stickers, they would show up on almost everything people
around the world touch, and he ticks off a litany of examples: from computers, to cell phones, to medical devices and miracle
drugs, to Internet-based social networks, to cutting-edge sources of clean energy, to the food we eat, to the registers in
the supermarkets in which we shop.
Medved then hints to the multinationals in the room that they are likely to be missing something if they have not already
set up shop in Israel. He finds out in advance of each presentation which companies’ executives will be in the audience and
is then certain to mention which of their competitors are already in Israel. “The reason that Israel is inside almost everything
we touch is because almost every company we touch is inside Israel. Are you?” he asks, peering into the audience.
Medved has taken on a role that, in any other country, would typically belong to the local chamber of commerce, minister of
trade, or foreign secretary.
But the start-ups Medved champions in his presentations are rarely companies in which he has invested. He’s always torn when
he prepares for these speeches: “Do I talk up Vringo among the promising new companies coming out of Israel? It’s a no-brainer,
right? It’s good exposure for the company.” But he resists the urge. “My pitch is about Israel. My American investors beat
me up over this—‘You wind up plugging your competitors but not your own company.’ They’re right. But they’re missing the larger
point.”
Medved is in perpetual motion. He’s given the presentation fifty times a year for the last fifteen years. All told, almost
eight hundred times, at technology conferences and universities around the world, in over forty countries, and to scores of
international dignitaries visiting Israel.
Alex Vieux, CEO of
Red Herring
magazine, told us that he has been to “a million high-tech conferences, on multiple continents. I see Israelis like Medved
give presentations all the time, alongside their peers from other countries. The others are always making a pitch for their
specific company. The Israelis are always making a pitch for Israel.” 9
CHAPTER 4
Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
The social graph is very simple here. Everybody knows everybody.
—Y OSSI V ARDI
D AVID A MIR MET US AT HIS J ERUSALEM HOME in his pilot’s uniform, but there was nothing
Top Gun
about him. Soft-spoken, thoughtful, and self-deprecating, he looked, even in uniform, more like an American liberal arts
student than the typical pilot with crisp military bearing. Yet as he explained with pride how the Israeli Air Force trained
some of the best pilots in the world—according to numerous international competitions as well as their record in battle—it
became easy to see how he fit in. 1
While students in other countries are preoccupied with deciding which college to attend, Israelis are weighing the merits
of different military units. And just as students elsewhere are thinking about what they need to do to get into the best schools,
many Israelis are positioning themselves to be recruited by the IDF’s elite units.
Amir decided when he was just twelve years old that he wanted to learn Arabic, partly because he knew even then that it might
help him get accepted into the best intelligence units.
But the pressure to get into those units really intensifies when Israelis are seventeen years old. Every year, the buzz builds
among high school junior and senior classes all across Israel. Who has been asked to try out for the pilot’s course? Who for
the different
sayarot
, the commando units of the navy, the paratroopers, the infantry brigades, and, most selective of all, the Sayeret Matkal,
the chief of staff’s commando unit?
And which students will be asked to try out for the elite intelligence units, such as 8200, where Shvat Shaked and his cofounder
of Fraud Sciences served? Who will go to Mamram,
around the world touch, and he ticks off a litany of examples: from computers, to cell phones, to medical devices and miracle
drugs, to Internet-based social networks, to cutting-edge sources of clean energy, to the food we eat, to the registers in
the supermarkets in which we shop.
Medved then hints to the multinationals in the room that they are likely to be missing something if they have not already
set up shop in Israel. He finds out in advance of each presentation which companies’ executives will be in the audience and
is then certain to mention which of their competitors are already in Israel. “The reason that Israel is inside almost everything
we touch is because almost every company we touch is inside Israel. Are you?” he asks, peering into the audience.
Medved has taken on a role that, in any other country, would typically belong to the local chamber of commerce, minister of
trade, or foreign secretary.
But the start-ups Medved champions in his presentations are rarely companies in which he has invested. He’s always torn when
he prepares for these speeches: “Do I talk up Vringo among the promising new companies coming out of Israel? It’s a no-brainer,
right? It’s good exposure for the company.” But he resists the urge. “My pitch is about Israel. My American investors beat
me up over this—‘You wind up plugging your competitors but not your own company.’ They’re right. But they’re missing the larger
point.”
Medved is in perpetual motion. He’s given the presentation fifty times a year for the last fifteen years. All told, almost
eight hundred times, at technology conferences and universities around the world, in over forty countries, and to scores of
international dignitaries visiting Israel.
Alex Vieux, CEO of
Red Herring
magazine, told us that he has been to “a million high-tech conferences, on multiple continents. I see Israelis like Medved
give presentations all the time, alongside their peers from other countries. The others are always making a pitch for their
specific company. The Israelis are always making a pitch for Israel.” 9
CHAPTER 4
Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
The social graph is very simple here. Everybody knows everybody.
—Y OSSI V ARDI
D AVID A MIR MET US AT HIS J ERUSALEM HOME in his pilot’s uniform, but there was nothing
Top Gun
about him. Soft-spoken, thoughtful, and self-deprecating, he looked, even in uniform, more like an American liberal arts
student than the typical pilot with crisp military bearing. Yet as he explained with pride how the Israeli Air Force trained
some of the best pilots in the world—according to numerous international competitions as well as their record in battle—it
became easy to see how he fit in. 1
While students in other countries are preoccupied with deciding which college to attend, Israelis are weighing the merits
of different military units. And just as students elsewhere are thinking about what they need to do to get into the best schools,
many Israelis are positioning themselves to be recruited by the IDF’s elite units.
Amir decided when he was just twelve years old that he wanted to learn Arabic, partly because he knew even then that it might
help him get accepted into the best intelligence units.
But the pressure to get into those units really intensifies when Israelis are seventeen years old. Every year, the buzz builds
among high school junior and senior classes all across Israel. Who has been asked to try out for the pilot’s course? Who for
the different
sayarot
, the commando units of the navy, the paratroopers, the infantry brigades, and, most selective of all, the Sayeret Matkal,
the chief of staff’s commando unit?
And which students will be asked to try out for the elite intelligence units, such as 8200, where Shvat Shaked and his cofounder
of Fraud Sciences served? Who will go to Mamram,
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