Lyft Inc at Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : So to level set, there's been a lot going on at the company. You've done the FREENOW acquisition, you talked about and announced AV partnerships. You continue to put up strong financial performance. Why don't we level set the conversation by the evolution the company has been going through and just sort of where we are today in terms of the journey of the transition of the company against the broader strategic initiatives you're trying to initiate?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. Good stuff. I do want to start a little bit big picture because we still get a lot of questions from investors just thinking about the core mobility growth. Like what is the compounded algorithm? We continue to get questions about how to think about user growth, frequency, pricing. When you overlay the strategy on top of where you want to go from a growth perspective, how does that formula look to the company?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Great. And maybe just building on one piece of it because I think you guys have been at the forefront of talking about affordability and tying affordability to product innovation. What do you think as you go out and talk to investors because we get the question a lot, still remains some of the underappreciated parts of how affordability can stimulate growth? Like what have you guys learned about driving innovation by making the product more accessible that gives you the confidence in them in the long term?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. So when you think about this algorithm for growth and you measure it against the current competitive environment in the space, how much room do you think you have to innovate and drive change in the industry against the competitive dynamics, the competitive dynamic generally stable, rising, falling? How do you think about offsetting competition with innovation?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. Just wanted to double click on one more portion of the mobility business. What's the latest update on how the insurance dynamic continues to impact the business? And how do you think about efforts around insurance also feeding back into the affordability elements of driving innovation on the platform at the same time that you're trying to manage through insurance costs?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. Super helpful. Let's pivot to AVs. I think when you talk about mobility, you have to talk about AVs and where we're going. And feels like whenever anybody comes to a conference in San Francisco, they always get a little closer to wanting to talk about AVs. You've announced a number of partnerships. Maybe start high level. As a company, what is your world view about the role AVs will play in the broader mobility landscape? And how should we be thinking about the partnerships you've announced being aligned with that strategy of world view?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. Understood. Maybe building on that, as these array of partnerships get rolled out, how do you as a company think about the levers of monetization, the levers of unit economics? Like what does adding this supply to the network do? What impact does it have on how sort of the business looks and operates on an end state? I know we're nowhere near the end state. But I'm just kind of curious how you working assumption about how you think that evolves?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Interesting. Okay. You teased it out earlier in one of your answers, but maybe we can pivot to geographic expansion. So I think at a high level, one of the questions I get a lot is, what was the strategic rationale behind doing FREENOW? You weren't a player in Europe. This was an asset you acquired. It wasn't a lot of capital. But how do you -- why that asset, what was the strategic rationale? And how should investors think about that as a jumping off point to possibly allocating additional capital into international opportunities?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Totally understood, Erin. Thanks for that. I wanted to ask quickly, that was an acquisition. Canada and Puerto Rico, examples of markets you went into organically. How should we think about what the early lessons or learnings are from those markets?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. We've got a few minutes left. So I'm going to go through a couple of quick questions. But you talked a bit about partnerships and strategies and things that are launching as we get deeper into this year. How should we think about partnerships as an amplifier of the Lyft brand, the Lyft ecosystem over time? How does the management team think about continuing to scale and find partners to maybe drive the reality around the platform?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Great. Well understood. Going back to Investor Day, we talked a lot about the media business scale at Investor Day. You've seen very good results as the advertising business has continued to grow in the more recent periods. Talk about some of the key learnings as advertising or Lyft media continues to scale and what it means for where you think the business can go over the longer term?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Great. I do want to just bring it all together. So when I've had this opportunity at Investor Days and on earnings calls by (inaudible) to ask you some form of this question, priorities for capital in the business, right, investing in growth, allowing margins to continue to expand, returning capital to shareholders. You now are returning capital to shareholders. Talk a little bit about the priorities, how they've shifted. What are you trying to accomplish? What's the dialogue like with respect to capital allocation between management and the Board?

Question: Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs Group Inc - Analyst : Okay. super clear on capital allocation. Erin, thanks for giving me the opportunity to have this conversation. Please join me in thanking Lyft for being part of the conference.