At LAX Airport, Uber Drivers Wait. And Wait. And Wait.

Before the sun could rise over Los Angeles International Airport on a recent Tuesday, hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers had formed a queue nearby, stretching around the block. It was 5 a.m., and the waiting game was about to begin.
In a few minutes, the line of cars would file into a fenced-off parking lot, a mile from the arrival terminals. It is known officially as the Transportation Network Company Staging Area, but drivers call it the 'pen,' where they wait to be matched with passengers getting off flights.
The spot used to be a prime place to catch rides and earn decent money. But these days, there seem to be few rides to go around. Veronica Hernandez, 50, parked her white Chevy Malibu at 5:26 a.m. and opened the Lyft app to check her place in the queue: 156th. It would be an hour and a half before her first ride of the day.
'You have good days and bad days,' Ms. Hernandez said, swiping through a screen showing her daily earnings on the app that week: $205, $245, $179. 'Hopefully it's a good day.'
Like ride-hailing drivers across the country, Ms. Hernandez has seen her pay decline in recent years, even as the demand for her work feels greater than ever. And with the cost of gas and car insurance rising, the already slim margins of gig work are becoming less workable by the day, she said. No place is more emblematic of these problems than LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world but one of the most difficult places for gig workers to earn a living.
'It used to be a real way to earn money,' Ms. Hernandez said. 'Now you can barely survive on it.'
In the early years of app-based platforms like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, people flocked to sign up as drivers. The idea of making money simply by driving someone around in your own car, on your own schedule, appealed to many, from professional chauffeurs looking for extra work to employees working in the service industry who realized they could break free of the 9-to-5 grind.
The key concept was that drivers would be independent contractors, responsible for their own expenses, without health insurance or other employee benefits but with the flexibility to work whatever hours they wanted, without having to sign up for a shift or have a boss.
And in the early years, wages were high. Drivers would regularly take home thousands of dollars a week, as Uber and Lyft pushed growth over profits, posting quarterly losses in the billions of dollars. Then, when they became public companies, profitability became a focus, and wages gradually shrank.
Now, earnings have fallen behind inflation, and for many drivers have decreased. Last year, Uber drivers made an average of $513 a week in gross earnings, a 3.4 percent decline from the previous year, even as they worked six minutes more a week on average, according to Gridwise, an app that collects data and helps drivers track their earnings. For drivers in Los Angeles, average hourly earnings on Uber are down 21 percent since 2021, Gridwise found.
LAX introduced the new system in 2019, in an effort to cut down on bumper-to-bumper traffic at the arrival terminal. Instead of being picked up by Uber and Lyft drivers at the curb, passengers must walk or take a shuttle from their terminal to a pickup spot called LAX-it, next to Terminal 1, which can take up to 20 minutes. But the driver side of the equation is something passengers rarely see.
That morning, inside the lot, with hundreds of parked cars and the smell of port-a-potties, the mood was grim. Drivers waited for hours to snare rides — 'unicorns,' they called them — that would pay them a decent wage of more than $1.50 per mile.
By 10 a.m., the pen had devolved into chaos. While around 300 drivers are waiting in the virtual queue at a given time, the parking lot has only around 200 spots. So, as new cars filed in, they double-parked in front of cars that were already there, which needed to leave the lot to pick up passengers. The result: a cacophony of honking and yelling, drowned out only by the roar of the jet planes overhead, which arrived about every two minutes.
Sergio Avedian, a gig driver and the founder of a ride-hailing blog called The Rideshare Guy, settled into the pen on a recent Tuesday morning at 10:36. After finding a parking spot, he opened the queue — 256th in line.
As he watched the Uber and Lyft apps, rides popped up that were rejected by drivers higher in the queue. But the rates were pitiful: $9.87 for a 13-mile trip, $19.97 for a 25-mile trip and so on. He rejected all of them.
'We call this 'decline and recline,' Mr. Avedian said, lowering his front seat.
To pass the time, groups of drivers smoke cigarettes and play cards. Some nap in their cars or watch YouTube videos. Others wander around hawking phone chargers and car-cleaning products. Occasionally, arguments break out among various groups — sometimes along racial lines — when competition for scarce trips grows fierce.
