Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle is a 2009 book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer about the economy of Israel. It examines how Israel was able to reach such economic growth that "at the start of 2009, some 63 Israeli companies were listed on the NASDAQ, more than those of any other foreign country." In 2010, Start-up Nation was ranked fifth on the business bestseller list of The New York Times. It also reached The Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Despite claims in the media that Dan Senor coined the phrase "start-up nation" in 2009, the phrase was featured in American technology media at least since November 2000 in an article by Stacy Perman titled "Startup Nation" describing Israel.
Book overview The Council on Foreign Relations stated in its publisher's blurb for the book that Start-up Nation addresses the question: "How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million people, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources—produces more start-up companies on a per capita basis than large, peaceful, and stable nations and regions like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and all of Europe?" The Economist noted that Israel had more high-tech start-ups and a larger venture capital industry per capita than any other country in the world. The Economist described Start-up Nation as the most notable of a "growing pile" of books on the success of Israel's technology sector. In their attempt to explain Israel's success in this area, Senor and Singer discard "the argument from ethnic or religious exceptionalism, dismissing 'unitary Jewishness' or even individual talent as major reasons for Israel's high-tech success" and analyze two major factors that, in the authors' opinion, contribute most to Israel's economic growth. Those factors are mandatory military service and immigration. The authors argue that a major factor for Israel's economic growth can be found in the culture of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in which service is mandatory for most young Israelis. The authors suggest that service in the IDF equips future entrepreneurs with a broad range of skills and valuable connections. They assert that the IDF provides experience in taking on responsibility within a relatively flat organizational structure. IDF soldiers "have minimal guidance from the top, and are expected to improvise, even if this means breaking some rules. If you're a junior officer, you call your higher-ups by their first names, and if you see them doing something wrong, you say so." Neither ranks nor ages matter much "when taxi drivers can command millionaires and 23-year-olds can train their uncles," and "Israeli forces regularly vote to oust their unit leaders." The book also dwells at length on immigration and its role in Israel's economic growth: "Immigrants are not averse to starting from scratch. They are by definition risk-takers. A nation of immigrants is a nation of entrepreneurs. From survivors of the Holocaust to Soviet refuseniks through the Ethiopian Jews, the State of Israel never ceased to be a land of immigration: 9 out of 10 Jewish Israelis today are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the first or second generation. This specific demographic, causing fragmentation of the community that still continues in the country, is nevertheless a great incentive to try their luck, to take risks because immigrants have nothing to lose." Additional factors cited by the authors include a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo, a culture that encourages experimentation with technology, and government policies that support start-ups. Using stories and anecdotes, the book provides examples of Israel's technological and medical achievements, among them "the Israeli innovations that made possible Google Suggest, the list of suggestions that appear instantly in menu form as you type a search request, the capsule endoscopy, a miniature camera embedded in a pill so that 18 photos per second can be wirelessly and painlessly transmitted from gastrointestinal tracts." The book highlights Israel’s numerous achievements in technological innovation, but also examines why Israel has yet to produce its own major corporations. The authors attribute this partly to the tendency of Israeli startups to be acquired by large foreign companies and partly to mismanagement. To write the book, Senor and Singer interviewed over 100 individuals, including Israeli venture investors, historians, U.S. military officials, and Israeli heads of state. they conclude that "while Israel has much to learn from the world, the world has much to learn from Israel."
Authors Dan Senor is a former foreign policy official in the United States government. He served as chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and now advises venture capital firms. Saul Singer is a columnist and former editorial page editor for The Jerusalem Post.
Critical reception
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