Senor, D. & Singer, S. (2009). Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle New York, NY: Twelve.

This book is just full of fascinating stories, stories about how people made things happen against all odds. Here are two stories that really touched me.

Led by the insane drive and determination from Shimon Peres and a Jewish American Al Schwimmer, started with zero aircraft in the country, Israel built its air force by smuggling repaired fighter planes into Israel:

“Though the FBI impounded the largest aircraft he bought—three Constellations—Schwimmer and his gang succeeded in smuggling out other aircraft, some by literally flying over the heads of the FBI agents who’d demanded that the planes be grounded”

When the War of Independence came in 1948, all these aircraft that made it to Israel played an instrumental role fighting off enemy planes that were bombing Tel Aviv. After the war, Al Schwimmer returned to the US and was faced a criminal case from the U.S. Justice Department for violating the US Neutrality Acts by smuggling the planes into Israel. He and his gang pleaded not guilty on the grounds that the law itself was unjust and he got away with a fine. This, however, did not stop him. Once he was cleared, Schwimmer jumped right back into his smuggling business:

“By 1950, Schwimmer had joined forces with Shimon Peres, then a young Ben-Gurion protégé working for the new Israeli Defense Ministry. Peres had tried to buy thirty surplus Mustang aircraft for the Israeli Air Force, but the United States had decided to destroy the planes instead. Their wings were sliced off and their fuselages cut in two. So Schwimmer’s team bought the cut-up planes at cost from a Texas junk dealer, reconstructed them, and made sure they had all their parts and were operational. Then the team disassembled the planes again, packed them in crates marked “Irrigation Equipment,” and shipped them to Israel.”

The second story is about a Jewish named Dov Frohman, someone who left Andy Grove with such an impression: “the problem with Dov is, if we don’t let him through the door, he will come through the window”. He convinced Grove to build a major research and development center in Israel in the 70s, an idea that most big companies thought was nuts at the time. Started with an investment of $300,000 and five full-time employees, Intel Israel would go on to become the largest private employer in Israel, designed some of the most innovative chips that made billions of dollars for the company and responsible for three-quarters of Intel’s global output.

Time fast backward to 1991. This was the time when IBM finally agreed to let Intel be the sole manufacturer of its chip after years of efforts and Intel Israel had been manufacturing the 386 chip that would power all IBM’s new desktops. But then the Gulf War started. Saddam Hussein had declared that if the US launched an offensive, he would respond with missile strikes against Israel. On January 16, the Israeli government announced the shutdown of all schools and businesses, except for basic utility such as electric. Concerned about the lost of confidence from the Intel management in Israel’s operation as well as the global business community’s view on Israel’s stability, Frohman made one bold decision:

“On January 17, Frohman informed his employees of his unilateral decision to keep Intel Israel open during the war, in defiance of government orders, but on a voluntary basis: no worker would be punished for not showing up”

At 2:00 a.m. on January 18, the air-raid sirens rang. Frohman and his family sealed themselves into their home’s safe room. When the all clear sounded, they learned that eight missiles had struck Tel Aviv and Haifa. Frohman then headed to the Intel plant:

“At 3:30 a.m., when Frohman arrived at the plant with his gas mask, he went straight to the clean room—the heart of the chip factory, where, to maintain a dust-free environment, technicians worked in sealed suits that made them look like astronauts. Work there had already resumed. He was told that when the sirens had sounded earlier, the employees had gone to a sealed room in the plant, but after quick calls home, they had returned to their work stations. When the first postattack morning shift began, Frohman expected to see—best-case scenario—half of the shift; 75 percent showed up. Following a second Iraqi missile attack the next night, turnout at Intel’s Haifa design center increased to 80 percent. The more brazen the attacks, the larger the turnout.”

“The executives in Intel’s Santa Clara headquarters could not get their heads around this. During a conference call with Santa Clara two days later, air-raid sirens went off again. The Israeli team members asked for a moment to relocate, put on their gas masks, and continued the call from their sealed room.”

After learning all these “crazy” stories, two things became obvious to me: 1) culture, doesn’t matter whether it is family culture, company culture or in this book’s case, a people and a nation’s culture, is something that is so powerful that it taps the maximum potential from any individual, it is larger than life. 2) when people has to face long-standing existential threats on a regular basis, they make things happen and figure things out. As the authors put in the book:

“This was a matter of necessity, rather than mere preference or convenience”