Israel - DAN REICH

The Reich Hebrew Academy Event At My House

Last night, we hosted an event at my house to share what we have learned on our recent trip to Israel and the plight of the Jewish people, what we are doing to combat antisemitism, and kick off “The Path to the Future” fundraising for The Reich Hebrew Academy.

We were joined by good friends including Emily Austin and Joe Teplow who shared their experiences over the past few months.

The full speech I gave is below.

If you’d like to help make this a reality, please donate here.

**** The speech ****

I’ve spent most of the months since October 7th, learning, engaging, and assessing for my own eyes, what’s really going on and where we go from here.

I helped organize one of the first screenings of the October 7th footage in New York City outside of the UN. We got permission to do this from the Israeli government because they believed, as we did, that if we positioned a video of massacres against “humans” instead of Jews, it wouldn’t be so political and would get more viewership. Leandro is here with us. He helped coordinate that viewing.

I went to Israel to bear witness, see the site of the massacres, meet with family members of the deceased and hostages, and help rebuild Kibbutz Reim, which is where the Nova festival was. With IDF artillery firing off every fifteen minutes or so, and only a few kilometers from the Gaza border, we met up with 4 childhood friends from the Kibbutz to take on a rebuilding effort. The goal was to build a communal wine center to catalyze community and get people back south. It was actually the first time since 10/7 that people moved back home. I remember a young mother pushing her stroller with her baby in it, with either side of the street made up of burnt, bullet-ridden, homes. Some of which were used by Hamas to rape some of the women from Nova, right before Hamas killed them. That was probably the first stroller at the kibbutz since October 7th. One of the friends they were doing this for, the rebuilding effort, was the 5th friend of the group. They thought he was being held hostage the whole time and believed like many of us, with enough pressure and advocacy, we could get him and other hostages home. Well, just two weeks ago we learned that he wasn’t held hostage but was murdered on the seventh. It’s just taken months to identify him. Can you imagine what must be done to a person so that it becomes impossible to identify them for months? Dolev leaves behind his wife Segal and four children. My friend Josh, who is with us today, is going back to Dolev’s Kibbutz in a few weeks to continue the revitalization efforts with Dolev’s friends and family.

I’ve met with leaders here in the US, like the CEO of the ADL, Hillel International, my fellow board members at UW-Hillel Wisconsin, and the new incoming CEO of AIPAC to understand in greater detail some of the domestic issues we are having. None of this will surprise you. Hate crimes have increased by over 500% since October 7th. If you’ve paid any attention to social media or the congressional hearings at all you’ll see with your own eyes the assault Jewish college kids are under, especially at Ivy League compasses when “context” is required to figure out if genocide against Jews is acceptable or not. Could you imagine being in school as one of these students right now? If I told you “the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end” you wouldn’t be able to tell me if that was a history teacher at Harvard or Colombia or Joseph Goebbels in 1933 in Berlin’s Opera Square. Hint, it was not the teachers.

And in two days, I’ll be heading back to Israel on a delegation to meet with President Herzog and members of Knesset in Jerusalem. On my way there, I’ll be checking a bag on the plane with 4 drones and giving them to an IDF soldier upon arrival so they can increase their eyes and ears in the north in preparation for what will likely be another front against Hezbollah. And by the way, two days ago operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated by the IDF generals.

These are just a few things I’ve been a part of but I just share this to give you a sense of the recent perspective I have.

Of everything though, there was one moment that still reverberates loudest in my mind. It’s part of the reason you are all here today.

On our trip to Israel, we met with Ari Shavit at a VC’s office in Tel Aviv. Ari is an Israeli reporter and writer. He was a senior correspondent at the left-of-center Israeli newspaper Haaretz is the author of the 2013 New York Times Best Seller My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. He was describing his view on the war and the four parts or phases going on now.

In the first phase, which the entire world is fixated on, we see the war between Israel vs. Hamas. This is the loudest flashpoint and the one that most easily personifies the David vs Goliath where the almighty Israel, far outpowers the tiny and incapable Palestinian people.

