Could not agree more on Lyft. In a winner-take-all market where an all-out land grab is critical to the long-term success of the marketplace, moving quickly and being the first to reach that golden scale of monopolistic ownership of supply and demand is absolutely key.

Not a perfect comparison given Lyft was founded 2 years after Uber and therefore was already at a disadvantage, but had they grown faster, they might have been able to overtake Uber's position.

In any case, the outcome of the Uber / Didi battle in China should be a great data point for this question.