Q&A w/ Electric Avenue's Ashwini Chhabra Part 2
Launch of Urban Tech Election Results Guide: 2020
Happy Urban Tech Thursday! John, here. I’m thrilled to share that the Urban Tech community is now officially over 400+ individuals 🥳.
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Today's issue features part 2 of my conversation with Ashwini Chhabra of Electric Avenue.
Ashwini is an alumni of the Bloomberg administration, Uber, and Bird. He has a great perspective on the role of policy teams at companies like Uber and Lyft.
We chatted this week about topics like the recent Prop. 22 results, why mobility is such an exciting space, how policy pros work in tech companies, and much more.
The second big part of today's edition is the official launch of our first shared-resource for the Urban Tech community — the Urban Tech Election Results Guide: 2020. Please check it out and share it with your teams and colleagues using this link.
Here’s the download:
What: This guide is an evolving resource for the Urban Tech community to understand how this election cycle impacts cities and tech. We will be updating and releasing newer versions of the guide as our understandings of the 2020 elections evolve.
Why: At Urban Tech, we believe that the 2020 elections (local, state, and federal races) will be studied for decades (more likely hundreds of years) to come. This guide is our starting point to understanding how the elections shaped topics our community cares about.
Finally, I'm thrilled to announce starting this Monday, 11/16, Urban Tech will be moving to a twice-weekly format. Our morning ET timing will remain the same. You will receive UT editions by 10:30 am ET.
After speaking with readers for months now, collecting feedback, this change was one of the biggest requests from readers for evolving Urban Tech.
It's clear the intersection of cities and tech is too essential a space for Urban Tech only to publish once a week.
People thinking about these topics need more tools — Urban Tech aims to be one of those critical tools. Let me know how we can make UT more helpful to you. Just hit reply or email us at john@urbantechnews.net.
Here's what our new format and cadence will be starting this Monday:
Mondays: We will send a brief curated news roundup. Think about this edition as your Monday morning playlist for news and analysis on cities and tech. Here is an example of what it will look like.
Thursdays: "Urban Tech Thursdays" continue to be dedicated to longer-form analysis on companies, trends, and topics where cities and tech intersect. Check out our archive for examples of our previous long-form pieces.
FYI: Next week is my first round of finals as a grad student at USC. I may be a little slower than usual to respond to reader emails over the next week. Please send good vibes my way — I'm pretty nervous to be honest. 🙏
Okay, let's get to part 2 of my conversation with Ashwini. Here, is the link to part 1 of the conversation if you need to catch up.
A Long Thing: Q&A w/ Electric Avenue's Ashwini Chhabra Pt. 2
Here’s a quick reminder from last week on Ashwini’s fascinating background:
After working at Uber and in the NYC taxi industry for almost a decade, Ashwini Chhabra is on a mission to get people out of cars. His firm -- Electric Avenue -- which launched this Summer, is focused on helping bring new mobility modes like e-bikes and e-scooters to your city.
In the short time they’ve been around, they’ve helped companies like Voi Scooters land the lion’s share of exclusive RFPs in the UK, helped LINK scooters land Seattle and helped Revel mopeds get back on the road in New York after a summer of tragic headlines.
Last week discussed topics including:
How policy teams function in companies like Uber or Bird
What made the Bloomberg administration unique
Why people can maximize their impact focusing on transportation topics
JT: As someone who has spent time at multiple tech companies innovating mobility, and on the government side, can you share what features attract policy people to the mobility-tech space?
AC: I think there's broadly two types of folks who work in this space -- it's folks who are there because that's where the innovation is happening. Whether it's product innovation, operations or engineering, or what have you. If something else comes along -- ghost kitchens, homesharing, whatever -- they would switch to that.
It's not the mobility piece that's sticky for them. It's the desire to be part of something that's big and moving fast. And then there's the folks who may have had a career in government, or may have had a background in public policy who did come into it specifically because of the potential for improving mobility, improving public services. And the thing they may go on to the next is still going to be mobility adjacent.
And when I think about the universe of Uber or Bird alums and where they go afterward, it very much maps along those lines.
JT: That's a great point. Something I love about the companies I write about — like Waymo, Airbnb, or Uber, etc. — a lot of the people driving the products and policies are genuinely passionate about cities and solving urban problems through technology.