A separate economy exists in the pen to feed drivers. Outside the parking lot are taco trucks, but inside, some women sell Chinese food from the trunks of their cars, trading plastic bowls of wonton soup for cash.
Some drivers have taken out their frustrations by scribbling curses against Uber and its executives on the walls inside the port-a-potties, lamenting the hourslong rides that result in no tips, or the days they've been locked out of their accounts with no explanation.
Sitting in the trunk space of his Toyota Sienna, Andreh Andrias smoked a cigarette as he refreshed his Uber app. Mr. Andrias, a 57-year-old from Iran, said he could make $3,000 a week before expenses driving for Uber before the pandemic, but that has since declined significantly. He flipped through his most recent weekly earnings on his phone: $1,670, $1,700, $1,053.
'You have to take care of the family,' said Mr. Andrias, who has a wife and daughter, and more than $7,000 in car and rent payments to make. 'Right now, I cannot.'
The New York Times first asked Uber about the conditions of driving at LAX in 2023, and the company said it was aware of continuing problems. But not much has changed in the years since.
Uber said that a variety of factors were responsible for lower wages, and that its take rate — the percent of each ride's fare that it keeps for itself — had not increased in Los Angeles. Liability insurance costs, the company said, have skyrocketed, and now account for 43 percent of the rider's fare.
The company also said a $4 surcharge for ride-hailing drivers at LAX, along with the new pickup system, had significantly lowered the demand for rides at the airport.
LAX's public relations division did not respond to a request for comment.
C.J. Macklin, a spokesman for Lyft, said the company was working with LAX to develop a new holding lot for ride-hailing drivers, which would be built as part of the airport's new, $5.5 billion construction project, which includes a light rail between terminals and is supposed to reduce traffic.
'A year from now, LAX will look completely different, and we're excited for a smoother, faster experience for drivers, riders and the entire city,' Meghan Casserly, an Uber spokeswoman, said in a statement.
In the lot, there was a pervasive sense of sluggishness; the discontent and hours of waiting seemed to lull drivers into inaction, even when a seemingly decent ride chimed on their phones.
'There's drivers who really don't know what they're doing, and they end up at the lot just because they don't know any better,' said Pablo Gomez, an Uber driver who frequents LAX. 'They dropped off a passenger, it said to go to the lot, and they're like, 'OK.' They don't even know what they're waiting for.'
Driver advocates like Mr. Avedian and Mr. Gomez try to help drivers strategize and make the most of their time. But Mr. Gomez also empathizes with drivers who keep praying for a windfall. He used to be a compulsive gambler, he said, and driving for Uber feels similar.
'The wasted time is part of that psychology of the addict. You're just chasing that ride, that score,' he said.
At 2 a.m., when the pen closed, some drivers left to look for a parking spot elsewhere in the neighborhood, where they would sleep in their cars until the lot reopened at 5. Others hoped to catch one final ride in the direction of home, which for many was over an hour away.
Ms. Hernandez was sitting on the hood of her car on Tuesday when it hit 11 p.m., her time to head home. She watched as offers popped up on her phone against the wallpaper of her two children, ages 25 and 26. In between rides, she checked her email, hoping to hear back from jobs she recently applied for at a doctor's office and a warehouse.
Finally, a ride appeared that would take her near her home in Montebello, a 50-minute drive east. It was only $28 for a 27-mile trip — far from a unicorn — but she accepted.
'It's not the best rate,' she said. 'But you have to make it worth your time.'

