Israel: a country too far from Mike Arrington’s house

[Sam_Odio]

http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/15/israel-a-country-too-far-from-mike-arringtons-house/

[jgrahamc]

In other news Scoble discovers that there's life outside Silicon Valley. So, there's a hot start-up scene in Tel Aviv, big deal. There have been hot startups coming out of Israel for a long time... ICQ anyone? CheckPoint?

I've personally been involved with a few who moved operations from Israel to SV (which is quite common). One recent interesting one is Dapper: http://www.dapper.net/

[attack_forgotpw → jgrahamc]

Incorrect. He discovered that other bloggers have been providing a false view of startup landscape.

[mattmaroon]

I love how he gives the headline then basically goes about explaining that it's just linkbait and not really accurate. Shameless.

[icey]

I lived just outside of Tel Aviv for a few years; it was an amazing place.

I was there just before this newfangled internet became a big deal, but just after a lot of high tech companies started moving to the area. There is a lot of technical talent in Israel, they have an incredible technical school- Technion.

[kf]

Just a plug, FYI -- anyone 18-26 and of vaguely Jewish descent can have a free trip to Israel via the Birthright organization. There is minimal religion and maximum Zionism. Also no time to check out the startup scene, but it's still a lot of fun.

Free means free, they cover airfare from NYC or LA and many meals. $250 deposit is required to reserve your spot. Email me if you have any questions.

[cstejerean → kf]

I've had several friends go on this and everyone enjoyed it. From what I hear there was a lot of drinking and partying and not much of anything else (or at least that's all that the people I spoke with remembered).

[pius → kf]

My buddy went on this and had a blast. If I were Jewish, I'd be all over it.

[weezus → kf]

How do they know? Do they check your weezus or something?

[aswanson]

He's just letting people know about a trip they can take. What's wrong with that? ( I didn't downmod you, BTW).

[mixmax → aswanson]

I just think that as soon as Israel is involved there is tension in the air. Everybody has a strong opinion about Israel, me included. I won't vent it here though - this isn't reddit.

[robertk → aswanson]

Sorry. Just the usual negative connotations with "Zionism" (thanks, ADL) coupled with his claim of "free[1] ([1] that is, $250)" made it sound like spam.

[jakewolf → robertk]

It's a deposit to make sure people don't bail out. You get it back afterwards.

[jonathan]

Yes he honestly did! And this trip is amazing..

[delano]

And the concentration of tech companies is so great in Israel that even Yahoo and Google share a building (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/2419149286_0dfc4bbab4_b....).

[tzury]

I think my country produced more successful startups than any other country comparing its population (the whole country including the occupied territories has less people than NYC or London)

[attack_forgotpw]

Great point. This has always stuck out as an incredible demonstration of the failure of online tech journalism. I'm surprised that more have not written about this.