Lior Susan - Leave the World Better than You Found It - [Invest Like the Best, EP.353]

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/b9554fba9398c658

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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best.
This show is an open ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money.
Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolossis.com
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO and founding partner of Positive Sum and the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.
All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum or O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of Positive Sum or O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
Today's episode requires a slightly longer introduction to make a few things extremely clear to anyone listening. It's a conversation with Liore Susan, the founder of Eclipse Ventures.
whose mission is to unlock solutions to age old physical industry problems through the intersection of bits and atoms.
Lior is Israeli and served in Israel's special forces before founding Eclipse.
The topic of today's conversation is one fellow investor's perspective on the terror attacks of October 7th and the path forward.
I hope it goes without saying that my personal stance on this situation is to year for peace.
I hope more than anything that collective action is in the direction of fewer people dying.
and most importantly fewer and ideally zero innocent civilians dying in Israel and in Gaza and Palestine.
This is not a political show and it won't become one.
This is a conversation with a person deeply and personally affected by the Hamas terror attacks of October 7th, who I believe to be a very good person who wants to be a part of change in the right direction for everyone good in and around Israel and Gaza, regardless of their background, religion, or anything else about them.
If this episode offends anyone, that is of course not my intention.
But in the aftermath of the attacks, I had a number of similar conversations to this one, and this is the one I wanted to share. The easier path, which I'll admit to being tempted by, is to simply never publish anything too inflammatory on this feed.
I hope at least some of you will emerge from this as I did, feeling a bit smarter and a bit more motivated to talk about solutions to an awful situation.
Please enjoy my conversation with Liora Susan.
I'm really excited to have
this conversation with you, I think it will be a tough one.
at times for sure, but an important one.
To set the stage.
Normally I don't do this, but I think it's important for this particular conversation.
I'd love you to just give everyone listening
your background in whatever way you think it appropriate to lay out your life experience to this point.
Thanks for having me, Patrick, and
Definitely.
Oh B.
much more focused and excited.
to do this type of a broadcast to it.
With you and
And your broadcast that I love.
in a different times, but as you said
probably more important than ever that we will do this type of a conversation right now.
goes back to my background. I grew up surrealist enough in a kibbutz.
in the north part of Israel.
Similar kibbutzes in the south is the one that being invented in the first in October seven.
It's a very
Open.
Free communities.
Nobody locks the door in kibbutzes.
This very free spirit
lifestyle environment.
You walk barefoot.
You work on the farm.
I decided in the age of sixteen that I'm not going to continue go to school and I
Well
Walk in the banana farms.
You know, it's the best childhood that a kid can dream.
Think about these beautiful, very green communities.
A lot of trees
A lot of agriculture.
And people, you know, riding their bicycles.
living with each other in communities that are very
Beautiful.
So I grew up in the north part of Israel in Nicky Boots.
And I joined the military.
Maybe draft it through the special forces.
Nice, sir. Almost eight years at special forces and multiple of roles.
I grew up in a family that
My grandparents came to
fight for establishing the country.
From variety of places around the world, like my dad, and
Like my uncles, it was clear to me that I'm going to do
My part and like
In everything else I try to
push as hard as they can and they've been drafted to one of the special forces.
The service was uh of course very meaningful to me. I um
about leadership.
About brotherhood.
About pushing
physically, but actually much more mentally.
Myself.
And
It was a very strong
experience that
build who I am. I went to the murder as a kid.
And I left the military almost at the age of late twenty five.
As a man.
And
The reason I left was because
I was very passionate about
In the last two years of my service, I got to manage that team it's called Tech Ops, uh that's specializing
in figuring out which technologies we have the special forces we use at the field, then
I fall in love in
This
Things called technology.
And I also felt like my purpose in life is to focusing on that rather than being only a soldier.
It was hard for me to explain.
the narrative in my head, but
There's a variety of things that happen.
during my time
in the military that
I felt my purpose in life would be to focus on that and actually find
Positive.
Art of these wars by building companies.
My young brother was actually finished his service and
He come up with this idea of a company called Intucell and
I decided to finish the service.
after eight years and join him.
And into cell.
company did software define network.
He was the brain, him and two of his friends. They came from eighty two hundred.
They
Talk to me about what we are going to build.
I understood about five percent of that.
Uh bad day or
Their point of view was
I was in the special forces. I manage teams under tough situations, so I can take that skills.
And apply that in the
commercial war, then actually this is where
I
first saw the connected tissue between being a team lead
in the military and how you actually can use it for entrepreneurship to build a company.
And there is a lot of similarity on the leadership between a B a CEO.
And a team lead.
Uh so w I joined them at Intelcel, we built a company, company got acquired in twenty twelve.
By Cisco or about four hundred and seventy five million.
I moved to the Bay Area in twenty twelve.
met the CEO of a company called Flexonics, Mike McNamara.
joining at Flex to build
is digital transformation team.
fall in love in this notion of digitized
Transforming
physical industries like manufacturing and supply chain and industrial, et cetera.
And I left in the beginning of twenty fifteen to start Eclipse.
to focusing exactly on that. So
uh to build companies in the intersection between technology and the physical world.
So you've got such a fascinating
background for lots of reasons and there's a million ways that I would normally take the conversation and probably will later.
But
Given the circumstances that the world's been living under
And giving your very unique vantage point into
Loved ones, friends, family, et cetera, that have been directly impacted by this.
What happened on October seventh and since.
Can you
Layout for us.
Your perspective
On
this entire situation in as much detail
as possible.
And
Just as a precursor to that.
To me
What's interesting and important about our conversation today.
Is
conversation and perspective.
