Before 2018, few people could have predicted that electric scooters would become the hot new trend in mobility technology. But then Bird and Lime exploded out of nowhere, turning dockless shared scooters into a bonafide phenomenon and triggering a venture capital gold rush. Over the course of 2018, “the year of the scooter” saw Micromobility become a massive phenomenon that is starting to change how people think about mobility.
Oliver Bruce has been at the eye of this storm of change, teaming up with “the Godfather of Micromobility” Horace Dediu to form Micromobility Industries, the Micromobility Podcast and a series of Micromobility Summits. I caught up with the former Uber manager at the first of these summits to be held in the USA in January, at a former Ford factory on the San Francisco Bay. We discussed the stunning rise of Micromobility, why scooters led the way, and where the sector is headed.