flexdrive

Our 1st stock pick of the year? It's Lyft Because if Robotaxis are like mini-hotels, then Lyft is the housekeeping It all goes back to a quiet acquisition Lyft made back in 2020: $20M to buy FlexDrive. You've probably never seen a "FlexDrive." It's a group of 24 garages in 15 states that do the unsexy biz of the cab industry: charging, cleaning, reparing cars. The goal? Minimize time in the shop to maximize time on the road making $$$ And for a robotaxi like Waymo to scale, it needs those garages in every city in which it operates. Google owns Waymo, but they don't wanna do that biz! Google's not hiring mechanics to fix brakes, check the chassis, and buy vacuums to clean the burrito you spilled (we saw that). But Lyft will - And that's why Waymo partnered with Lyft to expand to Nashville... but we think it won't just be Waymo and it won't just be Nashville. Our Prediction: Lyft will become the operating backbone of the robotaxi fleets, and David Risher's (great dude, fyi) ride hail biz will get paid good money for it. Robotaxis are like little hotels - Lyft will be their housekeeping. (side note: If you're Amazon, and you need your Zoox robotaxi to scale ASAP? Maybe consider buying Lyft. The CEO used to work for ya!). Jack and I whipped up the stock story in The Best One Yet - go hail the podcast and let us know what you think.