And not
In thirty seconds, not in
even thirty minutes. Just in real deep, nuanced
thoughtful perspective that I feel is sort of been lacking so far.
in a lot of what you see on the internet.
Maybe you can begin
People understand your background now.
Maybe now you can just give us
Yeah.
Uncensored, very raw.
take on what's happened so far and your perspective on it.
I'm going to
Start with the fact.

And actually after I relay the facts, I will give my perspective.
And we will talk about it, I hope in some point, the disinformation.
that is happening in the world. Essentially what we are
viewing is a new type of the world.
And it's a war.
on people's minds.
And we as a Western society actually losing that war.
So
I'll talk about the facts and then I'll give my perspective.
So the facts are the following in October seven
Six forty five AM.
Hamas a tele organization that controlling Gaza
That by the way, Gaza is not Palestine.
Gaza it's Gaza, it's part of Palestine. There is a West Bank as well.
But Hamas that took over
Gaza
In two tausent seven, Israel
actually left Gaza in two thousand five, about two years before, and Hamas being elected.
by the Gaza people to rule Gaza.
In two thousand seven and in took
Control in two thousand seven.
So in October
Seven Hamas in vain.
The south part of Israel.
There is not exact number yet, but from
the intel that I have
With people
Uh
well familiar with the situation. Seems like it was about four thousand people.
different
troops from the Nukba that will be their special forces up to
the very low ranks that essentially being invented, Israel and the south part of the country. And to give you a sense
People give me the nine eleven.
methodology of the same impact that Israel going to have, the same we had here in this country. I said yes, it's a nine eleven that came from Brooklyn, though.
You just cross the river to Manhattan, you didn't come with a plane. That's the same essentially. They just cross
Defense.
They took out all of our security systems and defense systems.
And they murdered
In a matter of twenty hours, fourteen hundred people
Unfortunately.
From the age of three months.
to the age of eighty seven years old.
Woman
Kids.
All Dairy.
They kidnapped two hundred and twenty eight.
people back to Gaza.
From the age of six months up to an eighty
Seven years old that is currently holding by
The terrorist Hamas in the tunnels.
And
Essentially from October seven.
Israel and uh Hamas in a direct
Contact.
From a war point of view.
So that's the fact.
My perspective now.
But also
Based on
Facts.
Israel is the third
largest country for per capita and venture.
Investment.
Israel
More than fourteen percent of the GDP of Israel is coming from tech.
Israel is being called start up nation. Israel invented the ways that you navigate your
Car width.
Mobile.
With you using your ADS in your car.
The computer that you're using, the chip that is being designed at core, is it been in Intel Israel?
Israel have all of them multinationality tech companies, the largest R and D centers, Amazon, Apple, Google
Facebook, et cetera.
Why I say all of that is not to pound the chase of the Israelis is because Israel believe
that economical development, research, education
is the way that we should run the country.
Based on democracy.
Unfortunately
If you will look
On other regions.
that the radical Islam
Tell us control this regions besides death, there is nothing.
Gaza, there is nothing in Gaza. There is no Singa.
development area besides.
This
Lebanon.
His bala took it over, there is nothing there.
ISIS in Syria, there is nothing there.
Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, there is nothing there.
And my main point here is now
Go back to the perspective zooming out.
Is
Radical Islam.
He's on a mission.
to
basically control
And kill.
Anyone that don't believe in their ideology.
Unfortunately
My perspective.
We are
On the
Very, very
One yard line.
Over third.
World War.
of two camps that some of them
are being supported by this extremist radical Islam.
If you think about the history here.
What do you think are the things
that are most important for people to know and understand that may not know much about
the history of the nation of these names of these groups that you've talked about.
I think obviously in the last couple of weeks now everyone's heard these names, but
Had you ask the average American or something?
Do you know who this group is?
maybe they would have heard of them, but unlikely that they would know much history.
Frankly, unlikely that they would know much history of
Israel even.
What is the historical context that
You think is
Important.
And I asked just to lay a little bit more groundwork before we talk about
What you think the path forward might be.
As I mentioned.
all believe in a radical Islam. And actually just to be very clear, this is the opposite of
What a lot of Muslims will think about.
But to give you a sense
the commonality in all of those organization is if you are not believed in their Islam, you should die.
Women will never drive cars, women will never be teachers, women will never be able to walk in the streets without a full full cover.
Gay people will be tortured and die.
In the name of what they believe in, they will be willing to kill anyone in this
Waard.
They do not believe in economical freedom, they do not believe in innovation, they do not want to focus their time on kill cancels or global warming. They want to focus all of their time and that's what they do.
on propaganda of why
The Islam should rule the world.
And they took the Quran and they twist it to support their radical ideas.
The other thing that's common to all of those co organization, and there is one in Gaza, Hamas, one in Lebanon.
Klezbala, one in Surya, ISIS, one in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda, one in Ta in Yemen.
The hood.
And one
in Africa el Shabaab.
All of those
well funded to organization supporting by a single country and it's Iran.
I'm going to get a little bit historical here.
Irans are actually
In the Islam there is two vectors, there is Sun's and there is Shi's.
All of those radical
Extremist are she?
The Persian people actually soon
They viewed them as a third type citizen.
But it's easy for them to not get their hands dirty
by basically funding those organizations and push them to do the terrible things that we were seeing in nine eleven.
Many of the two
attacks in Europe, of course what's happening in the war.
in Afghanistan and Syria, and of course what we are seeing now in Gaza and Israel.
When you say
Because you got your Twitter or your TikTok to tell you the Israelis are pounding Gaza and you walk in the streets of Stanford University.
