According to the Israel Innovation Authority, the country’s tech community accounts for nearly a fifth of the country’s annual gross domestic product, making it the country’s largest economic output sector. The tech sector also employs about 10% of the total workforce.
Dvir Ben-Aroya, co-founder of Spike, a workplace collaboration platform with clients including Fiverr, Snowflake, Spotify and Wix, quickly decided to let all employees work from home for the immediate future, and the company will even support those who want to leave Israel with their families. At least 10% of Spike’s staff have accepted the offer, and that number could increase in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm Pentera allows employees to take time off on demand. The company operates in more than 20 countries, with its largest staff based in Israel, and conducts “simulated attacks” on large companies such as BNP Paribas, Chanel and Sephora to identify system weaknesses.
enlist in the army
A significant number of tech workers have been called up for reserve military service, with a total of about 360,000 Israelis called up so far. Pentera CEO Amitai Ratzon said the company has more than 20 of its best engineers called up, “some of whom are on the front lines.”
Isaac Heller, CEO of Trullion, an accounting automation startup based in Tel Aviv, told CNBC that the company's chief financial officer had just completed his 2024 financial forecast and immediately received a bulletproof vest to join the Israel Defense Forces.
Of the nearly 450 employees at digital bank One Zero, about 10% were sent to reserve duty, CEO Gal Bar Dea told CNBC. The jobs of those who left were volunteered by employees who stayed.
“Someone said he had to go to the army and three other employees volunteered to do his part. I felt like it was business as usual and everything was going on as normal,” Bar Dea said.
One Zero is currently developing a chatbot similar to ChatGPT and they decided not to delay the launch of this new product, even though the project leader, has joined the Air Force.
Volunteer overtime
According to Bar Dea, the community organization is working overtime to develop conflict-specific technology tools, such as a missing persons bulletin board website, a cyberattack prevention tool, a GoFundMe-like tool, and even a resource for finding psychologists online.
“That’s what makes Israel a startup nation,” Bar Dea said. “Within a few days, people were able to donate money, do humanitarian work, evacuate children, build new settlements. Tech companies were building networking tools, communication tools to help people…”
Yaniv Sadka, an investment associate at aMoon, a healthcare and life sciences venture capital fund, said “a lot of the tech community has gone into the military” or volunteered, a scene he “has never seen before.”
Still, it’s not without its challenges. “It’s exciting to be the CEO of a bank or a tech company, but I’m also a father of two young kids,” Bar Dea said, referring to the sirens that sounded at his headquarters and his wife taking their children to the shelter. “It’s been tough because we’ve never been through this before. Everyone is trying to help each other figure out how to deal with it both from a business and family perspective.”
Meanwhile, Sadka admitted that “it is difficult to focus on work when you have to deal with personal issues such as protecting your own safety and protecting the country”.
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