Waze co-founder Uri Levine has written the book on startups navigating crises – literally
The tech guru talks about the new edition of his handbook for entrepreneurs, and backs it up with examples of how his own businesses survived, and thrived, during the war in Gaza
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
In Waze co-founder Uri Levine’s handbook for entrepreneurs, “Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution,” whose 2025 edition came out in the US and Canada on February 18, he tells the story of how he once asked his then 17-year-old son to drive him to the airport.
“I can’t dad, my phone is broken,” said Levine’s son, implying that he wouldn’t be able to use Waze.
“I’ll tell you how to get there,” a baffled Levine said. “But how will I get back home?” his son responded.
Levine uses the anecdote to show just how essential his navigational tool has become for people around the world — and in his own home — empowering them to get around in the quickest possible way.
Google acquired the community-based traffic and navigation app in 2013 for over $1.1 billion — setting a record at the time for the largest amount paid by a tech firm to an app maker.
Levine’s book, meant to be a manual for entrepreneurs, tackles a variety of subjects based on the experience of running Waze and other startups Levine has worked with. These include how to evaluate if an idea is worthy of a startup; what is required of a CEO; how important it is to make sure the problem you are tackling actually affects a large enough audience; how to raise money and juggle investors; and the immense dilemma of whether to sell a company or hold on to it.
Along the way, Levine told The Times of Israel in an interview, decisions must be made quickly and with conviction.
“There are always prices that you pay with each and every decision,” he said, adding that he has no regrets — not even for perhaps selling Waze too early and for too little money — because one “cannot change the past.”
“The decision that you make is, by definition, the right decision because you don’t know what it would be like if you had chosen a different path,” he said.
If you are not happy with the result, he added, then “make a new decision.”
Navigating crises
The 2025 edition of Levine’s book has a new chapter on how to navigate crises — especially timely for Israeli entrepreneurs who have had to cope with COVID, the judicial overhaul proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and then the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities and war in Gaza. The chapter brings examples of the struggles of some of Levine’s startups, with their CEOs talking candidly about how their market disappeared overnight during the pandemic and their roller-coaster ride to either startup death or recovery.
“Building a startup is a journey from one crisis to the next,” Levine wrote in the new chapter, and thus there is no better time than “now” to set up a startup. Also, he wrote, it doesn’t matter if the crisis is international and affects everyone: “The fact that other people also suffer from the same problems is of no importance. It is your responsibility to solve your problems.”
Levine was a member of the IDF’s elite cyber intelligence Unit 8200 during his army service. He then worked at Comverse and other tech firms before co-founding Waze in 2007 with Ehud Shabtai and Amir Shinar.
Since Waze’s acquisition, Levine has invested in and founded several other startups, including financial adviser software maker Pontera; the now-defunct Refundit, an app to navigate the VAT refund process for tourists; and SeeTree, a startup that provides farmers with information about crops. He is also a former investor and board member of Moovit, the public transportation app acquired by Intel in 2020 for $900 million.
Levine, now 60, with close-cropped silver hair, wrote the book because he sees himself not only as an entrepreneur but also as an educator. “I feel equally rewarded when I build stuff myself or I guide someone to build,” he said.
The feedback for the book has been positive, Levine said. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, wrote the foreword to the first published edition in January 2023, calling it a “bible” for entrepreneurs, while others have told Levine they consult chapters in the book to help them get through problems they face with their startups.
Of the Gaza war and its impact on Israel’s tech ecosystem, Levine said in the interview that investors have been deterred by the uncertainty of unfolding developments, but that all his startups are doing better today than before the war, in terms of revenue and profitability, because they took quick and decisive steps to fend off the crisis.
“Because of the resilience of the ecosystem and because of the actions that those startups have made to become operationally excellent during this period of time, they are way more attractive today and throughout the crisis than before,” he said.
When the war is over, something that is hopefully “around the corner,” then startups “will see a significant uplift in valuations, because…investors will come again,” he added.
Levine said he has seen reports of some Israelis seeking to relocate because of the war but has not witnessed the phenomenon at his companies. “At the end of the day, we are Israelis, our culture and DNA is Israeli,” he said.
The new Trump administration is good news for the region and will hopefully help create a long-awaited new Middle East, he said, building on the Abraham Accords and a potential deal with Saudi Arabia, leading to new opportunities for Israel, its tech ecosystem, and entrepreneurs.
“The future is going to be way better,” he said.
Levine said he will continue mentoring and investing in startups, but at the moment he is not committing to anything new.
“I have five children and 11 startups,” he laughed.
Alongside his business roles of board member, investor, co-founder and mentor, Levine has also added the role of “father” — as he is mentoring two of his sons in their businesses. One of them is MyWhisky, which makes investments in whisky casks accessible to investors in Israel. His other son’s startup, Atlantrees, grows avocados in Portugal by doubling their yield through a variety of practices and technologies, said Levine.
Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs by Uri Levine
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