From IDF Intelligence to a $32B Google deal: The Wiz founders’ epic journey
How four friends, united by their service in the IDF, turned their shared vision into a cybersecurity giant.
“We are a team that met on a bus to the IDF Induction Center in July 2001, and we have been working together ever since,” said Yinon Costica, one of the founders of Wiz and VP Product, reflecting on his journey with the other founders: CEO Assaf Rappaport, CTO Ami Luttwak, and VP R&D Roy Reznik. The four served in the Intelligence Corps, in Units 8200 and 81, and after exploring different paths outside the army, they reunited in 2012 to found their first startup. They have worked together ever since.
In between, they pursued different ventures—Rappaport, for example, worked at the consulting giant McKinsey. The startup, Adallom, was founded in 2012 and sold to Microsoft in 2015 for $320 million. The group then took over the reins of Microsoft's R&D center in Israel, with Rappaport appointed general manager. In 2020, they left to found Wiz, which was acquired by Google for $32 billion on Tuesday.
Rappaport, an only child, grew up with his mother, Tzipi, after his parents separated when he was young. Despite his success, he chose to continue living in the same rented apartment in central Tel Aviv after his first exit. He does not own a car but bought an apartment for his mother in Yitzhak Tshuva’s Park Bavli project in Tel Aviv. When Rappaport was appointed as head of Microsoft’s development center, one of the first questions his mother asked was, “Does the job come with a car?” Whether or not he was entitled to one, Rappaport traveled to the company’s offices in Herzliya every day on the designated employee shuttle, where he met Raaz Herzberg, now Wiz’s CMO and the company’s most senior woman. At the time, Herzberg was a product manager at Microsoft Israel, and one morning, she sat next to Rappaport because there was no room elsewhere. “He’s very approachable, so we talked,” Herzberg said in an interview with Calcalist.
“Raz sat down next to me,” recalls Rappaport. “We hadn’t met before, and she had amazing ideas about what could be improved at the company. I found myself going to her for advice whenever I was in doubt about something,” which eventually led to her leaving Microsoft to join Wiz.
Rappaport, his friends say, isn’t interested in status symbols. During the years he lived in Tel Aviv, he rented an apartment (for the past year and a half, he’s been living in the U.S. to promote the company’s business). He loves junk food and doesn’t associate himself with meals at fancy restaurants. He always wears a T-shirt and jeans, but always flies business class. He celebrated his 40th birthday nearly two years ago with a surprise party organized by his friends and his partner, Ofir, at a villa in Italy.
The simplicity Rappaport exudes also reflects his determination not to be dazzled by those in power. Gili Raanan, one of the most prominent venture capitalists in Israel, recounted his first meeting with Rappaport: “I knew Assaf and his team before they founded their first company. Young people from 8200, I heard they were trying to start a company with some vague idea. I called Assaf and told him, ‘Come for a meeting.’ At the time, I was a partner in the Sequoia fund, and every entrepreneur’s dream is to meet with Sequoia. But Assaf told me, ‘I don’t feel like meeting with you. I heard that after you invest, you change the CEOs.’ I thought, ‘This is the first time I’ve heard such a thing. This guy is special.’ I convinced him to come, and he didn’t show up. Instead, he sent Roy and Ami in his place, and it was an interesting meeting. The next day, we met with Sequoia’s executives, and Assaf came. After the meeting, I called him and said, ‘That was a terrible presentation. The idea was stupid, but we’d be happy to invest.’ The idea was terrible, but the team was so impressive that I wanted to invest. We met in Mikhmoret, where I live, but he didn’t know where it was and didn’t have a car. So we met in Herzliya and signed the deal on a napkin at a gas station. Three years later, Microsoft acquired the company.”
The four founders are equal partners in Wiz, but Rappaport often takes the front because he has become the face of the company. However, the company states that all decisions are made jointly, and they spend a lot of time together as friends outside the office.
Rappaport and the other Wiz founders are open about their political views. They stood at the forefront of the struggle against the judicial coup led by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and when the coalition embraced Avi Maoz, who holds dark and homophobic views, Wiz announced it would fund surrogacy procedures for gay employees and any other employees who choose that path. Costica, for his part, is in a relationship with a man—Roy Katz, the Head of Brand at Wiz.