In the second phase, one that gets much less attention is the broader conflict. It’s not just Israel vs Hamas, but Israel and the West vs Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Yemen, with all of them firing rockets into Israel. And if there was ever any doubt of Iran’s involvement, we all saw it with our own eyes on the evening of April 13th when Iran launched a drone and missile attack on Israel consisting of over 200 rockets and drones.

Even now, there are over 100,000 people from northern Israel who are displaced from their homes due to the ongoing assault by Hezbollah in the north.

And even worse, in the third phase, we see that we are in a new Cold War between Israel, US, Ukraine, Taiwan on one side and Russia, Iran, and China on the other side. And if you’re not sure these things are connected just think, Iran has been providing drones to Russia while the US is providing drones to Ukraine. And just two weeks ago China launched military drills around Taiwan. Taiwan, the place responsible for the majority of the world’s precision chips used for precision weapons, at a time when the world’s greatest superpowers are quickly depleting their stockpiles in Ukraine and the Middle East. These things are all connected and the hot wars are indeed getting hotter.

And then there is the fourth phase. The most important phase. The ideological information war and its most important target: America.

Sinwars aim is to make Israel another South Vietnam. For anyone who remembers that time, you may recall that the way the guerrilla warriors won the Vietnam War was not through rice fields but through the American public. It was the visual carnage that swayed political decisions much like how we see dead babies and demolished buildings in Gaza all over media. I get it. It’s painful to look at. Even for me, a Jewish, first responder, who knows exactly what’s happening, it’s still horrible to look at.

But the thing that left me the greatest impression is this..

Ari said,..

“I’m not afraid of losing the war in Gaza. But I am afraid of losing the war in Boston.”

And I thought, and knew, but didn’t say..

We are losing…

In Boston, in California, in New York, in London..in New Jersey.

If you spend any time on social media or on media in general, it’s easy to feel this way.

The protests, the hate crimes, the congressional hearings.

Two weeks ago right here in New Brunswick, a Jewish group of students were omitted from a NJ school yearbook photo, replaced with Muslim students. Could you imagine the outrage if that happened to black kids? Asian kids? Gay kids?

And sticking with New Jersey for another moment..

In April, Students at Rutgers voted overwhelmingly to call on the administration to divest from companies and organizations that do business in Israel and to end a partnership with Tel Aviv University. With 8,000 students out of the 44,000 enrolled at Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus voting, 80% of participating students said the university should “divest its endowment fund from companies and organizations that profit from, engage in, or contribute to the government of Israel’s human rights violations.”

On a separate question, 77% of students called for the termination of the partnership with Tel Aviv University, including in the New Jersey Innovation and Technology Hub,” a planned, future educational and research collaboration project that Rutgers and Tel Aviv University entered into in 2021.

I could go on, but these are just two of many examples of the assault on our schools.

You’ve all seen instances like this and more.

Today. In the United States of America. In 2024.

And this was not by accident.

This hot war in the Middle East has been in the works for years, with an information war taking place right beneath our feet, hiding in plain sight and is the set up for what we are seeing now. It’s been taking place for decades and is still happening now.

Did you know for over a decade, American universities have been the recipients of financial gifts from special interest groups? Here are just a few of my favorites:

Since 2012:

The Palestinian Authority has given over $1 million to American Universities
Syria: $1.3mm
Pakistan: $6.4mm
Lebanon: $21mm
Iraq: $45mm
Russia: $141mm
Saudi Arabia: $1.5 billion
China: $1.7 billion

And my favorite, Qatar, the place that Hamas leadership calls home and lives comfortably while dictating orders to Sinwar and Hamas in Gaza, $3.2 billion.

In the last 9 Years, US Universities Accepted Gifts totaling $19 Billion From Authoritarian Countries like these including, of course, Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia.

And when you mix in state-owned and operated technology platforms like TikTok, yes, it is state owned by China and it is being manipulated by China, you have the perfect storm and tailwinds for an all-out information war against our youth and Western society as a whole.

Our adversaries know this.

The battle for hearts and minds is the most important aspect of this war and any war throughout history. It’s why the Nazis had the role of “chief propaganda officer” with Goebbels, and why the term “Pallywood” makes its rounds on social media. Our enemies know that if they can brainwash the youth, in just a few years time, they will be our doctors, or lawyers, our police officers, and our elected officials.

