- They're working with some other definition of startup than we're accustomed to. CrunchBase, for example, has 581 listings within 20 miles of London, and 35 within 20 miles of Tel Aviv.
- The Israeli tech startup world seems to kind of be in the shitter right now relative to its heyday in the first web boom. There's a shift of VC out of Israel and into China at this point.
- The whole blah, blah military -- there are lots of countries with compulsory conscription that don't have a lot of startups.
I think the only thing I really agree with is the general sentiment: national culture greatly affects people's inclination towards opportunism. No culture of opportunism, not many startups.
>They're working with some other definition of startup than we're accustomed to.
Or CrunchBase isn't a definitive listing. Isn't it feasible that an English-language site will have less complete information from countries where the main language isn't English?
- Tel Aviv is just one town, whereas the topic is Israel as a whole. Many of Israel's major players are in Haifa (where Israel's equivalent of MIT is located) or Jerusalem or other places - Israel is a tiny nation, the commute from Haifa to Tel Aviv can be quicker than taking the subway from Brooklyn to uptown Manhattan.
By the way, do you have a source on the Israel-China VC shift? I think Sarah Lacy wrote something to that effect, but it seems strange since the two places have almost opposite characteristics. I can see China competing with India or Israel with Estonia, but not with each other.
Israelis cannot resist trying to help their fellow man. This often takes the form of meddling, and can even be mistaken for rudeness. They will interfere in someone else's conversation on the street to offer some good-hearted advice; they will read the newspaper in the hands of the man sitting next to them on the bus and proceed to ask him not to turn the pages so fast; they will never allow a fellow Israeli to fix his car by himself, even against protest
One partial explanation which intrigues me, from the "what you can't say" files:
Historically (e.g. medieval times) the priesthood drew many of most intelligent/academic segment the population, as a compelling alternative to manual labor.
Beginning in the 4th century, Christian priesthood adopted celibacy, which later was made mandatory by the Roman Catholic Church, which sought to prevent inheritance from draining its coffers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibate#Christianity
Meanwhile, Jewish Rabbis have been encouraged to marry and bring up children throughout this history.
Over centuries, you get a selective drift which results in a different distribution of intelligence among the populations. This explains in part the statistical incidence of academic achievement in the jewish population: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews#Achievements
Note that I'm speaking here of statistical measures. There are plenty of dumb jews, just as non-jews. But thousands of years of policy from the Catholic church has led to a population shift which has excluded many of the historically most academic in nature from procreating over 25 - 50 generations.
As much as I like the "Ashkenazi Jews are a genetically smarter population" hypothesis, it's not sufficient to explain what's going on. It's probably necessary that some level of intelligence exists within a population for startups to happen, but it's probably a vanishingly small part of the equation.
The combination of IQ and "chutzpah" is the essence of the entrepreneurial personality. If Jews are (for whatever reason) disposed to be high on these traits, it's certainly a sufficient explanation.
Not only does it not explain why there are so many Israeli startups, but it's a false hypothesis altogether. Aside from the fact that IQ is more a representation of adaptation to modernity than intelligence, there are many environmental factors that come into play.
There would probably be more startups in the Arab population if they weren't so discriminated against in the country.
That is possible. On the other hand, you don't really see too many start ups in nations where the Arab population makes up the majority either, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, etc.
In Lebanon, there are tons of startups. That's because the Arab population isn't oppressed by their own government the way they are in Saudi Arabia (women being executed for witchcraft and so forth).
I can't believe someone down-voted my previous comment. Is it now anti-Semitic to say that the Jews aren't genetically superior to everyone else?
Sigh ... let's think a bit about how speculative, ad-hoc genetic explanations for cultural achievements get traction if they spin the right way...
Can there really be evidence that the genetically similar brothers and relatives of Christian priests weren't helped by their siblings status? Can we show that priests had a disproportionate amount of the intelligence genes of the Christian population to begin with? Can we show that converted Jews (like my ancestors) didn't skew the results? Can we show, even, that priest didn't actually reproduce quite freely through the behind-the-scenes-hanky-panky they were famous for? The list could go on and on. Jeesh!
Considering theres only about 13 million Jewish people in the world, they are disproportionately successful. Top of the Forbes 400, correct me if I'm wrong -
Cuz it's easy to make a lot of money when you're in finance and in Western civilization, Jewish culture got started way ahead of Christian culture on finance.
Not making conclusions, just posting interesting data. I would bet that most of the Jewish people on this list are pretty secular though, and along with all the athiest/agnostics on the list, I think the biggest shared trait is independent thinking.
"Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. From 1976-2004, Israel was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, having recently been supplanted by Iraq. Since 1985, the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel."
I can imagine that has some trick-down effects on the "financing of ideas"-side of the equation. Smart people are one thing, smart people with a lot of resources, another.
Agreed, it looks like the breakdown for '49-07 is $53B military $30B economic. I have no idea how that was committed etc., but it shouldn't be discounted the unique position Israel has been on the US Aid side, and what affect that could have on spurring economic (and start-up) growth for a nation of 7MM people. That shouldn't take away anything from the qualitative characteristics mentioned in the article, just another data point.
Well, the nation certainly doesn't act secularly since they treat people differently based on their religion (the law of return, as an obvious example).
And you're flat out wrong that most Jewish Israeli's live 'secular lives.' It's a common misconception - but the most comprehensive survey done on the matter that I could find (http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/relinisr-consensus.htm) says otherwise. About 20% of Jews in Israel identify themselves as secular - but most of those aren't secular for all intents and purposes (they attend temple, perform rituals, believe in God, etc).
Over half the Jews in Israel believe that the Jewish people were 'chosen' among other people by God. A substantial minority (more than are actually secular) believe that non-practicing Jews are a threat to the Jewish people!
So, that is where I get the idea that they don't question religion.
Again it's a question of definitions. Israelis define "religious" differently. About 20-30% of Israelis are what Americans would consider "religious", about a 1/3 of that is "ultra-religious".
The 20% that consider themselves "secular", REALY mean secular. As in, hard-core-athiest. They eat pork, and it's not a statement, it's just meat. You'd love them.
To clarify what lies between let me explain. In a recent survey some 75% of Israelis claimed to keep some form of kosher. For the majority of that sample space "kosher" meant lobster but no pork. Both equally unkosher, but there is a stigma attached to pork. All the same, these same lobster-jews would be very offended if you called them non-religious, they are in their OWN WAY. In American definition they are "non-practicing", but not in their own.
The "subsantial-minority" is a weasel word. But is largely limited to what would be termed "ultra-religious", and they are entitled to their opinion, thats a democracy for you. Last I checked, there was a substantial-minority in the US that considered seculars dangerous, their called the religious right.
Either way, this has NOTHING to do with startups.
Israelis, like anyone else, are complex people. Up close, Israelis are hard working, an incredible combination of the empathic and the aggressive. Some are good some are bad, most are a bit of both.
And speaking as a religious person, everyone questions their faith, and even more their "religion". I don't know anyone who is that simple. Don't turn people into caricature.
What do you mean 'their' religion? Israel is made up of people from all different religions, and on average people over there are much less religious than in the US.
Israel is made up of a lot of different religion - but it's about 75% Jewish. Of those, the clear majority are what I'd consider religious (i.e., attend Temple, practice religious rituals, believe in God) according to http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/relinisr-consensus.htm.
I have no idea why you are comparing Israel's religiosity to Americas, since I never claimed we were any better.
- They're working with some other definition of startup than we're accustomed to. CrunchBase, for example, has 581 listings within 20 miles of London, and 35 within 20 miles of Tel Aviv.
- The Israeli tech startup world seems to kind of be in the shitter right now relative to its heyday in the first web boom. There's a shift of VC out of Israel and into China at this point.
- The whole blah, blah military -- there are lots of countries with compulsory conscription that don't have a lot of startups.
I think the only thing I really agree with is the general sentiment: national culture greatly affects people's inclination towards opportunism. No culture of opportunism, not many startups.