For more than 20 years, Amnon Shashua has been both a scientist and CEO. He developed the technology at Mobileye Global Inc (Nasdaq: MBLY) and at the same time managed the company - leading it to an IPO, selling it to Intel and delisting, and returning it to Wall Street. Even when he founded other ventures, he remained the man at the helm at Mobileye. Last month, he finally announced that he was willing to hand over to someone else.
Mobileye’s share price plunged following the announcement that Shashua is stepping down, revealing how important he still is for the company. Shashua is expected to stay as an active chairman after a successor is found, yet investors reacted as if a much deeper change had taken place. The man who built Mobileye and became the face of its technological vision decided to no longer manage the ongoing operations.
If this were an isolated move, it would be easy to see it as a natural generational change in a long-standing company. However, Shashua also recently announced his retirement as chairman of AI21 Labs, the AI company he cofounded. At the same time Orcam, which he founded with his historic partner at Mobileye Ziv Aviram, and is now struggling to recover after losing an estimated 90% of its value. The digital bank he controls, One Zero, has also yet to reach profitability after accumulating losses of NIS 1.2 billion. Despite all this, Shashua is already working on his next venture: a new company called doubleAI.
These seemingly isolated events are part of a broader picture. "Globes" delved into Shashua's companies, spoke with the people who have accompanied him on his business journey, and sought to understand why the entrepreneur, who for decades founded company after company and was in no hurry to relinquish the reins, was suddenly loosening his grip. Is Shashua at 66 winding down, or is he preparing to build the next big thing?
The assumption that lost its luster and the gamble
For decades, Mobileye's success gave an advantage to every Shashua venture. It brought with it not only capital and connections, but mainly the aura of an entrepreneur who knows how to identify a technological problem early and build a billion-dollar business around it. When he entered assistive vision with Orcam, ai with AI21 Labs, and digital banking with One Zero, investors and employees assumed that he was several steps ahead of everyone else.
In recent years, this assumption has lost its luster. Orcam has lost most of its value, leaving institutional investors out of pocket. AI21 Labs has struggled to break into the forefront of the AI race, in which giant rivals are investing huge sums. One Zero is cutting losses and showing revenue growth, but it still needs to prove that the huge investment will translate into a profitable business. Even Mobileye is currently facing a skeptical market, growing competition, and technological promises that are coming true more slowly than planned.
But those who know Shashua closely argue that the obvious conclusion - that he is moving towards retirement - misses the point. According to them, Shashua is not leaving the business world, but is doing something he hasn't done in decades: choosing. After a long period in which he divided his attention between several demanding giants, he is now focusing most of his time on doubleAI, the latest AI venture that he founded.
Sources familiar with his plans note that Shashua sees doubleAI as his next tech engine, with an ambitious vision that it could even surpass the achievements of Mobileye. But the company's progress is slower than planned, and to speed it up, he needs to return to an intensive research focus. Shashua is not vacating the CEO's chair to slow down, but to gamble again. And this time, after several ventures that did not meet the expectations associated with his name, the burden is on him to prove that the magic that gave birth to Mobileye still works.
The model of his friend Gil Shwed
An industry source who knows Shashua closely suggests seeking part of the explanation for the move by his close friend, Check Point founder Gil Shwed. After three decades as CEO, Shwed handed over day-to-day management to a professional manager and became executive chairman. According to the same source, Shwed’s move may have shown Shashua that it is possible to step down as CEO without leaving the company. After decades in which the founder and the organization become almost one entity, the switch to executive chairman offers a convenient compromise - to continue setting the direction without managing every detail along the way.
For Shashua, the gap between the two roles is particularly dramatic. A CEO of a company the size of Mobileye no longer spends his time solving research problems. He manages thousands of employees, meets with analysts and investors, and maneuvers between budgets, automakers, and a complex relationship with Intel. Yet even after two decades in the business world, Shashua remains first and foremost a researcher and a technology person. As Mobileye grew, the CEO's chair moved away from the research that brought him there in the first place.
But the comparison to Shwed stops there. The Check Point founder dedicated his career to one company - a veteran, profitable, and stable one. Shashua, on the other hand, built an entire ecosystem of ventures, each of which pulled him in a different direction.
