[woodruffw]

Conspiracies and politics aside, the reasons for the prominence of 8200 are somewhat boring: it's the largest unit in the IDF, in a relatively small country. Teenagers who demonstrate just about any degree of technical savviness get funneled into it for their mandatory service.

It's the equivalent of observing that SFBA startups tend to have a lot of Stanford grads at the helm.

(I don't have any particular love for Snyk as a product suite. I think most supply chain security products are severely over-hyped.)

[ignoramous]

> Conspiracies

Not when the dissidents put their name to paper.

  We, veterans of Unit 8200, reserve soldiers both past and present, declare that we refuse to take part in actions against Palestinians and refuse to continue serving as tools in deepening the military control over the Occupied Territories.

  It is commonly thought that the service in military intelligence is free of moral dilemmas and solely contributes to the reduction of violence and harm to innocent people. However, our military service has taught us that intelligence is an integral part of Israel's military occupation over the territories.

  The Palestinian population under military rule is completely exposed to espionage and surveillance by Israeli intelligence. While there are severe limitations on the surveillance of Israeli citizens, the Palestinians are not afforded this protection.

  There's no distinction between Palestinians who are, and are not, involved in violence. Information that is collected and stored harms innocent people. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself. In many cases, intelligence prevents defendants from receiving a fair trial in military courts, as the evidence against them is not revealed.

  Intelligence allows for the continued control over millions of people through thorough and intrusive supervision and invasion of most areas of life. This does not allow for people to lead normal lives, and fuels more violence further distancing us from the end of the conflict.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/israeli-intell... (and that's from 2014)

[woodruffw]

I don’t think this conflicts with what I’ve said. I’m not claiming Unit 8200 is moral or absolved; I’m saying only that you will run into a lot of 8200 veterans if you interact with any Israeli startup, since it’s a massive unit. Assuming that those people don’t have opinions of their own is likely incorrect, as this letter demonstrates.

[guappa]

It's signed by 34 people… I guess we can say it's completely irrelevant.

[ignoramous]

> 34 people ... completely irrelevant

There weren't many Oskar Schindlers either.

[manquer]

Talent or skills is essential but alone is not enough. while the size and quality of the talent pool helps it is not sufficient to explain the success rate, considering that there are similar or better quality talent pools which are larger in many countries around the world, but they don't have the success rates Israeli startups and 8200 ones specifically have compared to their home market and talent pool size.

It is not some conspiracy either, success as founder has strong network effects and positive feedback loops, right mentorship, access to talent pool, or access to funding and people who can open doors all becomes easier when your network already has some success. Similar reason second time founders have it easier they can tap into their personal version of a network.

It is not unusual to Israel/8200, the valley itself benefits from this effect heavily after all.

[woodruffw]

Right, it's not about talent. It's the fact that it's an extremely strong network with a flywheel between defense spending and startup tech. The same things that make the US's startup industry indefatigable.

[ignoramous]

> benefits from this effect

"Benefits" from whose perspective? For instance, the Brazilians (the State apparatus, specifically) are also benefiting [0], but are their citizens [1]?

[0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/48595312

[1] https://idanlandau-com.translate.goog/2016/02/04/technologie...

[manquer]

benefits from the perspective of the startup, i.e. chances of its success or growth.

Who in turn benefits from that in terms wealth, power, influence is whole different topic for which i have no expertise, i was only talking about frequency of successes in startup clusters.