The Defense and Tech Podcast
Europe criticizes Israel in public, buys its tech in private
European governments condemn Israel publicly while their purchase orders arrive quietly, says IL Ventures co-founder Yoni Heilbronn, and interests, not politics, now decide everything. Heilbronn, who built automotive cybersecurity pioneer Argus before launching IL Ventures in 2021, argues the post-World War II order is finished. "Globalization as we knew it is pretty much dead," he tells the Jerusalem Post's Anna Ahronheim, describing a world of "real politik to the extreme" where geopolitical shocks hit corporate balance sheets within days rather than years. The consequence he thinks leaders underestimate: supply chains have not just shortened, they have fractured, and every country is now solving for itself. That fracture is where Israeli technology comes in, and where Heilbronn is unusually candid about the limits. He is openly skeptical that the defense tech gold rush suits venture capital at all, citing sales cycles and a thin field of acquirers. He explains Pax Silica, the US-led semiconductor alliance that placed Israel and Qatar under the same framework, and why he thinks Brazil, Mexico, and Southeast Asia matter more to Israeli startups right now than the well-worn road to Silicon Valley. He also tells the story of hacking into a global carmaker's internal network from a Tel Aviv office, using nothing but a component removed from a car. Produced and edited by Gadi Zaig and Shifra Jacobs.
