I am fortunate to share an office at the Technion’s Samuel Neaman Institute with Rafi Nave, a hi-tech pioneer whose career spans four decades.
By SHLOMO MAITALRafi Nave addresses a conference of Falling Walls, an international platform for leaders from the worlds of science, business, politics, the arts and society initiated on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall(photo credit: Courtesy)Sometimes I travel far and wide to find a juicy topic for a column – China, India or Tanzania (Mt. Kilimanjaro). But once in a blue moon, I find a great subject right under my nose.I am fortunate to share an office at the Technion’s Samuel Neaman Institute with Rafi Nave, a hi-tech pioneer whose career spans four decades. I learn new things from him almost daily. This is his story.Your career as an engineer and manager stretched across the history of Israeli hi-tech, beginning with Intel Israel, which marks its 45th birthday on July 1. It also includes Tower, NDS and Given Imaging. Can you summarize the highlights of your career? Let’s start with the 8087 math co-processor, whose development you led.The Intel 8087 math co-processor went into the first IBM PC (The purpose of the 8087 was to speed up arithmetic calculations and math functions). It was the most complex product that Intel had designed up to that time, and it is considered one of the main reasons why IBM picked Intel to make the micro-processors for its first IBM-PC. This made Intel THE semiconductor leader for three decades. The 8087 and its descendants brought Intel over $10 billion in revenues. It put Intel Israel on the map – proving no challenge was too great for the Israeli team.I was general manager of Intel Israel from 1981 through 1985. During that time, the number of employees of Intel’s Haifa design center more than doubled, from 80 to 200. A dozen new products were developed in three product lines: math processors, data communication controllers and memory controllers.At NDS (an Israeli hi-tech company whose products protected the leading global satellite TV providers from piracy, owned partially by News Corp and recently acquired by Cisco), I led a large development team of seven departments and about 350 engineers.At Tower Semiconductor, I managed all customer-facing support departments and instilled a culture of customer orientation and quality.At Given Imaging (the Israeli start-up that pioneered the PillCam, a ‘camera in a pill’ that sends pictures of the gastrointestinal tract to doctors’ screens), I led an R&D team that developed a wide range of innovative products, primarily endoscopic capsules and their systems. We maintained a technological lead, as evidenced by over 90% market share, high profitability, excellent diagnostic performance and high customers’ satisfaction.I was blessed to work in four successful, leading, innovative companies that contributed to the quality of life of all humans. Each and every day of the 40 years of my career, I woke up with enthusiasm and high-motivation, looking forward to my workday. One piece of evidence: I never took even a single day off for sick leave during those 40 years!
Sagi Cohen, recently writing in the business daily The Marker, reminded us of an important first: – you were the first senior manager at Intel to hire an Arab engineer, in the early 1980s. His name was Fuad Abu Nofel, a Technion electrical engineering grad. Later, three others were hired: Suhel Zaatri, Nabeel Sakran and Salim Dahmush. Fuad had previously received 50 rejection letters, and in one job interview was asked by a leading hi-tech company how he was even allowed in the building. [See Box].June 6, 1981, was the start of the First Lebanon War. It was not a great time for Jewish-Arab tolerance. What was your thinking at the time in hiring Arab engineers?It was a straightforward decision. Intel Israel was (and still is) a source of high demand for quality engineers. So any bright and innovative engineer that could contribute to the efforts of designing better products is welcome, regardless of age, gender, origin, religion, etc.Specifically, since Intel did not deal with any defense related products, there was no reason why we could not employ bright Arab engineers. I am proud that I was the first to hire Israeli Arab engineers, but I believe it would have happened anyhow.I wrote a Jerusalem Report column [January 3, 2011] about Imad Telhami, a Christian Arab from Usfiya. As a young engineer, he was hired by a Beged Or textile plant in Migdal Ha’emek. On his first day on the job in 1981, around the time you hired Abu Nofel, the workers at Beged Or went on strike to protest the hiring of an Arab. Telhami rose to become a top candidate for CEO at Delta Galil with the support of founder Dov Lautman, who died in 2013. But by then Delta had been acquired, and the new owners vetoed Telhami as CEO. He left without bitterness, raised some money, and founded a startup Babcom, which now employs hundreds. I’m speculating that there was also some initial opposition to your Israeli Arab hires at Intel. How did you deal with this?I must admit that I do not recall any opposition. To the best of my recollection, Fuad and later the other Arab engineers were well accepted into the team and were treated like any other engineer. All these Arab engineers are my personal friends, and they have many other Jewish friends among their co-workers.I know you are deeply involved with many Israeli startups. In 