The difference was also well recognized on Wall Street. While Shwed’s transition was welcomed as a natural generational change, investors worried that Shashua was diverting attention from Mobileye precisely when it needed his technological authority most. The stock plunge only proved how difficult it is to separate Shashua from the story it sells about its future.
He didn't leave, but almost wasn’t there
At first glance, the reduction in involvement in AI21 Labs seems like another link in a chain of resignations. The company, founded alongside Prof. Yoav Shoham and Ori Goshen, has enjoyed the aura of Mobileye's founder over the years. Shashua's reputation has attracted attention, employees and investors, and made him one of the figures most identified with it.
However, industry sources are wary of Shashua's "departure" speculation. According to them, despite his status as cofounder and chairman, Shashua never managed the day-to-day operations at AI21 Labs, and there were even those who claimed that his presence in the company was barely felt. The change in his status at AI21 Labs cannot be compared to his stepping down at Mobileye, but it does indicate a clear desire to reduce the number of companies that require his attention.
This is not a random move. AI21 entered a race that is difficult to manage as an independent company. It did recognize the potential of large language models early on, raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and displayed impressive research capabilities but this initial effort was not enough to capture a place at the forefront of the AI industry. Within a few years, the race turned from a battle over algorithms to a war over computing power, chips, data centers, and distribution channels. OpenAI relies on Microsoft, Anthropic is owned by Amazon and Google, and the technology giants have the ability to pour billions and reach hundreds of millions of users. Under these conditions, even an AI company which has raised hundreds of millions is struggling to survive.
But Shashua is not retreating from the world of AI. On the contrary he is shifting his center of gravity to it, but through a different platform. Here the most intriguing question of all looms. What does Shashua want to build at doubleAI that could not be developed at AI21, and why does he believe that the new venture will succeed in breaking through the ceiling that stopped the veteran company?
Orcam and loss of investor confidence
If AI21 illustrated the limitations of an Israeli startup facing the international tech giants, Orcam has already illustrated the painful price of an unfulfilled promise. The company, founded by Shashua with Aviram, sought to translate technological knowledge from computer vision into products that assist the visually and hearing impaired. For years, it was marked out as the next growth engine for the historic duo behind Mobileye.
In 2021, Orcam raised funds at a valuation of $1.5 billion, as it strode confidently toward an IPO at an even higher valuation. But the market shifted quickly beneath its feet. The surge in AI models and the capabilities of Google, Apple, and OpenAI have made its technological advantages accessible to everyone, right from their smartphone. Text recognition, image description, and noise filtering no longer require the purchase of a dedicated device costing thousands of dollars.
Thus, Orcam's sales fell from $45-50 million in 2023 to only $16 million in 2024. The number of employees shrank to less than 100, and its valuation is currently estimated at only $150 million - a collapse of more than 90% compared to its peak.
Shashua did not sit on the sidelines. According to reports, he injected about $7 million of his own money in efforts to stabilize the company, while Aviram added a few more million. However, the capital did not solve the structural problem. Orcam needs additional oxygen, but the path to raising funds is blocked due to a sharp conflict with institutional investors over the share structure and the recovery plan.
Behind the business negotiations is a lot of anger. Institutions like Leumi Partners, Harel, Clal and Meitav invested in Orcam mainly out of the trust they already gave to Shashua and Aviram from their Mobileye days. Some entered at an inflated valuation that turned out to be out of touch with reality. Today, they find themselves with an eroded holding and a capital structure that in itself hinders the introduction of new investors.
Moreover, the disconnect between Shashua and Aviram looms large, after years in which they were one of the strongest and most successful duos in Israeli tech. Their historic partnership was based on a clear division of roles - Shashua provided the vision and technological depth, while Ziv Aviram led the business management. The cooling in relations is not the only factor in Orcam's situation, but it left it without the partnership on which it was built.
Orcam is not the catalyst that led to Shashua stepping down at Mobileye, but it is a central component in Shashua's current situation. In the past, the mere presence of his name was enough to almost automatically ensure success for any new venture. Today, due to the collapse in value and the confrontation with institutional investors, it becomes clear that his past successes no longer grant unlimited credit.
