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How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#11

Post by wheels »

This is somewhat misleading on several points:

- 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.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#12

Post by endtime »

wheels wrote: post #11

This is somewhat misleading on several points: - 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 poi…

>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?

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#13

Post by endtime »

condor wrote: post #10

"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." http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf I can imagine that has some trick-down effects on the "financing…

The vast majority of that has been military aid, at least 76% of which has been required to be spent in the US, IIRC.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#14

Post by endtime »

smanek wrote: post #8
Eliezer wrote: post #4

I should write sometime about the rationalist virtue of chutzpah, since I just now realized that this has been a major driving factor in my life.

"From the age of zero we [Israelis] are educated to challenge the obvious, ask questions, debate everything" Why do you think they don't question their religion?

Most Jewish* Israelis live secular lives. Not sure where you get the idea that they don't question religion.

*1.5 million Israelis are Arab Muslims.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#15

Post by endtime »

lallysingh wrote: post #6
andreshb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought about it like that, it's a rather interesting explanation, but there is one assumption there: That the most intelligent of the population would continue to choose priesthood event after celibacy was made mandatory by the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps the most intelligent of the population did not continue to choose the path of celibacy over and over again for 25-50 generations.

Hmm, I think that guys with bigger brains aren't as driven by their libidos.

Why? That hasn't been my experience at all.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#17

Post by condor »

endtime wrote: post #13
condor wrote: post #10

"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." http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf I can imagine that has some trick-down effects on the "financing…

The vast majority of that has been military aid, at least 76% of which has been required to be spent in the US, IIRC.

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.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#18

Post by wheels »

endtime wrote: post #12
wheels wrote: post #11

This is somewhat misleading on several points: - 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 poi…

>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?

It's probable, in fact, but even so, Tel Aviv is also way behind Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, ...

Note that most Israeli tech businesses have to be international players. The Israeli market itself is tiny.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#19

Post by nir »

wheels wrote: post #18
endtime wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

It's probable, in fact, but even so, Tel Aviv is also way behind Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Munich, Barcelona, ... Note that most Israeli tech businesses have to be international players. The Israeli market itself is tiny.

- CrunchBase is a very poor source for this data: established companies like Scitex/Scailex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scailex_Corporation) or Saifun (http://www.aboutus.org/SaiFun.com) don't appear at all, Zoran's entry (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/zoran) doesn't list a location, Zend Technologies is listed as a Cupertino company when it was founded and still does its R&D in a suburb of Tel Aviv.

- 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.

Re: How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?

#20

Post by Zarathu »

philwelch wrote: post #7
Icterus wrote: post #2

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 i…

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.

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.

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