It began with a trickle, but in the past year Israelis living in Silicon Valley have been forced to admit that it has become a growing trend: they call them the 'u-turners.' Neither emigrating nor immigrating, but simply returning back.
According to estimates, there are currently about 100,000 Israelis in Silicon Valley: in the narrow, affluent, strip between the city of San Francisco in the north and San Jose in the south, through the well-known high tech towns Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View and prestigious Stanford University. People had certainly been returning before: young people with an idea who expected to make millions but returned to their parents in Israel with their tail between their legs; students who completed their degree with a debt that forced them to return to Israel's 'high living expenses', which still pales in comparison with the booming prices in the Valley, or those who originally relocated only for one year, on their way to a senior position in the main headquarters in Israel. However, the u-turners share entirely different characteristics: they had got on a plane with all their belongings, found a house in California, built a life, established themselves in enviable positions, managed teams with dozens of employees, sometimes even had kids - and then, one day, they have just packed everything in a container and got on the flight east.
The reasons are varied: fear of a political escalation and the threat posed by Donald Trump play a role, as well as a certain inability to build deep friendships with Americans - but the main reason is homesickness: single men and women miss the Tel Aviv scene and seek to settle down with members of their own background, while young families miss having grandparents that are one phone call away from the children.
"For me, it was always a highly-conscious decision to relocate for three to five years," explains Yuval Kesten, a senior engineer in Facebook's software engineering team, a moment before he and his wife Hadas pack up their daughter Mika and the dog Charlie and return to Tel Aviv. "We moved to the Valley four years ago, in August 2012, to an apartment in San Francisco. I had worked in an Israeli firm in Haifa and had been doing fine, and then came an email from Facebook. I had started an interview process and everything happened very quickly - to some extent, I felt that we had shown some interest and without noticing were rushing towards Silicon Valley.
"When we were on the plane, I told myself, 'I am now moving for a period, but it will not be more than a few years - maybe three, four or five.' I did not lie to myself or tell myself that this is a brief visit or a summer camp - but we had known and agreed that this will not be a decade. Immediately after arriving, we understood that returning would not be easy - you land and meet people who had also 'relocated for two years', but have been doing this for over a decade. Among ourselves, we had kept joking that in a few generations we would be here with grandchildren, saying 'we just plan on returning'. This is one of the reasons that motivated us, for example, not to buy a home: we lived in rented homes for two years in San Francisco, and for two more years in Palo Alto, when we decided to expand our family - but we chose not to buy a house in order to avoid complicating our return to Israel, once we decided to do it."
And then came the major promotions and the salary gap between what you get here and what you could get in Israel grows - does this change anything?"
"Yes and no. It mainly emphasizes the need to have a strategic approach and talk about this. At first, we had made an effort to enjoy the experience and not specifically discuss what would make us return to Israel - we did say that once we have a child, we would want to be closer to our families.
"When Hadas was in advanced pregnancy, we talked about this seriously and had a first 'team meeting' while walking our dog on the streets of Palo Alto. We actually drew-up a schedule of when we would return - it was one year ago, and we have stuck to the plan. I had to verify that there was a position I could assume in Facebook Tel Aviv, and plan how to let the people around us know, the team I had built here etc."
How did people around you respond?
"The responses have actually been the most surprising part. We have had no qualms, at any stage of the process, but when we started telling people, many of them just thought we were kidding. While people I had grown up with were happy, they had also told us 'what the hell are you doing? Everyone is trying to get away from here and you are returning.' I understand them - relocating has been an incredible experience, and I do not feel I have fully exhausted it - we could have lived here for many more years, have had fun and traveled, but the excitement and initial charm of living abroad had faded and suddenly other considerations, such as family and people, have become more important.
"The responses of Americans have also been highly surprising: many people in Facebook here did not understand how I am 'doing this to my family.' From their perspective, I had decided to take a six-month child to a place where missiles are flying. It had taken me time to understand that people who think that you risk your family by immigrating back to the Middle East simply lack knowledge and awareness, so we had decided to smile and move on - how can you explain that an unbalanced person who starts shooting people playing Pokémon in the middle of a San Francisco park is just as dangerous and not nearly as predictable as a terrorist attack in the middle of Tel Aviv?"
"It makes you wonder what has changed"
Yuval and Hadas are not alone. Several weeks before, Nir Blumberger, 32, his wife Renana and their daughter Lily had also boarded the plane to Tel Aviv. The decision made by Nir, who had until recently been one of the three strongest people in Facebook's merger and acquisition department and a young Israeli star in the Valley, had left many people stunned. "I came to the Valley four years ago because I have always been drawn to all things international - until then, I had already visited over 50 countries and spent most of my career providing business counselling in Europe - but the Valley was the holy of holies of tech and innovation. I came here for an MA in business administration at Stanford and, for me, this was the 'ticket' into Silicon Valley and the chance to get the job I wanted and aimed for in advance."
