In 2018, Lyft’s co-founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, assembled employees in the cafeteria of the San Francisco company’s headquarters for a staff meeting. There, they explained that they were spending $250 million to purchase Motivate, the owner of the CitiBike bicycle-sharing program in New York.But employees had been hoping for more. For years, Lyft had been struggling against Uber, its far bigger ride-hailing competitor, which had expanded into food delivery and announced its entry into dozens of countries. Lyft’s workers were clamoring for it to make an ambitious move. Some had hoped executives would announce Lyft’s own worldwide expansion, two former senior employees said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.It didn’t happen. The bike-sharing deal is an example of what analysts and three current and former employees say is an overly cautious business strategy that …