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Start your week smart: US strikes Iran, Pride rollbacks, Tesla robotaxis, NATO summit, Bezos' wedding

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TechCrunch

38 minutes ago

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The stablecoin evangelist: Katie Haun's fight for digital dollars

In 2018, when Bitcoin was trading around $4,000 and most Americans, at least, thought cryptocurrency was a fad, Katie Haun found herself on a debate stage in Mexico City opposite Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who had dismissed digital assets as near worthless. As Krugman focused on Bitcoin's wild price swings, Haun steered the conversation toward something else — stablecoins. 'Stablecoins are really interesting and really important to this ecosystem to hedge against that volatility,' she argued on stage, explaining how digital tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar could offer the benefits of blockchain technology without the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies. Krugman dismissed the idea entirely. It wasn't exactly a turning point in Haun's career, but it was one moment among others that have helped define it. A former federal prosecutor who had spent more than a decade investigating financial crimes, including creating the government's first cryptocurrency task force and leading investigations into the Mt. Gox hack and corrupt agents in the Silk Road case, Haun had an unusual background for a crypto champion. She wasn't a libertarian ideologue or a tech founder. Coming instead from law enforcement, she understood the criminal potential and legitimate uses of digital assets. By 2018, she had already made history as the first female partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where she co-led their crypto funds. Founding Haun Ventures in 2022, with more than $1.5 billion in assets under management — its team is now investing from a brand-new set of funds that have yet to officially close — she has been even more free to pursue her specific convictions about the future of money. The leap to hanging her own shingle hasn't been without its complexities. Despite her role at a16z and the industry connections that came with it, the two haven't publicly co-invested in anything since early 2022, shortly after she launched her fund, and Haun, who joined the board of Coinbase in 2017, stepped off it last year, while Marc Andreessen, who took colleague Chris Dixon's seat in 2020, remains a director. When asked Wednesday night at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event about her relationship with Andreessen Horowitz, she downplayed any potential friction while acknowledging they aren't collaborators exactly. 'There's no gentleman's agreement,' she said, echoing this editor's question about whether there's any understanding to avoid competing with her former employer. 'In fact, I still talk to Andreessen Horowitz. You're right that we haven't really done any deals together of late.' Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW The apparent lack of co-investment could reflect the cutthroat industry or the challenges associated with leaving one of Silicon Valley's most prominent firms to compete directly with former colleagues. Whatever the case, Haun is now charting her own course, and at the heart of it is stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to traditional assets like the U.S. dollar. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which can swing wildly in value, stablecoins like Circle's USDC or Tether's USDT are meant to trade at exactly $1, creating a digital representation of traditional currency that can move on blockchain networks. Indeed, fast-forward to today, and Haun's belief in stablecoins looks increasingly prescient. Stablecoins — which barely existed in 2015 — now represent a quarter of a trillion dollars in value. They've become the 14th largest holder of U.S. Treasuries globally, recently surpassing both Germany and Norway. For the first time this year, stablecoin transaction volume exceeded Visa's. 'I think people who looked at stablecoins a few years ago thought, what is the value prop?' Haun said Wednesday night. 'You've asked me this before. You said, 'Why do I need stablecoins?' And I said, 'I refer to this as an 'If it works for me, it works for everyone' problem.' In reality, for most Americans, the existing financial system works reasonably well. We have Venmo, bank accounts, credit cards. But Haun, drawing on her prosecutor's understanding of global financial systems, says she has long been aware that the U.S. experience isn't universal. In countries with unstable currencies or limited banking infrastructure, stablecoins offer something unique, she argues, which is instant access to stable, dollar-denominated value that can be sent anywhere in the world for pennies. 