Lyft CEO David Risher has a turnaround plan for the company—and Minneapolis’s new wage minimums are not part of it

A year into the job, the rideshare CEO shares how he turned the company cash-flow positive and why he may pull out from Minneapolis.

When Lyft CEO David Risher took the helm of the rideshare company from cofounders Logan Green and John Zimmer a year ago, his mandate was clear: create a sustainable business by getting the perennial second-place rideshare company to stop bleeding money. The former Microsoft and Amazon executive laid off more than a quarter of the company’s workforce last April and exited ancillary business lines, such as car rentals. That’s helped Lyft lower the prices of its rides, so they’re in line with Uber’s. It’s all part of what Risher calls his key strategy: “customer obsession drives profitable growth.”