Everyone in Israel who is entrepreneurial tries to self-select into 8200 - it's the equivalent of American high schoolers who want to enter VC and tech entrepreneurship targeting CS@Stanford.
In Israel, the university you attended matters less than the unit you served. For example, if you want to become a senior politician, you join Sayeret Matkal and if you want to become an academic you end up in Talpiot (which the founders of Wiz are alums of).
8200s success is largely due to a couple early exits by 8200 alums (Gili Raanan, Nir Zuk, Shlomo Kramer) who were biased in recruiting from their unit. 8200 alums aren't better or worse than other Israelis - they just have a better network.
And Israel has multiple SIGINT and offensive/defensive cybersecurity units, all of whom created similar networks as well.
It's the same in the US as well - if you join the right divisions and units and take advantage of educational programs with the GI Bill, you will open a lot of doors professionally speaking.
> It's a pity going public isn't worth it anymore.
Israeli VCs tend to be uninterested in IPOs in general - too much of an operational headache and it's difficult to exit a position quickly.
In most cases an IPO isn't worth it for founders because an IPO means you lose operational control. It's basically the "Rich versus Kings" dichotomy [0].
Edit: can't reply
> you can control the share allocations going into an IPO to give you solid voting power
Investors do not like that - they want some degree of operational control in order to right the ship if needed.
In the early 2010s, IPOs like Tesla and Facebook were on terms that gave outside investors little control on operations and that's why Musk and even Zuckerberg to a certain extent can choose to reorient to a new boondoggle with little-to-no investor pushback.
In 2026 if you want to IPO, it will be on the terms of JPMC, GS, etc who are underwriting the IPO.
In a private company, it's easier for an investor to offload or get bought out of their position if the founder wants to maintain operational control.
> While you’re accountable to a board of directors and theoretically accountable to stockholders, in reality management often runs the show
In publicly listed companies, it is magnitudes more difficult to build a board that is aligned with you at a personal level versus in a private company because both the board and strategic shareholders will act as checks against you.
> If you’re acquired, you’re giving up ownership and you tend to lose operational control unless you have agreements in place that say otherwise
An acquisition happens when both the founders and investors want to exit, and has less operational overhead and due dilligence versus going thru the process of an IPO in the US.
> This is counterintuitive to me
Well, that's the reality. This is why Stripe, Databricks, and others have remained private for so long despite having hit IPO-level metrics years ago. If you're already generating high 9 to low 10 figures a year in revenue, you can remain private indefinetly and as a founder you would be able to give yourself a compensation package comparable to a public company, but with much less oversight and stress.
> Interesting, why is this more true of Israeli VC's as opposed to VC's in other markets
Significantly less capital.
"Big" funds like YL Ventures, Cyberstarts, and JVP only have an AUM of $800M, $1.4B, and $1.9B respectively.
And if you were going to IPO in the US anyhow, why would you even invest in an Israeli fund, which wouldn't have enough people with experience for an IPO.
And the handful of Israeli IPOs that happened like SentinelOne or CyberArk weren't that successful.
> In most cases an IPO isn't worth it for founders because an IPO means you lose operational control.
This is counterintuitive to me.
If you’re acquired, you’re giving up ownership and you tend to lose operational control unless you have agreements in place that say otherwise.
With an IPO it seems like you have a better chance to retain control: you can control the share allocations going into an IPO to give you solid voting power. While you’re accountable to a board of directors and theoretically accountable to stockholders, in reality management often runs the show, at least until the board runs out of patience with bad earnings.
The problem is if you go public as a small company, it can be hard to survive. You need to meet expectations every time you do an earnings call or watch your stock get crushed, and it’ll never be given another chance. The burdens are also a lot higher in terms of the cost.
You don’t really see companies under $10 billion going public anymore. That may continue to be the case, but it’s terrible for entrepreneurs.
Pretty much. It's fun seeing idealists get slapped by reality. If you want to protect your ideals you better know how to fight for them using the same tactics as your competitors.
Learning how to build a board that is in your favor, making alliances with less than pure players if needed, and being ruthlessly competitive allows an ideal to become reality.
You are wrong about pretty much all of that, including your assumed reasoning for why this is happening. Jay chose to change her role so she could do deeper work on the technology. That's it.
> Is there an active, bloody conflict occurring due to any of those
The Congolese Civil War and the ongoing M23/Rwanda-led War [0], as well as the Myanmar Civil War [1]. Even the Russian Invasion of Ukraine has a critical minerals component [2] as does the ongoing Central African Republic Civil War [3][4] and the Oromo insurgency within the Ethiopian Civil War [5].
