Start-up Nation

In the best-selling book Built to Last, business guru James Collins identifies several enduring business successes that all have one thing in common: a core purpose articulated in one or two sentences. “Core purpose,” Collins writes, “is the organization’s fundamental reason for being. [It] reflects the importance people attach to the company’s work . . . beyond just making money.” He lists fifteen examples of core purpose statements. All of them are by companies—including Wal-Mart, McKinsey, Disney, and Sony—with one exception: Israel. Collins describes Israel’s core purpose as “to provide a secure place on Earth for the Jewish people.” Building Israel’s economy and participating in its cluster—which are interchangeable—and pitching it to the most far-flung places in the world are what in part motivates Israel’s “profitable patriots.”⁸ As historian Barbara Tuchman observed before Israel’s tech boom, “With all its problems, Israel has one commanding advantage: a sense of purpose. Israelis may not have affluence . . . or the quiet life. But they have what affluence tends to smother: a motive.”⁹

The absence of motive is a problem in a number of the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is composed of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman. In the case of Dubai, one of the emirates in the UAE, most of the entrepreneurs that come from elsewhere are motivated by profit—which is important—but they are not also motivated by building the fabric of community in Dubai. And as we have seen in examining Michael Porter’s cluster theory, a profit motive alone will get a national economy only so far. When economic times are difficult, as has been the case in Dubai since late 2008, or security becomes dicey, those not committed to building a home, a community, and a state are often the first to flee.

In the other GCC economies, the problem is somewhat different. In our travels throughout the Arabian Peninsula, we have seen firsthand how Saudi nationals—young and old—are proud of the economic and infrastructural modernization of their economy. Many Saudis have a tribal lineage that traces back centuries, and building an advanced economy that is recognized globally is a matter of tribal and national pride.

But all of these economies also face challenges that can stifle any potential for progress.

A number of business and government leaders throughout the Arab world have turned their attention to stimulating a high-growth entrepreneurial economy, and some have been quietly studying Israel. “How else are we going to create eighty million jobs in the next decade?” Riad al-Allawi asked us. Al-Allawi is a successful Jordanian entrepreneur who has done business all over the region. Eighty million is the number we kept hearing from experts during our travels to Arab capitals.

The Arab economies of North Africa (Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia), the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan), and the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman) comprise approximately 225 million people, just over 3 percent of the world’s population. And the total GDP of the Arab economies in 2007 was $1.3 trillion—almost two-fifths the size of China’s economy. But wealth distribution varies widely: there are oil-rich economies with tiny populations (such as Qatar, with 1 million people and a per capita GDP of $73,100) and oil-poor economies with large, dense populations (such as Egypt, with 77 million people but a per capita GDP of just $1,700). Generalizations about development strategies for the region are risky since the sizes, structures, and natural resources of the Arab economies vary widely.

But even with all the differences, the unifying economic challenge for the Arab Muslim world is its own demographic time bomb: approximately 70 percent of the population is under twenty-five years old. Employing all of these people will require the creation of eighty million new jobs by 2020, as al-Allawi told us.¹⁰ Meeting this goal means generating employment at twice the U.S. job growth rate during the boom decade of the 1990s. “The public sector isn’t going to create these jobs; big companies aren’t going to create these jobs,” says Fadi Ghandour, a successful Jordanian entrepreneur. “The stability and future of the region is going to depend on our teaching our young people how to go out and create companies.”¹¹