The Battle for Your Computer

CHAPTER 17Free Hand or Bear Hug—The State's Role in the World of Innovation

“The state's job is first and foremost not to get in the way,” says Gil Shwed when I ask him about the State of Israel's role in fostering the cybersecurity industry. “The hi‐tech world is quite disconnected from states and governments, and that's a good thing. It's one of the best things about it—there are few laws, and there's little regulation. That suits me as an entrepreneur, and that's also why software is the fastest‐developing field in the world.”

Shwed's answer is a faithful reflection of the thinking among Israeli entrepreneurs in the hi‐tech industry, in general, and in cybersecurity, in particular. In their view, it was only thanks to the spirit of entrepreneurialism, human capital, and the specific nature of software as an industry where services and products can be supplied to anywhere in the world at the click of a button that a tiny country in the Middle East could produce such successful international companies. And since that is the case, their top expectation from the government is that it not interfere with too much regulation or taxation.

But there is also another side. Nobody can deny that massive state investment was responsible for fostering the IDF's technological units, which have been so critical for the industry's success—and the State of Israel is now also trying to invest even more widely to help the business world.

One of the markets that we, at IntSights, found hardest ...