To be fair, the comments were noted to have been made before the latest issue. So, perhaps they were on the cusp last week, and have plummeted over it this.
Given that the drivers agreed to buy the SUVs in the first place, I'm not sure what else Lyft could really be expected to do here. They helped the drivers sell the SUVs and sent them a fairly sizable bit of compensation.
A lot of car share drivers, particularly for UberX, end up buying cars as part of driving. It seems like a reasonable though failed experiment.
Yeah the second he said that he was invested in Uber's biggest competitor, I couldn't take him seriously. Uber has gone over the line sometimes, but he's obviously going to make it sound worse than it is.
I mostly agree. For instance, I don't believe there exists a conflict of interest in challenging the ethics of a competitor. Choosing to support a competitor because a company behaves unethically makes a lot of sense to me.
That all being said, I think you overestimate the probability someone will call him out on anything. When was the last time someone was ever called out for making a bad prediction, making a false but ultimately mild allegation, or raising concerns about a competitor? I've worked at places that would state publicly that their competitors steal from customers, and never heard that even questioned on a factual basis, forget someone doing some weird kabuki theater credibility sacrificing ritual.
