Hey, I am currently a PM at FB. I have decided to move on and currently have multiple offers, notable ones are from Uber, Lyft, Cruise and Compass. I really wanted to get into RE Tech but Compass is cheap ass with their offers and equity they offered was 1/10 of my offers from Uber / Lyft. Cruise is quite ahead in the AV space and thus was attractive but their equity offer was around 1/3 of my other offers. Thus I am only considering Uber and Lyft at this point and need your advise deciding between taking a role in Lyft Level 5 team (Autonomous vehicle) or Uber. I have read many of the posts on Uber vs Lyft and understand all companies have their own issues, and thus I do not want to make this post all about that. Considering, the comp from both these companies are similar, which one do you think I should take? Had the Lyft offer not been in their Level 5 team, I know I would have picked Uber. But, I think getting experience in the AV space would be quite interesting and useful for my future. I think Waymo and Cruise are quite ahead in the AV space and other companies are playing catching up, but still getting experience in that space might be interesting. Would love to hear more from Level 5 folks and hear what they think about the prospects? are you happy with the progress? have you been able to hire some notables folks in the AV space? How bad is the WLB? Is the leadership strong? Current TC 450k Future TC 500k+ YOE 15 (5 as PM)
Uber is #harassment
#verywrong Uber cleaned up their act
I would choose Uber. They have various business streams (4 ride sharing, maybe a bike service, UberEats, and are planning on demand workforce solutions business), have a great brand (improving since Travis left), and aren't run by SJWs. Lyft is much smaller.
Yes, and that is why their valuation is 4x of lyft. But you might right, and that is why I mentioned if not for level 5 team, I might have chosen Uber. The main pull for lyft is the the level 5 team
Were you a SWE before?
What part of Cruise would you be focussed on?
That doesn't matter anymore as I rejected their offer but would have been for the ground truth team
I would choose Lyft. All else equal it’s important to be working on something that’s going to inspire you, and you’re clearly very interested in AV tech. It is a bit unfortunate that Lyft isn’t one of the top players in that area, but I’m sure it’s still full of really great technical challenges. And Lyft sounds like an amazing company overall as well, so it’s hard to go wrong there.
How is Lyft better than Uber in any way other than PR?
Seems like you prefer Lyft and are looking for validation.
I prefer lyft cos it's with level 5 team. And yes would love to get validation that even though level 5 is quite behind, it still has potential.
May I please know ur level at Fb. It gives us something to aspire for
I went to Lyfts L5 open house. Was not impressed. I'd say join uber
If you’re looking to work on AVs come to Cruise. Lyft level 5 is going nowhere... they’re not going to invest a ton of resources into a business unit that bleeds money. They’re not Uber and won’t raise nearly as much capital. Most of the Lyft level 5 people are worried they’ll be cut post IPO to make investors happy that they will focus on profitability.
What is your source of resource cut information? Even I wanted to come. To cruise, but their equity offering was a shame
Business logic and anecdotal evidence from friends and former colleagues. If you’re going public and your primary business isn’t profitable, do investors really want to give you runway on an extremely expensive R&D project that has 5-10+ years of development costs before receiving any real returns? Look at the numbers reported for Uber’s ATG losses... (100-200M/qtr) Their DC/AWS bill must be a large portion not to mention growing overhead costs for staff on payroll + additional hiring. WSJ "But Uber, like Lyft, is unprofitable. Its third-quarter loss widened to $1.07 billion amid a sales gain of 38% to $2.95 billion, and it has indicated in recent bond-offering documents it doesn’t expect to get out of the red for at least three years. Lyft had a loss of $254 million on sales of $563 million in the most recent quarter, the Journal has reported." So let's just add 50-100% more losses and see how that plays into investors when preparing for IPO or post IPO how long will that last?
450 tc as a level 5 at fb seems high. Is this with refreshers?
I didn't mention my level at fb. Level 5 is the av team at lyft