What made Israel a Start-Up Nation?

Both young and small, it has been a country surrounded by rivals and followed by a long history of boycotts, attacks and a short list of natural resources — if any. Then, what has made Israel a start-up nation?

Once in Israel myself, this was the constant provoking question in my mind; yet, it didn't take long for me to realize that I was immersed in a “beta country": built from the imagination of exiled people, who defied the existing norms and faced the constantly insurmountable challenges in the realms of food, water, security, and healthcare.

Aware of my ignorance, I decided to dig deeper and investigate the reasons behind Israel's outstanding and unique success. My guide was the book "Start-Up Nation: the story of Israel's economic miracle,” written by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. 

And here I share with you guys the key takeaways: 

1. Chutzpah: Israeli people show a shameless spirit of audacity, both for good or for bad. Straightforward communication; ardor; courage; and transparency which most often optimize time and energy. The term, Chutzpah, derives from the Hebrew word ?utspa, which means "insolence".
2. No. Innovation is more than a carnival of brilliant ideas. Israel shows two other ingredients: 1) mission orientation & 2) a cultural acceptance of the need to take risks. And this is what makes a huge difference.
3. Triple Helix Model of Innovation: a set of interactions between the academia, the industry and the government to foster economic and social development. Such model is so transformative that we can illustrate with examples that go from hardware for electric cars to Yozma program — a government venture capital fund that kicked-off and truly boosted Israel's start-up economy.
4. Mandatory Military Service: the military, in cooperation with civilian industries, became a technological incubator that exposed many young people to sophisticated equipment and managerial experience. “The Israeli tank commander who has fought in one of the Syrian wars is the best engineering executive in the world,” said Eric Schmidt.
5. Jack-of-all-trades employee: Talpiot, known as the pinnacle of achievements, is an elite Israeli Defense Forces training program ("Israeli Harvard"). The strategy behind this very selective unit is to teach people how to be good at a lot of things other than excellent in just one. The book brings up a scene of an art student — stereotyped long hair, one earring, shorts and flip-flops — dropping his graphic work to fix a tech problem in the company; yet, he was also a fighter pilot — such a mashed-up background, isn’t it?
6. Readiness to take risks - "A nation of immigrants is a nation of entrepreneurs. Immigrants are not averse to starting over; they are, by definition, risk takers." - Gidi Grinstein.
7. Go far, stay long, see deep: there's a sense of mental prison living in Israel, a country indeed surrounded by rivals; added to a lack of regional market, Israeli people are travelers and explorers by nature. What does that have to do with innovative economy? Well, innovation often depends on having different perspectives, and perspective comes from experience.

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To end, I leave here just one question: what can we learn with Israel?