How Did Israel Become “Start-Up Nation”? - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com
A key lesson from Israel is that innovation is not just something that goes on inside companies; it comes from a wider culture that fosters both innovation and entrepreneurship. Israel is a country of immigrants — there are over 70 nationalities represented in this tiny country. Two out of every three Israelis are newcomers, or the children or grandchildren of newcomers. The Israeli battery-operated car grid company Better Place was founded by the son of an Iraqi immigrant. The Israeli company Koolanoo — the third-largest social networking site in China — was founded by the child of an Iranian immigrant. The Internet music start-up FoxyTunes — which was recently sold to Yahoo for tens of millions of dollars — was founded by a young Ukrainian immigrant. Walk around Israeli neighborhoods, and you’ll find yourself dealing with Israelis from Ethiopia, Poland, Yemen, Russia, and Australia, to name a few.
Immigrants are natural risk takers since they were willing to uproot themselves and start over. In particular, the great wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in 1990 to 2000 brought to Israel a tremendous boost in engineering talent just as the tech sector began to take off. Israel is also the most pro-immigration country; politicians there actually compete with each other with campaign promises to bring in more immigrants, not fewer.
:) I feel proud to be working with the FoxyTunes guys.
