Dedi Perlmutter is one of the
pioneers of hi-tech in Israel
, a computer expert, engineer and social entrepreneur.
Former senior vice president at Intel.
Chairman of the National Committee for Increasing Human Capital in Hi-Tech
***
Daddy Perlmutter, your father called you lazy with ambition. Not exactly the desired description for someone who will become in the future a senior vice president at Intel worldwide. What is the origin of the nickname?
"When I was a child, we had a garden at home, and my father insisted that my brother and I do the gardening work ourselves, without the help of gardeners. Every Saturday we frequented the garden, and in a special way I looked for how to harvest the grass without putting in too much effort. My father told me that if I had not put in a lot of effort and ideas So to avoid hard work, I would have finished the job a long time ago. Happily for him, since then things have changed: I have not been lazy for many years, but the ambition remains."
What else remains of those childhood traits?
"What remains with me to this day is the search for how to do things in a different way, and not walk with my head against the wall. So sometimes I look for the indirect way. Sometimes it doesn't exactly work out, but when it does - it turns out not bad at all."
It turned out not bad, for example, when you previously convinced Intel management to bet on the idea of the laptop. How did it happen?
"Yes, this is one of the classic examples of thinking and acting in a different direction. We presented the idea of the laptop, thin and wirelessly connected to the network, to Intel in 2000, after we started working on it about a year before, at a time when this was not common yet.
"It was a time when most people had a desktop computer, old-fashioned wired internet and a small cell phone, a sort of start-up. But we believed that the entire environment should be a mobile, wireless computing environment.
"We came up with this idea, and Intel's IT manager said, 'Why do we need Wi-Fi in offices if everyone has a plug in the office?
So we sent him a photo from a meeting where 20 people were present in the room, and in the center stood a large and cumbersome box to which all the internet and electricity wires were connected.
It looks bad, and we said that this is exactly what we are interested in solving: people will sit, move from place to place, from office to office, go to a cafe, to the beach, and all with the laptop wirelessly connected to the network.
It was not easy for Intel management to accept this change of mind, especially since the company was so successful with the desktop computer, but in the end my team and I convinced them."
You can say that your idea changed the world.
"Yes. A few months ago I gave a lecture to students at the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania. The lecturer in the course is Israeli, and at the end of the lecture we talked. He said that inventions of this type have many unforeseen consequences, such that in retrospect their impact is much greater than what was planned.
"I told him he was wrong."
Jobs, photo: AFP
"I thought about the things in the context of the corona virus. Just imagine the economic consequences if the epidemic had occurred in 2000, when most of us were sitting at home with a landline phone and a desktop computer. The slogan we proposed at the time was - 'anytime, anywhere'. Although originally we meant the professional side, for work , but at the end of the day this accessibility has become relevant in every field."
You worked for many years in key positions at Intel. You got to meet significant figures in the industry, including Steve Jobs. What do you remember about him?
"Intel tried to 'fish' Apple for about 20 years, and was unsuccessful. We launched the notebook computer in 2003, and in 2004 Steve Jobs called the CEO of Intel, and told him - you finally have a product that fits the things I want to do .
The CEO of Intel called me, and we went to meet with Jobs. He wanted things that we couldn't always do, and besides - the conversations with him were very interesting. Apple was a good client, but also the most difficult I had: they negotiated every Saint, gave up nothing, and were very specific in the things they wanted;
In my eyes it was an advantage.
Jobs had a clear picture of his desires, and we had to adapt ourselves to him precisely.
"We used to meet frequently, and he was a difficult person, a tough negotiator, and he used to arrange the data so that they fit his arguments.
In one of the meetings we sat at his office in Cupertino, and he accused Intel, and me as the product manager in particular, of changing the schedules of one of the projects.
He brought facts that as far as I knew were completely untrue, but everyone at Intel was silent as fish.
And I, who came from the Middle East, did not remain indebted.
I spoke very matter-of-factly, put the facts on the table and told him he was wrong.
Jobs was really not used to being argued with, and to the surprise of those present, he eventually gave up and asked to change the subject.
The goal, of course, was not to win the argument, but to bring the things that are required on time and with the highest quality."
"Forest Fire"
Let's talk about the state of Israeli hi-tech. For the first time since 2017, Microsoft made a round of layoffs, and Google is also slowing hiring. At the same time, there was a decrease in the shares of other companies, large and small. Are you afraid of a domino effect that will shake the entire industry?
"These noises already exist, there is a problematic crisis that is certainly not nonsense. I spoke with several entrepreneurs and CEOs with whom I work, and one of them told me that the current crisis makes him focus.
More and more companies are now trying to think, to understand if the things they are doing are appropriate and correct, and as part of this thinking process, we also see phenomena of reducing personnel.
Will there be more companies that will close?
Yes.
We will also see a lot of acquisitions by large companies that will look for smaller companies that have fallen in value.
We will also see mergers, as we saw with Iron Source and Unity.
Bubble yes, panic no.
Silicon Valley, photo: Vertical
"The current situation is like a forest fire. There are those who look at it as a disaster, and there are those who deal with forestry, who focus on new and better growth. So in the current crisis there is also an opportunity, and I believe that in three or four years we will look at it the same way we looked at the crisis of 2000. That is A very difficult crisis, alongside certain companies that came out of it strengthened."
As part of this fire, do you also detect panic among entrepreneurs and other high-tech executives?
"I meet with many hundreds of CEOs and I don't see panic, happily, although it may exist.
I do recognize concerns, caution."
Is the talk of a bubble true for you?
"There was a bubble in the values of some of the companies. I didn't know how to explain every value then, and I don't know how to explain it today either. The lack of human infrastructure is problematic and real, and it must be solved. Investors come to a place where there is growth potential for their money. They come to Israel because they believe that investing An Israeli high-tech company has the potential for a return on investment. It took them a few years to come to the conclusion that this is true, but they can also understand that other places in the world are more profitable."
Is the salary in hi-tech high?
"It's a question of value. If in Israel they pay a salary that is similar to Silicon Valley, then it is high, to say the least. I assume that there will be salary corrections. Will they be substantial? It's hard to know, because for that to happen drastic events have to happen"
In just the last two months, thousands of Israeli high-tech workers have been laid off. Like other senior executives, are you also anticipating another wave of significant layoffs and salary cuts?
"Even though the demand is greater than the layoffs, it is certainly possible. In the companies I work with - I make sure there is enough oxygen in the balloons. In the short term the world has gone crazy - war in Ukraine, shortage of chips, inflation, and at the same time a phenomenon occurs once every few years - a phenomenon of correction. It hurts, It's not easy, it makes the ability more difficult, but on the other hand there is recruitment, there is money. The use of money is indeed more careful, as is the caution of investors, but in my estimation, in the next decade the world will not become less digital."
Do you think the salary in the industry is high?
"In the competitive world, wages are a function of demand and supply. But this is a question of value. If in Israel, wages are paid that are similar to Silicon Valley, then it seems to me a bit high, to say the least. I assume that there will be corrections in wages - there as well and not only here. Will there be substantial corrections? It's hard to know, because for that to happen, drastic things have to happen, which I don't think will happen. I must say that I'm also worried that teachers and doctors will be able to earn a good salary, and not about the question of whether an 8200 graduate will earn 20 or 25 thousand shekels a month. Part of the issue is improving Israel's economy."
And what will happen after the elections?
Earlier this month, the National Committee for Increasing Human Capital in Hi-Tech, of which you are the head, submitted the interim report on the subject. One of the recommendations in the report is to include more ultra-Orthodox, women, peripheral residents and Arabs. Why hasn't this happened until today?
