President Shimon Peres feels comfortable with Israeli high-tech people. Yesterday evening, he visited the Google Israel R&D center at Haifa, where he was hosted by its director, Dr. Yoelle Maarek. Peres watched a presentation of Google applications developed at the center, spoke with employees, and, as is his wont, praised Jewish genius.
Peres said, "What is bad in Israeli politics is good in Israeli technology. Jews are noted for their dissatisfaction. That's bad in the former but good in the latter. That's why Jews is Google, because they're always dissatisfied and searching." He told the Googlers that what are needed is "chutzpah, chutzpah, chutzpah, and it should be Israeli."
Over the past year, Peres met Cisco Systems president and CEO John Chambers in Nazareth, personally invited former Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel to visit Israel, and organized the "Tomorrow's Spaces" exhibition of Israeli technology at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 17, 2008
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