In Conversation with Uri Levine
✨ Tech Tribe Dispatch Season V Episode VI
✨ This month’s #ChaiSociety Dispatch is part of a new series we’re launching, showcasing amazing conversations with fascinating people.
Every year at SXSW in Austin attracts a veritable cornucopia of people from the world of tech, media, film and music to share their vision for the future - and the present - with the world.
This year, in addition to everything Chana and I do –hosting our #openShabbat meal for some 350 people and our official SXSW meetup on Acts of Routine Kindness– I had the chance to speak to Uri Levine, the co-founder of Waze and author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution – A Handbook for Entrepreneurs.
The following is part of our fascinating conversation, edited lightly for brevity and style.
💡 Think:
Mordechai: Uri, as someone who co-founded Waze, your accomplishments in the world of startups hardly need introduction. Since then you’ve continued to help other startups grow. What advice can you share from your experience?
Uri: Running a startup is a journey of failures. You need to try different things. If you’re afraid to fail, then you already have. You’ll need to expand your comfort zone and be ready to take risks. So be ready to fail but fail fast, so you can apply the lessons you learned and get up stronger.
My general approach is to do good and help others do well in the world. You and I know that as Tikkun Olam. When I look at a company, I ask myself, “Is it there to make the world a better place?” That’s the main thing I look for. If not, I’m not interested.
M: Your book is called Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. Can you describe what this approach means?
U: I always tell people to start with the problem and ask themselves if it’s there to create value. If the problem can’t add value to a customer's life then the product won’t do well. If it’s a problem that only helps one person, then you haven’t identified a real problem. You have a solution in search of a problem.
So you start with the problem and find if others have built a solution. If you start with the problem, then you’ve found your North Star - it will guide you in what you do. You know you have something that other people need. It will also make the story of your product more compelling.
M: So once you’ve found your problem, what’s the next step?
U: The flow is to fall in love with the problem, see if there are potential users and then provide them value.
The value of the product, driven by the importance of the problem, then leads to user retention.
But the main thing is to just start something! Even if you feel you’re not good enough, start so you can continue until you are good enough. Having a start up is a journey of failure. If you're afraid to fail, you already have. It’s a long journey, one that might take years. So you need to expand your comfort zone, go out of if, and be ready to fail - so that you can get up stronger.
M: Let’s zoom in a little bit? In June 2013, Waze was acquired by Google for $1.13 billion. It’s been used by 750 million people. How did you get there? What was that journey like?
U: When we first developed Waze, in 2007, it ran on one device - a Nokia phone - this was when the iPhone was becoming dominant - and while the app became popular in Israel, it didn’t run well enough globally.
Even three and a half years into our startup, we didn’t know if we’d make it. But we remained focused - because we knew the problem was more important: We fell in love with the problem.
In 2007, if I told someone that we could use AI and user-generated traffic data to help you get somewhere, it may not have caught on. But if we address the problem - tell that story - if I can tell you that Waze can help you get somewhere a few minutes earlier, help you avoid traffic… that people understand!
M: You mentioned AI. Obviously AI was built into the core of what Waze did from the start. Right now though, everyone is excited about GPT and this huge explosion in AI products that the users can play around with and get some pretty startling results. Where do you think this new focus on AI is heading?
U: You and I both know about Yehuda Hanasi, who put together the Mishnah. He knew the secret of Jewish survival was through preserving and mining all the information of the oral tradition through written language. It’s why you and I are both here.
Today we don’t yet know where we’re headed with these AI products - the use case has yet to be defined, the value is yet to be determined. Disruption only truly happens when behavior changes. Tech has a way of replacing historical jobs. What we can hope is that this AI, if it can solve real problems, can help us move forward.
M: Do you see AI as something that can really make the world a better place?
U: As I said before, I’m interested in startups that make this world better. Take for example Kahun…
M: Kahun, like the Kohen Gadol, the high priest in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem?
L: This Kahun is named after the Kahun Papyri, a collection of ancient Egyptian medical texts.
So this is a medical startup that uses AI to help the physician. The patients answer questions about what they’re experiencing and feeling, and the AI has all of the latest medical textbooks and papers fed into it, and gives recommendations for the physician.
What’s important is that it doesn’t take humanity out of the process - the patient still shares, the doctor still looks and analyses. When you have a situation where there are not enough doctors, you can now see doctors take care of five times as many patients by cutting down on the paperwork that takes the doctor away from time actually spent with the patient. More time for humans helping each other. That’s ultimately what we want to foster.
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