Tag: Twitya2020

Launchpad Israel: The Aftermath – 2006 and Beyond

– part 1 of 5: Beyond Blacklists: EXPOSURE!

updated: 13 June 2023

In Israel, I believe or rather know that I was “downranked” within that society in late 2006 via extensive personal observation. This continued for many years. It is a conscious effort to neutralize someone’s influence in society… and quite possibly much, much worse within an “orange-ray emotional blockage” context.

This was done utterly unfairly, I feel, and corresponding to my experience street-drumming where gangs could “start on me,” I think it was a way to assert dominance. This “downranking” was done from the top-down and of course unbeknownst to me. The judge, jury and executioner never knew me, or barely, with lies probably making up for solid information – if they even had any.

It’s also worth noting that:

“Absent a basic document protecting human rights (Israel has no written Constitution), the Supreme Court is considered by many as the last bastion protecting the civil rights of citizens (and non-citizens, including Palestinians) against government actions and laws.” – src, 2023

The country is in the Middle East after all. So the key to assert power over someone is to keep them blindsided of hostile intent so they can’t bring it to court. And those courts are in the process of being weakened anyway.

The place can easily resort to Jew-on-Jew thug life based on social and economic violence. I have even said elsewhere:

“I have a hypothesis that the only character trait that Israelis have that extends beyond their toughness is their idiocy.”

So shouldn’t those protesters be yearning for a bill-of-rights? Wouldn’t that garner more positive international attention? How does a brute un-brute him/herself? The God of the Torah can be very vicious too, unless someone is reaching deeply into the Kabbalah. Those secular protesters probably have a lot of self-righteous indignation and they’ll lose that fight. It could be a good time to start a new political party – The Judges Party, People First or Reversal.

Regardless, I suspect this downranking came after a series of 3 blog posts (from late 2006) I wrote about interactions with VCs that I had had at the time. They weren’t critical blogposts I feel, more “matter-of-fact here’s how my experience went that day.” The posts might’ve been something like you’d find on thefunded.com (launched early 2007) – but in reality much less innocuous.

I don’t even think they were critical at all – but people can believe what they want to believe. The main, or rather only reason the posts went up was to create new content and to write something from a boots-on-the-ground, fresh perspective. The Launchpad Israel (LPI) blog was unpopulated at the time. If I visited or spoke to a VC about my startup, why not write about it?

Moreover, the blog posts came in context with the work I had already started in Melbourne in 2003, for which I had even previously met a VC firm there – Momentum VC. I met 3 individuals at that firm at the time, with the main contact being Tim Ingram. I also met Ron Finkel very briefly and also saw Doron Ben-Meir who many years prior was my tennis coach.

source

And I retained this vision into my Israeli VC meetings a few years later, and below are screenshots of the VC-specific vision I was working toward in 2003: Awarenex.

[1] [2]

Phase 1: Awarenex is a venture capital brokerage firm utilising the Web to match opportunities with investors. Essentially, AwareNex aggregates startup investment opportunities and matches each one to its network of angel investors. Startups companies pay AwareNex a commision for each investment made by any angel in its network. 

Phase 2: Awarenex creates and manages a venture capital fund that pools its investors' money over the web from a cartel consisting of high net-worth individuals who are clients of Awarenex's alliance partner banks. The fund partners with top-tier, venture capital firms to co-invest in their syndicate deals.
 
~ source

Part of the problem in Melbourne was that the VC scene was practically non-existent, perhaps Awarenex could’ve changed that. Also, perhaps it was a mistake to mention Awarenex in Israel with VCs as that would invoke rivalry – I was meant to be an entrepreneur and not coming in from a financier’s perspective. Often I wasn’t sure if I should be pitching GrooveTip, Awarenex, LPI or simply for a job. I pitched both GrooveTip and Awarenex to Tim Ingram and his suggestion for Awarenex was to start with a newsletter and with GrooveTip to first find revenues.

Launpad Israel wasn’t Awarenex, but it was aimed at adopting this vision specifically for the Israeli VC scene after funding and customized software development. LPI had multiple functions with a blog being only one. It was also meant to become a database of companies, people and events.