This does not mean that we shouldn't invest in building renewable and battery capacity (we in fact need to further enhance capacity), but we need to recognize that hard power trumps soft power in a multipolar world.
Renewable power doesn't imply pacifism. It is powered by critical minerals that all regional powers are rushing to control either with ballots [6], bribes [7], or bullets.
Renewable power will be covered in blood, but less blood than will be caused by anthropogenic climate change. If we need to make deals with devils, so be it. Such is life.
You could have invested in nuclear instead of adopting a broadly popular anti-nuclear policy.
The EU could have also enforced the JCPOA as one of it's guaranteers but decided to be inward facing instead of treating the 2014 invasion of Ukraine as the wake up call that it should have been.
We have been saying for almost 20 years that we in the US are shifting East, but Western and Northern European states like Germany did nothing to prepare for such a world.
At least the French establish military bases, conduct coups, and attempt to project hard power abroad in order to protect their interests.
> The EU could have also enforced the JCPOA as one of it's guaranteers but decided to be inward facing instead of treating the 2014 invasion of Ukraine as the wake up call that it should have been.
Is this about JCPOA or the 2014 occupation of Crimea?
JCPOA was being enforced by its EU members, but when the US pulled out, it fell apart. EU based companies couldn't continue to take part of the lessened restrictions because of the fear of direct US sanctions on them, which made Iran mostly uninterested in continuing its participation. It was entirely the fault of the US.
About 40% of the uranium used in Germany came from Rosatom, either directly from Russia or from Kasachstan.
That would have helped us to reduce co2, but not to get independent from Russia.
Also:
Natural gas is used heavily in chemistry and the steel industry, electricity alone does not help, although I admit not raising the point in the previous comment.
Germany could have sourced from Niger - who's entire uranium supply chain is owned by hook and by crook by France's Orano.
> Natural gas is used heavily in chemistry and the steel industry
Absolutely, and Germany could have defended it's ability to access NatGas from outside Russia or the MidEast if they collaborated like France's TotalEnergie and their Indian JV partners did when expanding capacity in Mozambique and Angola.
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The reality is German politicians are a reflection of the German people (as you guys are fond of telling us Americans).
Germans would gladly choose vassalage instead of restarting and expanding conscription, investing in industrial subsidizes, and adopting a hard power foreign policy strategy.
Merz only started these kinds of policies in mid-late 2025, and while it is a good start, it is too little too late.
Germany used to have one of the most respected armed forces in NATO and was the linchpin of the Yugoslav Wars, but German voters decided to whittle away that legacy.
Niger is at odds with France since the coup d'état 2023 and is considering selling to Russia. France itself is only a reliable partner until LePen gets into office.
Mozambique and Angola are together to small to be replacement for Russia. In addition both already supply the European gas network and thereby Germany. Shortening supply will always increase prices.
German politicians are indeed a reflection of their people, as it’s suppose to be the case.
Still outside of EU dependency. Who wants that if you can generate all in your own country via offshore and solar ? And Germany is already on the right path, the last several years at certain peaks, Germany actually had to export clean energy because it was generating too much.
> has strict EV quotas and no one wants to buy German EVs that are too expensive and less capable than Chinese made EVs
Both China and the US have enacted trade barriers against EU originated auto drive goods.
A Chinese VW ID4 is manufactured in Shanghai and an American one in Tennessee. And that is the crux of the issue - consumers are still open to buying a German badged product, but it won't be "Made in Germany".
And where else can Germany export?
The individual EU states are protective about exports by leaning hard on nationalism and union support as seen in France (Renault+Stellantis) and Italy (Stellantis), India demands China- and US-style JVs and domestic manufacturing as well even despite the EU FTA, Japan and SK prefer buying domestic, Russia is blocked due to sanctions, ASEAN+Africa is flooded with Chinese, Japanese, and Indian manufactured cars already, and South American is flooded with Chinese, American, Japanese or domestically manufactured cars.
Germany Inc will remain in Germany as long as Germany makes itself attractive. Otherwise, they will leave, as they have already done so for the US, China, the CEE, and increasingly India.
While Germany should invest in EVs and Green Energy, that alone isn't blocking German economic growth.
Almost all German exports have seen a precipitous drop [0]. EV exports wouldn't have helped given that Germany's two largest trading partners (the US and China) both enacted trade barriers against foreign exporters.
