Plenty of folks these days wonder aloud about Silicon Valley’s social responsibility. Should entrepreneurs worry about the impact of technology? Or is their business strictly a profit-driven one? Perhaps they needn’t choose since there are practical payoffs to keeping a larger mission in mind.

Lyft Inc. is a twisting, winding case study in how a startup evolves. What began as a college car-pooling application now chomps up about 30 percent of the U.S. rideshare market. The company is broadening its scope even more to change the realities of transit in a major way, according to John Zimmer (pictured), co-founder and president of Lyft Inc.

“The idea is not to provide an alternative to a taxi or a late ride home — it’s to completely replace car ownership,” Zimmer said. A world sans car ownership but with easy access to transit for all citizens would have a lot of benefits, he added.

Zimmer spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, as part of the Mayfield People First event that recently took place in Menlo Park, California. They discussed Lyft’s expanding mission and its ongoing rivalry with Uber Technologies Inc. (* Disclosure below.)

High ideals trickle to the bottom line

With car ownership drastically cut or eliminated, civic planners could design cities differently, according to Zimmer. They could design for the enjoyment of citizens rather than to accommodate droves of vehicles.

Zimmer envisions a number of ways increased rideshare availability could do good for society. Evacuating areas hit by natural disasters is one; another is greater access to the democratic process to those in rural areas or the economically disadvantaged, for instance.

“In the last presidential election, I believe … about 15 million people listed transportation as a reason they couldn’t vote,” Zimmer said.

Zimmer is confident that broadening Lyft’s mission will attract talent and keep employees committed. “If you’re fortunate to have a choice where you work, what we’ve seen is people will follow a mission.”

And the right kind of investors will support companies that set their sights higher than the bottom line, he added.

“About four to five years ago, we wake up and Uber raises $3 billion and we have $100 million in the bank and about five months left,” Zimmer said. “Everyone said Lyft is done. At that point, we were fortunate to have a firm like Mayfield [Fund LLC] believe in us,” he said.

Mayfield could see Lyft’s vision and understood what it was like to be an entrepreneur and an operator — not just an investor, Zimmer concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Mayfield People First event. (Disclosure: TheCUBE’s coverage of the Mayfield People First event is presented by Mayfield Fund LLC.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE