JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The planned judicial reforms in Israel are making waves in Israel’s burgeoning hi-tech industry. On Tuesday, Tom Livne, founder of one of Israel’s most successful tech unicorns, declared that he was leaving the country and ceasing to pay taxes in protest over the proposed reforms.
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Livne’s hybrid AI-based and human transcription and captioning software company, Verbit, was valued at $2 billion in its last funding round in late 2022, but the 37-year-old hi-tech executive told Channel 12 that he encouraged other prominent tech executives to follow his lead.
“Over the past few years, I’ve paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes and my company has paid hundreds of millions in taxes,” he said. Livne explained that when the “tech sector, the engine that moves the economy, talks like this, they’ll come to the table and talk to us as equals.”
בלעדי: תום ליבנה, מייסד היוניקורן וורביט ששווה 2 מיליארד דולר מצהיר – יורד מהארץ ומפסיק לשלם מסים pic.twitter.com/DSRbDyPlSI
— עמליה דואק (@AmalyaDuek) January 31, 2023
Livne said that his solution to the right-wing government’s radical reforms would “hurt the government the most”. Verbit employs 200 workers in Israel and nearly 1000 abroad and its transcription services are used by numerous major companies including CNBC,CNN, and Fox as well as Harvard and Stanford universities.
Finance Minister Smotrich responded to Livne, telling him that he “hoped you will come back.”
Smotrich tweeted that “We don’t have another land, another people and another country. In any case, we promise with God’s help, to keep Israel Jewish and democratic, strong and economically prosperous, so that you and every Jew will always have a home to return to.”
Livne’s company however despite its high valuation is hardly an example of the success behind the Israeli hi-tech company. The company has yet to show significant profits despite revenue of 100 million dollars a year and last summer Livne was forced to dismiss 60 workers, tens of them in Israel, in an attempt to reach profitability. In a Globes interview at the time, Livne said that he models himself after Elon Musk and “if Musk fired 10%, then we can as well. Sometimes you have to make a diet.” Thus Livne has yet to provide the millions of tax dollars he claims he is producing annually for Israel.
Livne’s departure follows the departure of another tech unicorn, Papaya, whose founder Eynat Guez announced last week that she was “withdrawing all of the company’s funds from Israel,” calling it a “painful but necessary business step” in the wake of the proposed judicial reforms. Guez and Livne as well as other hi-tech entrepeneurs are concerned that the new environment will put off foreign investments which are the key to their companies’ growth.
Good riddance!!
> “my company has paid hundreds of millions in taxes”
The article claims that the company has yet to make “significant profits”. So how did they pay all those taxes without ever making “significant profits? (In fact, using the numbers in the article, it looks like the entire years revenue would have to be paid as taxes in order for his taxes claim to be realized.) And how did he personally pay all those taxes when his company has yet to make “significant profits? No wonder he needs all those “foreign investments”.
Go.
Don’t hit your head on the door post on the way out.
By the way, don’t come back.
Naaa your leaving because you got a better offer. See you in California
See ya! Enjoy San Fran Sicko!
Most people lie to make a point, so he lied. He probably paid hundreds of thousands of shekel. (or maybe hundreds of millions of the old sheqel).
Tzeischem leshalom! Israel needs to see an Exodus and leftists who are both destroying the country.
The reason that economies can flourish is because of rule of law that applies to everyone equally.
On the other hand, the supreme court in Israel has become more and more dictatorial.
Establishing a government of, by, and for the people is more important than one company, which in not even profitable.
The real shame is, and it’s very sad that such a large segment of the Israeli population which are Jewish, have no שייכות to yidishkeit. (Looking at his photo, I could picture him with a Yarmulke davening in shul etc). It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if much of the violent behavior of the chareidim and their strong animosity and disrespect towards fellow police officers, soldiers and to anyone “that doesn’t look like them” turns these people off in a major way.
First of all, his whole approach, and that of the Papaya founder, is faulty because they are only harming their fellow citizens by leaving and taking money and jobs with them, and firing a bunch of leftists in Tel Aviv.
Second of all, the logic is flawed. The judicial reforms actually increases the degree of democracy in the country. The courts are not elected or appointed by elected officials for the most part, so the less control they have, the more democracy there is.
Either way, these reforms have no bearing on their businesses, and will have no affect on investments, so this is simply:
The woman from papaya doing it for attention and an excuse to expand her personality in the USA, and him being a copy-cat thinking, following her lead without much independent thought, not realizing she is actually doing it for self-interest and using the popular political issue as a distraction for cover.
He’s duping himself, and will be less received in the leftist circles he’s looking to join in the USA than he can imagine, and all because he didn’t follow one peice of advice from the Chachomim:
Al tarbeh sicha I’m ha’isha
…it diminishes ones ability to distinguish what is what in a clear way…
Hashem Yishmor!!!
Already the Israeli currency has lost more than 2% of its value. If and when there are significant tax consequences and government revenue, what do you think will happen to those dependent upon government welfare?
i can’t believe the comments here…
Israel NEEDS innovators, scientists, taxpayers, industrialists. people who work, innovate, pay tax, go the army.
whos going to carry the country, whos going to pay for the military? whos going to fight terrorist’s? build roads, trans and infrastructure, who going to be the doctors??
the worst thing for Israel is to have a brain drain (like Iran and Russia have) it will choke the economy, degrade its army, and put Israel in danger
speechless.
go off to toeiva mexican california you Gdless atheist, the Zionist dream is falling apart and soon enough the country will be left with Arabs and shomer Shabbos folks and the 50% of the budget will be dedicated to limmud Torah and not the tumadik, teoiva supporting, feminist empowering IDF will be a shell of itself.