Freakonomics Radio

Long-Term Thinking in a Start-Up Town

Recorded live in San Francisco. Guests include the keeper of a 10,000-year clock, the co-founder of Lyft, a pioneer in male birth control, a specialist in water security, and a psychology professor who is also a puppy.

On this week’s episode of Freakonomics Radio, we travel to San Francisco for a live show featuring five guests: John Zimmer, the co-founder and president of Lyft; Jay Famiglietti, who runs the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan; Nadja Mannowetz, a microbiologist and the co-founder of a firm called YourChoice Therapeutics; Alexander Rose, the executive director of the Long Now Foundation; and Phillip Hammack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who’s got an interesting side gig

Here are the five most fascinating things we learned from our guests this week.

The American Dream Was Never Real

Last March, ride-sharing company Lyft went public at a share price of $72, and a company valuation of about $24 billion. Lyft shares have since fallen to around $60, a decline of more than $6 billion in the company’s…