Another site, StartupIsrael.com started very soon after LPI launched. However, according to this post (and shown below), StartupIsrael launched first – in November 2006 – but I dispute that. LPI launched in October as already mentioned here and shown below [see post]. I also don’t consider it a competitor.

TechAviv, a still-running startup community which I joined, even began during LPI’s operation.

I listed one angel investor on LPI who was based in Monterey, California and he said he received multiple leads after being on it. I think he made two investments because of his listing, I am not sure. My concern was that after seeing MySpace take-off, I realized I missed that opportunity because GrooveTip used off-the-shelf software and really needed proper custom development to integrate its components – which I was looking to do anyway, but I wasn’t a hardcore programmer.

Continuing on, I even removed the most controversial post – the one about Mr Dibner (with its one sentence about being rejected)  after I was queried on the post by Jon Aizen (JA) who later said in an email “The issue was dropped when you removed the post.” However, it turns out it wasn’t the case. Removing the post and even taking down the blog in hindsight was really the mistake. It was never about the post… I think it was about me.

So once I took my LPI blog and twitter down, I was much more open to slander and misinformation. And even if this is an unjustifiably paranoid statement (I don’t think it is,) it’s still true regardless, whereby if  one removes their online presence, and others don’t like your presence as a whole, then alternative narratives can more easily arise without proper information to counter those narratives – especially if one doesn’t know about what’s happening.

After this, JA and his CEO Eran Shir uninvited me (and someone else) to his startup’s (Dapper) NYE party and I had been providing solid feedback to them up until that point. Perhaps JA was even interested in having me as an early employee. Over email, JA asked me for an apology for Mr Dibner, but instead I just removed the post about him (and the other 2 VCs) about 4 days later. I didn’t apologize on that day because I didn’t believe I did any harm to Mr Dibner, nor did I intend harm. And whatever I apparently did to him (ie nothing,) over 15 years later it has never stopped him from launching 2 VC funds.

To this day, I have never met JA in person, or even spoken to him verbally and lost contact soon after. I know nothing about who was involved in this “request for apology” and the merit or consequences that it entailed. I also felt it was strange to have JA used as a messenger boy for victim consciousness. I didn’t even know what JA looked like… he had no online profile picture. Yet more importantly I don’t think I did either (or videos of myself,) and did that make me somehow less credible as a person and rather more as a potential target-for-life?

Straight from victim to villain-by-proxy!

Must one be in the corridors-of-power to have any power?

Being uninvited to Dapper’s NYE party was the watershed moment for me. My blog even received around 80 visitors in the space of a few minutes while the VC posts were up – Israeli visitors. The posts had caught the attention of people – negative attention I suspect.

pic

And when I finally left Israel in late November 2018 with my belongings, I received many visitors in a very short period of time at the beginning of the month.

Those photos were posted on the 5th of November and taken at the Dizengoff center. The influx of visitors probably had nothing to do with me leaving. Or was it because the Ormus King was escaping with his life?… nahh.

Continuing, Dapper was acquired by Yahoo in 2010. And as with Yedda and Moshtix that were also acquired in those years, with all 3 I had been providing solid feedback and help to those firms in their startup period only to be eventually ignored – or worse. But if nothing’s in writing, that’s part of business I suppose… to a certain extent.

Interestingly, my twitter account @bitrific (since renamed @adrianboron1) I feel was instrumental in promoting Bitcoin in its earlier years, with content drawn from Hacker News.

source 2

Hackers and other users were using this account to chime in on conversations about Bitcoin on Hacker News.

Also, my other @btcprice account linked every tweet to the following price page that I created especially for that account (although the first June 2011 tweet did not.)

1 2 3

I was in contact with Meni Rosenfeld and Vibhu Mohindra back then too.

At the same time, a couple of years earlier in 2009 I had setup some very pro-Israeli (and US) unofficial twitter feeds including the all important debkafile and a number of others including israelnatnews,  israelnatbriefs, israelnatopin, investisrael, lpijobs, globesbiz, stratforintel, globesec and amthinker. I still run these to this day.

In 2009 I also wrote an interesting piece on regime change in Iran (and also on the Two State Solution.)

source | 2

I was in contact with the editor at American Thinker for the Iranian essay, but for some reason it was never published there after some emails. Perhaps my heart was in the right place, but my vision was not. Maybe I was “checked out” beforehand. Today, in 2021, with barely any real changes to each of these wars, I am more of the view that they are staged for political gain or armament sales – aren’t many wars?

