Surname call he is “the king of startups,” the “prophet” and the “godfather” of Israel's technology industry. He is Yossi Vardi, the “father” of more than 80 technology startups and Israel's first technology startup “superstar.”
The godfather of Israeli technology
Joseph “Yossi” Vardi helped successfully build Israel's technology startup community. Among these companies was Mirabilis, which created ICQ, the world's first Internet messaging software. The 74-year-old has also served as a strategic adviser to online retailer Amazon and global Internet services corporation AOL. He is also vice chairman of the site yalla.co.il, an eBay-style version from Israe
In 2011, he was named among Europe’s top 25 technology figures (Tech’s Top 25), selected by the publication The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, Yossi won “Europe's Best Investor,” selected by technology site TechCrunch.
This veteran entrepreneur is also one of the initiators of Pitango, one of Israel’s largest venture-capital funds. The ‘godfather’ Yossi Vardi has helped bring more than 80 Israeli technology companies into existence, the newspaper Jewish Business Times said.
Companies he invested in have attracted technology giants: Yahoo acquired Foxytunes for 30 million USD, Microsoft acquired Gteko for 120 million USD, Cisco took over Tivella, and ePay acquired The Gift Project. His developing startups are also growing rapidly; AtlasCT, for example, is now considered a promising competitor to Google Maps.
“People” Are the Formula for Success
With this remarkable track record, many would think Yossi is like King Midas in Greek mythology, whose touch turned everything to gold. However, in an interview with TechCrunch in 2011, this technology startup master admitted that his list of failures was “too long to count.”
Keeping those painful failures in mind, he developed a positive approach to potential investments: ‘Judge people by their business plans,’ not their past failures. He believes entrepreneurs who have failed hunger for victory more than others.
What Yossi invests in is not a company or an idea, but the people who create them: entrepreneurs. “I am just a lucky nobody working with guys 3 times younger and 3 times smarter than me,” he once humbly said of himself.
In 1997, Arik Vardi and a few friends approached his father, Yossi Vardi, to ask him to invest in Mirabilis, an unknown startup. ‘I knew very well that the kids were talented. I sent them a little money. And the rest is history,’ Yossi recalled.
Less than 19 months after ICQ launched, AOL quickly snapped it up for a total of nearly USD 400 million. ICQ's success fired the opening shot of Israel's technology startup wave, which continues to this day. Yossi's investment decision created what the magazine Forbescalled the “Mirabilis Effect,” as many talented young Israelis resolved to follow this company's example in pursuit of success.
“I search for talented people. I do not search for ideas because I do not understand them. It is a land where I am a stranger, while those young people are the natives. I want people who are talented, kind, and quick-witted. If they know how to orient a product toward users, I will be interested in their idea,” Yossi shared.
Collected
Chương trình liên quan tại YUP Education: X-Startup – khóa học khởi nghiệp «Khởi Chánh Nghiệp» · The Journey – lộ trình phát triển doanh nhân