Actually, I was with the new CEO of AIPAC yesterday and he corrected me. He said it’s worse. Not just a few years but things could be much worse as soon as next year given the escalation in political battlegrounds with candidates far worse than Ilan Ohmer or AOC.

And if you don’t believe me, consider that my friend Lenny Wilf just last week told me that his father, a holocaust survivor, would always say..

In 1929, the best place in the world for Jews was Germany.

Or Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL told me, his father-in-law lived the greatest, most prosperous life until he had to flee…Iran.

“It could happen here.” That’s the title of Jonathan’s book. And he’s right.

But there is good news.

And there is a path forward..

Information, education, and truth is the best disinfectant against lies and it’s the best way to bring light into the darkness.

We know how to do that. We know how to educate. And we know how to turn education into world-changing moments and milestones.

As of 2023, at least 214 Jews or people with at least one Jewish parent have won the Nobel Prize or the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, representing 22% of all recipients. This is despite Jews making up only 0.2% of the world’s population. In simple terms, the Jewish share of winners is 110 times greater than their proportion of the world’s population.

Or, consider the economic growth that has come out of the tiny jewish State of Israel. Israel ranks #7 in the world for creating the most unicorns or billion-dollar plus companies, has more than 100 companies listed on US exchanges, with a combined market cap of more than $150 billion, and has the fourth most companies listed on the Nasdaq after the United States, Canada, and China. There is a reason Israel is called the Startup Nation.

Or lastly, let us consider one more example in another moment in time. In 1852, New York City, Jews faced discrimination and were often not welcomed at hospitals. Jewish philanthropists got together and founded Mount Sinai, as a safe haven and medical facility for their community. Today, Mount Sinai is one of the leading healthcare institutions in the world, serving all citizens, of all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds. It’s is a shining example of “Tikkun Olam” and a playbook for building institutions that simply make the world a better place while simultaneously taking care of our own.

It’s this ethos that has allowed me to host all of you here, in this wonderful home.

Because being educated, being ethical, being moral, and being good, is how we as Jews have thrived, and more importantly, it is how we’ve survived.

And so I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain, who attempted to figure this out in 1897, well before modern-day Israel existed.

He said..

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? “

Well, I’ll tell you that secret…

When our enemies teach their kids to praise death, we teach our kids to praise life. And to live good, educated, loving, fulfilling lives. That’s what The Hebrew Academy has done for me, continues to do for others, and hopefully with your help, will continue to do for years to come.

Together, we can and we must continue to invest deeply in the next generation to ensure our collective legacy and story carries on.

Ldor v’dor.

From generation to generation.

That’s the secret.

Thank you

And here is the original announcement of the new school.

If you’d like to help make this a reality, please donate here.

Yom Hashoa, 2024

Today is Yom Hashoah, which in English is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Many stories from the time mirror the ones we witnessed on October 7th.

Like this one…

1939, one fall Sunday morning, Nazis showed up out of nowhere and decided to round up a bunch of Jews. Twelve people were rounded up and were forced to march five miles to their schul (temple), dig a ditch, and then were executed point blank.

Only one of the twelve survived. It was my grandfather.

*My grandfather, Samuel Reich. Top, middle, right*

Why?

He decided to run out of the death march assembly line and hide for several hours.

2023, another fall morning, Jews were found running once again for their lives, with many being raped, tortured and executed. Arguably worse than what the Nazis did given Hamas’ sheer joy and glee in doing so.

*October 7, 2023 – People running away from Hamas terrorists at the Nova festival.*

We’ll see Holocaust denial and people trying to relate the holocaust to Gaza, or Israelis to Nazis. Of course, they will. They so desperately wish to be the victim and can’t comprehend how Jews survived the Holocaust and just a few decades later are simultaneously 0.2% of the world’s population yet, overperformers in terms of productivity and contributions to the world. This paradox shortcircuits their brains.

Hate, jealousy, and scapegoating are real and more alive than ever before.

So today, just take a pause and remember…

Never again is now.

Supporting Feature Documentary “Primal Fear”

Story telling..

Facts and testimony..

These are powerful and mission critical to fighting any info war. And clearly, we are in one.

I remember when Steven Spielberg document testimony from my grandparents and their stories from the Holocaust, and so thankful he did.

