Scooters Are Cool, But Not $1 Billion Cool
Bird is an old-economy business wrapped in a new-economy veneer.
A scooter-rental company just achieved a $1 billion valuation.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North AmericaI've always had an interest in electric scooters. I started researching them in 2002, when I had to walk from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York at the corner of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue to my job at Lehman Brothers on 49th Street and 7th Avenue. I figured an electric scooter would get me there faster, zipping me through all the filth on 8th Avenue.
I wanted to buy something called a Zappy Turbo manufactured by a company called ZAP, but it weighed about 30 or 40 pounds and would have been a hassle to bring on the bus. Plus, the traffic laws surrounding scooters were a bit hazy ( and still are). You couldn’t ride them on the sidewalk and you’d get creamed if you rode them in the street. The last thing I wanted was to spend a few hours a month in traffic court for the inevitable tickets I would get, so I abandoned the idea. Plus, it was a bear market and riding an electric scooter to a Wall Street job was probably a firing offense.