Travis VanderZanden | |
Birth Place: | Appleton, Wisconsin, USA |
Education: | University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire (BBA) University of Southern California (MBA) |
Occupation: | Entrepreneur |
Known For: | Founder of Bird |
Footnotes: | [1] |
Travis VanderZanden (born 1979) [2] is an American businessman and the founder and former CEO of Bird, a scooter sharing service. Before founding Bird, VanderZanden was Chief Operating Officer at Lyft, then VP of International Growth at Uber.
VanderZanden graduated from Appleton North High School in 1997,[3] he later attended University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire from 1997 to 2002, receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration. He earned a Master of Business Administration from the USC Marshall School of Business in 2007.
VanderZanden worked as a product manager at Qualcomm. After leaving Qualcomm, he was Chief Revenue Officer for Yammer from 2009 to 2011, then left to co-found Cherry, an on-demand car-wash service. He was CEO of Cherry until 2013, when the company was acquired by Lyft, and he was brought on as Chief Operating Officer.[4] He left Lyft for Uber in October 2014. Lyft later sued him for allegedly breaking his confidentiality agreement, and the lawsuit was settled for undisclosed terms, with VanderZanden denying any wrongdoing.[5] [6] VanderZanden then left Uber in October 2016.[7]
VanderZanden founded Bird in the summer of 2017. The company deployed its first scooters that September, before raising a $15 million Series A round of financing in February, 2018.[8] In October of 2018, Bird released its latest edition of the scooter, Bird Zero, which was designed and built in partnership with Okai.[9] As of 2019, the company is now in 120 cities across the globe.[10] [11] The company has taken in $415 million in funding. To date, Bird has provided more than 10 million rides. The company currently receives $1.27 on every Bird ride taken, which is inclusive of all costs.[12] VanderZanden was a speaker at TechCrunch's Disrupt SF in October 2019.[13]
During the COVID-19 mass layoff of Bird employees, VanderZanden was criticized for not informing employees in person about their dismissal, rather, delegating the task to the company's Chief Communications Officer.[14]
In September 2023, Bird was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange because of its low stock price. Its $7 million market capitalization is less than the value of the $22 million Miami mansion that VanderZanden bought in 2021. [15]
In 2020, VanderZanden purchased a home in Bel Air formerly owned by Trevor Noah.[16]