Blumberger struggled for two years to reach a key position in the most known merger and acquisition team in the Valley - an elite team of four who lead massive deals. "I stalked my boss for a year until he agreed to give me a chance and talk to me - this was a job I had been ready to kill for and was everything I had wanted: I had been allowed to lead an entire strategy: what to buy, how to buy, where to buy, negotiations, pricing." In his two years at Facebook, Nir was at the vanguard of deals totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel, the US and Europe, and consulted Facebook's leading teams, including the Messenger and Oculus teams.
And then, one morning, two years after you started a job you had wanted for a decade, you get up and leave? Please explain.
"It was clear from the start that at a certain time we would want to return to Israel. We had known that it will would be at least four years, and we had also been ready for eight - but it was clear that when a good enough opportunity presents itself, we would return home.
"During my last job, I had observed Israel's tech ecosystem and worked closely with people living there - I had seen an amazing boom and it was hard not being part of this. You feel that for the industry there you could be part of the problem of the brain drain to the Valley or part of the solution of bringing the industry to Israel and utilizing the amazing talent that is present there. Moreover, the most significant change might have been Lily: I have a two-year daughter who was born in the States; we had reached the stage in which she was a sentient human being, who had relationships with her environment but did not really know her grandfather and grandmother, and this had been very tough for us. The third factor in this equation had been an opportunity - You could be eager to return, but if you have no lucrative opportunity that will make it possible to maintain your lifestyle and continue realizing your aspirations, this is much more difficult. I personally believe that there are many people who want to return and simply cannot find the right way, since they are required to give up too much. I had been highly fortunate to get an incredible opportunity that has been in line with my personal and professional aspirations - and managed to bring one of the world's leading investment funds to open an office in Israel."
The opportunity Blumberger refers to is the Accel fund, one of the world's leading high tech investment funds. Accel has been operating in Silicon Valley for over 30 years, and had been the first financial institutions to invest in Facebook, Spotify, Slack and other leading firms. Blumberger will be the fund's first Israeli partner and manage its investments in Israel, as a partner in the fund's London-based European office.
How moved were you, when you decided to leave a dream job and move to Israel?
"Very much. After a period of four years, you wonder what has changed, what happened that out of the blue you want to go backwards - my greatest concern had been for the things I leave behind. I had a job I had been willing to kill for and many are still willing to kill for - and thinking that you are 'throwing it away' is not easy. At first, my team members made it difficult for me to leave, but eventually, they have been highly supportive. My former boss (head of Facebook's merger and acquisitions department - I.R.) is a big supporter of Israel, so he had been joking that he will have more reasons to come visit, because from now on he will have no one who will travel instead of him to assess and negotiate with Israeli companies."
"This is pretty refreshing
Will the Valley remain a destination for you, or is this a one-way ticket, a U-turn aimed at settling?
Nir: "I will be part of a global platform, so this is not really a question - I will visit London once each week and fly to Silicon Valley once per month. I am not lifting an iron curtain. Many of my friends and the people I went to Stanford with are living abroad and mainly in the Valley - I have much love for this place. I am not trying to live the California life in Israel, but I do intend to be an Israeli with a global career. There is no doubt that you divide your life between different locations, but the question is what you call home."
Yuval: "In the short and medium term I will probably be here a lot, even if I don't want to. I will visit Facebook HQ twice each year, maybe three or fourth times, and Hadas and Mika will join some of these visits, because we have many friends that we love. We do not at present plan on relocating again - but we do know that it is very easy to return to the Valley if we decide that this is the right thing for our family."
Now that you are already here: what did you miss about Israel's high tech industry?"
Yuval: "Despite the cliché, the candor. It took me a long time to get used to their sandwich method - the idea that a three-line email with a request to change something should be four paragraphs long, beginning and ending with positive feedback. That a 5 minute talk must take 25 minutes only in order to avoid offending anyone. It is pretty refreshing that you do not need those things in Israel. In addition, I think that in Israel, it is possible to focus on the really important things - people are able to assess what is important and switch their focus very quickly."
Nir: "There is incredible technical talent here, and there is unique hutzpah and daring. I have seen many Israeli entrepreneurs who come through the window if the door is closed and, on the other hand, solve problems in a highly unique and original manner that others simply do not consider. This combination of skills and daring is very rare and highly appreciated in the world. There is also a vibrant community with a growing number of people who have spent significant periods in large companies abroad and bring back substantial knowledge and experience that serve as a force multiplier - there are companies being founded with a global outlook from day one and this rare. This is also the reason why it was important for me to utilize this offer - such an ecosystem deserves having representatives of top funds who will encourage investment in local companies in full time."
On the other hand, what will you miss in California?
Yuval: "Many things. The Israeli community in the valley has amazing qualities. In Israel, we never travelled so much, but in the US, this is the standard. Talks on Monday morning are always about 'what you did on the weekend?' and everyone does really cool stuff - road trips and rock concerts each week. The leisure culture in California is outstanding. Furthermore, the services in Silicon Valley are making life incredibly simpler, to such an extent that I am actually scared to return - first you think about it as a curiosity - 'I will have to go to the supermarket and buy something when I need it and will not be able to order it and receive it to my doorstep in an hour,' but this actually affects the quality of life. We had quickly gotten used to managing all household logistics and services via our smartphone, and I simply find the idea of going down to AM:PM to buy toilet paper simply frightening."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 31, 2016
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