YouSaid · the spoken record

John Zimmer

lines on the record: 90
first: 2025-10-23
most recent: 2025-10-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Gil, Ramel Wood, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Razz, and you've been listening to how I built this.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Massini with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was James Willetts. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Catherine Cypher, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Nori.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the kind of funny things we had to figure out was how to quickly market to the college campus. One of our early purchases was a frog and beaver costume that we put on. I went to Cornell. I was actually going to Cornell on a recruiting trip for Lehman. And I was standing on the quad in this ridiculous costume handing out cards about this carpooling service. Is this a frog costume or the beaver costume? I was the beaver. You were the beaver, okay. at that next day at the Lehman Recruiting event a girl came up to me and said Did I see you in a beaver costume yesterday?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“John Zimmer, co founder of Lyft. And by the way, if you haven't heard the Lyft episode, go back and check it out. It's an awesome story. And here's one of my favorite moments from that episode.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, just, you know, I don't live with a lot of regret. So, and maybe it's an entrepreneur thing. I just like to keep going and learning. But enjoy, it's so cliche, but enjoy the journey. I mean, all those hard times, and they were very hard, have, you know, made me a better entrepreneur, a better parent, a better husband, and a more empathetic human. And so there's value in it all. One of my friends early on said something like that to me. He said, don't forget that this is not just about whatever you define as success. This is about learning. And it really, I would go back to that, even though it's such a simple thing. It was, I, it helped.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, John, I have asked every founder who comes on a show a version of the same question. We've talked a little bit about this already, but I'm curious, like now, when you look back on where you were, right, when you Zimride into starting Lyft, and if you knew what you know now Which would make the journey less meaningful probably. But if you did and you go back in time and say, hey, John, I know this stuff. I'm going to tell you something that's going to help you. Is there something you would tell him?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there were, I think it was when I was leaving like 3% of the U.S. workforce had earned on Lyft. And when I was having those hard days just reading those stories of that kind of thing, someone being able to pay for college is super motivating. So, yeah, let that be your fuel.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's great. Well, the best thing you can do, again, Kobe, you run your business as you want to run it. I think the best thing you could do is to make a profitable business that's ethical and a business that employs people and allows people to pay for college and for mortgages. Like that is the best possible thing an entrepreneur can do, right? John, how many, I can't even imagine how many college tuitions and mortgages were paid because of Lyft.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, any profit from their sales, we deliver a percentage of that back to them on a quarterly basis. And that at least protects them from the downside while guaranteeing that our growth is tied in with their success as well.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Agree with guy. Capitalism is the best system we have. Ownership is a great idea. You can start it now. If you're too worried about them taking on some of the stress you have, then they don't get to maybe ride in that upside. And so obviously they can't put in their own capital or a lot of their own capital. We did something at IPO. We recreated a system for drivers to get equity. I think it's a really, really important thing to look at based on your purpose and mission.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Makes a lot of sense, yeah. And I love those episodes that you've done with those brands you named, I would love to start it today. And you're right to ask why not. I'm also wary of passing on risk prematurely to folks who have not necessarily consented or opted into that when they were looking for a steady job or something that they can feel good about and go home and turn off in ways that I yet I haven't yet figured out for myself.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rands built that into their company when they were just like a $500,000 company when they were doing peanuts compared to what they eventually became. So it seems to me like the issue isn't, I mean, it sounds like there's definitely some burnout, but when you're building something with purpose, then you also have other people who are stakeholders who are also owners who then take on some of those burdens and some of those stresses and pressures.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I am a big supporter of capitalism. This show supports capitalism because I think it is the least of the worst options out there. I think it does lift people out of power. It does a lot of good and bad, yes, but I think in general on balance, it's a better than worse system. Here's the thing I would say. Sounds like you want to build something with purpose, right? You're motivated by purpose. And you talked about one day maybe trying to sell this to your employees. Well, why don't you start now? I mean, you can build an Aesop, right? An employee ownership plan into your business now. You can start to create that mechanism now. You can start to give shares to your two employees now. New Belgium did this at the beginning. New Belgium, you know, that makes fat tire beer and eventually became 100% employee owned. Bob's Redmill, you know, 100% employee owned. Cliff Bar, I think it was 40% employee owned. A lot of these...”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not the number so much or the size as the impact that for me, I know that's an easy word to throw around. I want to build something that eventually I can sell to its employees that I want the workers to own that I want to be able to exist for generations that touches folks' lives across continents, all stakeholders in the entire value supply chain. And to me, that does entail some scale from studying other worker-owned co-ops, there does need to be some scale element to that for sure. So I think that is definitely part of the drive that I'm testing the limits of.