We need more of it..

That’s what I’m excited to support Wendy Sachs and Debra Messing and the rest of their team in producing a piece that will detail and document this antisemitic disease that’s beginning to rot away our society.

In any society, antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine for a deep, uglier reality. It needs to be exposed because light is the best antidote for darkness.

Interviews will include some of the most active and vocal voices like Noa Tishby, Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Rapaport, Dan Senor, Einat Wilf, Hillel Neuer, Sheryl Sandberg and more

There’s lots more to do but this is just another initiative of many that’s needed.

Thanks Wendy!

Rebuilding Kibbutz Re’im

It’s kind of hard to imagine anyone smiling in a terrorized home where your friends and family were murdered or kidnapped.

And knowing some of those family members are still being held hostage in unimaginable circumstances.

Or hearing stories about being the very first tank into Gaza, knowing full well you’re unlikely to make it out alive, and that many of your friends did not.

The stories are endless.

But there we were..

For the first time since 10/7, some people from Kibbutz Reim, one of the places closest to the border and attacked, came home to begin the new process of rebuilding.

They heard about @ryanjdaniels and @avivlazar3 crazy idea to get a crew together from the US and Israel to come south and start the rebuilding effort with them.

So we went..

And others joined..

And together we did what we’ve always done and will continue to do:

Some call it “Tikkun olam”

A Jewish concept that refers to actions intended to improve and repair the world.

But for us, it was about new and old friends..

And letting them know, they are not alone.

And this antisemitic, hate-filled disease that’s emerged once again, will be destroyed and will be another chapter in our very long story.

Our story was covered here

https://www.israel21c.org/new-york-tech-professionals-help-rebuild-war-ravaged-kibbutz/

The Startup Nation and Track Records of Truth

I recently listened to Lex Friedman’s interview with Jeff Bezos. If you want to hear someone speak with incredible clarity and wisdom, listen to Jeff. There’s a reason he is the second richest person in the world.

But there was one topic that resonated with me more than anything.

Truth.

It seems like the world doesn’t care much about it these days. Just skim through social media and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

However, Jeff reminds us that “truth” is arguably the single most important factor that leads to success and prosperity.

“Yes, challenging. They [truths] can make people defensive even if that’s not the intent. But any high performing organization, whether it’s a sports team, a business, a political organization, an activist group, I don’t care what it is, any high performing organization has to have mechanisms and a culture that supports truth-telling.” – 1:29:14

The evidence is irrefutable. As of this writing, Amazon has about a 1.6 trillion dollar market cap making it the fifth richest company in the world.

If you look at the world’s most successful companies, they all have this trait.

They consistently engage in the pursuit of truth, employing critical thinking, problem-solving, and scientific methodologies in their approach.

“And so science is all about truth-telling. It’s actually a very formal mechanism for trying to tell the truth. And even in science, you find that it’s hard to tell the truth. Even you’re supposed to have a hypothesis and test it and find data and reject the hypothesis and so on, it’s not easy.” – Jeff Bezos, 1:30:10

Elon Musk also famously refers to “truths” and first principles:

“Boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘OK, what are we sure is true, or as sure as possible is true? ‘ And then reason up from there.” – Behind Elon Musk’s Management Philosophy: First Principles, Wall Street Journal

As of this writing, Elon Musk is the number one richest person in the world, with companies that launch rockets into space (SpaceX), produce self-driving cars (Tesla), and let humans transmit information electronically with just their brains (Neuralink). You only do that with capable leadership and truth-seeking.

There is another place where this truth-seeking discipline has taken shape over the past few decades leading to some incredible human achievements and prosperity, including, but not limited to the development of things like:

While we're at it, here are other things they should add to the Jewish boycott list:

– Salvarsan, siphillis drug
– Digitalis, heart disease drug
– Novocaine, toothache drug
– Insulin, blood sugar drug
– Pyramidon, headache drug
– Antypyrin, headache drug
– Spiro, high blood… https://t.co/drxpZz9UQc
— Dan Reich (@DanReich) October 28, 2023

The list goes on.

