Key Points
Uber and Lyft driver investing is the idea Sergio Avedian keeps coming back to after a career shift that still surprises people: he retired early from Wall Street, then spent the last decade driving ride-hailing in Southern California—and teaching other drivers how to think more strategically about money.
Avedian, 58, says the principles he learned as a trader didn’t disappear when he left finance. They simply changed form. Instead of reading markets, he began reading an algorithm-driven workday—watching when and where ride prices move, how timing affects earnings, and what habits separate a “good day” from a “great day.”
Now, as self-driving cars expand, Avedian is urging drivers to plan beyond the next payout. His message is straightforward: gig workers need a future-focused strategy, not just a daily hustle.
From Wall Street to the driver’s seat
Avedian was born in Istanbul, Turkey, to Armenian parents. He went to high school in Germany and later came to the US for college.
He says he was always interested in finance, which led him to become a trader at a boutique Wall Street firm. Along the way, he saw the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s.
After retiring from his day job in 2005, Avedian looked for ways to stay occupied. One area that kept pulling him in was automation. He says algorithms fascinated him, especially because he had already watched widespread automation take hold in finance.
That curiosity eventually carried over into ride-hailing.
In 2016, Avedian says he was having lunch with a friend who mentioned an app called Uber and added a detail that caught his attention: “I think they use algorithms.” Avedian started reading about it, meeting drivers, and learning how the work really operated. Before long, he signed up and began driving in the Los Angeles area.
He describes the early days as financially eye-catching. He says Uber was offering $1,000 bonuses to sign up as a driver, and he also earned up to $80 an hour.
But he says the money wasn’t the only draw. The pattern-recognition side of the job felt familiar.
How trading instincts show up in ride-hailing
Avedian sees a clear link between trading and ride-share driving: both reward people who understand timing and trends.
On Wall Street, he says, there was a common saying: “a trend is your friend,” because catching a trend early could lead to profit. In his view, the rideshare equivalent is learning when and where prices tend to surge and positioning yourself accordingly.
Picking trips, he says, can be like trading in the sense that it requires decisions under uncertainty—where you choose based on what you believe demand and pricing will do next.
He gives a specific example from his own routine: positioning himself in Santa Monica between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., because prices would usually be higher there at that time.
In practice, that approach turns Uber and Lyft driving into something more structured than simply waiting for the next request. The day becomes a series of decisions—where to be, when to be there, and how to respond when pricing changes.
For Avedian, those decisions are part of the bigger story behind Uber and Lyft driver investing: the more predictable you can make your earnings, the easier it becomes to save consistently.
Uber and Lyft driver investing as a long-term strategy
Avedian says he thinks Uber, Lyft, and other gig work apps are “wonderful” because they have created massive opportunities for people.
At the same time, he doesn’t want the people who make these services work each day to get left behind. A core concern, he says, is that many gig workers do not have access to the same benefits employees do, including retirement benefits.
That gap is one reason Avedian says he is building a personal finance website and YouTube channel. While his content is not only for gig workers, he describes them as a major part of the audience.
His advice often starts with a small rule meant to be repeatable.
One piece of guidance he says he gives drivers: at the end of a shift, do one extra trip, then put the money from that trip into an account and don’t touch it. He says drivers can even put it into an index fund or another investment that can appreciate over time.
The goal, as he frames it, is to create a habit that turns driving hours into something that lasts beyond the week—an approach that sits at the heart of Uber and Lyft driver investing.
Why self-driving cars changed the urgency
Avedian says drivers need to think about investing more than ever because self-driving cars are expanding.
He is exploring a bigger concept connected to that shift: the creation of an investment trust that would own some of these cars—similar to a REIT that owns malls—and that drivers could invest in as well.
The purpose, he says, would be to give drivers “skin in the game” and a way to earn passive income.
While the idea is still in the exploration phase, it reflects the direction Avedian is pointing drivers toward. In his view, Uber and Lyft driver investing isn’t just about saving more—it’s about adapting to how ride-hailing could evolve and making sure drivers have a stake in what comes next.
A push for a one-time driver “Thank you” bonus
Avedian’s focus on driver finances also includes a direct appeal to the companies themselves.
He says he put together a petition asking Uber and Lyft to pay their drivers a one-time “Thank you” bonus.
In making his case, he points to how both companies have made lots of money, especially over the last few years. He says Uber became profitable thanks to efforts such as upfront pricing, and he describes Lyft as having made a turnaround. He also points to Uber’s announced $20 billion stock buyback program this year.
From Avedian’s perspective, those milestones raise a simple question: why not make drivers’ lives better and build loyalty with a one-time payment?
He says he has spoken to the CEOs of these companies because of his work with Harry Campbell, who runs a YouTube channel called The Rideshare Guy. Avedian says he has worked with Campbell since about 2018, with a break during COVID when demand for rides went down.
Avedian’s view is that leadership will listen. Whether they will act is another matter, and he frames it as an open question: will they actually do it?
The bonus campaign fits into his broader argument about Uber and Lyft driver investing. If drivers are expected to manage uncertainty—income swings, benefit gaps, and the long-term changes implied by expanding self-driving cars—then one-time support or structural improvements can matter, especially when paired with better saving habits.
A recent example of driver advocacy paying off
Avedian says he has seen evidence that the companies can do the right thing.
He points to a 2023 effort he worked on with Pablo Gomez, another driver in Los Angeles. According to Avedian, the two helped get California’s treasurer to update some reimbursement rates under Prop 22, the state’s pay law for gig workers. He says the update led Uber to pay millions of dollars to drivers.
Avedian emphasizes how easily issues can go unnoticed without someone pushing them forward. He says that if Gomez had not mentioned the reimbursement issue to him, he might not have known about it—and it might never have been fixed.
For Avedian, the Prop 22 reimbursement update is not just a policy story. It is also part of the practical reality behind Uber and Lyft driver investing: when pay rules shift, when reimbursements change, and when platforms adjust how earnings work, drivers feel it immediately—and long-term planning becomes even more important.
What Avedian wants drivers to take away
Avedian says his aim is to open the door to different ideas about how drivers can benefit.
Some of his thinking is personal-finance focused, like the “one extra trip” savings habit and the push to get drivers investing consistently. Some of it is structural, like the petition for a one-time bonus. And some of it is forward-looking, like exploring an investment trust tied to self-driving cars so drivers can potentially participate financially in the next era of ride-hailing.
But the core theme is the same: Uber and Lyft driver investing is not a luxury or a side project. In Avedian’s telling, it is a response to how gig work functions today—especially for workers without traditional benefits—and to how the industry may evolve tomorrow.
Conclusion
A decade after signing up to drive in the Los Angeles area out of curiosity about algorithms, Sergio Avedian is using a trader’s mindset to talk about something many gig workers struggle to prioritize: building a financial cushion that lasts.
His message blends tactics and long-range planning—understanding when pricing tends to be higher, creating a simple savings routine, and thinking early about how expanding self-driving cars could reshape the work. At the same time, he is pressing Uber and Lyft for a one-time “Thank you” bonus and pointing to past advocacy, including Prop 22 reimbursement changes, as proof that driver-focused outcomes are possible.
For drivers listening to Avedian, the takeaway is less about mastering a perfect system and more about starting a repeatable habit—one that turns today’s rides into tomorrow’s security through Uber and Lyft driver investing.
