Max Mednik
  • Home
  • About
  • Interests
    • Angel investing
    • Magic
    • Scuba Diving
  • Blog
  • Contact

Readings and musings

Notes on Start-Up Nation

6/3/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of the most enjoyable books I've recently completed is Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. The book's subject is the entrepreneurial culture in Israel, the country with the greatest concentration of innovation in the world. I found much of the book eye-opening and informative, and I definitely learned a lot about Israel that I didn't know, including many lessons that could translate to improve innovation in the US.

Introduction
  • Example of Israeli innovation: electric cars/BetterPlace. Goal to get one country completely off oil.
  • Israeli population in constant state of dissatisfaction, which causes continuous rethinking of the status quo.
  • Israel has more VCs and startups than any other country.
  • 125% cell phone penetration (people have more than 1 cell phone)
  • Constant struggle against adversity critical part of Jewish culture and fuels entrepreneurs
  • Compulsory military service
  • Culture of informality
  • Culture of questioning authority
  • Completely OK to fail in Israel
Part 1: The Little Nation That Could

Ch. 1: Resistance
  • Chutzpah 
  • PayPal bought fraud tracking system from Israeli start-up.
  • Intel in Israel innovated on microprocessors and created the new parallel/multi-core architecture.
  • Lots of debate in Israeli companies; no bullshit.
  • Constantly challenging authority; healthy conflict.
Ch. 2: Battlefield Entrepreneurs
  • Military constantly improvising in war; improvisation useful skill for entrepreneur.
  • More autonomy and decentralized control in Israeli military than US military
  • Israeli military is anti-hierarchical.
  • Questioning superiors built into the Talmud
Part 2: Seeding a Culture of Innovation

Ch. 3: People of the Book
  • Famous guestbook where travelers leave recommendations for others in hostel
  • Israelis travel a lot.
  • Go far, stay long, see deep
  • Feel confined in Israel after military service
  • Internet software another way to get out (besides travel)
  • "Israel Inside" (like Intel Inside): most innovations we now depend on in all of our gadgets came from Israel.
Ch. 4: Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
  • Hardcore training and recruiting to get into elite military units
  • Reserve unit team is one's second family throughout life.
  • 8200 intelligence unit alumni are elite/most intelligent.
  • "Tabiyot" most selective group
  • Key training: finding cross-disciplinary solutions without guidance
  • Become good at a lot of things instead of one
  • Maturity at a young age
  • Highest % that go to university of any country
  • Military reserves remain a part of everyone's life for decades (annual service requirement)
  • Everyone knows everyone.
  • People take full ownership of missions and business.
  • Little connection to military in US as a civilian
Ch. 5: Where Order Meets Chaos
  • Singapore adopted Israeli military model.
  • But not as innovative as Israel
  • Culture missing initiative, risk taking, agility
  • Apollo mission good example of experimentation and questioning
  • Columbia disaster bad example of strict, routine management
  • Israeli military practices: daily debrief, deconstructing mistakes and experiments
  • Debrief as important as the war
  • Decentralizing authority
Part 3: Beginnings

Ch. 6: An Industrial Policy That Works
  • Key factors that turned around economy: new immigration, new war, new VC industry
Ch. 7: Immigration: The Google Guys' Challenge
  • Brin and Page visited a high school in Israel
  • Many Soviet immigrants; hard science background, drive for excellence in Soviet Jews
  • Israel has intense focus on letting in as many immigrants as possible.
Ch. 8: The Diaspora
  • Many engineers travel back and forth between Israel and SF
Ch. 9: The Buffett Test
  • Google Israel created Google Suggest
  • Industry and business goes on during war; no one stops coming to work.
Ch. 10: Yosma the Match
  • VC funding critical to industry growth; many sources of capital.
  • BIRD financing from government endowment
  • Yosma VC funding through government matching foreign VC investment
  • Allowed performance fees for all asset managers, created finance industry
Part 4: Country with a Motive

Ch. 11: Betrayal and Opportunity
  • France cut off military airplane supplies at key moment of Middle East conflict
  • Had to develop on own; was actually better for Israel in long run to be self-sufficient and fueled their deep innovation in aerospace and nuclear power.
Ch. 12: From Nosedowns to Geysers
  • No bad lending practices or sub-prime crisis in Israel
  • Innovation continues
Conclusion: Farmers of High-Tech
  • Perez was a founder of industries, serial entrepreneur, 2 time prime minister.
  • View of agriculture: 95% science
  • Ben Gurion thought the future lay in science as well.
  • Nuclear power
  • Jewish culture of dissatisfaction
  • Great universities, start-up ecosystem, military culture
  • Aggressiveness and team orientation
  • Failure not a stigma
  • Idea factory
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    Categories

    All
    Angel Investing
    Cacti
    Cars
    China
    Community Service
    Culture
    Design
    Djing
    Dogs
    Education
    Entertainment
    Entrepreneurship
    Family
    Finance
    Food
    Google
    Happiness
    Incentives
    Investment Banking
    Judaism
    Law
    Lighting
    Magic
    Marketing
    Medicine
    Networking
    Nolabound
    Philosophy
    Professionalism
    Psychology
    Reading
    Real Estate
    Religion
    Romance
    Sales
    Science
    Shangri-La
    Social Entrepreneurship
    Social Media
    Sports
    Teams
    Technology
    Travel
    Turtles
    Ucla
    Venture Capital
    Web Services
    Weddings
    Zen

    Subscribe

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About
  • Interests
    • Angel investing
    • Magic
    • Scuba Diving
  • Blog
  • Contact