The cuts were mainly people who had joined Lyft when it acquired Motivate, an electric bike-sharing startup, about three months ago. Layoffs are across Boston, San Francisco and New York. A Lyft spokesperson described the layoffs to TechCrunch as “performance management” and said the company is still hiring in the division. (The Information, TechCrunch)

Talking point: The cuts are about one per cent of the company, but are notable because Lyft put out its prospectus last week in the lead-up to IPO, after which it will be more publicly scrutinized. Over the past year, Lyft has been expanding its vehicles beyond private cars in order to meet consumer demand, compete with other players and to show a more diversified business in the lead-up to IPO. That was likely the reasoning behind acquiring Motivate. But an anonymous source told TechCrunch that the layoffs were likely to cut costs on the more established biking operation and channel those funds into the more expensive scooter market (though Lyft did not confirm this).