Author: chelsea.kunin

Coaching Seth, I am a more recent fan of Seth having met and worked with him starting in 2017. I had met him via Dave Blundin prior to this time…

They say, "we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with," and for me Seth Birnbaum was one of those five. I suspect many more than five people consider Seth to be one of their five best friends, which is probably the greatest tribute a person can get. I will miss him for the rest of my life. I first met Seth when he was a fun-loving teenaged undergrad at MIT. A Social Chairman, actually. As natural a fit for that title as there could ever be. But we didn't become best friends until ten years ago when Seth visited Cogo Labs. He and his lifelong best friend and closest ally, Tomas Revesz, had founded two enterprise software companies together - Neogeneis, and Verdasys. We shared some stories about the long hard slog of enterprise software - the millionmiles of air travel, sleeping on the office floor, the customer disaster calls in the middle of the night. The EverQuote Goat mascot was born out of those experiences - "there is only the climb." I said, "have you ever thought of founding an internet company?" He said, "no, but tell me about it." For me, the great attraction of Seth was his long list of friends that he was eager to recruit and work with again. Relationships that span multiple start-ups are the hallmark of a great leader. Seth assembled his teammates. We never looked back. Here's a quote from an interview Seth gave three years ago - just before the IPO: "We launched EverQuote out of a local accelerator called Cogo Labs. Their culture is centered around 100 percent transparency. This means seeing what every individual is doing and being able report on revenue and profit on a daily if not hourly basis. We adopted that at EverQuote. That's very different from our prior businesses. We look at revenue and profit on a per click basis. It's been very powerful. Our level of transparency based on individual ownership has been a big cultural shift. We've learned to trust people of all ages with no bias. We have a ton of young people working here. I've learned that I should be comfortable working for someone who's 27. They have a lot of insight, especially around the internet, that I didn't have. The notion of not ordering people by age and experience but really by talent and almost raw intellect is especially rewarding in a data driven business." Seth embraced the challenge of "shifting to the internet" like he did every challenge in life. Even among great entrepreneurs, his superpower was finding amazing people, inspiring them and building unique, intense-but-relentlessly-fun cultures. My great hope is that the EverQuote culture - and the goat - stay intact perpetually. It's a perfect reflection of Seth's personality - relentless tenacity with a huge heart. In an era where tech entrepreneurs are often portrayed as heartless, Seth had one of gold. We lost a truly great person today - and a truly great friend.

From Cindy Blanco

Max and I were talking about Andy Murray's recent Wimbledon match and the discussion turned to London. Max LOVES London and was recounting a story of how he and Seth…

I remember when Seth first rushed at TDC, then moved in. He was like a standup comic every day! I'd never seen anything like him. He was almost the caricature…