Also, while I was developing Cleanzap.com in 2007/08 as a business directory for the CleanTech space to run alongside its own blog, Crunchbase was also launched as a directory to run alongside the Techcrunch blog, with both acquired in 2010.

CleanZap started as the next iteration of LPI to be a database alongside its blog – just as Crunchbase became to Techcrunch.

pic 1: 23 July 2008

So it was like I was doing R&D for Michael Arrington:

Who got crunched?

Also, in March 2009 I built and launched Twitya.com – a twitter browser and client.


Twitya was a “Better Twitter than Twitter” for me to read news as I disliked the “river of feeds” on Twitter home. I think amongst other things spammers used it to discover meaningful interactions of any given user.

I may well have been first to invent the “show more” drop-down list.. soon after used by YT for their video comment sections. I should’ve patented it. This evolved into Infinite Scroll. Twitya also used a client-side 3-pane floating interface Web 2.0-style. Perhaps I should’ve patented that too. I strongly suspect this was emulated in September 2010 by Twitter itself with its client-side driven floating 2-pane floating interface:

[ pic 1 | 2 | 5 ]

further info here

In view of all this copying, I am not surprised Disney used Ormus King as a starting point for The Rise of Skywalker which I elaborate upon here. That film had a box office of $1 Billion, and I suppose it could’ve been much worse without its emulated vision.

Interestingly, I don’t think I was the only one that experienced such a “downranking” thing. It must be part of Israeli life. At a tech conference, a fellow sitting next to me pointed out another person literally following him around and talking – ie spooking – everyone he spoke to almost immediately afterward to turn them off him. He described some sort of bizarre situation that led him to that one, and I quizzed him, “but why don’t you confront him on it?” and he said “then there’d really be trouble.”

During another situation, at Entrepreneur Perspective as a VC (7 October 2010,) the speaker (Eden Shochat) asked if there was anyone that preferred English, and I raised my hand, yet Mr Shochat  still ran his talk in Hebrew. The slides were in English. There was another person that only spoke English at the front of the room. Someone (from Intentia.co.il) gave me a lift home and said it was really odd.

My blog (Launchpad Israel) was removed from the blogrolls of Daniel Cohen (Dec 2008 -> Jan 2009) and Roi Carthy (Feb 2009 -> July 2009.) But by that time, my blog wasn’t in the same form as it was when originally launched.

By mid-2007 I was back in Melbourne living with my mum (after ~1.5 years in Israel) and helping Jeremy Rich and his solar startup with SugarCRM customization. We also went to Mount Buller together.

[pic 4: business process diagram: 17 Jul 2007]

Rich’s firm (Energy Matters) was eventually acquired in 2014.

Interestingly, during this period I also worked for a small Israel/Europe VC firm for 3 days but the spreadsheet work wasn’t at all creative. I covered the firm’s launch on LPI and this led me to the job – which I tried so hard to like – but at least I did it though. By the end of the year I had started a new site, “Adrian Wajsbrem Blog” that covered similar topics to LPI but with more music and hobbies.

[pic 3]

During this period in Melbourne I was always thinking about returning to Israel. I started reading Torah everyday. I also held Skype conversations (one recorded) with a couple of Israeli entrepreneurs including Nir Kouris (eCampIsrael) who I later met in Tel Aviv with his co-founder, and the other with Dudu Mimran for his blog-search site (strategicboard.com.)

I eventually returned to Israel in early 2008 after going through Canada for further Heartcarve research, which continued at Mount Buller in 2007 and started in 2002.

Carving Blackcomb 2008

Lastly, my trouble could well have been related to non-conformity whereby I documented here “Price Tag” activism sprayed on a wall near to where I played drums in 2016. In decrypting it years later, I realized I could have (and could still??) “DISAPPER.”

