Obama's transportation secretary joins Lyft as policy chief

Anthony Foxx, formerly the secretary of transportation under President Obama, is joining ride-hailing company Lyft as its chief policy officer, and is relocating to San Francisco to work full time at the company's headquarters.

Why it matters: While government relations have always been critical to ride-hailing companies, they are only becoming more important, especially at the federal level, as self-driving cars get closer to reality. Foxx isn't the first Obama administration alumnus at Lyft — former senior advisor Valerie Jarrett is on the company's board of directors.