Lyft Tries to Think More Locally

Rex Tibbens is the kind of guy who likes to spend hours cruising around a track in the dinged-up Porsche 944 he bought for $500. So it’s a little weird that his job is to make owning a car unnecessary. During his first five months as chief operating officer of Lyft, he’s had to think more like customers his children’s age, who don’t have quite the same affinity for owning vehicles. “When I was a teenager, the car was freedom. Not so much for kids,” says Tibbens. “Their freedom is in their pocket.”

After about a decade apiece at Toyota and Dell, Tibbens spent four years as a vice president at Amazon.com, helping to manage the Kindle e-reader, the tech support service Mayday, and the logistical nightmares that come with same-day delivery. His latest challenge is bringing a dose of Amazon’s obsessive efficiency to three-year-old Lyft, San Francisco’s second-place ride-hailing service. “He’s impatient about things being better, which is great,” says Lyft co-founder John Zimmer. “He is a no-bulls--- type of leader.” (Lyft’s investors include venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg Businessweek, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.)