2011, I wrote that there were 60,000 Israeli Arabs with college degrees, but only half worked in jobs that utilized their education. I doubt things are much better today. Arabs comprise only 3% of hi-tech workers, even though they make up 21% of the population. Israel has over 300 R&D centers established by foreign corporations, and they employ 8% of their work force as Arabs – but among start-ups that employ fewer than 500, Arabs make up only 1% of the workforce. What in your view could and should be done to improve employment of Arab engineers in hi-tech?Well, except for the defense sector, I see no reason why Arab engineers and scientists should not be hired in proportion to their share in the population of Israeli engineers, based on the proportion of Arab graduates of engineering degrees – which, I suspect, is close to their proportion in the overall population. By the way, I learned recently that in the Arab sector, the female population of university students and graduates exceeds 50%.I do not believe that there is discrimination against Arab graduates and candidates. The demand for good engineers is so high that any competent Arab engineer should easily find a job.However, some difficulties may arise for the following reasons. The vast majority of employment opportunities are in the greater Tel Aviv area. Since many of the Arab engineers may live in the Galilee or Negev, they may have a distance hardship, unless they are willing to relocate and live closer to where the jobs are. Also, as I noted, there is a majority of female Arab graduates. There may be some cultural constraints or family needs (getting married, raising children) that may prevent some of them from seeking industrial jobs rather than work closer to home in jobs such as teaching.There are growing numbers of start-ups in the Arab sector, but the numbers are still quite small. Can you state how you think entrepreneurship can be promoted in the Arab sector?I agree there is a need to encourage more entrepreneurship in the Arab sector. We do have some role models, such as Imad Telhami, Imad and Reem Younas (a Christian Arab couple who lead the Alpha-Omega company that produces a line of hi-tech products for neurosurgeons) or ‘our own’ (Technion’s) Prof. Hossam Haik (who invented an electronic nose and leads several promising start-ups). We should use them to show the way for young Arab innovators to have the courage to start initiatives.Note also the Moona center in Majd el-Kurum, yet another attempt to drive entrepreneurship and employment in the Arab Sector. (Moona is an advanced technology learning center founded by Asaf Brimer, located in an Arab village in Israel’s northern periphery).You were a pioneer in Intel’s hiring engineering students even before they graduated, for part-time work. What was your thinking?I look at Arabs engineers’ employment as part of a much broader issue. Let me try to describe it in a few words.While the Industrial Revolution in the 17th century put at its center automation, capital equipment, materials etc. as the key assets of industry, the Information Revolution clearly positions human capital as the No. 1 asset. For the past 50-plus years, industrial companies have had great difficulty hiring and retaining enough talent. Attracting good employees, primarily engineers and scientists, is a major challenge. So creative ways to lay hands on such talent early and retain them are vital.This is why Intel (and later many others) came to Israel in the first place. They had a hard time recruiting and retaining engineers in California.One creative way (for hiring top talent) today is common practice, but at the time that I introduced it, it was revolutionary: part-time employment of students while they are still studying. I pride myself as being the first who started this model in 1974, several months after Intel Israel was born, by hiring Ilan Gannot, a third-year electrical engineering student, and in the following year, I hired Yoav Talgam. They were the first such students.I dare not think how Intel Israel today could recruit new college graduates against the tough competition from start-ups and others, if it were not for employing them in their last two years of studies and then integrating them into permanent employment. I believe that this ‘employment revolution’ was far more impactful than hiring Arab engineers.The writer heads the Zvi Griliches Research Data Center at S. Neaman Institute, Technion, and blogs at www.timnovate.wordpress.com50 closed doors – one open one‘I got 50 rejection letters. Some were really terrible. I have kept them to this day. (After graduating), I went to a job fair. In front of me there were two employer tables. I chose the one on the right. At the table were Rafi Nave and an Intel HR manager. I asked them if they employ Arabs. They responded that they do not discriminate. If you’re good, we’ll take you. If not, we won’t.After I passed the first interview, we celebrated for a whole week in Nazareth! They called me back, and I passed the second and last interview successfully. I can say with full confidence that if I had chosen to go to the table on the left side, they would not have even glanced at my CV. I had tremendous good fortune that I chose to open this door – and it was not slammed in my face, like the other 50.Fuad Abu Nofel, the first Israeli Arab engineer to be employed by Intel, as recounted by Sagi Cohen, The Marker, May 8, 2019.