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kobe, what do you want this business to be? I mean, because you can go in a number of different directions, and there's no bad answer, right? Like you can have an incredible lifestyle, and this can be a million dollar business, and you could have a few employees and have an incredible. You've got the farmers markets going, you've got your D2C, and that could be a great, or do you want it to be a 10 or 15 or $50 million business or more?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some days it is only because I have to wake up so early for the farmers markets on the weekend that that blue light actually can help knock me out of it a little sleep inertia, but on those off days, I definitely try to sleep in and make sure there's time away from the screen before starting my day”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's great. So I think that's just a simple hack, and I don't know if you have your phone in your room when you go to sleep or if that's the first thing you check. Is it the first thing you check in the morning?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do have my iPhone that I took the SIM card out of because I was in Europe at the time and they have removable SIM cards, which was helpful. And I tether from the light phone to the iPhone if there's an app or function that I need, but I can easily just walk out of the house with only my light phone.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have a device called a brick. It's literally a magnet on my fridge, and I swipe my phone over it, and it locks out everything on my phone. I can pick up to, I think, 20 apps and really 20 apps is nothing if you think about it. And it's like weather or the maps app. Like it's very, so I can't check email. I can't do anything until I work out and I have some sunshine and then I start my day. And there are some, maybe there are some days where people are like, where were you? Where are you? But I have to do it. And at the end of the day, I'm much better. I perform and operate much better, right? Is there like a version of that that you do, John?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, this reminds me of something I'm going to remind you of a conversation we had a few years ago. But Kobe, I mean, you have to believe that your business is better when you are better. Once you accept and understand that, then you can start to figure out the logistics, like the actual tactics that you have to do. And the reason why I alluded to something that a conversation John and I had years ago is because I think this is a simple hack that has really helped me, right? You have to decide that you are going to do the things you need to do every day to enable you to function well. And one of the things I made a decision to do was to brick my phone. And I know many years ago, John, you invested in the light phone. That phone, and I have one. It's a phone that's not really, it doesn't allow you to get distracted. It just makes calls, and right? I didn't end up using it that much, but I bricked.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the same time, it's only highlighted the problem even more so, which is the system might be there to allow me to step away. But part of me maybe as an entrepreneur believes I can have it all, that I can step away, that my relationships can be there to support me even as I am always just thinking about it. This is just the air that I breathe. And I love that about me and about the business that it's around me and always percolating. And I think those closest to me appreciate that too, but there is dissonance that I'm not always so self-aware about in practice.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, this is where it gets tricky because we've really invested in the systems that allow me to not be making chocolate primarily anymore. So I'm involved in quality control, recipe development, and sales, which is what I love doing, being out at the farmer's market, connecting with folks”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The rest of our team, right? And that's people who are working in the farmers' markets and things like that. So are you, when you say you are just grinding all the time, are you like roasting the chocolate beans? Tell me a little bit about what that means.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right. I'm glad you brought this question. Okay, John Zimmer, slow cocoa, Kobe is, sounds like he's dealing with some of the things that you dealt with when you're running Lyft”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My question is about work life balance. And I don't think I need more strategies for delegation or time management. I've read, I listen to the podcasts. I have coaches and therapy and a support system. I have the strategies, but I also care so deeply about my team and Slow Cocoa that I don't always want to turn it off. I don't always want to step away. Even as sometimes my health or my relationships get sidelined in the process. So how do I practice personal sustainability when what I'm building feels like my life's work?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Although we haven't yet entered into Connecticut, yes. Okay. And we have our online store as well. For folks like that you mentioned, and that's a majority of our customers, I would say, who are not necessarily interested to hear about this whole. To that we. We love embracing that community because that's what this is all about. At the end of the day, it shouldn't matter where it's coming from.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, I don't want to rain on the parade. I'm just saying that what if you don't care about that? You just want good chocolate? And again, I respect that right there. Just saying, you just want good chocolate. It's a business too. You got to make money. How is the business doing?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I was one foot out the door with real estate in the sense that as soon as I discovered a space that was not gatekeeping in the way that I had learned to experience the capitalism that surrounds me, that was interested in elevating the industry for everyone's sake. That stood out to me. So I was learning to do it, not from classes. I was learning from folks who, in theory, should be my competitors. They were connecting me with the original farms that we were partnering with. They were there when I had specific questions. And to this day, there is definitely an eagerness and a drive within this industry to move us all forward. But the reasons are different. It's for the sake of the folks on the ground at origins to improve the livelihood of folks who are making chocolate possible. For the sake of environmental conditions that are totally neglected and externalized in the cost of industrial chocolate products,”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow. So clearly, eventually you figured out how to do this and you decided, I mean, it sounds like already back during the pandemic you decided you want to start a business.