In an interview with the Journal, Vardi rejects the title, describing himself as one of the Internet leaders in Israel.
”The Wall Street Journal” today published an interview with Mirabilis founder Yossi Vardi. The newspaper writes about the “Mirabilis Effect” and Vardi’s standing in the Internet world since the sale of Mirabilis to America Online (AOL) in May 1998.
The article describes Vardi as “one of the founding fathers of the Internet”. Vardi himself said that the title was pretentious, inaccurate and ridiculous, and chose to describe himself as one of the leaders of the Internet in Israel.
In response to a question, Vardi explained the Israeli start-up boom by a combination of three factors: the first is the existence of venture capital, investment banks and exit possibilities; the second is the culture and the way failure is perceived in Israel. Vardi said that people need to be ready to take risks, fail and start again. The third factor he stipulated is the “army effect”, which leads people to take responsibility and work hard from an early age.
Vardi told the newspaper that to date he has invested in 20 companies and that he invests $100,000-$2 million per company. Asked about the characteristics he looks for in a company, Vardi said that he looks mainly for advantages for the users in their surfing experience, and not infrastructure.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 24 October, 2000