Ask HN: Why is Israeli so good at hacking or startups?

There's the trope of jews from some regions being smarter on average (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3190562/), and the other one about Israel having to defend itself and having the structures in place for innovation (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6885191-start-up-nation)...

More likely, having money in education increases your odds by a lot...

Traditionally, there was a great deal of respect for Talmudic scholarship in Jewish communities. This respect expressed itself in that being book smart got you engaged to one the rich merchant’s daughters (bringing a dowry). So, marriage of book smarts with money smarts, producing lots of kids. Compare this with the European Christian pre-Enlightenment tradition of putting your smartest kids in monasteries (or nunneries) where they became….monks, therefore non reproductive almost by definition.

Also so many crypto innovators are Israeli as well. A lot of the crypto algorithms we use was published by an Israeli guy. Shamir. Boneh. And many more!

It wouldn't surprise me if the constant threat of genocide has a lot to do with it; Israel's technological advantage is why it continues to exist. More directly, there's a fascinating Darknet Diaries episode about Unit 8200, which is basically Israel's version of the NSA. 8200 seems to be pivotal to Israel's tech industry, mainly because it attracts some extremely smart, capable people and gives them the training and connections to succeed after they leave the military:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/darknet-diaries/id1296...