The Brain Drain - Avi Machlis
Unfavorable immigration and tax policies have created a dearth of high-tech workers in Israel.
Like a seasoned salesman, Ari Gottesmann surveys the bedouin-style coffee corner he has built to draw attention to his startup NomadIQ among the dozens of companies vying for talent at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s annual high-tech job fair. Floor cushions are in place, Turkish coffee is brewing, and if all goes well, a camel wearing the company logo will soon saunter in from Mount Scopus across the city. As vice president of business development of a little-known wireless application service provider, Mr. Gottesmann must double his company’s workforce to 30 employees. And from the looks of it he’s willing to do almost anything to get there.
While a camel certainly doesn’t scream “cutting-edge technology,” the fierce competition for manpower in the sector has led him to trot out the large desert creature to make his company stand out from the crowd. “We want to add a personal touch so job seekers can feel they will want to hang out with us,” he says with no apparent irony.
CAMEL’S LOT
Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Gottesmann succeeded in bagging a handful of new recruits. But Israel needs much more than gimmicks to alleviate a drastic skills shortage that has now become the Achilles’ heel of its high-tech industry. While it’s true that the skills shortage is a global problem, it is particularly acute in Israel, which by law is a Jewish state.
Silicon Valley may not be the most heterogeneous place in the world, but it is more of a free market for talent than Israel, which is supposed to be a country solely of Jews — albeit Jews from around the globe. As such, the country doesn’t confer citizenship to non-Jews, which puts unique constraints on Israeli companies. “We should be doing a lot more on a systematic basis to try and make more of our human resources before looking outside,” says Ed Mlavsky, chairman of Gemini Capital Fund Management and a founding father of the Israeli venture capital industry.
