Axios

"It matters how you get there," actor Jeff Bridges declares at the end of a new Oregon Trail-themed TV ad for ride-hailing company Lyft set to debut during NFL games this Sunday.

Our thought bubble:The ad takes aim at rival Uber's recent troubles over some of its potentially illegal practices (it's faced multiple probes and lawsuits in the last six months). Uber has often been described as having an aggressive culture focused on the ends over the means, something Lyft is suggesting may be the wrong attitude. The new ad also contrasts with a spot Lyft released last year in which it portrayed rival Uber in a much more obvious terms—three business executives sad around a dark-walled conference room at "Ride Corp.," spying on Lyft's customers.

Dara Khosrowshahi, the new CEO of Uber, has resigned from the board of directors of the New York Times Company, which operates the newspaper, according to a new SEC filing. Khosrowshahi joined the board in 2015.

Clean slate: The filing states that he's stepping down "in light of his new role and increased responsibilities as Chief Executive Officer of Uber Technologies, Inc." His resignation will also help dispel some concerns over potential conflicts of interests as the news publication continues to cover Uber.

Khosrowshahi also on the board of Fanatics, and an investor in Convoy, which competes his company's UberFreight division.

If you want to know why virtual reality hasn't taken off, you might want to blame our addiction to smartphones.

Why? While the power of VR is to be transported into an immersive experience, consumers will demand a lot out of something that makes them give up Twitter and Facebook, even for a few minutes.

One perspective: "It has to be a really compelling reason to get you to give up all that," Shauna Heller, a former Oculus worker who now consults on VR projects, said Thursday at the Mobile Future Forward conference near Seattle. "There aren't just a ton of those reasons just yet."

Possible current uses:

• Education is a prime use, in that it already requires full attention for the brain to really learn new material.
• Conquering fears or playing games probably also qualify.

"When those things fall away, the compelling reasons to put on a headset fall away with them," she said.

Amazon's search for a second headquarters has cities across the country scrambling to roll out the red carpet for the company, which promises to bring 50,000 new jobs and $5 billion investment — and immediate "tech hub" cred that so many communities covet. Based on the criteria Amazon provided, as well as the tech giant's political reality, we came up with a list of top five possible contenders to become Amazon's second mothership.

The five cities: Denver, Chicago, Phoenix, Minneapolis and Detroit.