Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution

Summary - A Must Read for Entrepreneurs

It’s a bit ironic to fall in love with a book that provides a solution to falling in love with the problem.

Uri, best known for founding Waze, drops bombs of experience and knowledge every

5 minutes. Though the second half is a bit slower, THE FIRST HALF IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ

for anyone who even has a small strand of entrepreneurship in their genes.

It’s clear that Uri poured his heart and soul into this book. It is the coalition

of decades of experience, with tons of blood, sweat and tears poured in between the lines.

He see-saws from ideology to concrete experience keeping the book engaging at all times.

I listened to the audiobook at 0.75x speed during my morning workout, leaving voice

notes every time I heard something interesting. Suffice it to say, there was a moment

when I had to stop my timed burpees just to jot something down.

I’ve read about enough enterpenruship journeys to learn that that everyone forges

their own unique path. Some paths, such as the 20 year old dropout from Harvard,

are glorified by the media more than others. Uri’s is a lot more humble, realistic,

and arguably why it is not talked about as much.

Uri spend over a decade working “the corporate life” before venturing into startups.

In doing so, he created one of the world’s most recognizable brands (Waze), a product

that benefits many (hundreds?) millions of people every day, had a successful unicorn

level exit, yet only earned ~$30M from a $1.15B exit at the age of 48. In his words:

But then you pay taxes, you get divorced, and you end up with much less.

He is obviously not complaining, but I have personally met many people who have done

much less and earned much more.

It was also refreshing to hear discuss how most people thoughts his ideas were unlikely

to succeed until he’s had a couple of successes under his belt. I have to admit that I

am also guilty of being biased by an individual’s wealth when listening to their ideas…

He had a great quote to capture this sentiment:

When you create something completely new, at first people will laugh at you.

Then they’ll ignore you until finally you win (or they lose, depending on the perspective).