Start-up Nation

9. The information in this passage is drawn from Anthony David, The Sky Is the Limit: Al Schwimmer, the Founder of the Israeli Aircraft Industry (Tel Aviv: Schocken Books, 2008; in Hebrew); and the interview with Shimon Peres. Regarding the accounts of Peres and Schwimmer flying over the Arctic tundra and Schwimmer’s meeting with Ben-Gurion in the United States, see also Shimon Peres, David’s Sling (New York: Random House, 1970).

CHAPTER 9

. The Buffett Test

1. Interview with Yoelle Maarek, former director, Google’s R & D Center in Haifa, Israel, January 2009.

2. Joel Leyden, “Microsoft Bill Gates Takes Google, Terrorism War to Israel,” Israel News Agency, 2006, http://www.israelnewsagency.com/microsoftgoogleisraelseo581030.html; retrieved November 2008.

3. Quote from a transcript of a documentary film interview conducted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2007, provided to the authors.

4. Dan Senor is an investor in Vringo.

5. Interview with Alice Schroeder, author of The Snowball, 2008.

6. Uzi Rubin, “Hizballah’s Rocket Campaign Against Northern Israel: A Preliminary Report,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 6, no. 10 (August 31, 2006), http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief006-10.htm.

7. Interview with Eitan Wertheimer, chairman of the board of Iscar, January 2009.

8. Dov Frohman with Robert Howard, Leadership the Hard Way: Why Leadership Can’t Be Taught—and How You Can Learn It Anyway (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), pp. 1–16. All quotes from Frohman in this passage come from this book.

9. Interviews in this passage with senior Intel executive were on background, December 2008.

10. Interview with Eitan Wertheimer.

CHAPTER 10

. Yozma: The Match

1. Jennifer Friedlin, “Woman on a Mission,” Jerusalem Post, April 20, 1997.

2. Interview with Orna Berry, partner in Gemini Israel Funds, and chairperson of several Gemini portfolio companies, January 2009.

3. Interview with Jon Medved, CEO and board member, Vringo, May 2008.

4. Interview with Yigal Erlich, founder, chairman, and managing partner of the Yozma Group, May 2008.

5. Gil Avnimelech and Morris Tuebal, “Venture Capital Policy in Israel: A Comparative Analysis and Lessons for Other Countries,” research paper, Hebrew University School of Business Administration and School of Economics, October 2002, p. 17.

6. The information about BIRD’s founding is from an interview with Ed Mlavsky, chairman and founding partner of Gemini Israel Funds, December 2008.

7. BIRD (Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation), “BIRD Foundation to Invest $9 Million in 12 Advanced Development Projects in Life Sciences, Energy, Communications, Software and Nanotechnology,” http://www.birdf.com/_Uploads/255BOG08PREng.pdf.

8. Dan Breznitz, Innovation of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 60.

9. Ed Mlavsky in a PowerPoint slide presentation to Wharton MBA students, 2008.

10. Interview with Jon Medved.

11. Interview with Yigal Erlich.

12. Ibid.

13. Interview with Orna Berry.

14. Yossi Sela, managing partner, Gemini Venture Funds, http://www.gemini.co.il/?p=TeamMember&CategoryID=161&MemberId=197.

15. Interview with Erel Margalit.

16. David McWilliams, “Ireland Inc. Gets Innovated,” Sunday Business Post On-Line, December 21, 2008, http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=DAVID+McWilliams-qqqs=commentandanalysis-qqqid=38312-qqqx=1.asp; retrieved January 2009.

17. Interview with Tal Keinan, cofounder of KCPS, May and December 2008.

18. Interview with Ron Dermer, former economic attaché, Embassy of Israel in United States, and senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, September 2008.

19. Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, December 2008.

CHAPTER 11

. Betrayal and Opportunity

Epigraph: Quoted in Julie Ball, “Israel’s Booming Hi-Tech Industry,” BBC News, October 6, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7654780.stm; retrieved January 2009.

1. John Kao, Innovation Nation (New York: Free Press, 2007).

2. Michael Bar-Zohar, Shimon Peres: The Biography (New York: Random House, 2007). p. 223. Also Reuters, “Peres Biography: Israel, France Had Secret Pact to Produce Nuclear Weapons,” May 30, 2007.

3. Michael M. Laskier, “Israel and Algeria amid French Colonialism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1954–1978,” Israel Studies, June 2, 2001, pp. 1–32, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/israel_studies/v006/6.2laskier.html; retrieved September 2008.