The head of a little-known scooter start-up that beat far larger rivals Uber and Bird to a lucrative city contract in San Francisco has some word of advice to the burgeoning industry: play by the rules.
Sanjay Dastoor, the chief executive of Skip, said the old approach of tech companies to “move fast and break things” no longer works now that governments and regulators, especially in the fast-growing transportation market, are becoming intolerant of bad behaviour.
Skip was one of just two companies awarded permits to operate a scooter hire scheme in San Francisco last week, as the California city snubbed applications from Uber, Lyft, Bird and Lime.