- According to the Israel Innovation Authority, Israel’s tech community accounts for nearly a fifth of the country’s annual GDP, making it the country’s largest economic output sector.
- According to a handful of tech community members CNBC spoke to, much of the Israeli tech community is still finding a way to move forward amid the war.
- “Many, many members of the tech community have been called up for reserve duty,” said Yaniv Sadka, investment associate at aMoon.
Israeli soldiers can be seen on a tank near the border between Israel and Gaza.
Ilia Jefimowitsch | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
On Saturday, Dvir Ben-Aroya woke up expecting to complete his regular morning run. Instead, he was met with shrill alarms and rockets flying over Tel Aviv.
Ben-Aroya, co-founder of Spike, a workplace collaboration platform with clients including Fiverr, Snowflake, Spotify and Wix, was confused for over an hour – “Nobody really knew what was going on,” he recalled – but with the Time passed, social media and texts from friends began to inform him.
That morning, the Palestinian militant organization Hamas carried out terrorist attacks near the Israel-Gaza border, killing civilians and taking hostages. On Sunday, Israel declared war and began a siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off access to electricity, food, water and fuel. According to the Israeli embassy in Washington, more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed so far; The death toll in Gaza and the West Bank is nearly 850, according to two health ministries in the region.
On Saturday at 3 p.m. local time, Ben-Aroya held an all-hands meeting and said every one of his 35 full-time employees based in Israel had joined the call. People shared their experiences, and Ben-Aroya decided that everyone should work from home for the foreseeable future, adding that if someone wanted to move their family from Israel, the company would support them. At least 10% have decided to take that offer, he told CNBC, and he expects more to come in the coming weeks.
According to the Israel Innovation Authority, Israel’s tech community accounts for almost a fifth of the country’s annual gross domestic product, making it the sector with the largest economic output in the country. The technology sector also accounts for about 10% of the total workforce. According to Ben-Aroya and a handful of other members of the tech community CNBC spoke with, much of the Israeli tech community is still finding a way to move forward, even during the war.
Israeli soldiers guard the site of the Supernova desert music festival after Israeli forces managed to secure areas around Re’im.
Ilia Jefimowitsch | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Ben-Aroya had planned to launch Spike’s integrated artificial intelligence tool last Monday and almost immediately decided to put the project on hold – but only for a week.
For Amitai Ratzon, CEO of cybersecurity firm Pentera, Saturday began with “uncertainty and a lot of confusion,” but as his company held its all-hands meeting with 350 attendees on Monday, he recalled that some Israel-based workers were working as something good considered distraction. For those who feel the opposite, the company offers the opportunity to take the time off they need.
Pentera operates in 20 countries, with Israel having the largest employee base, and specializes in mimicking cyberattacks for clients such as BNP Paribas, Chanel and Sephora to identify system weaknesses. Ratzon said he had to restructure some international commitments in the wake of the conflict – canceling the training session for which some staff had flown to Israel, asking someone to cover his planned keynote address in Monaco, and taking German and British team members to a conference to fly into Dubai in which employees based in Israel wanted to take part.
“Everyone covers each other,” Ratzon told CNBC.
A significant number of technicians have already been called up for military reserve service – a mobilization that has so far totaled around 360,000 Israelis.
Ratzon said Pentera currently has more than 20 of its best employees deployed, “some of them on the front lines.”
Isaac Heller, CEO of Trullion, an accounting automation startup with offices in Tel Aviv, told CNBC that the company’s chief financial officer had just completed its 2024 financial forecast and then immediately delivered new bulletproof vests to its Israeli defense unit after spending more than 50,000 US dollars had been collected to secure them.
Of digital bank One Zero’s nearly 450 employees — all based in Israel — about 10% have been called up for reserve duty, CEO Gal Bar Dea told CNBC. He was surprised to see a constant stream of people volunteering to represent each other in an employee WhatsApp group.
“This guy says he’s been drafted and all of a sudden three people step in and take over his duties,” Bar Dea said. “There is a normal business feeling, everything is progressing. … We had a few meetings today about upcoming new launches. Everyone stays moving and covering each other.”
One Zero is working on a ChatGPT-like chatbot for customer service, and this week employees opted to attend optional planning meetings and decided not to move deadlines, Bar Dea said. The person leading the ChatGPT effort, a enlisted Air Force pilot, chose to attend conference calls in his military uniform between his duties, Bar Dea said.
“Many, many members of the tech community have been called up for reserve duty,” Yaniv Sadka, an investment associate at aMoon, a venture capital firm specializing in health technology and life sciences, told CNBC, adding that a large portion of the community has been called up for reserve duty Israeli intelligence units appointed.
“Tonight I will have already attended two military funerals,” said Sadka.
According to Bar, some members of the Israeli tech community are working overtime on tech tools specifically tailored to the conflict, such as a bulletin board-style website for missing persons, tools to prevent cyberattacks, a GoFundMe-like tool and even a resource for finding online psychologists Dea.
“It’s pretty amazing – it’s the secret sauce of Israel’s startup nation,” Bar Dea told CNBC, adding: “In two days, people raise money, volunteer, take in children, build new houses, leave with abandoned ones Walking dogs. … All high-tech companies. People are building cyber stuff, communications stuff… stuff to help civilians… websites to find hostages.”
Sadka said he has “never experienced anything like mass donations and mass volunteerism” at the moment.
“It’s thousands and thousands of people caring for each other. From teenagers to seniors, everyone helps,” he said.
Five minutes before Bar Dea’s call to CNBC, he said he heard sirens wailing from his office and that his wife had brought his children into their home to seek shelter.
“It’s interesting being the CEO of a bank or a high-tech company while I’m now the father of a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old,” Bar Dea said, adding, “It’s very hard.” That’s something we have never experienced before. … Everyone is trying to figure out how to deal with this from a business standpoint and also from a personal standpoint.”
Sadka added: “It is very difficult to concentrate on work when you are busy with all these personal matters and protecting yourself and the country.”