Cyberwarfare will soon be the most critical battleground of international conflict. With current security protocols, nothing is safe. Our adversaries–Russia, China, Iran–can break into our purportedly secure communications, and we can break into theirs. For the moment, it is much like the mutual assured destruction of the nuclear age. Our enemies could bring down our electric grid, crash our stock market, disrupt our communications, bring our country to a halt, kill many millions. They are deterred from doing so by the fact that we can do the same to them.
Meanwhile, however, many cyber battles are being fought, largely concealed from the public eye. Corporations are routinely held up by hackers who demand ransom. Most companies pay, quietly. Conducting business in the current environment is much like traveling in 18th century Europe: you are at risk of being held up by a highwayman at every moment.
All of which means that experts in cybersecurity are in high demand. Enter the Israelis, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
Venture capitalists are now coveting a new class of founders—those who served in a specialized unit of the Israeli army.
Members of Unit 8200, known for its advanced cybersecurity and cyberwarfare capabilities, have founded dozens of cybersecurity companies. Others have become influential venture capitalists in their own rights and are mentors to entrepreneurial graduates.
There are at least five tech companies started by Unit 8200 alumni publicly traded in the U.S., together worth around $160 billion. Private companies started by ex-8200 soldiers are worth billions more.
The Journal’s focus is on corporate cybersecurity, but no doubt other 8200 alumni have been recruited into the more critical world of national security:
Wiz and the 8200 alumni are targeting a massive business problem—how to keep big companies secure—with skills and an intensity they learned from their time in the military. They and the companies they’ve built have become hot commodities as more industries move huge amounts of business documents to the cloud—which is constantly under attack from opportunistic hackers.
How do the Israelis do it?
The Israeli military recruits for Unit 8200 as early as grade school, scouring robotics clubs and after-school coding programs for talent.
Talent? Haven’t they heard about DEI?
Unit 8200 recruits get huge responsibility at a young age:
Unit 8200 encourages its recruits to question their superiors and tackle complex problems without known solutions. Many say that this high-pressure culture and on-the-spot thinking are part of what make them good at business outside of the military.
“It almost makes you feel like you can do anything,” said Kobi Samboursky of his six years in Unit 8200. Samboursky founded venture-capital firm Glilot Capital Partners in 2011 and named it after the unit’s military base outside of Tel Aviv. “I’ve gone through tougher situations, so what’s a deadline? What’s a competitor? What’s an investor? Everything looks kind of easier.”
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“There’s incredible freedom to operate at a young age, and the problems you’re presented with are quite raw,” said Yotam Segev, CEO of Cyera, a company that was founded by former Unit 8200 officers in 2021.
Interesting. This is the same point that former (and, I think, future) Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made in his speech to my organization’s Annual Dinner gala. Young Israelis in the IDF are given an extraordinary amount of responsibility and independence, which gives them a perspective quite different from that of most young Americans. Who knows? Those young Israelis may play a key role in winning the most important theater of 21st century warfare.