And you say
From the river to the sea.
What you mean is that the country of Israel should be eliminated.
You're absolutely right.

The average American do not understand.
what we're facing against here.
And you're talking about organization that is being funded for years.
in the billions of billions of billions of dollars on the name of hate.
And chaos.
And
I know that that's going to be some of our topic for the session today.
If we are not going to get united
will not be able to live this world in the same way.
That we grew up in this world.
Maybe share your grandfather's great phrase. I think it was your grandfather about simple philosophy.
My grandfather was a very simple guy.
That's
Came to Israel from Morocco.
And he lives amongst Arabs.
And he loves them.
And they had an amazing relationship.
And they lived in Morocco with the respect to you to
A Muslim
But we still
Can live with each other.
And then before the establishing the Jews being pushed out of Morocco and flood the country
to Israel and he came
to fight for establishing.
And he's
Sentence that he constantly
Told me as a kid, he say
Done.
Leave the place.
Better than you find.
And I'm telling the
Same things to my kids today.
Knowing that
I'm not doing enough to live the place better than I find it.
How do you
understand or think about
What's happening on
Off in college campuses, it's happened at Columbia. It sounds like it's happening at Stanford. It's happened at NYU. I walked past one yesterday in Union Square.
Of
These groups of typically young American people.
Who
Whether it's saying from the river to the sea or a host of other things of a similar sentiment.
How do you understand the causal mechanism?
That
leads up to that rally that I walked past yesterday happening.
Just to draw an analogy, I remember very distinctly, right outside New York City
Living through nine eleven.
Certainly there was no protests anywhere saying
Anything similar.
Following a similar mass murder.
Maybe help me understand.
What is the causal chain here?
And I'm a kind of person that
I don't do episodes like this.
Frankly, it scares me. And the reason it scares me is because
I just think things are really complicated in the world. And every time I dig into a complicated issue, I leave it feeling
dumber and humbler than when I went into it.
So what I'm trying to do is ask questions that help me understand
what is going on and
Just taking from the river to the sea.
Very literally.
Why do you think that
has appeared.
Why are those young people thinking this way?
Where is their information coming from?
You understand the situation better than me.
Why are there signs with
A star of David and a trash can.
Twenty minutes from where I'm sitting.
Is the same
Fritrick is the exact same. Exact
Exactly.
Root cause.
of the number one
I believe.
biggest risk for modern society.
And it's this well organized
propaganda machine.
The their mission in life is to create the chaos.
in the Western world.
We saw a little bit of that in the previous
Election in this country.
With the social media fake news.
That's um
outside stream
was turning the algorithm in the same way.
We are seeing that right now.
with young kids in these countries that basically getting fake news
And deep fake.
and propaganda mainly through TikTok.
And we saw it in the war with Ukraine and Russia.
Same social media that
positioning the Ukraine
people as the one that invented some of the areas of Russia and actually they're the one to blame
I will guarantee you we will see the same
If China is going to invent they wanna
And I will guarantee you we will see the same.
in the next election in this country.
Shame on me.
I thought
Not
My job is to build amazing companies and change the way
The ward.
by building businesses that will endure
and transform Old Line industries using technology.
This is not enough.
Because the other side
uh putting all of their time, resource and oil money
To create the chaos.
And it's well organized because the incentives are against the West.
It's
Iran
selling oil to China because of the sanctions.
Is China that allow Russia operate in Ukraine and a freedom?
It's Turkey that's selling the drone to Russia.
To bomb.
The Ukraine people.
It's Iran
But financing these five
radical Islam as a front
Essentially proxy troops.
And it's the all of that side that's controlling social media.
And have army of army of butts.
And different type.
of technology to influence the Western
Ute mind.
So
You go in Manhattan
And you hear
Put the Jew.
In the gas chamber.
in twenty twenty three.
Got.
As a Jew
And as Israeli
to see it in Manhattan and Stanford University and Columbia University.
It makes me sick.
And it's just a wake up call for me that
We cannot
Pink.
that just by building companies and investing in amazing businesses will be enough.
will not be enough.
The thing that scares me most is
I've tried to read as much history as I can, just in general.
And
If you read the big sweeping histories of the world
One thing you find very quickly is that
war and conflict is the norm. It's far more
strange to find a year where there's not
A tremendous amount of conflict.
And bloodshed around the world.
And
Combining that
Which must just be part of human nature to some degree, with
this very new thing in the internet and TikTok and
these thirty second video clips with chance and whatever.
What can anyone do? It feels so
Monolithic.
So troubling
This is a struggle to know what to do.
Or what anyone could do. And it's a struggle to know
How do you speak and I'm curious what you would say if we had all of Palestine listening to this.
What would you say?
What does one say, what does one begin to do?
You said shame on me earlier.
Okay, but
What can you do?
Sorry, that was like eight questions.
No, no, it's a really good eight questions.
what I personally can do, and if all of the Gazan people now listen to me, I will tell them
Look across Israel.
You can have the same thing. You're very good people.
We actually are coming from a similar roots.
Fight those two.
Clean them out of your place.
You should have a port and an airport. Do you know who builds the largest hospital in Gaza? The Israelis.
Do you know what
Where is the command?
Um
Hamas
Under that hospital because they know that we're not born.
Gaza had an airport.
In the late eighties. People don't know it.
Gaza have a port and ocean ports today.
Gaza have
Connection to Egypt.
You should be a Singapore.
Do you want your kids to die by us bombing those places, your civilians? Do you really want to live like that?
Go fight. You need to be on our side.
Fight those theories. They're not to free you.
They are fat and happy and rich sitting in Qatar.
