*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)
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pulling pranks, so much so they began rolling outlandish ideas every April Fools' Day not long after starting their company more than a quarter century ago.
Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded the FTX crypto exchange in 2019 and quickly built it into the world’s second most popular place to trade digital currency. It collapsed almost as quickly — by the fall of 2022, it was bankrupt.
The economic effects of the Baltimore bridge collapse, Americans are living longer but not better, and Gen Z and millennials are struggling to afford rent, let alone a mortgage.
Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International and co-founder of Daughters for Earth, shares why she is putting women in positions of power to fight the climate crisis.
The federal tax collector said Monday that roughly 940,000 people in the U.S. have until May 17 to submit tax returns for unclaimed refunds for tax year 2020, which total more than $1 billion nationwide.