CTalk“Israel is a country that can’t afford to fail”
CTalk
“Israel is a country that can’t afford to fail”
David Kaiserman, former president of Lennar Ventures, spoke to CTech at Calcalist and Bank Leumi’s Tech & Invest conference in Miami about the changing VC market.
David Kaiserman
(Photo: Go-Live )
“[The VC market] is incredibly tolerant of failure. Businesses and funds that are starting today can fail 80% of the time,” says former Lennar Ventures President David Kaiserman to CTech at Calcalist and Bank Leumi’s Tech & Invest conference in Miami. “In our life, 80% of failure is a hard thing to follow. Even the flip side - 20% - is a hard thing to swallow. In almost every aspect of our life we have an expectation that we’re going to succeed more often than not. But in the earliest stages of investing that’s not the case.”
Kaiserman says, however, that investor tolerance for failure is changing. “The model that’s been pursued has been pattern matching - trying to find people who fit the archetype of Silicon Valley investors. But a lot of those archetypes are people that are very good at spotting problems but may not have the experience of solving those problems,” says Kaiserman. “Silicon Valley has become a parody. We need to invite those who know how to solve problems into the club.”
Israeli entrepreneurs, according to Kaiserman, are among the best problem-solvers in the world. “Israel is a country that can’t afford to fail. The tolerance for failure is much lower - borne from necessity and not pursuit of a problem that you want to spot. Israelis as a culture are born to solve problems,” he says, adding that this is in part why “every international fund has an office in Israel.”
You can watch the full interview in the video above.