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, at first I did it in the oven following a special, you know, turning. Yes, eventually I got a small little countertop roaster. Right. Go through the whole process. I have a studio apartment with a cat, so you know, I covered my dresser at the foot of my bed with tinfoil going through this process. I make it, turns out I couldn't finish the bar. I couldn't share it with anyone. It was awful. So that started me on the journey of, all right, what went wrong? How does craft chocolate actually deliver the flavor complexity that got me hooked?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I bought a kilo of beans off of Amazon. It said single origin Peru. That was it. And I remember thinking to myself, this will be the best batch of chocolate I've ever tried. It was the first time I made it. I roast them exactly. You roast them in my oven.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you say you made it from scratch at home, you were literally like roasting beans and grinding them or were you buying just chocolate bars and melting it down and putting it into molds.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh gosh, I wish I had some background in the industry. I joke that I'm a recovering real estate agent. For me, it was an opportunity during the pandemic to continue in this hobby of making chocolate at home, following the curiosity of how is this food that I grew up with from such a young age. How is it made? And the opportunity to make it from scratch became addictive in many ways.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, my sister Tovia, who's my co founder, we were just visiting our farmers that we work with in Guatemala earlier this year. These are often Indigenous communities that have been harvesting for generations and to be able to share our chocolate with the folks that are making it possible on the ground is a real important part of the work we do.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow. All right, welcome to the show, Kobe. So it's slow cocoa, four ingredients, and you've literally visit the places where they grow the cacao.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hey guys, what an honor to really appreciate your time. My name is Kobe. I am the co founder of Slow Coco, calling from the Bronx in New York City. We are a craft chocolate maker. We make chocolate that nourishes the emotions as much as the taste buds. For us, that means no more than one to four ingredients starting always with single origin, cacao sourced from folks we know and can visit”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, let's bring our last caller. Welcome to the Avice Line. You're on with John Zimmer, co-founder of Lyft. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a line or two about your business, please.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There you go. You're over the edge, dude. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ros, and today I'm taking your calls with John Zimmer, co-founder of Lyft. John, you ready for our next call?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That zone two thing is very, it's crazy because you can still have a conversation, but if you do it for an hour, it actually increases your VO2 max over, like it has a huge impact, like benefit. I've seen it. It's amazing. Sprints are great too, but if you can keep in your zone two heart rate for an hour, it's like, and those weighted vests really help you get there”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why you're on LinkedIn, probably. John, right All right, hit him up All right, Terry Levy, Ruckster is the brand. Congrats. Thanks for calling in. Good luck. All right. Are you doing any ruck”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would order it. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we are coming out with a new product and I've been kind of mulling over my head. Like, do we just put it up for pre-order as also a test to see whether or not there's really demand and interest for the new product? So you guys have kind of pushed me in that direction.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I'm thinking on your website. Demand is through the roof. We can't keep up with you. We will get these. We're getting these out the door as fast as possible. Sorry for the delay, but if you pre-order, it will give you five percent discount to show our appreciation. I would order it.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess it's all about like positioning and marketing when it comes down to it, right? How are you going to position and market it? Because as a digital marketer, when you take pre-orders, I feel like you need to be able to let them know when they're going to get the expectation of when they're going to get their product.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Customer finance inventory basically. I don't know what you think, John. I don't know if people want it, they're going to buy it and wait.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I kind of have a moral dilemma with that. I am by trade a digital marketer and I just feel like pre-orders. I don't know sets you up for failure down the line. It's my own personal issue, but what do you think about that? Should we take priority?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean definitely for our weighted backpacks we kind of went down that road and looked into it. There just isn't the skill set there just yet to do what we need and then also as far as the weighted vests, it's the raw materials. The raw materials are the challenging part. They're tiny little iron pellets and I've even spoken with manufacturers in the US that manufacture frying pans or anything like to see if they have remnants that we can kind of figure out how to turn those iron remnants into iron pellets and it's literally possible.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think, well, China right now, I think, is okay, right? But I wonder whether just to kind of hedge your bets, is it worth exploring Mexico, for example, or even, I don't even know if they can be, I'm sure there's some U.S. manufacturing, prices would be higher, cost would be higher, but is Mexico something worth exploring?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we took advantage of that for sure. Like I said, the demand is outpacing the inventory and we're kind of like we would have been further along in revenue, but we keep selling out. So we would have sold out, I think, five times in the past year. Just we cannot just bring enough inventory in. And that's the biggest issue.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have looked into it and we have taken on a little bit of debt, but we really need to buy quite a bit of inventory. And at the moment, there aren't that many. Lines available for financing inventory that we have found.”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, John Zimmer, I'm going to bring you in. You're looking very trim and fit now that you have. Not running the day to day, I must say. Thoughts, questions, comments for Terry?”
2025-10-23 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT