Everyone knows Israel as the Startup Nation.

Very few people know how it actually became one.

Most people credit Unit 8200, venture capital, or the 1990s tech boom. Meir Valman argues the story starts much earlier, with universities founded before the State of Israel, the country's first computer, government investment in research, and decades of knowledge flowing between Israel and Silicon Valley.

In this conversation with Yoel Israel, we discuss:

• Why universities came before military technology units

• Albert Einstein's connection to Israel's first computer

• The role of the Office of the Chief Scientist

• How the Yozma program created Israel's VC ecosystem

• Why Silicon Valley and Israeli founders connected so naturally

• What Soviet immigration changed

• Why marketing, design, and customer service mattered as much as engineering

• Whether Israel is still the Startup Nation

Featuring Meir Valman, author of The Network Effect: The Origins of Israeli High Tech.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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00:00 The Question Everyone Gets Wrong

01:45 Where Israeli Tech Really Began

05:55 Israel's First Computer and Albert Einstein

10:05 Government Bets on Innovation

14:00 What Israel Learned from America

19:40 Israeli Culture vs. Silicon Valley

24:00 Check Point and the Startup Nation Brand

27:00 The Government's Role in Tech Growth

29:15 How Yozma Created Israeli Venture Capital

34:00 Soviet Immigration and the Talent Boom

37:30 Are Universities or the Army More Important?

41:00 Be'er Sheva and the Next Generation

43:20 Is Israel Still the Startup Nation?

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Should you still study entrepreneurship if you want to build a company?

Venture capitalist Trace Cohen doesn't think so.

In this conversation with Yoel Israel, Trace explains why an entrepreneurship degree isn't the advantage it once was, what founders should focus on instead, and why the people around you often matter more than what's taught in a classroom.

The conversation goes far beyond education. They also discuss why Israeli startups are expanding to the US earlier than ever, why experienced founders can raise $100M before launching a product, what American investors misunderstand about Israeli entrepreneurs, and how venture capital has changed over the past decade.

Whether you're a founder, investor, student, or simply curious about how successful startups are built, this conversation offers practical lessons from someone who's worked with entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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00:00 Intro

01:33 Why Israeli startups are expanding to the US earlier

08:25 From entrepreneur to venture capitalist

15:36 The truth about entrepreneurship degrees

22:30 Why $100M seed rounds are happening

32:08 The real advantage of Israeli founders

43:18 What Americans misunderstand about Israelis

53:49 How venture capital really works

1:06:41 The future of AI, defense tech, and Israeli innovation

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Thank you to our incredible partners for making this all possible!

IsraelTech is proud to partner with Rhydlwood. Rhydlwood is an exclusive online business hub designed for business owners, entrepreneurs, and CEOs, focused on providing clarity, decision-making support, and sustainable growth.

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A single wrong word in a live caption can put a broadcaster in violation of federal law.

The FCC requires 99% caption accuracy on national broadcasts. Generic AI tools land around 90 to 95%.

We talked to Yair Amsterdam, CEO of Verbit, about why that last few percent is the entire business. Amsterdam has been in the CEO seat since 2024, after two years running Verbit as COO and President, and before that spent close to a decade running operations for ProQuest and Ex Libris. He's spent most of his career inside companies where the gap between good enough and accurate enough decides who keeps the contract. His says you can't build one model for every conversation. You build a different one for an NBA game, a deposition, and a presidential debate, each prepped in advance with the names and terms that generic engines get wrong.

The easy 90% is getting commoditized fast. The hard 9% is where the money is.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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0:00 Cold Open and Intro

1:00 What Is Verbit and Voice Intelligence

4:00 Generic vs Enterprise: The NBA Example

7:00 The FCC's 99% Accuracy Rule

10:00 Voice Signatures and the Human in the Loop

16:00 Accuracy By the Numbers: 90% vs 99%

19:00 New Media, Broadcast Decline, and AI Dubbing

25:00 Team Structure and Competitive Landscape

30:00 AI's Impact on Headcount and Israel's Tech Gap

35:00 Yair on Triathlon, Discipline, and Marriage

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IsraelTech is proud to partner with Rhydlwood. Rhydlwood is an exclusive online business hub designed for business owners, entrepreneurs, and CEOs, focused on providing clarity, decision-making support, and sustainable growth.

Check them out at Rhydlwood.com

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Yael Barsheshet, partner at Deep33, spent 11 years as a Major in the 8200 unit of the IDF. When she left, every door in Israeli cyber was open to her. Three founding teams wanted her. The network was there and the choice was obvious.

But Yael said no to all of it.

Instead she joined Zebra Medical Vision, an early-stage AI company doing deep learning on medical imaging, because she believed the technology could change how people receive care.

That decision set off a chain that took her through venture investing at Hetz, a semiconductor deal most generalist funds wouldn't touch, and eventually to Deep33, a new $200 million fund backing Israeli founders building AI infrastructure. The unglamorous, essential layer: compute, memory, energy efficiency, the bottlenecks that determine whether AI actually delivers ROI at scale.

She sits in the New York office while her partners Michael Broukhim, Joab Rosenberg, Ori Amsalem, Lior Prosor cover the LA and Tel Aviv offices.

Yael shares what 8200 actually teaches you, why deep tech in Israel is hitting its moment now, and what it looks like to build a thesis around the parts of the AI stack nobody wants to explain at a dinner party.

Watch now!

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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00:00 - Intro: Meet Yael Barsheshet, Partner at Deep33

01:30 - What is Deep33 and why three coasts?

04:45 - Why WhatsApp beats Slack for a fast-moving fund

07:00 - The deep tech flywheel: Mellanox, Mobileye, and what they built

09:45 - 11 years in 8200: what those units actually teach you

15:00 - She left cyber money on the table. Here's why.

16:45 - Zebra Medical Vision and the bet on deep learning

19:30 - How you actually learn to be a VC: meet 500 companies

22:00 - AI infrastructure explained: what the bottlenecks actually are

27:00 - Energy, compute, and why Israel is positioned for this moment

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Thank you to our incredible partners for making this all possible!

IsraelTech is proud to partner with Rhydlwood. Rhydlwood is an exclusive online business hub designed for business owners, entrepreneurs, and CEOs, focused on providing clarity, decision-making support, and sustainable growth.

Check them out at Rhydlwood.com

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One person built a product in a few months that threatened the core business of a 5,000-person company.

Wix acquired Base44 for around $80 million. A year later, it's doing $100 million in ARR. At the time of acquisition, it had $1 million.

Itai Green, co-founder and CEO of Global Innovation & Strategy and author of Innovation or Elimination: Winning in A World of Constant Change, uses this as a live case study for why corporations can't afford to wait. The moment you see a startup solving a problem that sits at the center of your business, you have two options. Buy, partner, or integrate now. Or watch them, or someone else, do it at scale while you're still running internal approvals.

Time is the one thing money cannot buy. The companies that understand that are the ones still standing.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

Dr. David Leitner, known as Dr. D, has worn many hats. IDF special operations soldier, direct PhD graduate, eight-year academic director at Bar-Ilan University, strategy advisor who has pulled founders back from the edge of collapse, and now, founder of Rhydlwood, a business hub for founders who are tired of figuring it out alone.

Dr. D. was injured during the Second Intifada while serving as a sniper in Maglan, one of the IDF's elite special operations units. His injuries led to a severe nerve disorder called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, one of the worst known pain syndromes on the face of the planet. It is also known as the "suicide disease".

But across the two decades that followed, Dr. D wasn't just pushing through. He was paying attention. To what strategy actually looks like under pressure. To what leadership costs when the stakes are real. To what it takes to keep building when your energy is finite, and the world doesn't slow down for you. He took everything he was living, learning, and using with his clients and turned it into something more.

That became Rhydlwood, a business hub where founders and small team leaders work through real business strategy together, with expert moderators, practical frameworks, and people in the same situation who actually understand.

Hear all about Rhydlwood and Dr. D's journey in this week's episode hosted by Yoel Israel.

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Data powers almost everything we do online.

Booking a flight. Shopping online. Training AI models. Comparing prices. Even understanding global events.

In this conversation, Yoel Israel sits down with Or Lenchner, CEO of Bright Data, to explore the massive infrastructure behind public web data and why access to information has become one of the most valuable assets in tech today.

Or shares how Bright Data grew into a platform used by more than 20,000 customers, why Meta took the company to court, how they won, and what it takes to collect public information at global scale.

He also explains why he believes data is becoming as essential as water, electricity, or oil in the modern economy.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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00:00 Why Data Matters

03:48 Data As The New Currency

10:03 What Bright Data Actually Does

16:17 The Scale Behind Web Data

19:18 How Businesses Use Data

23:02 Can Data Predict The Future?

27:12 The Email That Got Him Hired

32:06 Leading Bright Data As CEO

33:29 The Meta Lawsuit Story

42:02 Why Luminati Became Bright Data

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Thank you to our incredible partners for making this all possible!

IsraelTech is proud to partner with Deel, the global all-in-one HR and payroll platform for teams in 150+ countries.

To support the show, please go check out our partner Deel at: https://www.deel.com/israeltech

IsraelTech is also proud to partner with Wadi Digital. Wadi drives growth for B2B tech, cybersecurity, and SaaS companies with expert-led performance marketing, turning strategy into real results. Check them out at https://wadidigital.com/

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Why are global tech executives continuing to pour capital into Israel, even in times of crisis?

Former Meetup and Investopedia CEO David Siegel joins Yoel Israel for a wide-ranging conversation about Israeli tech, aliyah, resilience, and why global executives continue investing in Israel even during wartime.

David shares the story behind Israel Tech Mission, an initiative bringing global tech and business leaders to Israel to experience the ecosystem firsthand. Since October 7, hundreds of executives, investors, and founders have joined the missions, leading to investments, partnerships, mentorships, and deeper ties to Israel’s startup ecosystem.

The conversation also explores what international leaders misunderstand about Israeli founders, why health tech may be Israel’s next major sector, and how Israeli culture shapes entrepreneurship differently from Silicon Valley.

Featuring David Siegel, former CEO of Meetup and Investopedia, founder of Israel Tech Mission, and professor at Tel Aviv University.

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Timestamps

00:00 What Israel Tech Mission Actually Does

02:05 David’s Aliyah Journey Across Israel

05:05 Israeli Culture Shock and Daily Life

10:00 Living in Israel During the War

18:45 Why Global Executives Come to Israel

22:00 The Psychology Behind Israel Tech Mission

25:15 What International Leaders Learn About Israel

29:15 Why Israel Ranks Among the Happiest Countries

35:00 What Israeli Founders Still Get Wrong

42:20 Why Health Tech Is Israel’s Next Big Opportunity

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Thank you to our incredible partners for making this all possible!

IsraelTech is proud to partner with Deel, the global all-in-one HR and payroll platform for teams in 150+ countries.

To support the show, please go check out our partner Deel at: https://www.deel.com/israeltech

IsraelTech is also proud to partner with Wadi Digital. Wadi drives growth for B2B tech, cybersecurity, and SaaS companies with expert-led performance marketing, turning strategy into real results. Check them out at https://wadidigital.com/

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This past week, IsraelTech was on the ground at the Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv, where leaders from across the mobility, automotive, defense, and tech industries came together to talk about what’s next.

One of the biggest moments from the summit was hearing Elon Musk speak about the future of full self-driving technology and where countries like Israel fit into that future.

While at the conference, we sat down with Yaron Flint to talk about everything happening across the mobility world right now, from Chinese electric vehicles and autonomous driving to drones, logistics, infrastructure, and why Israel continues to play such an outsized role in the industry.

The conversation also dives into how technologies are moving between sectors faster than ever, especially across mobility, defense, and robotics.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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00:00 Elon Musk and full self-driving

01:05 Why Chinese cars dominate Israel

03:20 The spying concerns around smart vehicles

04:45 How Israel became strong in mobility tech

06:00 Drones, robotics, and dual-use technology

07:10 Why the army now learns from automotive

08:20 Mobility tech beyond transportation

09:05 Israel’s collaborative startup culture

11:00 How mobility improves infrastructure

12:10 The future of smart cities and traffic systems

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Thank you to our incredible partners for making this all possible!

IsraelTech is proud to partner with Deel, the global all-in-one HR and payroll platform for teams in 150+ countries.

To support the show, please go check out our partner Deel at: https://www.deel.com/israeltech

IsraelTech is also proud to partner with Wadi Digital. Wadi drives growth for B2B tech, cybersecurity, and SaaS companies with expert-led performance marketing, turning strategy into real results. Check them out at https://wadidigital.com/

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Stav Levi Neumark joined Monday.com when it was about 15 people. She told them in the interview they were already too big for her.

She stayed anyway, built an internal tool called BigBrain that connected company data to go-to-market decisions, watched Monday scale to an IPO, and then left to build Alta.

In this episode, Stav compares the current GTM infrastructure problem to on-premise computing before AWS. Every company is building their own room full of servers, manually stitching together data sources, channels, and signals that should be connected. It's expensive, it's slow, and it pulls focus away from the parts that actually require a human.

Alta connects to 50+ data sources and runs three agents across outbound, inbound, upsell, and full-funnel visibility. The product ships with a services layer, because when they ran their tests, people didn't want to self-serve. They wanted someone to tell them what to do with it.

She came in expecting customers to know what they needed. They didn't. They knew something was off, they were leaving performance on the table, but they couldn't name what was missing. So she built a company that does the diagnosing too.

They closed their first $1M over the course of a year. Then closed another $1M in a single month.

Hosted by Yoel Israel

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00:00 AI, intuition & the future of go-to-market

01:45 How Stav spotted the gap at Monday.com

06:00 Can intuition be taught?

08:45 How AI will change marketing, sales & support

09:20 Leaving Monday.com to start Alta

14:40 Building startup culture & moving fast

21:00 Why go-to-market infrastructure is broken

29:00 What Alta actually does (Katie, Alex & Luna)

39:00 Being a founder, mom & optimizing productivity

46:00 Final thoughts & outro

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Thank you to our incredible partners for making this all possible!

IsraelTech is proud to partner with Deel, the global all-in-one HR and payroll platform for teams in 150+ countries.

To support the show, please go check out our partner Deel at: https://www.deel.com/israeltech

IsraelTech is also proud to partner with Wadi Digital. Wadi drives growth for B2B tech, cybersecurity, and SaaS companies with expert-led performance marketing, turning strategy into real results. Check them out at https://wadidigital.com/

---

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