

Israel: a country too far from Mike Arrington’s house - Sam_Odio
http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/15/israel-a-country-too-far-from-mike-arringtons-house/

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jgrahamc
In other news Scoble discovers that there's life outside Silicon Valley. So,
there's a hot start-up scene in Tel Aviv, big deal. There have been hot
startups coming out of Israel for a long time... ICQ anyone? CheckPoint?

I've personally been involved with a few who moved operations from Israel to
SV (which is quite common). One recent interesting one is Dapper:
<http://www.dapper.net/>

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attack_forgotpw
Incorrect. He discovered that other bloggers have been providing a false view
of startup landscape.

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mattmaroon
I love how he gives the headline then basically goes about explaining that
it's just linkbait and not really accurate. Shameless.

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icey
I lived just outside of Tel Aviv for a few years; it was an amazing place.

I was there just before this newfangled internet became a big deal, but just
after a lot of high tech companies started moving to the area. There is a lot
of technical talent in Israel, they have an incredible technical school-
Technion.

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rms
Just a plug, FYI -- anyone 18-26 and of vaguely Jewish descent can have a free
trip to Israel via the Birthright organization. There is minimal religion and
maximum Zionism. Also no time to check out the startup scene, but it's still a
lot of fun.

Free means free, they cover airfare from NYC or LA and many meals. $250
deposit is required to reserve your spot. Email me if you have any questions.

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cstejerean
I've had several friends go on this and everyone enjoyed it. From what I hear
there was a lot of drinking and partying and not much of anything else (or at
least that's all that the people I spoke with remembered).

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delano
And the concentration of tech companies is so great in Israel that even Yahoo
and Google share a building
([http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2419149286_0dfc4bbab4_b....](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2419149286_0dfc4bbab4_b.jpg)).

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tzury
I think my country produced more successful startups than any other country
comparing its population (the whole country including the occupied territories
has less people than NYC or London)

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attack_forgotpw
Great point. This has always stuck out as an incredible demonstration of the
failure of online tech journalism. I'm surprised that more have not written
about this.