One Zero awaits profitability
The situation at One Zero, the Shashua-controlled digital bank, is completely different. The bank is not in an Orcam-style crisis, and the latest data even indicates an improving trend with the loss shrinking 20% in 2025 to NIS 214 million, revenue doubled to NIS 109 million, and public deposits jumped 38% to NIS 3.6 billion (as of March 2026 the number of customers was about 180,000). The bank's management believes that One Zero will reach operational balance towards the end of 2026 and profitability in the first quarter of 2027. However, until the forecasts come true, this is an extremely expensive gamble. Since its establishment, the bank has accumulated losses of about NIS 1.2 billion, and at the end of 2025 its equity stood at only NIS 45 million.
The industry sometimes compares One Zero with Nir Zuk’s digital bank Esh. However, industry sources point out that Shashua's involvement in One Zero is much more extensive than Zuk’s presence at Esh. While Zuk chose to realize the venture, Shashua insists on holding the reins while betting on making the bank an independent and profitable entity.
This difference further weakens the notion that Amnon Shashua is distancing himself from his businesses. He is not leaving all the companies he is associated with but is changing the nature of his involvement in them. At One Zero, he is still waiting for the moment when the heavy financial investment will justify itself, at Mobileye he is seeking to free up day-to-day management, and at AAI Technologies he is once again the man who is as close as possible to the technological problem.
Another company founded by Shashua is Mentee Robotics, which develops AI-based humanoid robots for tasks in factories and logistics centers, including lifting, sorting and packaging objects. In January of this year, Mobileye announced its acquisition for $900 million - a move designed to introduce it to the world of physical AI. The deal aroused great interest, as Mentee was only three years old, with no revenue and a product that was not scheduled to reach the market until 2028. For Shashua, who owned about 37.9% of Mentee, this was an estimated consideration of about $341 million in cash and Mobileye shares. Even today, industry sources say, he continues to be closely involved in its technological development.
The gamble that must justify stepping down at Mobileye
Mobileye is not just a venture in Shashua's portfolio, but one of the greatest successes in the history of Israeli tech - a company that was sold to Intel for over $15 billion, held a second IPO and is producing billions of dollars in revenue. So it is incorrect to depict Shashua's move as an escape from a failed company.
But that phenomenal success set a bar that is almost impossible to replicate. Every new Shashua venture is automatically comparted with Mobileye, and every tech promise is immediately tied to the dream of a billion-dollar valuation. Orcam did not meet this expectation, AI21 Labs did not establish itself on the global front, and One Zero is still struggling to reach profitability.
Now it is doubleAI’s turn. Sources familiar with Shashua's plans say he sees it as his next technological engine, and perhaps even a venture with broader potential than Mobileye. The company is developing an AI tool for writing and improving code. In the coming months, according to Shashua himself in an interview in "The Washington Post," the company plans to launch its first product, designed to take software and adapt its code so that it runs faster on processors without the customer having to change it.
The company plans to allow users to describe what they want the software to do, while the system will write the code and check that it actually performs the task properly. According to the company, in a trial conducted on Nvidia software, it improved the speed of operation by an average of 3.5 times and even found bugs in the original code.
But the pace of progress at doubleAI is slower than Shashua predicted, and the need to shift gears is what largely explains the relinquishment of ongoing management at Mobileye.
This proposed step does not indicate a collapse, but it cannot be dismissed as part of a natural change of direction for Shashua. It comes at a critical time, after a period in which his efforts to maneuver between many companies at the same time began to take a heavy toll.
Shashua now seeks to return to the starting point, to the place where he built his power - research and technology. He is giving up the CEO seat at an established company to increase the stakes on a venture that is still far from proving itself. If doubleAI succeeds, the move will look in retrospect like a brilliant decision by a scientist who knew when to clear the table and return to the lab. If not, it will only sharpen the question that Mobileye's success has postponed for decades - is Amnon Shashua capable of building a technological engine on the same scale again or is his greatest success already behind him.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 2, 2026.
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