The Mirabilis story is known. The four founders got up one fine day, left Zapa and went to Amnon Amir’s. Between the ping-pong table and surfing the Internet, the ICQ idea was born. The rest is history.
Eyal Gever isn’t anxious to talk about Mirabilis. "I prefer to talk about Zapa", he says. "Globes" interviewed him in Santa Clara, during the Tech Ventures convention, at which 126 Israeli high-tech companies exhibited. Zapa starred at Tech Ventures, as it did at Internet World at the end of 1997 in New York, and other conventions in the past two years. Zapa, a company ahead of its time, is seen as having a great future. At various forums, Gever is asked to demonstrate Zapa’s technology. This is the next Internet generation, and it emphasises the visual aspect, making the network more dynamic and interesting. Three-dimensional figures twinkle across the display. Technical and graphic effects capture the viewer’s attention. Proctor & Gamble’s representatives, for example, spent hours at the Zapa pavilion, and then expressed interest in co-operation.
Gever is a good-looking, long-haired twenty-seven year old, with a warm, kindly look in his eyes, who immediately strikes a sympathetic chord. The type of person who is hard to hate. John Sculley, for example, who invested in Zapa last year, appears to love him like a partner and like a father, too. He is totally involved in Zapa, a fact that was undoubtedly helpful in securing the agreements the company recently signed with Microsoft, and various other forthcoming agreements and declarations.
Zapa, it seems, is travelling the high road. Has, in fact, been travelling it for some time, and Gever, by now, would like to get where he is going. Especially now, after Mirabilis. Although he likes the artistic aspect, he has been spending at least half his time, in the past two years, in marketing and business meetings. This works out to two weeks in Israel, mainly in R&D, and two weeks in other parts of the world, mostly the United States. "There is no alternative. John (Sculley, M.S.) has lots of other things to do. I have to do this. I don’t have Yossi Vardi behind me".
He had Yossi Vardi behind him when first starting out. Gever and Arik Vardi, Yossi’s son, were childhood friends, who slept over at one another’s houses. Always together. At the beginning, Yossi would give advice. "Yossi is an astounding person. A phenomenon", Gever says. "Mirabilis is lucky".
After his army service, Arik Vardi started working at Zapa. He worked for two weeks as a freelancer, and then the second round of capital raising started. The story, on which Gever, incidentally, refuses to comment, is that Vardi wanted options amounting to 3% of the company. Sefi Vigiser, who, at that juncture was a supporting pillar of Zapa, and was travelling with Gever round the clock, rightly thought he too merited 3%. Goldfinger and Amir also wanted 3% each. They look like long-haired Internet freaks, with a head full of nothing but computers, Internet and ICQ flowers. But what they did have in their heads, even then, were percentages, and they had no intention of backing down.
Gever was caught in the middle, between the investors, to whom he could never explain why a freelancer, who started work in the company two weeks earlier, should be given 3% in Zapa, and a colluding body of four talented, determined men. Once the jousting was over, they got up and went. The sad part is that the friendship, too, evaporated. Gever and Vardi have not spoken to one another since.
"Globes": How did you feel when you read of the Mirabilis deal with America On-Line?
"I wish them all the very best. They played it big. That’s great. I wish that kind of success for us, too".
Is there a bitter aftertaste?
"Of course, it was not a pleasant parting. What is ironic is that I haven’t read, anywhere, that they have distributed options to their employees".
Do you use ICQ?
"Zapa was the Mirabilis’ first beta-site. Almost all Zapa’s employees use ICQ".
Did you know that some people are saying that after the Mirabilis crew left, you remained a company of graphic artists?
"I don’t think we can be said to be a company of graphic artists. In my opinion, there is no company like ours in the world, in terms of its combination of technology and creativity. We have amazing technologists. Zapa is like a band. I wanted to bring in the best drummer and the best bass player. A group of the best people. Zapa has lots of geniuses. I am admirer #1 of talent. When I spot people of genius and talent, I race ahead with them unconsciously. Zapa has a payroll of 45. So four left, but that does not alter the company. It can happen sometimes that there is an excess of talent in one place".
What do you expect to happen with Zapa? What would you consider a success?
"I often ask myself what I would reckon a success. From a certain point of view, the sale of Mirabilis has set very difficult standards. Let’s say I sell the company at a market value of $100 million. Then I would have to feel I had failed, because they sold at $300 million".
$100 million isn’t bad.
"I come from the art world. Art is ego. That is something over which I have no control".
Is it realistic to dream of $300 million?
$300 million would be a fantastic stroke of luck. It’s like parachuting, and I’ve done that. You jump out of the plane, and you ask yourself: will it open or won’t it? You look to the right and see the next fellow’s parachute has opened. You say to yourself: his opened. I want mine to open too. Let it open at $300 million.
"There is a matter of timing here, and of lots of luck. Two very different companies. They are a communication company and we deal in visualisation and art. Zapa does not fall on a vacuum, like Mirabilis. Zapa is years ahead of the market. I am bound to be optimistic, but constantly paranoid at the same time".
Everybody seems to be optimistic about Zapa, which is seen as a great promise. When do you expect the promise to be fulfilled? Do you have patience?
"To date, we have raised $6 million (investors include: the Star Ventures Management fund, a German-Israeli venture capital firm, Gilde investment funds, a Dutch venture capital firm specialising in the telecommunication, computer hardware and software
industries, Fujitsu Business Systems, the largest systems integrator in Japan, and Sculley [Chairman of Live Picture Group and former CEO of Apple Computer,
M.S.), and we have investors who will support us all along the road. When it will happen I cannot promise. I can only hope. We are in the Rich Media Internet field. This is the biggest game in town, but it hasn’t really started yet. Zapa has a really wild technology. The difference between us and the others is that our technology looks the best, and the easiest to operate and the friendliest. From that point of view, we are unrivalled.
"The problem is that we are years ahead of the market. My vision regarding the Internet is that, hitherto, the network has dealt in infrastructures, in communications, in security, but now, the network is becoming a highly commercial place. It will serve as television and radio, and it should be a place where it is pleasant to operate. We bring life to the Internet, we are making the network a fascinating and friendly experience. We enable sites to become dynamic and aesthetic".
Published by Israel's Business Arena June 9, 1998