And
In uh Lebanon.
Where is their leaders?
Hallard Marshall.
Where are they?
Not in the four season in Qatar.
Do you know
Yeah, network.
is between a billion to a two billion dollar.
Gaza is one of the worst place on earth to live. Those people are poor. They have nothing. They'll lead those
Are billionaires living in Qatar?
In four seasonal fields.
This is insane.
I will be the first one to open an R and D center in Gaza in order to build the bridge after we are done with this co organization.
Me as a Jew as an Israeli.
I travel
to Abu Dhabi and Dubai this year.
Almost ten times of doing business.
And I brought my family.
I bought my parents.
I brought my kids.
It was amazing.
I was like
This is the future.
Who cares?
What does my passport say I want to travel around the world to business built companies solving tough problems?
And the only way to do it is through that not true wall.
We weren't that close, Patrick.
For me to travel to Saudi.
Because
The pen was open and the paper was about to get in, and that's why Iran pushed Hamas to do the attack because
the Abrams agreements between Israel and the Middle Eastern countries is not in the plan of Iran
and what they want to create in the world.
The only way is for both sides to
Talk about how we can help each other.
Build.
Businesses.
build hospitals, build research organizations, universities.
Not to constantly fight because you're a Jew and I'm a Muslim and he's Christian. I don't care about that point.
They care about that point, the radical Islam people.
And the people that are pushing them as their proxies.
So that's
What we can do, I can do that.
Goes back to your question.
On the social media.
The reason he didn't see it in nine eleven is because social media was not existing.
We need to wake up because in our constitution
We talked about freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech cannot be
Against safety.
If someone say we should push the Jews into a gas chambers in the middle of Manhattan
You cannot be in our part of our society because that's not freedom of speech.
If a professor
In Columbia University
He's talking about
how the Israeli is doing genocide. This is not a freedom of speech.
This is a hate.
Propaganda.
I think we're going to walk a very fine line.
country, especially in this country between the freedom of speech that are one of our biggest core
Of what make us special.
Because by the way, if you live in Iran and you will say
Oh.
I hate the government, nobody will find you if you live in Russia and you will say
Putin is terrible. Nobody will find you. If you will live in China.
And you will tick talk and say
I disagree with the governments. Nobody will find you. You can say it here.
And that's call tone.
why we want to live in a modern society.
But we cannot
Anymore.
Let in the name of freedom of speech
They are finding this crack with their propaganda using those social media tools.
to come and create the chaos in our society and that's their main goal.
How do you expect to spend your personal time
Over the
period of the foreseeable future.
to make the answer a bit more relevant.
You said it, I'll just say it again just to make sure it's clear.
Eclipse is in the business and has been at large scale.
Of backing
technology businesses which are updating
Not backwards, but just old industrial parts of the economy.
and bringing new technology to bear on often very old problems, very old industries that
Will continue to grow and thrive.
And
My understanding.
We're just getting to know each other, but
You are very devoted to that as how you spend your time.
finding these companies, investing in them, supporting them all around the world, not just in the US.
You said we've been to the Middle East ten times this last couple of years.
So
Do I have that right that that effectively is how you have been spending your time?
As an Israeli.
who's lived through this, how are you going to be spending your time in the next months and beyond?
So you're absolutely right. I spend uh thousand percent of my time
building companies in the intersection between technology and the physical world.
And I think the impact of these companies.
Just got
Way more important.
If I can build Teslas and SpaceX and Vulcan forms and bright machines and waves.
In this world.
I know
D
The West
part of the world in my camp.
are going to have a much more
Control modes.
So the other side were not trying to play games.
I actually think that
industrial
Powerhouse
have much more weight in today's world than nuclear bots.
We lost.
In the last thirty, forty years.
the industrial powerhouse of United States.
In the name of globalization.
Was easy.
We thought we are doing this fair deal.
We will give our manufacturing to China.
In returns they will buy American bonds.
And we all became really good friends.
Globalisation works well when everyone playing fair.
And I think
Data sites.
took a disadvantage.
Um I will
Wellingness.
to trying to build a wall that there is a much more
A global community
than these regional camps.
and essentially deglobalization.
I think if we want to
Um
freedom of speech. I think if he wants to have freedom of live, freedom of religion. I think if he wants to
be able to
live the place better than we find it. We must
Must
Must.
Rebuild
those physical industries.
And have
The Western
Especially America controlling those industries.
I didn't know that that was my mission in life. I thought it is because I was passionate about those companies and I thought that those markets are huge and I will be able to generate
a strong returns to my limited partners, I thought that that's my mission. Actually my mission is much bigger.
My mission is to protect
the principles I believe in.
And live this place better than I find it for my kids and their current kids and
All of us.
And it's true building those companies. So
Not only I'm going to continue to do the same, I'm going to double down on that and I'm going to speak with whoever I can.
to make sure that everyone understand that we need to unite it right now behind it.
Can you say a bit about your impression of
existing leadership in the areas that
matter
that can drive the best possible outcome.
Hopefully a piece and of
Mutual respect and
working together in some of the ways that you've described.
What do you think about the state of leadership?
And what leadership means to you as we face all this down.
I have a lot to say.
Just to be clear, me being Israeli entrepreneur ex special forces not mean that they don't have a lot of
Feedback.
and frustration with the Israeli leaders.
I do not think we did a good job.
In Israel as a leadership.
in the last couple of years to unite in the country and find a way to live with our neighbors by helping them build
and develop their economy, so they are pushing out those tele organization out of their society. I think we did a bad job.
I also think that in this country, in America, I'm a dual citizen.
We did not do a good job as well.
I see too much hate.
between the two parties.
I see biocracy.
and cheap politics are coming on the way of approving budgets, or the speaker of the house, for God's sake.
in order to be able to operate and deal
with these very large conflicts that are coming in our backyards.
It's not by a coincidence.
That we have two walls now.
Against
our side and what we believe, one in Ukraine and one in Israel.
that is being attacked in about the same time. It's not a coincidence.
The China making all of that statements on Taiwan.
It's not a coincidence.
that Iran is getting more and more aggressive with the nuclear plants.
It's all in a vacuum of a leadership on the Western side.
I'm not a politician.
But I want to believe that I'm a leader in this country.
And the Western side.
And my job is to not build any more only companies. My job is to carry that message and find other leaders to make an impact.
And influence.
When I will leave those
to united
behind what we want and what we sign up for.
This may be
A totally impossible.
Question.
But
In the face of history
Is it even conceivable?
That
We reach a state where
A category of people that want to kill other people.
based on their beliefs are gone.
And
Is there
modern or historical precedent for
it being possible to do the thing that
I would say that you've said you want here, which is to
Remove the worst.
People.
capable and willing and eager to do these things.
And then
Build partnerships and
Hopefully friendship and interdependency.
With those who want the opposite.
Do you think that that's possible?
Think we have no other way around.
Otherwise we will not live a better place for our kids.
And I guess.
I'm a believer.
The German Nazis killed six million Jews.
the German governments today.
Is one of the
Biggest supporter.
Of Israel and what is right and what is wrong.
I travelled
Across the UE dissier, I travel to Morocco.
I travel to Jordan.
I saw people
That wants to move on.
Unreality if I'm a Jew and Israeli
And you are an Arab.
We want to
At the end of the day.
the people want the same things. They want to have food on their table. They want to have their kids have a good education and a healthcare system. That's about it. It's the m massal hierarchy.
I want to believe
that if we do our job.
Oh strengthening.
the economy of this country.
building the industrial backbone.
showing the world that we are powerful than ever, that we are united than ever.
The other sides
will put their arms down.
And join us again.
On the name of
Not religion.
Not God, not nothing, in the name
Oh
I think
Life.
Do you know that
Hamas
One of the principal
is they say that they start
The life.
I still dead.
They believe in death.
I believe in life.
And if we are not
going to unite it against
Those two organizations.
And show the other sides that after we will destroy those two organizations, we will give them the hand back immediately.
to go and build the bridges.
This place is going to be very dark.
Bor, have you had conversations with
Members of the Muslim community
who, whether they're Palestinian or live in the area, and very clearly
Do not want
Israeli children and women
And citizens to be killed.
And murdered.
Have you had conversations with people
Of that background.
Who of course nonetheless are terrified of
Their own women and children.
Bing.
collateral damage being
Thoughtfully.
Avoided, but inevitably.
sucked into this conflict.
How do you have a conversation with somebody like that?
That's out there and have you.
I have the in the last three weeks I did about twenty five calls like that.
People that live right now in Gaza.
Civilians.
That I know.
Israeli Arabs people don't know. They called Israel and Apata
Upper country and genocides and all of that. There is a one and a half million
Arabs Israel is that their rights and my rights are the same.
You have the same passport, same IDs, same rights, exactly the same as I am as a Jew.
Actually a lot of them are walking with my dad.
in this construction company and I had multiple of conversation with them.
I have a really good friend.
D
He is a doctor.
in the south that is an Israeli Arab.
But unfortunately
He's
Nephew.
Is
One of those
Kids.
But got slaughter.
In the south.
These are Arabs, by the way.
And they told them when they attacked, we are Arabs as well.
They say you are worse than the Jews because you live amongst them and kill the whole family.
All of them have one thing in common, Patrick.
And is
They don't believe.
That these people are serving their interest.
They don't
believe that these people
should be part of the Islam.
Their shame.
of this behavior is like where in the Islam it say that you can burn babies and cut the head
A woman.
When the Islamists can say that you can rape
They don't view their behavior as the one that's representing them. And they all want one thing and one thing in common.
They want to go
to focus on the things that they care about and is raising kids in a safe manner.
Having them have a great education, so they can have a good job.
and can have a good healthcare system.
The very basic stuff.
They came and asked me sorry.
And I'm like
You don't need to ask me sorry.
We need to ask sorry for both of us.
Because the people I know in Gaza, your house is now getting bombed.
And I'm sorry for that.
And
to my friends that is an Arab doctor in the south of Israel.
But now
Do you know that Israel
Took care.
in the Israel hospital system, the Hamas terrorists that we capture.
Next to the bed to the people that they killed.
Because we don't view
The same way that they view.
Life.
We believe in life, not we don't believe in death.
And even to the worst enemy of us, we will take care of them because that's
What do we believe in.
So
And this is maybe why
In some way I see this
Small.
shiny light in the far in this all big dark.
is because I had those conversation with those people and I know that all of them want the same things that I want.
And he's
believing in life and innovation and technology.
And freedom.
They don't want
what we are seeing today.
Because it is
Certainly you're
incredible deep area of expertise. I'd love to talk a little bit about the role
of widespread technological advancement in all of this.
maybe expand the conversation a little bit beyond
What's happened recently and Hamas specifically.
You mentioned China earlier.
Again, I don't want to wait into
territories where I'm not qualified to say anything, but
I certainly have been exposed to no one in China that wants to kill babies and old women.
None the less, I think there's plenty of tension. There's plenty of a race, perhaps, an arms race, if you will.
You mentioned that we're probably right now losing
One arms race, which is
control of information, narrative, messaging, et cetera.
using modern platforms to disseminate those ideas.
Teach me a little bit about
or roles that technology you think will play.
In
the future of that.
you hope for that you are going to work for as you described.
In the West.
I've uh two answers for that before I talk about the West is
In any
Country.
The technology
play a big role.
You see
Growth.
Prosperity.
And freedom.
Because technology making you
Get out of the propaganda that you get in the mosque or
In whatever they enforce you to learn.
And that's why
In those dark
Countries
They will shut down the internet and they will control
what you can do in social media or not, because they know if you will be exposed to technology
you will challenge
Those radical mindset.
Our job, your job, my job.
is to push technology as far as we can.
Into this globe.
En every time that you will have a society
Touching technology at scale.
You will see good things happening.
So
Before I'm talking about
It west.
Go back to the West uh now and where I'm focusing most of my time.
In order to
United States.
in the Western countries to continue the amazing leadership that we were seeing essentially post World War Two.
That on the back of it we could live in a
Turnly.
Safe matter.
With not a lot of
Huge wars because
U S was
a country and a nation that nobody will mess with.
We need to bring back this what I call
digital transformation industrial backbone.
a manufacturing capabilities in a lot of cases more
powerful than a weapon.
And we saw the cracks of it a little bit during Covid. We suddenly are like, Oh my God, we cannot manufacturing so many of our essential products.
We cannot ship them.
There is lack of resiliency.
We heard about this lack of resiliency constantly during COVID.
That's
Cracks or not?
Small cracks. No huge cracks.
In the backbone of our economy and our society.
They
Ability to use automation and software.
And hardware, and semiconductor.
to own those capabilities in this country from building rockets
That we can go to space through batteries.
Like in Orix not too far from where I say that building batteries in Silicon Valley to
Manufacturing automation.
company right now I'm sitting in, right machines?
All of this industrial
capabilities and the technology and the innovation.
Are not only helping the United States strive the GDP
and the growth of the GDP because this is the industries that moving the economy.
More importantly, it's strengthening.
Hour.
Four.
even more important than our aircraft carriers and nuclear capabilities and our F thirty five.
And we
Underinvest.
And underestimate the importance in that in the last thirty years because we were in the name of globalization, we should just outsource as many things as we can.
What's the bridge to success here?
Because
One of the problems for sure is
You get
dependent on
Low cost manufacturing.
It's very hard.
For some businesses to work when you
take their cost of goods from one thing to something much higher than that thing.
How do we affect a thought transition?
to re strengthen
that base. And is there any argument to the contrary? Is there any argument that no what we should be fighting for is increased globalization, is increased
specialization around the world so that we can concentrate on
You look at the SP five hundred, the top ten are US technology companies, but not manufacturing companies.
Should that be what we're doing. So
I'm just trying to get as much perspective on this problem as possible and how you think we can
thoughtfully rebuild this base and making sure that it's worth it to do so.
I think globalization can happen only when everyone play fair.
I do not think people play fair with us in the last thirty years. They have a very different is there is a freedom of speech in China.
Is there is a freedom of religion there? No.
Is there is a freedom of speech in Iran, no?
Is there is a really truly a leader in Russia that we can actually negotiate and do things in a common sense now?
So I can't
Focusing on specialization.
when the other side is taking advantage of me and I think that's what happened.
If you're looking on actually the S P five hundred, then you're looking on the largest companies in the S P five hundreds, what you will find is a company like NVIDIA.
The building chips.
So that's actually how to manufacturing company you will find a company like Amazon that doing logistics.
You will find a company like Apple that building Haldwell.
You were fine
Not in the
top ten, but you will find a company like Tesla that building cars.
I think what we're seeing in the commonality in logistics, semiconductors, automotive.
Hardware.
is those industries are huge.
And we used to focusing on the design of those products and the end market.
And I think what we are seeing now that vertically integrating
by building this industrial capabilities domestically can actually give us a lot of other benefits
that are not purely the focusing of low cost.
And it's can be
How fast we can move, it can be
The idea that I can
control everything in the car and I can push soft stuff from remote and I can do things that I couldn't do before.
I call it it's a technology company that building a car.
It's not a car company that's using tech.
And NVIDIA, it's a technology company that building chip. It's not a chip company that uses pick, and that's what we do in Eclipse and looking for.
other companies that look like that.
The other thing that is happening that I think it's worth to give a little window and talk about
tech transformation is happening in those industries in China as well.
China have the same issues that we actually had forty years ago. They are running out of people that wants to do those bad jobs.
I ran factories in China. Trust me, it's not a fun job on an SMT line to spend uh fifteen hours a day.
So they don't want to do those jobs anymore.
Yeah, the declining
massive declining of their industrial workforce, meaning they need to use the same automation and software that we are using here.
If you will see where she is spending all of his time, so they totally shift away.
for investing in internet, they all want to invest in semiconductors
Robotics, quantum computing, and the things that are in the core of what we do here.
So in some way
The competitive
of our industries and their industries is first time in the last thirty, forty years in part.
knowing that we actually have the innovation and engine and the design and the powerhouse that we always had, but now the manufacturing scale.
And the tools that we are going to use
From an industrial point of view.
is in the same
As they have
And I think there is a big opportunity to grow the domestic economy around that, yes.
This seems to be an area of
hopefully tremendous common ground, certainly speaking to a very specific audience and
Pretty much everyone listening will agree, but
the notion that we can
build new businesses, a Tesla, a SpaceX, whatever.
Lots of great modern examples in Amazon.
That
operate between the hard world and the software world.
very seamlessly.