I know readers want to know your thoughts on COVID's impact on transportation. Can you share insight; what does the sector need to do to navigate the significant challenges ahead?
AC: You really can't talk about this sector going forward without talking about the impact of the pandemic. As a New Yorker, the thing that jumps out at me is how Open Streets has changed everything. Previously, the notion of giving parking spaces to anything other than cars was fought tooth and nail at Community Board meetings. I mean, these are more animated scenes than any congressional hearing. And now, because of COVID, the idea that this space is for the exclusive use of cars is out the window.
And I think there's going to be more attention paid to making cities more conducive to that -- to people using streets more actively as opposed to people just storing cars there (though there are still plenty of people more concerned with their God-given free parking).
And if you're a big city transportation commissioner, this is kind of your moment to push through a more aggressive agenda of building out bike lanes and taking away space from car storage.
At the same time, Micromobility companies are reporting that rides are returning to pre-COVID levels. Lime recently announced that they hit 200 million trips, and that the second 100 million took half as long as the first hundred million. What we're seeing across all these companies is people are taking longer trips.
So from a unit economics perspective, this is all good news. The question is how long is that going to be sustained?
Finally, one other silver lining of the shit show that is COVID is that the humble city bus is finally getting its due. In New York, subway ridership is still down like 70%, whereas the decline for buses is far less. I'm also expecting innovations in this space.
For example, Arrival has a great model for an electric bus, which I can't wait to ride in. And how you get a bus is going to change - it could become more of an Uber-like experience instead of just waiting at a bus stop.
I think you're going to see the bus become a more enjoyable experience and a faster way of getting around. Cities have an opportunity and a duty to invest more in dedicated bus lanes.
JT: At Urban Tech, we are big fans of public buses, so I love that thought.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how tech companies approach policy at the local level. Not only do I try to keep an eye on the significant urban policy issues concerning tech companies, but I try to think about how these companies are executing strategies to achieve policy goals.
To me, it seems like micromobility companies are taking a more collaborative approach with local governments compared to what we saw with ridesharing — which, to put it mildly, was more adversarial. What are your thoughts?
A small electric vehicle jives more with what a transportation regulator wants to see. Don't forget, Citibike [NYC's bike-sharing program] was birthed by the NYC Department of Transportation.
When scooters first came along, there was some wariness that this might be the same VC bros pushing it like they did ridesharing, at the end of the day, their product — if implemented right— is something that cities want to support. In theory, there's an alignment of interests from the outset.
Companies also understood from the get-go that they were going to have to cooperate more than the ridesharing companies did. I think out of necessity, companies are cooperating more with the cities, and hiring the kinds of folks who can translate between the civic side and tech.
JT: What are your thoughts on the Prop. 22 results in California? How are micromobility companies reacting to it?
[Readers, if you're unfamiliar with California's Prop. 22 and why it's a massive deal for gig companies including Uber and Lyft, I break it down in the Urban Tech Election Results Guide].
I’ll caveat this by stating that I haven’t followed the specific politics of Prop 22 or AB5 all that closely, but generally, I think what’s needed is a thoughtful examination of what work relationships in the 21st Century look like — as opposed to simply adopting a century-old framework of employees vs independent contractors. We know that, for many rideshare drivers, driving with Uber or Lyft is akin to a full-time job and their benefits and other protections should reflect that. Full stop. End of story.
But for some other drivers, it is very much a part-time or short-term means of earning supplemental income— these are drivers who are choosing rideshare driving for the flexibility it affords them. And, frankly, if all drivers were treated as employees, these folks likely wouldn’t have these earning opportunities at all, so maybe that’s not an outcome we want. Though reasonable people will differ on this point - it’s perfectly reasonable to take the position that for-hire driving should be treated as a profession, and so it’s not a bad outcome if these part-timers get forced out of the driving labor market if that benefits the full-time drivers, but you just have to be honest about the consumer impact that has.
So, in my view, a model that classifies some drivers as employees, some as independent contractors, and some as a hybrid (dependent contractors?) might be the way to go. And then you can decide which protections and restrictions are most appropriate for each of these three classifications. And I think doing that in a way that is divorced from local politics may be the best way to do that, so I am hopeful that a Biden Administration will do that in a thoughtful way.
