A tribute authored by Dave Blundin on November 28, 2020 (the day of Seth’s passing)
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.
