John Zimmer is the co-founder and former president of Lyft, an on-demand transportation company,[1] which he founded with Logan Green in 2012.[2]
In March 2023, Zimmer announced that in June he would step down as Lyft president and become vice-chair of the board of directors.[3]
Zimmer grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut.[4] In 2006, Zimmer graduated from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration where he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity, Mu chapter.[5]
Zimmer left Lehman Brothers three months before it declared bankruptcy.[6] In 2007, while Zimmer was working at Lehman Brothers, he and Logan Green founded Zimride, a ridesharing platform across college campuses.[7]
While at Cornell, Zimmer was inspired to develop a rideshare program by filling the empty seats he had during his rides home over school breaks.[8] Logan Green had also been thinking along those lines and had started "Zimride".[9][10] Zimride launched the first version of its rideshare program at Cornell University where, after six months, the service had signed up 20% of the student body.[11][12] Later in 2007, Zimride was active on both the Cornell and UCSB campuses.[13]
Zimmer quit his job at Lehman Brothers to work with Green full-time on Zimride.[11] Green and Zimmer focused the service on carpooling between connected users and making carpooling fun and interesting.[14] By April 2012, the company was renamed Lyft and had raised $7.5 million in funding and was active at over 125 universities.[9][10][15]
After leaving his job at Lehman Brothers, Zimmer moved to Silicon Valley with Green to work on Zimride full-time.[16] Lyft was launched in the summer of 2012 as a service of Zimride,[17][18] before Zimmer and Green officially changed the name of the company from Zimride to Lyft. Zimmer did not take a salary during the first three years of Lyft's operation, and he and Green worked on the company out of an apartment they shared.[16]
Zimmer is married. He met his wife while studying abroad in Seville, Spain;[19] they have a daughter.[20]
