Elevate with Robert Glazer Seth Levine On The New Builders, Growing Startups and Sustainable Growth
Mar 10, 2026
Seth Levine, longtime venture capitalist and co-founder at Foundry and GoodBread, shares his journey from early hustles to building a regional-focused VC firm. He highlights overlooked entrepreneurs, unit economics and sustainable growth, small-business lending gaps, and the practical limits of AI in startups. Short, candid stories and sharp takes on resilience and capital’s future.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Entrepreneurship Isn’t Just Silicon Valley
- The New Builders highlights that most U.S. entrepreneurs don't fit the Silicon Valley archetype and entrepreneurship was declining before COVID.
- Research showed entrepreneurship narrowed culturally, masking diverse founders and prompting the book to spotlight overlooked builders.
Indexing On Unit Economics Early
- Foundry indexes earlier on unit economics than many VCs, which can mean throttling growth but leads to durable winners.
- In industries with dominant players, Foundry often backed the lower-capitalized company and succeeded through focus on unit profitability.
Celebrate Customers Not Fundraises
- Celebrate customer wins and unit economics instead of funding milestones; raising money is not itself a success metric.
- Seth recommends treating post-raise capital conservatively and aiming to raise as little equity as necessary to retain control and sustainability.
