Lyft’s CEO explains why he prefers ‘Falcon Mode’ to being a hands-off CEO

• Lyft CEO David Risher likes to go “Falcon Mode” on his company.
• The approach involves diving deep into a team or debate — even if it’s far below him on the org chart.
• Risher said the strategy keeps him connected to the business.

Lyft CEO David Risher has a spirit animal.

Risher, who is in his third year as CEO of the ride-hailing company, has overseen a turnaround of the company’s results.

Part of his secret, he told Nilay Patel on The Verge’s “Decoder” podcast Monday, is that he’s willing to step out of the C-suite and dive into the details of how Lyft operates. That could include casting the tie-breaking vote on a crucial decision or grilling employees about how they plan to roll out a new product.

Risher told “Decoder” he has a name for his approach: “Falcon Mode.”

“They’re pretty good, even at 2,000 feet, seeing where that next meal is,” he said of the birds of prey.

Once they’ve spotted something, though, “they’ve got to dive in deep and get that meal, otherwise they starve and fall out of the sky,” he said. “This coming down and going back up, and coming down and going back up, that’s the world that the CEO lives in.”

At Lyft, Risher said he often discusses specific products or changes in “excruciating detail” with employees much lower than him on the org chart. “That’s going to be where I go Falcon Mode on you,” he said.

After that, he said, he leaves the team to work. “Now, it’s yours, and you’re going to tell me all the ways where I got it wrong,” he said.

In his 2024 letter to shareholders, Risher said he is always looking for opportunities to “add value by swooping down into the details.”

One example is Risher’s time spent working for Lyft as a driver — something, he wrote in the letter, that he does about every six weeks.

After talking to a Lyft passenger about how the fluctuating price of a ride affects whether she decides to work in her company’s office each day, Risher said, he pushed for changes to Lyft’s Prime Time pricing strategy, including its Price Lock feature. “That’s Falcon Mode at work,” Risher wrote in the letter.

“There’s no better model to exemplify both the strategic importance of maintaining a broad perspective and the criticality of diving deep,” Risher wrote.

On the podcast, he also pushed back on the idea, articulated by some CEOs, that they can be at the helm of a company but not so directly involved in its strategy.

“That’s bullshit,” he said. “If you’re running a company, you’re doing a lot.”

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