In 2016, Matt Wansley was trying to get work as a lawyer for a tech company — specifically, working on self-driving cars. He was making the rounds, interviewing at all the companies whose names you know, and eventually found himself talking to an executive at Lyft. So Wansley asked her, straight-out: How committed was Lyft, really, to autonomous driving?
“Of course we’re committed to automated driving,” the exec told him. “The numbers don’t pencil out any other way.”
Wait a minute, Wansley thought. Unless someone invents a robot that can drive as well as humans, one of America’s biggest ride-hailing companies doesn’t expect to turn a profit? Like, ever? Something was clearly very, very screwy about the business model of Big Tech.