Hummus, Hacking, and Finding Home

The breeze from the Mediterranean is cool and crisp. The early morning bustling in the Carmel market filled with the smell of spices, the sound of tongues unknown, and the taste of the best coffee in the eastern hemisphere. That’s how I spent Wednesday morning, the last full day of my trip to Tel Aviv.

Aside from the ubiquity of Hebrew, Tel Aviv reminded me of San Francisco and Austin (SF for the weather and industry and Austin for the sea of cranes remaking the city’s skyline).

But there was one aspect that felt like I had landed on another planet — the Grip Security culture. I had never experienced anything like it in my whole career. After a few days of etching out plans and programs, during my Wednesday morning stroll to meet colleagues at the market, my eyes welled up, and a single drop rolled down my left cheek.?

It was gratitude. Pure gratitude.?

And while the scene and setting moved to the beach and then to the ancient streets of Jaffa, I was struck by what I can only describe as a sense of elevation. What happened over the previous week was not some guy’s international excursion or backpacking trip, nor was it a professional geek’s jaunt through the core of the Israeli tech industry. It was a homecoming, to a family I hadn’t known until arriving.

Getting here was tough. Flight delays, cancellations, changes, and connections landed me in Tel Aviv on Sunday morning around 0900 IST. The office was opening soon. And after sleeping less than an hour during the flight from New York, I expected to be drained and worthless. Instead, a jolt of energy consumed me upon arriving at Yigal Alon 82, Grip’s global headquarters.?

Once inside, I received no fewer than 20 hugs from those I had only known through Zoom and Teams calls. Here I was, finally arriving to experience the reason I came to Grip. It wasn’t the tech, it never was. It's the people, it has always been.

It’s easy to be inspired by the beautiful minds of Grip’s elite developers and product teams. After all, Grip’s co-founders are all members of the Forbes 30 under 30 list and the open office is dripping with dozens of alums from the best security unit on this orbiting stone. Not to mention the innovative and creative product leaders from the world's best security companies.

What wasn’t easy was containing the overwhelming emotions I felt when witnessing the heart and soul of these beautiful minds.?

Lunch is a big deal at Grip’s worldwide HQ, and what better way to baptize this foreigner than with some fresh shawarma and hummus. I got the lamb shawarma and the vegetables were igniting taste buds I didn’t know I had. After learning the Hebrew word for “thank you” (it’s toda), I said it to the shawarma shop staff to the delight of my Israeli colleagues.?

For the next several hours and bleeding over into the next few days, we charted a course. The north star for what Grip is and everything Grip can become. Coming off of a blockbuster performance in 2022, it can be a slog to manage such early success in a startup (Grip just turned two years old). There are doors and options to take, and the difficult task is deciding which great ideas make the cut to become our single focus.?

What touched my soul was what happened outside of the conference rooms, scheduled sessions, and agendas. Impromptu whiteboard huddles, chess games, music trivia and history, along with a new mother in our product team making the sacrifice to join a team dinner, just because I was in town. We even dabbled in political discussions surrounding the protests this week across the country.

Through it all, something emerged — a realization that I was home.?

It wasn’t home in the sense of the physical location, weather, food, or amenities. It was a shared spirit, shared values, and seeing one’s counterpoint in another person’s eyes. On Tuesday night, I did something I never do. I opened up.?

Sitting around me at the Italia Café was our CFO, two cofounders (Lior was back in Boston), and other members of the leadership team. As dinner was wrapping up, I set down my fork after using it as a shovel for world-class lasagna. Dessert was coming, chatter was beginning to fill the restaurant as the evening crowd filled the place.?

My peers on the leadership team asked me about my life outside of work, and I blurted out something dangerous — the truth.?

Anyone who’s spent a morsel of time with me will tell you, I don’t just go opening up to people. I don’t like feeling vulnerable or too exposed, or too weak. But something hit me in that moment and my guts went flying out of my mouth just as the tiramisu arrived at the table.?

Life is hard. Life with a child with special needs is really hard. As I described life at home, boasting of my wife’s dedication and commitment to our son despite the challenges we have, the faces staring back at me had a distinct quality, but it was out of context.

I had not seen that look in any other setting of my career — it was compassion. The kind of compassion you can only experience when you are seen and heard by someone who cares.?

What happened next? Kind words, concern, and encouragement. I’ll spare you the details and keep that for myself. I’ll keep it for a lifetime.?

The following day, our CEO called to catch up and hear how things were going. WhatsApp started buzzing and chirping, I answered. His first question, everyone’s question all week, was penetrating: “So, how’s it going in the office?”?

I told him what I had told my wife the night before. “Lior,” I said “you have created a uniquely wonderful culture here. Don’t ever let that die”. I went on to tell him that my experience with the team in Tel Aviv was like being at a family reunion, but without the in-fighting or narcissism; it was the kind of culture that thousands of companies have failed to achieve.?

You see, I don’t have relationships with my bio-family and throughout my adult life the gap has become a canyon. As a substitute, I’ve always had my best friendships with the people I work with — many are still with me after years of leaving a common workplace.?

The difference is, at Grip, it isn’t just hollow words or corporate speak to try and cajole people into artificially valuing their co-workers. I was embraced, seen, and integrated into a family who was looking out for me. Empathy, compassion, and camaraderie permeated every interaction — even when it had nothing to do with work.?

Yes, we got more done in one week than the previous 2 months. And yes, you should be on the lookout for the waves coming your way. We’re charting a course to upend and disrupt markets and technologies?to make our customers incandescently happy. But something much more timeless and permanent happened, I found my home in the most unexpected place, situated 6,000 miles from my residence.

Being on foreign soil doesn’t usually produce feelings of home. But that’s what happened to me. It is still with me as board my flight back to the US. And as luck would have it, there is a slogan painted on the wall of the jetway:

“Welcome to Israel. Your life will never be the same”.

I couldn’t say it better myself. #LFG