*By Michael Teich*
Uber is driving itself to the center of the scooter scuffle with its strategic partnership with Lime, a deal that will allow users to eventually request an electric scooter through its app.
Axios reporter Dan Primack, who broke the story, says there's a key advantage to the bike-sharing company choosing Uber as a partner over rival Lyft.
"One of the big reasons Lime wanted to partner with Uber is because Uber has much deeper geographic penetration, especially internationally," Primack said in an interview on Cheddar Tuesday. On top of that, "Uber has the deepest pockets right now. "
A fragile relationship with city officials, though, could hold back Uber and Lime from a complete transportation takeover. San Francisco is only granting five permits for companies to operate a dock-less, rentable electric scooter programs on city streets. While Primack said it's still unclear whether either company will be one of the chosen, he noted that Lime's survival does not depend on the SF market because it is already in 80 other regions.
"It wouldn't be end of world if they didn't get into San Francisco."
Despite sky-high valuations for scooter companies such as Lime and Bird, Primack told Cheddar it is unlikely that the industry is in a bubble. He also does not expect the deals in the scooter business to lose momentum, predicting that we could soon see Uber fully acquire Lime.
"My guess is that it would happen quick," he said.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/primack-uber-best-positioned-in-scooter-wars)
On this episode of On the Job, Mark Bowen, General Manager at Midnight Sun in San Francisco, discusses how the pandemic affected LGBTQ+ nightlife and the return to work for service industry workers; Drew Lewis, VP Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & Talent, ADP, breaks down how DE&I practices can drive greater business value and how organizations can effectively create an action plan for supporting DE&I in the workplace.
Drew Lewis, VP Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & Talent, ADP, joins Cheddar to break down how DE&I practices can drive greater business value and how organizations can effectively create an action plan for supporting DE&I in the workplace.
Following a session in which investors saw gains across the major indexes, Wealth Consulting Group CEO Jimmy Lee says investors need to remember that midterm election years tend to be more volatile in general.
Stocks closed lower to end the last trading day of May, but the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones both rose over the past month. The Federal Reserve in early May raised interest rates by half a percentage point as it tries to fight inflation, but the question continues to linger: will we enter a recession as we try to tame inflation? Anthony Saccaro, Founder & President of Providence Financial, joins Closing Bell to discuss today's close, the possibility of a recession, where he is telling clients to look for opportunities, and more.
The semiconductor industry is at an inflection point as it tries to fully recover from the worst of pandemic-era headwinds. While Broadcom has announced it will buy cloud computing company VMware, Nvidia is lowering its current quarterly outlook. Meanwhile, TSMC and Intel are contemplating raising prices -- again -- thanks to higher materials costs. Where does the industry go from here? Ted Mortonson, technology strategist at Baird, joins Closing Bell to discuss.
