AT LYFT’S base in Clara Street, in San Francisco, all is bustle. New staff are being shown the ropes. At least three dogs are tucked under desks or following their owners around. At 15,000 square feet (1,390 square metres), the place is almost four times as big as the old office, but it is already cramped. Lyft is about to move again, to a space of 60,000 square feet.Lyft is a darling of the “sharing economy”, which uses the internet to bring together people with underused assets—anything from spare rooms to spare time—and others who might like to rent them. Lyft’s stock-in-trade is seats in cars: it registers and vets drivers who are willing to offer a ride in return for a “donation” and to place Lyft’s trademark fluffy pink moustache on the front of their vehicles; passengers request a Lyft, and pay, via a smartphone app. The two parties rate each other afterwards, also through the app, which is a common practice in the sharing economy. Fifteen months ago the service operated only in San Francisco. Now it is in over 30 American cities and entering more by the week. This month it raised $250m from venture capitalists.It is not travelling alone. SideCar, a similar...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1ii049B
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