Logan Green

Logan Green
Born	Logan D. Green Template:Birth year and age
Nationality	American
Occupation	Entrepreneur, business executive
Known for	Co-founding Lyft and Zimride
Spouse(s)	Eva Green
Awards	Fortune 40 Under 40 (2015)

Logan D. Green (born c. 1984) is an American entrepreneur and business executive who co-founded the ride-sharing platform Lyft alongside John Zimmer in 2012. Before launching Lyft, Green and Zimmer created Zimride, a long-distance rideshare service founded in 2007 that used social networking to connect drivers and passengers. The pair transformed their vision of collaborative transportation into one of the largest ride-hailing companies in the United States, with Lyft surpassing one million rides per day by July 2017 and expanding its service to all 50 U.S. states by October of that year. Green served as CEO of Lyft until 2023, when he transitioned to the role of chairman of the board of directors. In August 2025, Green and Zimmer both stepped down from the Lyft board entirely, concluding a two-year succession plan and converting their Class B shares, which had carried enhanced voting power. Following his departure from Lyft's board, Green was appointed to the board of directors of Yelp in August 2025.

Early Life

Logan D. Green grew up in Los Angeles, California. His early experiences with transportation in the car-dependent city shaped his later interest in alternative mobility solutions. In interviews, Green has described how growing up in Los Angeles — a metropolitan area defined by its sprawling freeway system and heavy traffic congestion — made him acutely aware of the inefficiencies of single-occupancy vehicle travel.

Green's interest in ridesharing was further influenced by a formative experience abroad. He has cited observing communal transportation systems in other countries as an inspiration for thinking about how Americans could share rides more efficiently. This observation planted the seed for what would eventually become Zimride and later Lyft.

While attending college at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Green served on the board of the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District, an unusual role for a student that gave him direct exposure to public transportation policy and the challenges of providing mobility services. This experience on the transit board provided Green with institutional knowledge about how public transportation systems operate, their funding mechanisms, and the gaps in service that private companies might address. It was during this period that Green began formulating ideas about how technology, particularly the rise of social networking platforms, could be harnessed to make ridesharing practical and accessible for everyday users.

Education

Green attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. During his time at UCSB, Green was actively involved in transportation issues beyond his coursework, notably serving on the board of the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District. His academic years coincided with the rapid growth of social networking platforms such as Facebook, which was expanding to college campuses across the United States during the mid-2000s. This convergence of Green's interest in transportation and the rise of social media technology would prove foundational to his first startup venture, Zimride, which he conceived of while still developing his understanding of transit systems during his university years.

Career

Zimride (2007–2012)

In 2007, Green co-founded Zimride with John Zimmer, a rideshare company that leveraged social networking to facilitate long-distance rides, particularly among college students and commuters. The name "Zimride" was partly inspired by the communal transport systems Green had observed in Zimbabwe, where shared minibus taxis are a common mode of transportation.

The concept behind Zimride was relatively straightforward: by connecting drivers who had empty seats in their cars with passengers heading in the same direction, the platform could reduce transportation costs, decrease carbon emissions, and alleviate traffic congestion. The service initially targeted university campuses, where large populations of students regularly traveled between their schools and home cities, particularly during holidays and weekends. Zimride partnered with universities and corporations to establish ridesharing networks within these institutions.

The company integrated with Facebook, allowing users to see mutual friends and shared connections with potential ride partners, which helped build trust among strangers who might otherwise be reluctant to share a car. This social networking component was central to Zimride's value proposition at a time when the concept of the "sharing economy" was still in its infancy.

In September 2011, Zimride raised $6 million in a new round of financing, which the company planned to use to expand its operations and fill more car seats across its growing network of university and corporate partnerships. By late 2011, the company continued to grow its platform and attract attention within the emerging sharing-economy space.

While Zimride addressed the long-distance ridesharing market, Green and Zimmer recognized an even larger opportunity in short-distance, on-demand urban transportation. This realization led them to develop a new product that would ultimately eclipse Zimride in both scale and cultural impact.

Founding of Lyft (2012)

In 2012, Green and Zimmer launched Lyft as a service within Zimride, before spinning it off as its own entity. Lyft operated as a peer-to-peer ride-hailing service that allowed passengers to request rides from nearby drivers using a smartphone application. Unlike Zimride, which focused on pre-planned, longer-distance trips, Lyft was designed for spontaneous, short-distance urban transportation — a direct competitor to traditional taxi services and, increasingly, to Uber, which had launched its UberX service around the same time.

Lyft initially distinguished itself in the marketplace through its branding and culture. Drivers affixed large, fuzzy pink mustaches to the front grilles of their cars, creating a distinctive and recognizable visual identity. The company encouraged riders to sit in the front seat and greet their drivers with a fist bump, cultivating an informal, community-oriented atmosphere that contrasted with the more corporate image projected by its primary competitor, Uber. Green and Zimmer positioned Lyft as the friendlier, more socially conscious alternative in the rapidly expanding ride-hailing market.

The founding duo's partnership combined complementary skills. Green, who had the original vision for ridesharing and brought deep knowledge of transportation systems, served as CEO and focused on product and strategy. Zimmer, who had a background in finance and hospitality, served as president and concentrated on business development and operations.

Growth and Expansion of Lyft

Under Green's leadership as CEO, Lyft experienced rapid growth throughout the mid-2010s. The company expanded from a handful of cities to a nationwide service, competing fiercely with Uber for market share, drivers, and riders across the United States.

A significant milestone came in July 2017, when Lyft announced that it was providing more than one million rides per day, a figure that demonstrated the scale the platform had achieved in just five years of operation. By October 2017, the company had expanded its service to cover all 50 U.S. states, a geographic reach that placed it as a truly national transportation platform. That same month, Lyft delivered its 500 millionth ride, a cumulative milestone that underscored the company's growth trajectory.

