Gigi Levy-Weiss is one of Israel's most prominent entrepreneurs in startups and new technologies. He has founded six companies, is an investor in 150 and, finally, founder of his own fund, NFX, in the Silicon Valley of Israel. He criticizes the campaign in Gaza and the lack of vision, trusts in the reset of Israel and recognizes that social networks - in a way, their creatures - harm the West and benefit the chaos.
Why didn't he go abroad with his family?
We are in a reset as a country after ten months of divisions. My whole family [wife and three children] now do volunteer work, although we could have gone to Thailand, where we spend a month's vacation every year. There are few countries created in the context of a holocaust. I never wanted my children to think that the basis of our existence is to prevent another holocaust. This was a vision of the Israel of the past and for years I have worked to create a vision of the future, a startup nation that lights up the world. But even when I was 110% into it, there's always a part that reminds you that if Israel didn't exist, the Jewish people might be doing just fine in the world...or maybe not. We want to be part of the refoundation of Israel. Whenever a reset is done, things can get better or worse. If we don't do it now, we will emerge worse than we were.
And new leadership?
Definitely! I have fought the Government for ten months. He must assume his responsibilities. Netanyahu empowered Hamas years ago with money, but when you feed a snake thinking it won't bite you, you're wrong.
Innovation, vision of the future. And the 7th comes, they kill 1,400 Israelis and now Israel responds with bombs. How is it combined?
Many of the Palestinians I know feel ashamed of Hamas. I know this feeling well. Years ago, a Palestinian child was burned alive by a fire set by settlers. I couldn't stop thinking about that boy for a month, the shame I felt as a nation was so great... and he was one. Any normal person can understand that 1,400 were killed, mutilated, shot in front of their children, raped, with tractors that piled up corpses and burned them to give the Jews another memory of the Holocaust. If we extrapolate, it was as if 45,000 people had died in the Twin Towers.
The ghosts of yesterday...
For years Israel's raison d'être was that it should not happen again, we have worked hard to change that reason and make it a nation of companies, modern agriculture, tourism... We wanted to be a good country. And suddenly we have been dragged into the memory that our main reason for being again this never. We are a nation in trauma.
Does this justify the bombing of Gaza?
I am very upset with how we are doing things, relatively poorly on all fronts. What would I have done? First, focus on everyone understanding what happened here. No videos have been broadcast for the dignity of the dead and it is not true that the world knows what happened on October 7. Second, and I said it right away and to the politicians, we must not lose our moral standards, and how is this achieved? Detailing the vision of the future. To say that we want to eliminate Hamas is not to have a vision of the future. What would he have said? We are very strong, but at the same time we are different. I would have started by building a camp with tents for the women and children in southern Gaza, to guarantee water, food, doctors. Once ready, you say to the north: this whole area will be a war zone. No alternative. In the end, our vision is that there will be an international coalition that will deal with Gaza. We have no intention of regaining control of Gaza. Invite the world and make a Marshall plan. By not doing that we are basically losing our moral foundations and people don't understand what we are trying to do. Hamas is a concept, and you can't kill a concept. Israel will kill a lot of people and then withdraw, or not: neither option is good. We don't have a plan.
How does this war affect the technology sector?
I wish none of this had happened, but Netanyahu's judicial reform had a more negative impact, because in ten months many people thought that maybe it wasn't the country they wanted to live in. Now the opposite is happening, there is a feeling that is worth it. We have gone from not liking the country the Government wants to the country we want to make. We will have a flow of Jews from the USA, while with the judicial reform the best left. It will be positive for the tech ecosystem.
And for the whole?
Very hard. War costs us $250 million a day. People don't get paid, businesses close. I am not very sure that the Government is aware of the depth of the crisis.
Does the growth of anti-Semitism bother him?
The pace of how this has happened indicates that these are not people who listen to the news and decide they don't like Jews. It is clearly anti-Semitism, which has always been there and now rears its head. I find it relatively shocking how little attention governments pay to them and their sheer magnitude.
What do you attribute it to?
It is also a result of the many Muslim communities - and I have nothing against it, just that they have planted bombs in many countries. The problem of radical Islam is bigger than that of Israel. Many countries do as we did when we ignored the effect it would have if Hamas controlled Gaza. A few people are enough for a tragedy. Many European countries are ignoring this context of Islamic radicals. This is more than a territorial dispute.
The networks exacerbate it…
Iran and Qatar are playing a leading role in social networks and on US campuses Qatar has sponsored many campuses with billions of dollars. And the most serious thing is that Iran, with money from Qatar, employs thousands of people in so-called mind influence programs (brainwashing) that use social networks, use bots - millions - to create content, especially on TikTok .
L'Iran i TikTok?
Maybe guided by Russia. We know for sure that there are thousands of people in Iran working on this... And they are trying, especially, to crack Western solidarity. We in the West have the feeling that if we do good, we get good. That if we let others make their lives, others will let us make ours. That we should leave markets free so that people will choose what is good for them. The reality, sadly, is that the world doesn't work like that, it's also run by people who enjoy chaos.
And how is this combated?
Traditional media have regulated limits and the responsibility of journalists. Social media has no such regulatory constraints, and fake news is the bulk of its work. In retrospect, I think the emergence of social networks is negative for the world. For its diabolical use, not with the initial good intentions. It's crazy for me to say this, because I'm a tech entrepreneur who doesn't want anything to be regulated, but it's too big a threat and specifically for the West, because Western countries use it less with this negative intent.
And can we regulate them?
it can be done You have to try. It's sad to say, but - and someone will be able to tell the money I made from it - when you say that there are 50,000 dead in Gaza or that the October 7 massacre never happened or that Israel did not kill anyone in the war... a newspaper would be sanctioned, we must regulate the networks. Is it simple? No. Is it good for technology? No, it is not. But governments have to start thinking. Only they can do it. There is no choice, because we now see that the agents of chaos are using this to destroy the social welfare of many people. History shows us that democracy must defend itself against the threats that democracies, by their very nature, allow.