This country also ranks #7 in the world for creating the most unicorns, has more than 100 companies listed on US exchanges, with a combined market cap of more than $150 billion, and has the fourth most companies listed on the Nasdaq after the United States, Canada, and China.

There is a reason Israel is called the Startup Nation.

And if that wasn’t enough, Israelis have among the world’s highest life expectancies and lower rates of “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse. It’s also one of the few populations that are young and growing while all other wealthy democracies are aging and shrinking. According to a recent UN report, it is also the fourth happiest nation in the world behind Finland, Denmark, and Iceland.

These achievements would not have been possible without dedicated hard work and a relentless quest for truth.

But, truth is hard.

“You have just asked a million-dollar question. So if I generalize what you’re asking, you are talking in general about truth-telling and we humans are not really truth-seeking animals. We are social animals.” – Jeff Bezos, 01:28:21

This brings us to today.

War.

There is a hot war in the Middle East and an information war online.

Both sides understand the importance of truth or lack thereof.

Iran and their proxies, like Hamas, understand that “we are social animals” and so the more death, destruction, and oppression they can inflict on their people (look what Israel did to us!), the more sympathy they can create for their cause.

It’s why they use human shields. It’s why they hide bombs in children’s classrooms. It’s why they build terror tunnels under children’s bedrooms. It’s why they steal humanitarian aid. It’s why they use hospitals as terror bases. It’s why they scream “apartheid”. It’s why they bankrupt their community but make their leaders rich (with our taxpayer dollars).

It’s why they lie over and over again.

In short, they can prevent “truth-seeking animals” by pulling on the strings of our most animalistic tendencies and emotions, using social media megaphones we all have in our pockets. Who wouldn’t get upset when they see the photos coming out of Gaza? I know I do. It’s horrible and tragic. But that’s the point. They recognize that “truth-telling” for most people is hard, and so they prey on the ignorance and lazy thinking that many people have.

But ultimately, truth will prevail.

And the truth is this:

One side wants dead Jews.

The other side does not want to die.

And if you don’t believe this, then just look at the track records of truth.

Or just take their word for it.

How This New Podcasting Platform Pulled Off The Perfect Product Launch

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

In the world of technology startups, it seems many people look to a few select sites to figure out what products are new and exciting. Product Hunt is one of those sites. At the time of this writing, Product Hunt has 4,007 products listed, 15,795 comments, 71,842 upvotes, and 29,021 subscribers from around the world. So I was fascinated to see a company called Zula generate as much engagement as they did during their launch of their new product called ZCast.

Why was I fascinated?

ZCast is a podcasting product. It enables anyone to podcast live with friends and let anyone listen and interact in real time. In other words, it removes the barrier to podcasting.

With the world moving towards augmented reality and virtual reality, it seems like sometimes we take for granted tried and true mediums that people are accustomed to. According to the Washington Post, podcast downloads passed the 1 billion mark in 2014, and monthly podcast listeners reached as much as 75 million per month. By mid-2015, ad marketing spend on podcasts reached $50M. Several new podcasting services launched in the past two years, each promising new and exciting ways to allow users to broadcast themselves.

I sat down with Hillel Fuld, the CMO of ZCast, who recently led their launch to gain some insights into their product, their space and into their product launch.

Dan Reich: This ZCast launch was pretty nuts. Most upvotes on Product Hunt, tons of press, and from what I can see, tons of traction. I opened the app and there were tens of upcoming casts. How did you pull off this launch?

Hillel Fuld: Yes, the ZCast launch was bonkers. I mean the team worked for months preparing for it and we hoped it would be good, but definitely exceeded our expectations. I’d like to offer some magical answer that anyone can just do and pull off a launch like this but the truth is, it was a whole lot of hard work. Building relationships for years on Twitter and other platforms, writing content myself so when I ask friends and followers to support the launch, most people were happy to after reading my content daily for years. I mean, there are definitely some useful tips I can offer like to coordinate the Product Hunt aspect of your launch way in advance. Choose the tag line, the person who will hunt it for you, write your first comment in advance, and make sure to spend time on Product Hunt for months before the launch. I wrote many more tips on Medium the day after launch. Read that post here.

Reich: I actually want to focus on Product Hunt a little more. It has become quite a central platform in product launches and you nailed it. I’d love to know five things you would recommend to anyone launching a product on Product Hunt.

