I find it difficult to publicly refute Manuel Trajtenberg. He is a man of high integrity and has done wonderful things for the State of Israel. However,yesterday, he lost the narrative. He called the recent high tech exits a “disaster” for the state of Israel.
In essence, Trajtenberg made 4 points:
- The success of the high tech economy has not “dripped down” to other sectors
- High Tech is focused on exports and consequently the fruits of this high tech innovation do not improve the local economy.
- Because start ups do not manufacture goods in Israel, it is not improving the opportunities for employment in this economy. He contrasts it to Britain of the industrial revolution which set up factories that benefitted the entire economy.
- The government invested a lot in high tech and a select few are getting wealthy and opening bigger income gaps in the country.
On one issue, I agree with Trajtenberg: We need to build more big companies in Israel.....
To read the rest of this post on Medium (where I posted originally), click here.