Silicon Wadi

I had dinner this week with a good friend from Israel's tech industry. We were reminiscing about the history of tech in Israel. How in the 80's there was nothing. In the 90's people would say, "Israel has great technology, but they have no idea how to market it". And suddenly overnight, in our new as as yet unnamed Millenium, American companies are buying more Israeli companies than they're buying from any other foreign country. Israel has become a high tech powerhouse. Intel's most important new processors, the ones that run laptops, are developed in Israel. Qualcomm's most important technologies, Cisco's newest stuff, all this is developed in Israel. Israel has more companies on the NASDAQ than any foreign country with the possible exception of Canada. And Israeli companies are now perceived as having BETTER marketing savvy than their American counterparts, especially when selling in Asia. Amazing stuff. When did all this happen???

So just like the Bay Area has its Silicon Valley, and NY has its highly over-hyped Silicon Alley, Israel has its much under-hyped Silicon Wadi. It kinda makes me proud.