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Hi, welcome to the A16Z podcast.

This is Matthew Colford from the Policy and Regulatory Affairs Team.

Today, as part of our ongoing series about how startups are engaging with policymakers and regulators, my colleague Matt Spence from the policy team dives into a case study with Joe

Paku, VP of Government Relations at Lyft, and David Mack, Senior Director for Public Affairs at Lyft,

about how the company has engaged with policymakers and regulators at a local level, and how other

companies can think about engaging with policymakers as they build out their GR or government

relations function. And the first voice you'll hear in this podcast is Joe from Lyft, followed by

Matt Spence. When you're dealing with something like the ride sharing industry, the first

inclination from a mayor or from a regulator in a particular city was, well, how is this

different than what we already regulate? How is this different than our current vehicle for higher

industry? What was the

answer to that? You're dealing with mayors and cities, and it's not one government, but it's

hundreds of governments around the country. So what's the playbook? We really viewed our first

mission as education, explaining what we were, and possibly more importantly, explaining what we

weren't. So, you know, we didn't

have the historic relationships with mayors. We didn't have a history of contributing to campaigns.

What we did have was a broad universe of people both on the driver and the passenger side

who recognized that this new innovation is extremely important to me.

...