The Scoop: Lyft’s typo causes stock chaos

As a PR professional, one of the first things you learn to do is ensure that your copy is clean and free of any mistakes. Based on what just happened with Lyft, some individuals might need a refresher on that concept.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a press release stated that Lyft’s profits were projected to rise 500 basis points, or 5%, in 2024. The problem? The projection was only for a 50 basis point rise — someone accidentally added a zero, it seems.

The fallout was immediate. Lyft’s stock rose around 60% in the aftermath of the erroneous announcement, long before analysts and buyers had an opportunity to critically look at the numbers and what they meant. Even in after-hours trading and after some correction back to the mean, Lyft’s stock was still up 16% when the WSJ published its story.

A Lyft spokesperson chalked the issue up to a “clerical error”.

Quite the clerical error indeed.

Why it matters: Beyond the basics that accidentally adding a zero caused the company’s stock to go crazy, the PR implications of this mistake run pretty deep. It’s an embarrassing mistake for Lyft that could have been caught with even the simplest of line edits.

When you’re the outward-facing messaging arm of an organization (or the agency that handles those duties), you need airtight copy and an ironclad review process to ensure that mistakes of this magnitude simply don’t happen. People make mistakes, sure. There’s no denying that. However, having a review framework so that the impacts of human error don’t cascade down and impact the entire company in the public forum is imperative. Maybe with one more copy edit, someone would have caught the error and we wouldn’t be discussing this right now.

It’s much easier to do preventative reputation management than to clean up the mess left after the fact. Give that press release another look.

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Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports, a good pint and ’90s trivia night.