Israel's Unit 8200, a Conveyor Belt of High-Tech Startups

Unit 8200 may or may not ring a bell, but you've likely heard of Viber, the popular instant messaging app or Wix, the cloud computing service. Viber, Wix, and hundreds of other high-tech startups have their origins in Unit 8200, the cyberware division of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The links are Talmon Marco and Avishai Abrahami, Viber's, and Wix' founders, both of whom did their mandatory military service at or worked for Unit 8200. Over the years, Unit 8200 has turned out thousands of tech-savvy entrepreneurs who, like Marco and Abrahami, went on to found their own tech companies or to occupy leading positions in established ones. In what has become the world's premier example of military innovation, Unit 8200 is credited with playing a key role in developing Israel's high-tech know-how, which has resulted in the country having the highest concentration of startups per capita in the world and consistently ranking as a global leader in innovation.