How Did Israel Become the “Start-Up Nation”?
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
- 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.
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?
Note that most Israeli tech businesses have to be international players. The Israeli market itself is tiny.
- 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.
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.
An explanation I first came across in Nozick's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia
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.
There would probably be more startups in the Arab population if they weren't so discriminated against in the country.
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?
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!
1 William Gates III, Athiest/Agnostic
2 Warren Buffett, Athiest/Agnostic
3 Lawrence Ellison, Jewish
4 Christy Walton & family, Inheritance
5 Jim C. Walton, Inheritance
6 Alice Walton, Inheritance
7 S. Robson Walton, Inheritance
8 Michael Bloomberg, Jewish
9 Charles Koch, ?
9 David Koch, ?
11 Sergey Brin, Jewish
11 Larry Page, ?
13 Michael Dell, Jewish
14 Steven Ballmer, Jewish
15 George Soros, Athiest, but Jewish by blood
16 Donald Bren, ?
17 Paul Allen, Athiest/Agnostic
17 Abigail Johnson, Inheritance
19 Forrest Edward Mars, Inheritance
19 Jacqueline Mars
19 John Mars, Inheritance
22 Carl Icahn, Jewish
23 Ronald Perelman, Jewish
24 George B. Kaiser, Jewish
25 Philip Knight, Athiest/Agnostic
26 Sheldon Adelson, Jewish
26 Anne Cox Chambers, Inheritance
28 Jeffrey Bezos, Jewish
29 James Simons, Jewish
30 Dan Duncan, ?
30 Edward C. Johnson III, Inheritance
32 Jack Crawford Taylor, ?
33 James Goodnight, ?
33 John Paulson, ?
35 John Kluge, ?
36 Steven Cohen, ?
37 Philip Anschutz, Evangelical Christian
37 Rupert Murdoch, Christian
39 Harold Hamm, Christian
40 Pierre Omidyar, ?
40 Eric Schmidt, ?
42 Eli Broad, Jewish
43 Steve Jobs, Buddhist?
44 Len Blavatnik, ?
44 David Geffen, Jewish
Is he implying that it is a cabal, or that being Jewish is superior? If the latter, does he think it is a memetic or is it a genetic advantage?
Blame the Papacy.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
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.
Why do you think they don't question their religion?
I have no idea why you are comparing Israel's religiosity to Americas, since I never claimed we were any better.
*1.5 million Israelis are Arab Muslims.
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.
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.