When the US enacted the IRA under Biden, a large portion of Germany Inc shifted to the US [1], but the German government and EU decided not to enact subsidies [2].
Similarly, China demanded JVs for German manufacturing companies to enter the Chinese market, which Volkswagen (with SAIC), Siemens (with SEPG), Mercedes Benz (with BAIC), and others manufacturers complied with.
Germany's economy was hollowed out because Germany Inc decided to shift capacity to it's two largest unified markets.
It's not like the PRC nor the US are allowing German EV exports already - for example, all of VW's ID4s sold in the US and China are being manufactured in Tennessee and Shanghai respectively.
This is why the EU has been pushing for a "rules based order", becuase otherwise individual EU states lack export markets.
Thanks! Israel is obviously no surprise. I hadn't seen anything of the Saudis pushing for the attack so that's new to me, though that's only one of the GCC countries.
> The most compelling hypothesis I've heard for why Iran is bombing GC neighbors is in an attempt to pop the AI bubble
Huh?!? ADIA, Mubadala, and the PIF are significant players but not that significant.
The Gulf States and Iran have had bad blood for generations.
There's a reason why car bombings in Al Ahvaz and Sistan-ve-Balochistan were and are respectively a constant occurrence - Khuzestani Arabs and especially Baloch from Makran are overrepresented in defense and policy roles in Gulf states like Kuwait, Qatar, UAE (especially Abu Dhabi), and Oman.
And Iran and the Gulf States (and before that the British Empire) constantly fought each other over delineating the Arabian/Persian Gulf. It was a major reason the Gulf turned to the US when facing both Iraq and Iran in the 1970s-80s.
What makes you think JM conspiracy pilled? And how would you propose one tries to understand Iran's current motivations with regards to attacking gulf neighbors?
I explicitly didn't say the idea of them attempting to preempt an AI bubble pop is the reason. I explicitly said I don't know if its true.
Yes, there is a long history of bad blood between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Yes the region is a powderkeg. No, trying to understand the motivations today isn't immediately a conspiracy theory.
> I explicitly didn't say the idea of them attempting to preempt an AI bubble pop is the reason. I explicitly said I don't know if its true
Ah.
Well in that case, the answer is "no, AI is not the reason".
> how would you propose one tries to understand Iran's current motivations with regards to attacking gulf neighbors
1. The Gulf States host Western (not just American) bases so from a tactical perspective it would be dumb not to strike Gulf States.
2. The Gulf States and the Islamic Republic have had decades of bad blood, from the Syrian, Libyan, Yemeni, and Sudanese Civil War to inciting a Shia insurgency in Eastern Saudi and Bahrain to the repression of Sunnis in Iran to disputes over NatGas extraction to attempts by the Iranian government to overthrow Gulf governments.
3. The Gulf States backed Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War which lasted from 1980 to 1988 and a war which all of Iran's leadership are veterans of. Iran openly fielded child soldiers towards the end of the war, many of whom ended up becoming leadership - while most HNers (who based on references I've seen seem to have been more in the late 70s/early 80s) were playing NESes or watching Hanna Barbera reruns, a large number of your age cohort in Iran were choking on Sarin Gas or sent in human waves against the Iraqi Army, and those survivors are who are the older members and leaders of the IRGC, Basij, and Iran today.
4. The KSA lobbied to strike Iran [2] along with Israel.
A Gulf-Iran War was a question of "when" not "if". Plenty of Gulf nationals fought against IRGC trained or actual personnel in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, and the animosity against Iran and Iranian proxies is deep in the Gulf. Similarly, the animosity against Arabs and Sunni Arab States is deep as well.
Heck, this is how Iran and Iranian proxies are depicted in young adult cartoons in Saudi Arabia [0][1] - as terrorists and a depressive death cult obsessed with martyrdom, Ali, and Huseyn.
In Israel, the university you attended matters less than the unit you served. For example, if you want to become a senior politician, you join Sayeret Matkal and if you want to become an academic you end up in Talpiot (which the founders of Wiz are alums of).
8200s success is largely due to a couple early exits by 8200 alums (Gili Raanan, Nir Zuk, Shlomo Kramer) who were biased in recruiting from their unit. 8200 alums aren't better or worse than other Israelis - they just have a better network.
And Israel has multiple SIGINT and offensive/defensive cybersecurity units, all of whom created similar networks as well.
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