'People in Turkey don't think of Tether as a cryptocurrency,' she said Wednesday, 'They think of Tether as money.' The technology has evolved dramatically since those early debates, certainly. Stablecoins once cost $12 to send internationally. And Circle says its USDC stablecoin is fully backed one-to-one by dollars held in JP Morgan bank accounts and audited by Big Four accounting firms. It's important to note that while Circle and Tether are committed to having enough reserves to support their tokens, unlike traditional banks, there's no insured government protection behind these reserves. Still, the corporate world is taking notice in a big way. Walmart and Amazon are reportedly exploring stablecoins, as are other goliaths like Uber, Apple, and Airbnb. The reason is simple economics. Stablecoins provide a way to move the value of U.S. dollars using cryptocurrency rails instead of traditional banking infrastructure, potentially saving these retail-heavy companies billions in processing fees. But the shift has critics worried about economic chaos. If major corporations can issue their own currencies, what happens to monetary policy and banking regulation? The concerns run deeper than just economic disruption. Not all stablecoins are created equal, and many lack the backing and oversight that companies like Circle provide. While well-regulated stablecoins like USDC are backed by actual dollars in U.S. Treasury securities, others operate with less transparency or rely on complex algorithmic mechanisms that have proven vulnerable to collapse. (TerraUSD has had the most specular crash to date, wiping out $60 billion in value when it nosedived.) Corruption concerns in particular came into sharp focus recently when President Donald Trump's family issued its own stablecoin, a move that highlighted potential conflicts of interest in an industry where political influence can directly impact market value and regulatory outcomes. These concerns came to a head as Congress debated the GENIUS Act, legislation that would create a federal framework for stablecoin regulation. The bill passed the Senate early last week with bipartisan support, with 14 Democrats crossing party lines to support it. It now awaits a House vote before potentially reaching the president's desk. But Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, has been particularly vocal in her opposition, calling the legislation a 'superhighway for Donald Trump's corruption.' Her criticism centers on a notable gap in the bill: while it prohibits members of Congress and senior executive branch officials from issuing stablecoin products, it says nothing about their family members. Asked about Warren's concerns on Wednesday night, Haun practically rolled her eyes. 'I think it's really ironic that Elizabeth Warren or other Democrats who do call this corruption are not running to pass crypto legislation,' she said. 'Had there been rules of the road in place [already], there would have been a framework, there would have been clear rules for what's a security, what's a commodity, and what are the consumer protections around that.' Haun, whose venture capital firm has made numerous stablecoin investments including Bridge (acquired by Stripe for reportedly 10 times forward revenue), is largely supportive of the legislation, unsurprisingly. But she has one notable criticism: the bill's prohibition on yield-bearing stablecoins. 'I'm not sure that yield-bearing stablecoins are a good idea for consumers in the U.S., but I'm not sure that a prohibition is a good idea,' she told StrictlyVC attendees. The issue comes down to who profits from the interest earned on stablecoin reserves. Currently, that money goes to companies like Circle and Coinbase. But Haun wonders why consumers shouldn't get that yield, just like they would with a savings account. 'If you had a savings account or checking account and you're getting yield on that, you're getting interest,' she explained. 'What if you just said, 'No, the bank gets interest, not you,' and they're lending out your money?' Haun was less nuanced when it comes to another Warren concern: that if the GENIUS Act is signed into law, stablecoins could become a vehicle for money laundering and terrorism financing. 'Criminals are great beta testers of all technologies,' said Haun. 'But this technology is highly traceable, way more traceable than cash. The largest criminal instrument is the dollar bill.' (According to Haun, the Treasury Department has testified that 99.9% of money laundering crimes succeed using traditional bank wires, not cryptocurrency.) Meanwhile, she said, the regulatory clarity that legislation like the GENIUS Act provides could actually make the system safer by distinguishing between legitimate, well-backed stablecoins from more experimental or risky variants. In fact, as the stablecoin ecosystem continues to mature, Haun sees even bigger changes ahead. She envisions a future where all kinds of assets — from money market funds to real estate to private credit — get 'tokenized' and made available 24/7 to global markets. 'It's just a digital representation of a physical asset,' she explains. 'BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, they've already tokenized their money market funds. That's already happened.' According to Haun, tokenized assets could democratize access to investments in ways similar to how Netflix democratized entertainment. Instead of having to be wealthy enough to meet minimum investment thresholds, someone with $25 and a smartphone could buy fractional ownership in a share of Apple or Amazon, for example. 'Just because something's inevitable doesn't mean it's imminent,' Haun said on Wednesday. But she's confident the transformation is coming, driven by the same forces that made stablecoins successful: they're faster, cheaper, and more accessible than traditional alternatives. Looking back at that 2018 debate with Krugman, Haun's persistence seems to have paid off. A major question now isn't whether digital dollars will reshape the financial system but perhaps more importantly, whether regulators can keep pace with the technology while addressing legitimate concerns about corruption, consumer protection, and financial stability. Haun doesn't seem concerned. While critics point to the fact that stablecoins represent just 2% of global payments, questioning their product-market fit, Haun sees this as a familiar tech adoption story — one that has played out repeatedly and often takes longer than people initially imagine. 'We think it's really early days,' she told the crowd.