Fuld: Sure. Here we go.
A: Spend a lot of time on the platform well before you intend on launching. Give back to the community there because without that, you can’t expect them to support you during your launch. By the way, apply this rule to all aspects of marketing. Give a whole lot more than you take.

B: Before you decide on your one liner, write 20-30 options down, gather feedback from people, team members, colleagues, and anyone else who will offer their opinion. The tag line should obviously talk to the Product Hunt community so be geeky but also make sure the tag line says clearly what your product does.

C: Make sure your graphics stand out. Whether it is screen shots, a video, or any other visual assets, remember that all people will see when determining whether to upvote is the name of your product, the tag line, and the visuals.

D: Find the right person to hunt it. In theory, you, the maker of the product should hunt it but if you don’t have a large audience there, then find someone who does and can hunt it for you.

E: Here’s something I learned the hard way. Coordinate the Product Hunt launch time with the press. In other words, if you sent out your release under embargo till 9:30 AM, then don’t launch on Product Hunt any earlier than that. If you do, the press can and probably will see the product on Product Hunt and write about it before, which might annoy other reporters and prevent them from covering the launch. I made this mistake and almost paid the price.

F: Bonus: Never ever ask for upvotes. Sharing the link to your page on Product Hunt? Totally fine. Asking for Upvotes in a Facebook post, tweet, email or any other way? Not ok.

Reich: So tell me about ZCast.

Fuld: ZCast is the most exciting product I’ve ever been involved in building. I can tell you that over the last five years, I’ve tried many times to podcast. I’m a big believer in content of all kinds and audio content is no different. The problem is that creating a podcast is super challenging. Either you sit in a studio with your guests and record the podcast with high-end equipment or you need to use some serious software to record the conversation then edit it after the show to make it into a podcast format.

With ZCast, choose a topic, invite your co-hosts and go live. That’s it. You’re podcasting. Approximately ten second setup time. The goal with ZCast is to do to audio content what YouTube did to video. Make it accessible to anyone. For now, it’s iOS and a full-fledged web app that enables you to listen, interact, and cast from your web browser. On Android, you can use the browser as well but an Android app is obviously on the roadmap.

Reich: What are your next moves with ZCast and what are the challenges?

Fuld: The launch was the “easy part”. Now getting content flowing into the platform is the challenge. The amount of casts we had on the first few days is astounding but now we need to take this momentum and leverage it to build out the community. Of course, there is also the fund raising, which is an essential part of building out a vision as ambitious as ours. Finally, we will be working closely with some strategic partners on ZCast. Think entertainment, think podcasting networks, and think different types of content creators who always wanted to podcast but simply couldn’t.

Reich: What was the most exciting part of the ZCast launch?

Fuld: Well we haven’t spoken about this publicly yet but we had many, many visually impaired individuals interact with their audience while ZCasting. Taking questions, answering them, and just literally hosting their very own interactive podcast. I am not talking one or two people, there were many. It was inspiring.

Reich: So I’ll just ask what many people want to know. What does being number one in terms of votes on Product Hunt, getting countless positive reviews in the press, and endless social promotion do to your download numbers? How is that going?

Fuld: Well, obviously it is too early to talk numbers but what definitely matters to us most is the amount of time each user spends on the platform. Downloads are less important to us since the web app has all the functionality needed to ZCast. Having said that, the numbers both in terms of downloads, average ZCast time, and just overall ZCast sessions are super exciting. We didn’t expect them to be this high and that’s an understatement. The retention, in other words, the people that start a ZCast, then come back to do another one? That is the number we are most proud of!

Reich: What’s the stage of Zula, the company? Are you raising capital now? Tell me about that.

Fuld: Zula is a small company with 6 team members. Two marketing, one iOS, one UI/UX, and The CEO. Super lean. Yes, we are talking to a few investors now about raising a round of financing primarily to be used to build out the ZCast platform and make it available to more people, starting with Android users.

Reich: If you had one wish for ZCast, one goal, what would it be?

Fuld: I think our dream here is to offer users everything they need to create high quality engaging audio content. My dream? To have ZCast accompany talk radio shows, sports events, and other less geeky and more mainstream events. We see ZCast as sort of the next-generation talk radio.

