Levine: Microsoft invested in Waze due to lacking proprietary navigation maps
Uri Levine · A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur) · Feb 16, 2025 · at 23:50
Waze co-founder Uri Levine explains how Google's navigation launch unexpectedly prompted Microsoft to invest in Waze.
0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.1s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“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.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Uri Levine
Levine: Founders should shut down and restart if investors reject pivot funding
“If you are unable to convince your existing investors to re to reinvest in the company in order to build the new part of the journey, the new the new journey, then you know what? Shut down the company and restart a new company that is doing exactly that. And t…”
Levine: Companies stop fundamentally changing their product once they reach PMF
“So once a company figure out product market feed, they don't change their product anymore. Because this is the value that they create to the customers, and you don't want to change that.”
Levine: Product-market fit is measured by only one metric—retention
“Product market feed in general have only one metric. Only one metric. Retention. Look, it's really simple. If you create value, they will come back. That's it. If they are not coming back, that means that you are not creating value.”
Levine: Founders should only quit if the problem vanishes or board breaks
“There are only two reasons that you would like to give up. One is that your mission is wrong, right? So, so the problem disappears. And if the problem disappears, your mission is no longer relevant or no longer valid, then you might want to consider to give. T…”
Levine: Retention is the only metric that defines product-market fit
“Product market feed have one metric. One metric. That's it. Retention. That's really simple. If you create value, they will come back. If they are not coming back, that means that you are not creating value.”
Levine: Navigation apps create far more value through certainty than time-savings
“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.”