The Battle for Your Computer

CHAPTER 19“Bro”—What Makes Israel's Culture an Incubator of Cybersecurity Innovation?

“If you compare experienced talent in the cyberindustry to uranium,” says Ehud Schneerson from Paragon, “then Israel's got reserves of human uranium in concentrations you won't find anywhere else in the world.”

When we founded IntSights, we didn't have a product yet. At first, we developed only the interface and Nizan went around pitching it to companies. I did the work that the not‐yet‐existent software was supposed to do, manually: I browsed hacker forums and looked for information that might threaten our potential clients, like a human cybersearch engine. Gal Ben‐David, meanwhile, developed the software itself, which would eventually take over from me.

We followed the golden rule of the startup world—“fake it till you make it”—and our Israeli personalities gave us a big boost as we took the cheeky route. Our first big break came when a contact put us in touch with Yonatan Gad. “You've got to meet him,” he said. “He's got a magic touch and he'll help you sell abroad.” Ben‐David met him and showed him the interface. Gad took a keen interest in it and said that he was in touch with Volkswagen and that he would like us to show them our system. Volkswagen was a huge potential client, so instead of gently telling Gad that it might be best to wait with our pitch until we had a ready product, Nizan picked up the phone to me and said, “Listen, I'm just here doing a demo for Volkswagen, switch the ...