Lyft also pursued international expansion, launching its first service outside the United States in Toronto, Canada, in November 2017. The Toronto launch represented an important strategic step for the company, signaling its ambitions beyond the domestic market.

The company attracted substantial investment during this period. In 2017, Alphabet Inc.'s growth equity investment fund, CapitalG, led a significant financing round at Lyft, bringing one of the world's most prominent technology companies into Lyft's investor base. The involvement of Alphabet, which also had investments in autonomous vehicle technology through its Waymo subsidiary, added a notable dimension to Lyft's investor roster.

Throughout this growth period, Green maintained his role as CEO and the public face of the company alongside Zimmer. The co-founders frequently appeared together at industry events and in media interviews, presenting a united leadership team. Green participated in prominent technology conferences, including TechCrunch Disrupt, where he discussed the company's vision and strategy.

Lyft's IPO and Later Leadership

Lyft went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in March 2019, becoming one of the first major ride-hailing companies to list on a public stock exchange. The IPO was a defining moment for the company and for Green personally, as the co-founder who had started thinking about ridesharing as a college student now led a publicly traded corporation.

Green continued to serve as CEO of Lyft after its public offering. However, the company faced ongoing challenges, including continued losses, competition from Uber, regulatory battles in various jurisdictions, and the severe disruption to the ride-hailing industry caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which dramatically reduced demand for shared rides beginning in early 2020.

Transition and Departure from Lyft

In 2023, Green transitioned from his role as CEO to become chairman of the Lyft board of directors, as part of a broader leadership succession plan. John Zimmer similarly moved from his role as president to become vice chairman of the board.

On August 14, 2025, Lyft announced that both Green and Zimmer were stepping down from the company's board of directors entirely, completing the two-year succession plan that had begun with their departure from executive roles. As part of their departure, Green and Zimmer converted their Class B shares — which had carried superior voting rights that gave the co-founders outsized control over corporate decisions — into ordinary Class A shares. This conversion effectively ended the dual-class share structure that had allowed Green and Zimmer to maintain significant control over the company even as their operational roles diminished.

The departure of both co-founders from the board marked the end of an era for Lyft, as the company Green and Zimmer had built from a college ridesharing project was now fully in the hands of professional management and an independent board of directors.

Post-Lyft Career

Shortly after his departure from the Lyft board, Green was appointed to the board of directors of Yelp Inc. on August 25, 2025. The appointment reflected Green's continued involvement in the technology and platform economy sectors, bringing his experience in scaling a two-sided marketplace — connecting riders with drivers — to a company that operates a similar marketplace connecting consumers with local businesses.

Personal Life

Logan Green is married to Eva Green. Green has maintained a relatively private personal life throughout his career. His public statements and interviews have primarily focused on his professional work in transportation and technology.

Green's interest in sustainable transportation and environmental issues has been a consistent theme throughout his career, dating back to his time on the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District board as a college student. His founding of both Zimride and Lyft was motivated in part by a desire to reduce the number of cars on the road and the environmental impact of single-occupancy vehicle travel.

Recognition

In 2015, Green and his co-founder John Zimmer were jointly named to Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" list, an annual ranking of influential young people in business. They were ranked number 3 on the list that year, reflecting the significant impact that Lyft had made on the transportation industry in a relatively short period.

Green was also recognized by Inc. magazine as part of its coverage of young entrepreneurs shaping American business, in which he and Zimmer were profiled as leaders of the ride-hailing revolution.

Throughout his tenure at Lyft, Green was a regular speaker and participant at major technology industry events, including TechCrunch Disrupt, where he appeared in 2015 in New York to discuss Lyft's growth and the broader future of transportation. His appearances at such events, alongside Zimmer, helped establish Lyft's profile in the competitive ride-hailing market and positioned the company as a significant player alongside its larger rival, Uber.

The company Green co-founded grew from a small startup connecting college students for shared rides into a publicly traded corporation listed on the Nasdaq exchange, providing millions of rides across the United States and Canada. Green's career trajectory — from a student sitting on a local transit board to the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar public company — became one of the notable entrepreneurial stories to emerge from Silicon Valley's sharing-economy era.

Legacy

Logan Green's influence on the transportation industry is most directly measured through the impact of Lyft and the broader ride-hailing market that the company helped create and expand. Together with John Zimmer, Green helped popularize the concept of using smartphone technology and social networking to facilitate peer-to-peer ridesharing, an idea that was novel when Zimride launched in 2007 and had become a mainstream mode of urban transportation within a decade.

The creation of Zimride in 2007, at a time when the term "sharing economy" had not yet entered common usage, positioned Green as one of the early entrepreneurs to apply social networking technology to a real-world logistical challenge. The subsequent launch of Lyft in 2012 placed Green and Zimmer at the center of a fierce competition with Uber that reshaped urban transportation across the United States, transformed labor markets through the growth of the gig economy, and prompted extensive regulatory debates at the local, state, and federal levels.

By the time Green and Zimmer departed the Lyft board in August 2025, the company they had co-founded had grown into what WardsAuto described as "a global mobility platform," a significant evolution from the university-focused ridesharing service where the co-founders began. Green's transition from Lyft to a board role at Yelp in 2025 signaled his continued engagement with technology platform companies, carrying forward the operational and strategic experience he accumulated over nearly two decades in the sector.

The dual-class share structure that Green and Zimmer employed at Lyft — and subsequently unwound upon their board departure — also became part of a broader conversation in corporate governance about founder control at technology companies. Their decision to convert their Class B shares to Class A shares upon exiting the board was noted by financial media as the conclusion of a governance model common among technology company founders.