Invested by Aleph

On this episode of Invested, Michael sits down with Nir Zohar, President and former COO of Wix.com, who helped transform the company from a scrappy Tel Aviv startup into a global platform serving hundreds of millions. A former naval officer and Chief Engineer on a missile boat, Nir reflects on how military discipline and his years leading the Israeli Scouts shaped his philosophy that management is...

On this episode of Invested, Michael sits down with Gigi Levy-Weiss, a former Israeli attack helicopter pilot turned entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of the seed fund NFX. Gigi reflects on his journey from combat missions to leading companies like 888 and Playtika, highlighting lessons in leadership, military-style debrief culture, and the value of “good failures.” He shares his founder-firs...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Micha Kaufman, the founder and CEO of Fiverr - the global freelance marketplace that helped define the gig economy. Since launching the platform in 2010, Micha has led Fiverr from a scrappy, bootstrapped startup into a publicly traded company offering millions of services across hundreds of categories. Before that, he built three other companies and began...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Samuel Arbesman, the Scientist in Residence at Lux Capital. In addition, he is an xLab senior fellow at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management and a research fellow at the Long Now Foundation. He is the author of The Magic of Code, Overcomplicated, and The Half-Life of Facts, and his writing has appeared in such places as the N...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts two of the co-founders of Dream, Shalev Hulio and Sebastian Kurz.  Sebastian Kurz is a former Austrian politician who served as Chancellor of Austria from 2017 to 2019, and again from 2020 to 2021. A member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), he began his political career in the party's youth wing, rising to prominence as State Secretary for Integration...

In this deeply personal episode, Michael Eisenberg pauses the usual cadence of Invested to deliver a powerful message about the unfolding war between Israel and Iran. Five days into a conflict triggered by Iran’s escalating aggression, Michael shares an unfiltered account of the situation on the ground, from nightly missile attacks targeting civilians to Israel’s unprecedented precision response a...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Gali Arnon, former Chief Business Officer at Fiverr, the global freelance marketplace that connects businesses with independent talent. Gali joined Fiverr in 2017 as Chief Marketing Officer, helping lead the company’s transformation into a globally recognized brand and guiding its growth through a successful IPO. She later served as Chief Business Officer...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Eli Ben-Sasson, a co-founder and CEO of StarkWare, and Chairman of its Board of Directors. StarkWare is a Sequoia-backed startup whose latest fundraise was at a $8b valuation. StarkWare specializes in the productization of zero knowledge proofs via Starknet, a permissionless blockchain that scales both Ethereum and Bitcoin. Eli has been researching crypto...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Katie Stanton, the Founder and General Partner of Moxxie Ventures, which is an early-stage venture fund. Prior to Moxxie, Katie served in numerous executive operating roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and Color. In addition to working in Silicon Valley, Katie served in the (Obama) White House and State Department and began her career as a banker at JP Morg...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Sarah Tavel. Sarah is a General Partner at Benchmark, where she invests in network effect businesses and applications leveraging AI. Sarah currently sits on the boards of Agentio, Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, Glide, Cambly, Medely, and 11x. She is also a founding member of All Raise, the nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Omri Casspi. Omri was a trailblazing Israeli professional basketball player, becoming the first Israeli-born athlete to play in the NBA. He enjoyed a 11-year career in the league, playing for teams including the Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors—where he won an NBA championship in 2018—and Memphis Grizzlies, among others. After reti...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Amir Shevat. Amir is a General Partner at Darkmode Ventures, investing in early stage startups. Before joining the dark side, Amir held executive roles at Microsoft, Google, Slack, Amazon, and Twitter. Amir is the author of Designing Bot, and Building Web API both published with O'Reilly media. Please rate this episode 5 stars wherever you stream your pod...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Dan Davidi, a distinguished scientist and entrepreneur known for his groundbreaking work in computational and synthetic biology. Davidi earned his Ph. D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he developed expertise in systems biology and metabolism. Following his doctoral studies, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical Sch...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Noam Bardin, an Israeli entrepreneur and high-tech executive. He is best known as the CEO of Waze, leading the company from its early days in Israel in 2009, through its acquisition by Google for $1.15 billion, and later serving as a Vice President at Google until 2021. Under his leadership, Waze grew to 150 million monthly users and became a globally bel...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Sender Cohen. Sender was previously the Chief Investment Officer at Schusterman Family Investments where he managed a multi-billion dollar portfolio including the assets of the Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. Sender's prior roles include President of Soros Capital, Director of Research and Head of External Allocations at Soros Fund Managemen...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Katherine Boyle, a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. She is the co-founder of the firm’s American Dynamism practice, which invests in companies supporting the national interest across aerospace, defense, manufacturing, energy, logistics, and critical infrastructure. She sits on the boards of Apex Space and Hadrian Automation and is a board observer...

On this episode of Invested, Michael argues that TikTok needs to be banned, looking back at pivotal discussions from the Invested podcast over the past year with key business leaders, security experts and former TikTok employees.  The guests featured, in order of appearance: Sam Lessin, General Partner at Slow Ventures Jacob Helberg, Commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Comm...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Jessica Lessin. Jessica is the founder and CEO of The Information, the publication known for original, in-depth reporting about technology and business. In eight years, Lessin has grown The Information into one of the largest subscription journalism communities in the world, attracting an influential audience of business leaders globally. Lessin has cover...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts May Piamenta, the co-founder and CEO of Vee. May started her first business, Pineapple, at 14 years old and sold it right before she turned 17. She was a community services manager at RoboActive, followed by a role as an international project lead at First, a global robotics community. May then joined the IDF, where she was an electronics warfare commande...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Adam Fisher, one of the most prolific early stage investors in Israel with over two decades of experience investing across the technology stack. He established Bessemer's Israel office in 2007 and has invested in more than 60 companies primarily at the Seed and Series A stages. Over his career, Adam has helped 24 companies reach successful exits, includin...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Roland Fryer, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a co-founder of Equal Opportunity Ventures, an early stage seed fund, and several start-ups.  Roland sits on several boards with an emphasis on business analytics, talent management, and product strategy. His research combines economic theory, big data, AI, and randomized social experiments...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Oren Etzioni, Harvard’s first computer science graduate, venture partner, startup founder and a prominent AI researcher.  Oren Etzioni is Professor Emeritus of computer science, and founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). Etzioni is the founder and CEO of TrueMedia.org, a non-profit dedicated to fighting political deepfakes,...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist, serial founder and philanthropist. Joe Lonsdale is the Founder and Managing Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing over $6 billion in capital. In 2003, he founded Palantir Technologies (NYSE:PLTR), a global software company known for its work supporting US and its allies’ defense and intelligence....

On this episode of Invested, Michael looks back on the incredible and tragic stories from October 7th within the Israeli tech ecosystem, that were shared on the Invested podcast over the past year. The guests whose stories are featured on this episode, in order of appearance: Ami Daniel - CEO and co-founder of Windward Izhar Shay - Venture Partner with Disruptive AI Beezer Clarkson - Partner at Sa...

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist, political strategist, philanthropist, and the author of “Vote With Your Phone: Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot At Saving Democracy.”  Bradley’s family foundation is funding and leading the national campaign to bring mobile voting to all U.S. elections. Tusk Philanthropies also runs and funds anti-hunger campaigns th...