Reich: And you? What’s your end game?

Fuld: Well I am super excited about the future of ZCast and I think there is tremendous potential here. I can’t wait to start my own weekly podcast. Soon we will add recording in ZCast and I’ll be hosting my own show. The topic? Stay tuned. Other than that, helping push the Israeli ecosystem forward. It is exciting times for us with ZCast and exciting times here in the Israeli startup ecosystem!

The Most Unlikely Startup: IAF

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

In 1948, at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York City, the most unlikely startup was created. It’s founding members dropped everything to fly across the country to Manhattan for secret meetings to launch their endeavor.

Just a year before, one of it’s founding members Leon Frankel was already running a highly successful business buying and selling used cars making $100 to $200 a pop on every sale. Not bad when you consider this is 1947.

But then Leon and a few others got a phone call that would change their lives and put them in one of the harshest environments to build a new organization.

As Leon put it, “I just made up my mind and nothing was going to stop me.”

When you’re building any new venture from scratch, that attitude is critical. When you’re building an air force amidst an ongoing war, that attitude is absolutely required.

Today, the Israeli Air Force ranks second to none globally, according to a study conducted by military experts for Business Insider. “Pilot to pilot, airframe to airframe, the Israeli air force is the best in the world,” said Chris Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

In a new documentary called Above and Beyond, which debuted in NYC this past weekend, Nancy Spielberg tells the story of how a few young Americans started what is today considered the world’s leading air force.

Nancy Spielberg with Israeli F-15, Hatzor Air Base, Israel

I was able to sit down with Harold Livingston, another founding pilot who also happened to write the screenplay of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, to ask him a few questions about how this highly unlikely organization was formed.

Dan Reich: I can’t imagine the numerous challenges you confronted, but what was the biggest obstacle you faced when building the Air Force?

Harold Livingston: The United States Government who prevented us from taking the aircrafts out of the country. They enforced an embargo against any aircraft weighing over 25,000 pounds being sent without an export license.

Reich: In the beginning, there wasn’t a blueprint or playbook for what you were doing. How did you train and recruit new members?

Livingston: We played it as it was, with what we had. Recruiting was achieved through word of mouth, airline and/or ex-military friends of friends, various Zionist organizations, even to the point of scanning Air Guard rosters for pilots and crewmen with Jewish-sounding names. Training was another matter: everyone had to be thoroughly checked out by the handful of experienced people (obviously airline and military veterans) available. This was why we were always so woefully short of skilled crewmen, and towards the end forced to hire some dozen (non-Jewish) mercenaries.

Reich: In any new venture, partnerships are very important to achieve success. Were there any partnerships that facilitated the growth of the organization?

Livingston: Czechoslovakia of course was essential, without their assistance and cooperation, we would have been in deep trouble. Same for the Panamanians, although they (Panama) were led to believe we truly were establishing a national Panamanian airline. That “franchise” allowed us to fly the airplanes out of the U.S., and on to Israel.

Reich: In hindsight, what steps would you have taken differently in growing and building the organization?

Livingston: No, not even in hindsight could we and probably would we have done anything different. Under the circumstances, there was nothing we could have done differently. We were, as stated, a “start-up” organization, and therefore learned as we went. And, for sure, from our mistakes.

Harold and Leon’s “nothing was going to stop me” attitude continues to permeate throughout the rest of Israel’s high tech institutions today. With nearly $15 billion in exits through mergers and acquisitions and public offerings, 2014 was an all-time record year for the Israeli hi-tech industry, compared with a mere $1.2 billion raised in 2013, according to a PwC report for 2014. The exits were spread out between a variety of tech industries, including Internet, IT, life sciences, communications and semiconductors.

According to Hillel Fuld, CMO of Zula and startup advisor, “Last week there were $910 million in Israeli tech transactions. In one week!” This past week, the Israeli ecosystem continued to deliver with both VCs and startups raising substantial capital. Some of the financing announced include companies and firms like like Vintage, Singulariteam, ClickTale, Addallom and Kaminario. That amount of capital is highly unlikely for any set of companies, and yet, these businesses and others continue to grow despite the many challenges the region faces.