Hello,
I have just spent 21 days living in Israel. Through such close contact with “Jewish wisdom,” I learned many things I can put into practice. I am also very excited to share them when I see you at an upcoming program or event.
Google Israel—the Startup Nation—and you will find countless articles about the wisdom of King Solomon's descendants. In particular, speaking of Israeli startups means speaking of Innovation.
Did you know? Even starting a café in Israel is full of “Innovation”!
Take a look at this picture. This café used “competition” and “gender” to receive more Tips.
How interesting!
I read an interesting article on the Facebook page “Lunch with Tony,” so I am sharing it here so you can receive that valuable knowledge too.
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A Few Insights into Jewish Wisdom
Hearing the saying “If Wall Street sneezes, the whole world catches the flu,” many imagine Wall Street to be huge. In fact, it is a street only a few meters wide and about 1.1 km long. Wall Street is home to the world's largest financial institutions. Its workers are the elite of the elite in global finance.
In the winter of 2014, Tony traveled to New York. Through some friends, Tony met several members of Wall Street's elite, including Gidon, an Israeli. Gidon was around 30, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Israel before studying for a master's in finance at Columbia University. After graduating, Gidon returned home to work for an investment fund before going back to the US to manage trading in shares of several Israeli companies on New York stock exchanges. Impressed by the stories in the book Start-up Nation, Tony arranged a coffee meeting with Gidon. Gidon was off work that day and invited Tony to Manon Café, right at the entrance to legendary Wall Street.
1. Entrepreneurship, Israeli style
Tony had never been to Israel; his knowledge of the country came only from books, newspapers, and television. When Gidon confirmed information in Start-up Nation that, of 3.850 newly established companies listed on NASDAQ, as many as 1.884 were Israeli—a country of 7,1 million people compared with 7 billion worldwide—Tony had nothing more to say. In Israel, every student from year 2 is required to establish a business as an experiment (except in specialized fields such as medicine and education, …). Gidon said that for young people, ideas and the ability to run a business are the difficult things, not capital. On Wall Street or any stock market, money is still waiting to be invested in the craziest ideas. When developing their businesses, young Israelis immediately bring their projects to investment funds with offices in Tel Aviv, Israel's economic center, to “choose a groom.” If these funds deem the “bride” attractive, they help “matchmake” on the stock exchanges of New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, … When a business prospers or a state-owned enterprise is privatized, Israelis divide it into a dozen shares for major powers, but do not let any country hold a controlling stake. For example, in company A, Israelis retain 20%, while the remaining 80% is divided equally among financial groups and tycoons from the US, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, China, India, Italy, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Singapore, … Once they have interests there, the major powers will protect Israel from the danger of the 22 neighboring Arab countries, which are very rich from oil. According to the Jewish people, there are no eternal friends or enemies. Only interests are eternal.
Benefits motivate people to create and give their all. In Israeli culture, the more distinctive, intelligent, creative and hardworking people are, the wealthier they become. Applying this removes concerns about work discipline. Those distracted by chatting or Facebook during work earn less; that is all. Whether someone lives comfortably or struggles financially in old age is determined by their youth.
2. They welcome failure
Gidon said around 99% of young Israelis fail at their first startup, but failure is a chance to learn, so they always welcome failure (welcome failure). People learn most from their own failures; others' experience is only a reference. Without falling a few times, you cannot learn to ride a bicycle; without swallowing a few mouthfuls of pool water, you cannot learn to swim. Reading widely, knowing a lot, speaking well… do not mean much. Doing things well and achieving results is success. No one has successfully started a business just by reading wealth-building books, taking wealth courses, or listening to others' startup stories.
3. Internationalize to find peace
Balancing interests is always a difficult problem. But with their clever Jewish minds, they always find the best solution. For disputed lands, seas, and islands,… they internationalize them, establish a legal entity to manage and develop them, and divide shares equally among major powers, while Israel retains a small percentage as the host. Gidon said that in previous centuries, the British, French, Portuguese, Dutch,… colonized places solely to bring wealth back to their home countries, rather than moving their populations there; Westerners do not live in hot countries. Look: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,… are all cold countries. Nearby are Mexico, Central America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Africa,… hot places where they only came to exploit economic benefits. Every country’s policies encourage Westerners to buy homes, because they only consider doing so when they truly want to do business or live there long term; they have no concept of housing speculation like Asians do. If Swiss people own homes in Jerusalem, the Swiss embassy there will protect its citizens. If multinationals like Unilever, Nestlé,… open factories in Haifa, that city will be peaceful. A country facing a threat from a large neighbor is best off allowing G20 corporations to establish industrial zones, the more the better.
English must be compulsory from grade 1 and MUST BE THE 2ND LANGUAGE (the second language), not treated as a foreign language in the education system. Foreign languages would be French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese… Create opportunities for people to interact with foreigners so everyone has international friends. The more foreigners come to travel or do business, the more widely our voice for a just cause will spread.
A small, sparsely populated country constantly threatened by neighboring Arab countries, Israel protects itself by giving major powers interests in every field. Gidon offered the example of ABC Airlines: if Israelis owned 100%, revenue would be only 1 billion dollars. “But we divide it into 10 parts and let major powers hold 80%, bringing revenue to 20 billion dollars. We have only 20%, but the absolute amount is 2 billion. We receive priority whether buying Europe's Airbus or America's Boeing. When our aircraft crosses a country's airspace, that country protects it enthusiastically because it is their asset.”
Tony said, but after putting so much effort into starting a business, suddenly selling it would be such a shame. Gidon laughed so hard while drinking coffee that he spluttered. He said, Tony, you are not very creative, so when you occasionally have a little idea, you try to hold on to it. Talented people are different. Even if someone else puts their idea into practice, they come up with another startup idea. So even if a startup is hugely profitable, its young Israeli owners still sell it to foreigners. Even if the foreigners buy the whole thing, they sell it and use the money to establish another startup.
4. There is always a place called the homeland
Gidon said we start businesses not only for ourselves and our families, but for our country. After thousands of years of continual war, now that we have a piece of land to call home, we must work hard to build it. Israel has no naturally growing rose valleys; we will bring seeds to plant, shelter them from sun, rain, bombs, and bullets… to create lush rose valleys. If your homeland is rocky, you can choose either to leave for somewhere more fertile or join in building it. Born into a poor family, you can leave for a bustling city or stay and turn that home into somewhere worth living. I could apply for American citizenship, but I refused. For Israelis, there is only one homeland…
Gidon glanced at his watch and excused himself. Tony stood, firmly shook his friend's hand, and promised to meet again in Vietnam. His friend said, if your country wants to develop, seek advice from Israelis. Send many young people to Israel to study. Education, agriculture, the military, medicine, and technology startups are the 5 fields in which Israelis currently rank number 1 worldwide. We trained personnel in those 5 fields for South Korea, then Singapore; the 3rd could be Vietnam, a country Israelis feel particularly fond of. If the two peoples interact closely and direct flights are established, Vietnam could absolutely follow Israel as a new startup nation.
His friend left, but Tony remained seated. Outside the window of Manon café, the streetlights had come on and snow was beginning to fall heavily. Watching people of every skin color and ethnicity leave work, emerge from financial skyscrapers, and hurry along the streets, Tony knew that in their hearts there was always a place called the Homeland.
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And you, reading these lines, what is in your heart? Please share your feelings with me.
TMT