This seems like as close to a universal good
As we can agree on.
For human flourishing.
You've looked at more of these companies than probably just about anybody. So this question is both for investors with capital to deploy.
on this thing that I think hopefully most of us can agree on.
that you're devoted to.
And to founders who have or may start companies like this.
Maybe teach us a little bit about
what you've learned.
leads to success can lead to success.
attributes that matter to you.
The sorts of things about impact.
that these technologies may have and how to think through those impacts.
Again, if this is the area that we can all say, Okay, yeah, there's lots of places we might disagree, but here we agree.
That this is a net good for all of us.
I would love to learn what you've learned about
the founders that do that well and the investors that allocate capital thoughtfully to those people.
I will start by giving a three second macro view.
Who GDP
Depends on the day, about a hundred trillion, give or take.
About eighty trillion.
is in physical industries.
Agriculture, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, air space and defence, et cetera.
Peck penetration.
In those industries.
About single digit.
So regardless of what Leo thinks and regardless what Elon Musk thinks
basic investment principle, you want to invest in a very large town that have a very
small tick penetration.
But you see the growth.
Coming up.
And when I started Eclipse in twenty fifteen and everyone told me
Oh.
Venture should do only crypto and only SaaS and only enterprise software and only FinTech.
No.
semiconductor, this is not automotive, no, no, no, this is not a venture business.
And I was like
How it can be, I mean how many
DevOps company the world's needs.
I see fifty of them doing exact same things or get funded and I see
None of the semiconductor get funded and I'm like, if you will want to run all of this
machine learning a cloud, you will need a lot of silicon.
So basic principles
I believe if he wants to make money, this is the right place to invest. But this is my two cents.
What we are seeing here.
is
Deverge check that the eclipse is riding.
There's about eight million dollar in the initial check.
Those industries used to be extremely capital intensive.
A decade ago. And that's why you saw Venture
investments declining in those industries because those software companies was very easy to invest in.
You didn't need a lot of capital in order to flip a card.
So how it can be that they can transform an industries like logistics or manufacturing or industrial with an eight million dollar
Is all of the tech tools
that is being built in the last thirty years, clo computing and mobiles and sensors and open source software.
Now is being used
in the physical industries and I can build a prototype or I can build some sort of an MVP.
with couple of millions of dollars almost regardless on the sectors I'm going after.
Now, if I'm successful, naturally I will need more capital, but that's will be true to any venture business.
So now I also see that the traditional tech tools that we will all use to build a DevOps company, backend, frontend.
open source cloud infrastructure I will use exactly
The same stack.
When I'm building a company in the industrial market.
And now I'm essentially using the tech that's why I say it's a tech company
Building.
A car rather a car company using tech.
I mean, it's just tremendous amount of opportunities that we are seeing. And I think the public market's seeing it, and that's why we are seeing those multiples of some of the companies I mentioned.
And I think now tech founders are saying and saying, Hey, the richest person on earth.
Is actually not
a DevOps guy or traditional software guy is the guy that's building cars of rockets.
Maybe
Tell us what the most substantial changes have been.
That make it possible.
For a company like this that sounds so daunting and hard to start.
to actually start and get an MVP out the door.
What are the enabling technologies that have
Come on line in the last
Five, ten, twenty years.
Whatever the period is that make this possible.
I will give you a quick example of a company we're just finishing build because it's will be easy to illustrate. It's company called Peak Energy and uh
Focusing on long duration energy storage.
But they're they're going to build this very, very large
battery farms.
to off a set the grid using a sodom ion
Chemicals, architecture.
to do any ass or long duration energy storage.
So I will first start with the people.
Because actually the people is also a change. So the team the
It's a person that walks in Tesla in many years.
Then he moves to Norfolk.
I was the CO of Nordbog.
And then he came to build with us the company.
And his co founder
It's a person that built with us another battery company called Inovix that we took public.
So you have a two
unbelievable talent that used to not build companies in that space, not only coming to build the companies, they're also coming with the success behind them and understand how scale works, what we want to see in venture.
And what they are using there.
They're using simulation software.
You simulate now.
Even before you build anything, you're using a ton of simulation. On the simulation they're using machine learning to learn the patterns of the chemistry.
And figuring out
when they build the bench test of that chemistry, they know it's going to work because they simulate and then they train the model.
Yeah, using
vendors off the shelves. They actually don't build anything on the hardware that is custom.
in the MVP. It's all available off the shelf. There is a well
defined supply chain that is being walked. They're using cloud infrastructure to
collect all of the data. Of course they don't build anything on prem, so you can spin an AWS
Instant.
In a minute.
They're using
A lot of the B the BMS battery management system
that is well defined, that is being built and Tesla in Old Fort and all of those companies many times so they can run the battery in a better way.
In the BMS they're using open source software.
That is being
developed in so many areas. They're using
Kafka.
And they are using the same
beta dog that you all use
to deal with the software.
And here you are.
Going to have a company.
with a five million dollar investment
Be able to show me
A small
Yeah.
battery using sediment ion in the most cutting edge technology to do energy storage.
Five minute balls.
And you are going after
The energy
space that in this country it's about two trillion.
And if you take the energy storage out of that, it's about the half a trillion dollar.
So you're talking about
Gigantic industries
That don't have fifty companies.
I've maybe five.
We've strayed a little bit from our
original conversation, which I want to come back to now.
First of all, I think like it's so interesting to hear how
Not only can technology provide
all the things we all say we want for all of our families and our loved ones and et cetera.
But that the ability to create those new companies is accelerating because of these enabling technologies. I think that's an incredible.
Story.