"It's happening, but in my opinion it's not enough. The number of Arab employees in high-tech has increased dramatically in the last decade, but it's still low. The same goes for ultra-Orthodox women.
It turns out that the decision to enter the high-tech world is not made at the age of 22, when the decision is made about what to study, but at a much younger age.
A slowdown in hiring.
Google headquarters // Photo: GettyImages,
"Women, for example, make up a third of the workforce in Israeli high-tech. We performed an analysis of the issue, and discovered that we lose them roughly before middle school, when we choose the excellent classes. So in five math units, you may see a 50-50 ratio between men and women, but In the other high-tech subjects, physics, computer science, the ratio is three to one. Some of the reasons for this are social, girls do not necessarily want to study in classrooms that are mostly made up of buildings; some are influenced by the perception that high-tech is neither interesting nor suitable for women."
What other barriers do you recognize?
"Besides the cultural and value barriers I described, another barrier is perception. There is, for example, a big difference between the periphery, Arabs and ultra-Orthodox in everything related to informal education, i.e. what parents give their children outside of school hours - classes, private lessons, Scouts. This is related For studies showing that the development of skills and abilities, which are not necessarily study and memorization abilities, are important for success in high-tech. A student who studied 4 units but acquired thinking and learning abilities, the ability to study independently, work in a team - can be more successful than a student who studied 5 units, but lacks the set of skills this".
"Approximately 1,300 math and computer science teachers are former high-tech people who have been retrained to teach. I aspire to a situation where 5,000 of the teachers and educators, in formal and informal settings, will be high-tech people. They will connect the worlds and upgrade education."
Be that as it may, one of your recommendations is to increase the proportion of those who complete high school diplomas at the level of five units in various high-tech professions. Our main problem is at the level of teachers?
"The education system is a complex thing. I believe that there is nothing more important than education, but unfortunately it has become the punching bag of the State of Israel. There is a huge shortage of teachers. When I was a student, I did not encounter the phenomenon of parents yelling at teachers. And alongside these there are also bright spots: today About 1,300 mathematics and computer science teachers are former high-tech people who have been retrained to teach. I aspire to a situation where 5,000 of the teachers and educators, in formal and informal settings in Israel, will be high-tech people in the present or in the past. They can connect the worlds and upgrade the system Education, but of course that is not the only condition for success. An organizational culture is required, more independence for managers, and a different kind of thinking - the system should be open to granting independence to people from below."
Further to the matter of the diversity of human capital, you warn in the report that if your recommendations regarding the integration of a wider population in the industry are not implemented, the shortage of high-tech workers will increase to 100,000 people within five years. What does such a shortage mean?
"If we do not increase and continue to diversify the human capital in high-tech - there is a risk of going backwards: jobs will disappear, multinational companies will abandon projects, there will be fewer startups. We will also see fewer development centers of large companies, which absorb many employees and distribute many of the innovations to the world Broaden. We will see stagnation and going backwards. Israel's digitization process, which is already lagging behind, will be even more behind. The economy of the State of Israel, which has grown quite well in recent decades, will go backwards. That will be bad."
barriers and opportunities.
Computer class, photo: archive: Moshe Shay
Are we on our way to such a horror scenario?
"It's hard for me to talk about horror scenarios because I'm optimistic by nature."
Nevertheless, the question is whether anyone will remember your recommendations at the beginning of another election campaign, when a new government will soon be formed.
"That's an excellent question, and I don't have a solid answer to it. I'm optimistic because we worked in a collaborative manner with the Ministry of Education, the Innovation Authority, the Budget Division, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education. In the end, the committee's report is a reflection of joint work plans with the bodies .
It's not just up to the government, and the industry has a job too.
Absorption of populations into industry is hard work, it is not a political issue.
Either way, whatever government is formed - hi-tech will be important to it.
We don't have the privilege of being without developed hi-tech."
For suggestions and comments: Ranp@israelhayom.co.il
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