Audio File:& Download MP3Transcript:& Lucy Sanders: & Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology, or NCWIT. This is part of a continuing series that we're doing of interviews with wonderful, creative, innovative women who have started successful tech companies. With me, Larry Nelson, w3w3. Hi Larry. Larry Nelson: & It's my pleasure to be here. We've got about... Lucy: & About a hundred. Larry: & ...About a hundred interviews with women in this area. It's very exciting. It's very popular on our website. Lucy: & It's wonderful. We've got a great one coming today. Larry, it's summer. People are hitting the road. All kinds of car trips everywhere. The person we're interviewing today is a serial entrepreneur in the transportation sector, as well as being one of "Time 100 Most Influential People in 2009." Today we're interviewing Robin Chase, who is the founder and CEO of Buzzcar. Got to love that. Before that, the founder and former CEO of Zipcar. I'm sure all of our listeners have seen Zipcars out and about. A very novel concept. We've seen them everywhere. Zipcar is an industry leader today in car sharing in the United States, but Buzzcar's only available in Europe. It does some things slightly different, in that it allows users to rent out their own cars. Larry: & Oh. Lucy: & I know. Pretty interesting, right? Has over 5,000 cars in France, with 15,000 users. That's a real novel twist to ride sharing, for sure. Robin has also appeared in national media on "The Today Show," the "New York Times," and "National Public Radio." Welcome, Robin. Why don't you tell us a little about what's going on at Buzzcar? Robin Chase: & It's nice to be here. The update on Buzzcar is that we have now about 7,500 cars owned by people across France available for rent, and about 80,000 users who are renting them. What's exciting and fun for me when I think about this company, that the reason I started it is that Zipcar will only place cars where it knows that it's going to get a return on investment. I was constantly being asked as CEO, and once I left, "How come Zipcar doesn't have cars in my neighborhood, downstairs in my building in my town?" Zipcar doesn't want to take those risks. We only put them where we're really sure that it's going to happen. What's exciting for me with Buzzcar is, since we're using people's own cars, and if they rent it once a year, they're happy, because they've already paid for it. If they rent it once a month, better. A couple of times a week, best yet. It means we can have cars for rent in places that are any population density. While we do rent a lot in Paris and major cities, it's always exciting for me to see a rental happen in a place where there would never be any car chain or car rental for that matter, because it's such a small location. It's a new way of providing services I'm very excited about. Lucy: & It's certainly very novel. We were just in Europe, my husband and I. We used Uber for the first time... Larry: & Oh. Lucy: & ...which is a great way of finding a cab or a ride when there aren't any taxis. Robin: & Both of those services and many others, is something that I see happening now. I think there's a real organizational shift. There's this new organizational paradigm that I've been calling "Peers Incorporated," which is a collaboration between independent individuals or small companies and a larger institution or government of company on a platform for participation. If you think about Buzz Car, we are doing that. As a company, we made this platform, got insurance through the nice online payments, great apps facilitate everything. We give individuals the power of the corporation and the individuals are micro‑entrepreneurs. I call them auto‑preneurs. [laughter] Lucy: & That's great. Robin: & Uber is the same organizational structure,