How do we bring all that back to
This awful
reality that we're facing now.
And you said you're gonna double down on your mission.
Because
That's the way you can have a positive impact.
What's next?
How do we actively take that truth?
Hopefully it's the truth and apply it to
the present day conflict, which seems so intractable and so hard to know what the next first step is.
If I'm being successful of building a very large energy storage, I will need to buy less oil from Iran.
Without Iran selling oil, they have nothing.
Do you know that in the last
Ten years.
The GDP of Iran has been declined.
Constantly.
When oil is actually ripping.
building those companies is giving us the tools of industrial security
To actually
Push.
Our team.
And our side of the conflict.
And this is of course just one example on energy. I can give you many other example on manufacturing and industrials and aerospace and defense and agriculture and food securities.
Is
We cannot be depends on only Taiwan T SMC in this country.
We need to have our own.
semiconductors capabilities in scales in the most cutting edge five nanometer and three nanometer nodes.
So
Nobody
Even if they move their ships to the backyards of Taiwan, it's not going to risk any of our supply chains. So you know what they will do? They will actually will not move their ships.
They're doing that because
They know.
How strategic.
Is this
technology and country for our economy.
So what I'm telling
All of us is we should use our power to build those
companies because it's going to help us push
Oh living this place better than we find it.
You were on calls and have been on calls with
leaders of your companies based in Israel.
And I know
on those calls that those people have been
Very appreciative.
uh viewer leadership.
And I'm curious.
For you to describe.
what that means. What have you been telling them? What does small scale leadership
Impactful, but
A small episode of leadership.
How do you think about that and being
a strong person and leader in a very difficult situation for a very specific set of people.
I will start by saying that I'm not the small leader, I mean
Tiny beanie leader.
And I'm doing very basic stuff and there isn't much
Bigger leaders than me.
They're doing an amazing work. And this is the CEOs of our companies in Israel. And to give you a sense I've
Stand up.
call with them multiple of times a week to talk about how we can tactically do things, helping them
build a fi budget for twenty twenty four, helping them delay payment with
S V B helping them we
Eclipse team are going on their behalf to a sales meetings in US because
they cannot travel now outside of Israel because the airport uh very hard to
fly out and fly in. That sounds surrealistic for me. But to give you a sense in the last meeting, we had the call with um
Yesterday or the day before
And the sirens went on.
So some of them that lives in Tel Aviv
needs to run to the bunkers in parallel to the call because
There is multiple of hundreds of rockets flying on Israel.
every day from the south and the north, and there's those sirens and you need to run to the bunker.
These people are
Navigating between
having their kids at home because there is no schools.
Having
Either they are in reserves or the other family members in reserves
And needs to run the companies.
And
My admiration of the resiliency of these Israeli tech founders are
Overwhelming.
And they're so freaking strong.
Of just not giving up and knowing that
The real way to win it is not with our military power, it's to show them that they cannot create the chaos industry.
And show them that we will continue.
go out of the GDP and we will continue to be
The third
Place for venture investments per capita.
How you will not want to work with the company that doing insane war like that was able to continue run the company when your kids at the top and rockets are flying and your beloved one
are in the front line and you still
running those companies.
They're only asked of me.
is not for more capital and not necessary to help them
navigate some of their business. The only ask for me is carry out our message.
In the world.
So we will all unite behind this notion of technology is going to be the way.
that we are solving conflict in this world.
and prosperity
And innovation.
And
The only thing they say is it's the people that are going to lead that, not our governments. It's the people.
Would you be willing to share with me just
The
Emotion.
Uh
watching this happen to your community.
From afar.
Hard to describe than words.
In the very first day I wanted to just
Take a flight to Israel and go immediately to a reserve.
But I didn't do reserve for ten years because I live in America and I'm out of the special forces.
Bench.
Then it's turned to
Anger.
Of what happened.
Because I
talked with parents that lost their kids.
I've a really good friend that
His daughter is being slaughtered.
in that festival in the South.
When she just went to
Dance.
The funny thing is this festival name
It's
Almost burning a man.
Of Israel now.
The festival name is Lights and Freedom.
So you had four thousand people.
Dancing on that border for light and freedom.
No weapon, no soldier, no nothing.
And two hundred sixty of them is being slot in.
call blood after being raped.
So the Anger
went to a pain because I talked with parents that lost their kids.
Then I talked with a father.
That is three years old.
Kidnap.
So you talk with someone that they're trying to find
rational how to even support them.
And you promise that
You will carry the message and will explain what's going on in Israel.
So it went to
from a pain to a compassion to these people.
Then I talked with a lot of my Israeli Arabs friends and people on the other side and there was more pain because both sides are going to suffer.
And then you see
What's happening in the US schools?
And the social media is
Asking myself
I'm not going to live a better place for my kids. Not like that.
People want to put the Jews in the gas chambers.
I mean what?
What? Oh we
Doing here.
So
I've been through a lot of tough stuff, but the last three weeks has been
By far the first.
If you've listened to me do this before.
Thanks for sharing that.
My final question is the opposite of a lot of this and
I
Look forward to your answer.
What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?
It's actually happened recently.
And it's a simple thing.
Sorry that the motion of
My daughter.
The youngest one.
Cheers.
Six and a half.
And she saw that um
In a tough spot.
Because I just finished a call with one of those parents.
And she came and hugged me.
And she said
I see that you're upset.
about happening in Israel.
It's all will be fine.
As someone with kids of a similar age.
Picturing
their faces a lot in our conversation today and when we've talked before.
Thanks for the answer and thanks for the conversation, Lira.
Thanks for having me, Patrick.
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