But -- and this is a big but -- in order for this more nuanced kind of classification to work, companies that engage gig workers need to be forthcoming with data that shows how much, when, and where those folks are working. This is more or less what New York City achieved with the rideshare companies -- give us your trip data, give us data on how many hours drivers are working and on how much of the fare they get to keep -- so we can independently verify whether they’re making a living wage and whether a particular driver is more like an employee or more like an independent contractor, or something in between. New York’s view was: companies can certainly choose to work with independent contractors, but they’re going to have to show us the receipts.
As for how Prop 22 is being received by micromobility companies, I think that is going to differ from one company to the next. Those that are founded on gig labor certainly rejoiced at the decision. But, interestingly, unlike in the ridesharing sector, there are several micromobility companies that have consciously chosen not to rely on gig labor and instead prefer the professionalism and expertise that an employment model brings. I’m thinking of companies like Voi, Revel, Spin, Superpedestrian. For example, Voi utilizes swappable batteries in their scooters -- they need their fleet maintenance teams to be well-trained in the safe handling of these batteries. That degree of training is much easier to deliver to employees than to independent contractors.
And when you want to operate in busy cities like New York or SF where there’s a need to re-balance your scooters throughout the day and you have strict service level requirements you have to meet, an employee model may also be better suited to that than an independent contractor model. Given that, I think some cities may decide they can only work with companies that employ their chargers and mechanics, and you’ll start to see more companies opting for an employer-employee model in order to win those RFPs.
JT: Transportation funding and referendum supporting infrastructure projects were considerable wins in this election. The wins also happened in a variety of cities and states. Outside of the Prop. 22 results, what were your thoughts on what you saw for transportation during this election?
AC: I think this is hugely important - and I was pleased to see so many places explicitly recognizing the value of transit. In fact, I think there’s been an awakening to the fact that transit is something we’ve taken for granted and -- like the Postal Service -- has been starved of resources for too long, and if we don’t invest in it we risk losing something that is such a quintessential part of what makes our cities work. And I think this awakening is very much tied to COVID and an awareness that if transit doesn’t come back, our cities won’t come back and the overall economy won’t come back.
JT: Finally, for the last question, what sources (books, websites, newsletters, etc.) do you recommend readers check out? We enjoy sharing the love and great insights from all of the fantastic people thinking about topics we also cover.
Newsletters
Urban Tech, natch!
Smart Cities Dive - Kristin Musulin’s outlet. She dives deep on a range of issues - recently looked into different gig worker / fleet manager models in the micromobility industry that I thought was revealing
Decarbonizing Transportation -- this is Andrew Salzberg’s newsletter. He was on the Uber New York Ops team, but was actually a brilliant urban planner underneath it all. Drops a lot of knowledge.
Kneeling Bus -- this is from Drew Austin, another Uber New York alum. Very unassuming dude who I didn’t know too well but I come to find out he's got this newsletter and it's just fascinating. Half of it is over my head, so it's smart people stuff, but definitely worth checking out.
The Atlantic - Metropolis Now
Podcast
SAE Tomorrow Today -- Grayson Brulte’s an excellent interviewer
Books
Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson -- Really eye-opening book
The Girl with the Leica, by Helena Janeczek -- I’ve been reading this one on-and-off. It’s a great novelized biography of Gerda Taro.
A Medium Thing: Urban Tech Elections Guide: 2020
Shared resources and databases are significant value-adds in communities like Urban Tech, so I’m working to create resources outside of this newsletter that provides our community utility.
Our first shared-resource is now available for free: Urban Tech Election Results Guide: 2020.
Here’s a peek at the table of contents for the guide:
This guide is essentially a briefing document to help our community understand how this election cycle (local, state, and federal results) impacts the urban tech space — I recommend bookmarking the link for easy reference.
(v1 of this guide started as my personal notes doc for understanding the election results for Urban Tech. After some thought, I figured with a bit of polish, the info can be a helpful resource for you too.)
Feel free to duplicate the guide and customize it as you see fit, but please properly source/attribute any content or information in the guide to the appropriate sources and authors.
The plans for v2 are to incorporate insights and analysis from members of the Urban Tech community. You can share your insights or insights from someone else (note PR staffers who read) at this link.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to subscribe and share Urban Tech.
Talk to you on Monday,
✌️ JT