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was planning to participate in an economic advisory council for Trump, but later backed out after the #DeleteUber campaign started costing the company its riders. But by that time, Uber’s scandals began to metastasize and take on a life of their own.
Meanwhile, Lyft’s ties to the Trump world were pretty much ignored. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, a top economic advisor to Trump, invested $100 million in Lyft back in 2015 and currently sits on the company’s board. Peter Thiel, a vocal supporter of the president and Trump’s leading Silicon Valley advisor, is also a major investor in Lyft and has branded Uber an “ethically compromised” company.