Waze

“We invented a technology called real-time parking that told consumers all over the world where parking was available and licensed that data into most of the largest navigation companies globally from Waze to Google to Tele Atlas and to Ford and Porsche and BMW…”

“So, you know, made investments in things like zoom or ways at Qualcomm, which weren't my deals, but they were deals that were intended to be, Hey, let's keep our eyes and ears on four G and five G evolution.”

“Our own investors told us that, look, if we can sell the company for 20 or thirty million dollars today, do it, because you are not going to be successful.”

“Microsoft decided that, wait a minute, we don't have our own maps, so let's invest in Waze. So we ended up getting investment from someone that we did not expect.”

“What we did is we reduced the salary of the management only. And to a certain extent, I would say people didn't even know. We decided in the management meeting that this is what we're going to do.”

“For Waze, it was four years. For Microsoft, it was five years. For Netflix, it was 10 years.”

“It was actually good enough in about four places in the Czech Republic, in Slovakia, in Latvia, and Ecuador, and that's about it. Rest of the world, not good enough.”

“Japan is a very good example where it didn't work, and it will never work, right?”

“If you ask people, what is the value of ways? Then it's not about avoiding traffic. It's about creating certainty. And certainty is way higher value than saving time. So, you know, exactly when you're going to get there. And this is a way higher value.”

“When we started Waze, we thought that we're going to sell map data and traffic information. And we ended up with doing advertisement.”

“So Waze raised about fifty million dollars throughout the entire journey. We started by raising 12. That was this, the first investment round, and then we raised 30. And then was the last round that we raised, actually not a lot.”

“After that was, we sold ways to Google.”

“What we find with exponential organizations, they found a way of dropping the cost of supply exponentially, right? So you think about Airbnb, the cost of adding a room to their inventory is near zero. If you're hired, you have to build a hotel. Same with Uber …”

“We don't want to confuse the route planning with the destination planning. You figure out where you want to go, and then when you look at a paper map, it's like the power of positive thinking. Oh, look at these clear roads. I'm going to go on this road, and th…”

“The shift in design that we've seen recently, and this is only very recently, is where you type in the address now. So I'm thinking in terms of Google Maps and Waze certainly, and perhaps others, is that you type in the address and then up pops a map, which gi…”

“For example, if you look at a ways where we spent 1.1 billion dollars to buy them, that's been a tremendously successful deal for us. But at the time they had almost no revenue.”

“Waze had actually signed a letter of intent with another acquirer when we got involved. One of our main competitors was a Waze stockholder and wasn't too keen on us buying them.”

“But if you actually dive deeper, maps today, including the digital maps, are actually built for human consumption only.”

“What's the distance between your home and work? This used to be offline and self-reported. Now, Waze, Google Maps, any number of apps probably know it even better than you do.”

“I remember making a bad decision not to advise or invest in box or join box because I just thought that the business was so young and so early, and it was basically when it was just three people. And I also made a mistake on Waze, too. And, you know, I met the…”

“But even as amazing as that is, it's not quite enough for a car that wants to drive itself to navigate the world.”

“Waze started in about, I think it was 2007, and it went through three rounds of funding, probably got seventy million dollars in total, and within five years, It had a mass, I think, fifty million users and was sold to Google for a billion dollars.”

“In particular, one that I got there just a little bit too late was Waze. I love Waze. And you know, Kleiner put a bunch of money and it was too expensive for me at that point”

“We ran a campaign on AngelList and also Noam Bardeen, the CEO of Waze, joined and supported us as well.”