Playlist: Different ones

One reason this whole drama is pertinent today is related to the Trump de-platforming:

"I think there has been lots of deplatforming of conservatives and I always think that the actual censorship that people talk about is just the tip of the iceberg and the real problem is the downranking. One of the top Google executives used to always say 5 or 6 years ago we never sensor anybody we just downrank people and the downranking was the far more insidious way to sort of tilt the playing field of the discourse. But there has been outright censorship, outright deplatforming and when you do it with the President of the United States, that does feel like you really crossed some kind of rubicon where you know I’m not sure you declare war on half the country but maybe a third, forty percent of the country and that seems really crazy. When you have Angela Merkle and Obrador from Mexico saying that the tech platforms have been too anti Trump, too mean to Mr. Trump that tells you you have probably really overreached.

Peter Thiel - vid here

So with my 2006 “Israeli downranking” (or worse) – and I have vast notes* on what took place with those starting off as unpleasant memories – the problem is that a sort of war on liberty is declared with everyone who once knew me, or wants to know me. Someone is telling them: you can’t freely associate with that person, you might have to deplatform yourself or even go into hiding in order to elicit a response from the target that we can then ideally prosecute. That is, legal prosecution; or alternately execution. And even if you disagree with all this, do it anyway.

* The notes were first taken in Australia and based on memories from Israel and I jotted them down because I had trouble sleeping and not out of vindictiveness – just like this set of articles.

Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations, and counter-terrorism. It is separate from the democratic institutions of Israel; because no law defines its purpose, objectives, roles, missions, powers or budget, and because it is exempt from the constitutional laws of the State of Israel, Mossad has been described as a deep state. Its director answers directly and only to the Prime Minister. ~ Wikipedia

 

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And so then that person becomes submissive (or faces the same fate.) So the question becomes, is all this top-down fear justified, is it healthy? Will a society like that even survive long-term? Why do it?

Perhaps it was because I was Australian and I could be used as a whipping boy (hurt me to hurt an untouchable other) or just as some type of scapegoat. For example, during the British mandate period, 1917-1948, members of the Jewish underground were imprisoned in Jerusalem in the Russian compound (below center and right, Ormus King 2) and then executed in Akko.

In this way, the Union Jack could (sometimes) be seen as a blessing to Israelis, but also a curse – due to the Balfour Declaration. However, if I were to resent something, it would be that Israel is referred to as a State (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎) and not a Country, and this reinforces my view that Israel could be renamed to “The State of Israel-2B” – but to eventually be called “The Kingdom of Israel.” And to assist with this, I created an epic tale (documented here) that takes Israel in its current form to this idealized Kingdom which Jews around the world yearn for in their daily prayers, as enabled by a black messiah with his sidekick Adrian Boron.

So the reason for the downranking in 2006 could’ve been anything – or nothing. It was likely used for self-gain or sick sport. In the end, I started my startup BopGig in 2010 with American talent. “Too Bad” – and that’s the key phrase that no one seems to know how to use within this situation. And perhaps ironically, Indiana Jones actually saved me.

 

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✓ 2 years ago

Israel Tech Scene 2006-2011

– part 3 of 5: Beyond Blacklists: EXPOSURE!

I attended a number of tech events in Israel – really I could have gone to Israel straight after uni, 4 years earlier… or not at all!

last updated: 27 October 2022

The first event I attended was the IVA Annual Conference 2006 – press release (now removed, April 17):

src | 2 | 3

This was a great conference and Shimon Peres even accepted an award. Amazing days just before mass use of smartphones!

I had a few meetings in Herzliya Pituach after that event in order to raise finance for GrooveTip or whatever came next.

In June 2008 whilst living in Tel Aviv, I went to MashBash and in July 2008, I went to TWS2008.

In August 2008 I attended iDrink #9 at Beach Bar in Herzliya Pituach.

Then in September I made it to Mobile Monday.

Forum Nokia at Mobile Monday TLV, Sept 2008

On 14 Feb 2009 while building Twitya.com, I attended the tech workshop Eurekamp.

Pic 3 Yossi Vardi can be seen sitting.

פרק 31 – Eurekamp 2009 from Yosi Taguri on Vimeo.

..see me at timecodes 3.14, 3.22, 6:03, 10:38, 12:20:

I have no personal photos of me at Eurekamp except for the video stills above, but I can be seen wearing the same Industrie jacket below. My name is also on the attendees list (source) and I did give a talk called Web Conglomerate.

CV 2008 | Extra WebC info: 1 2 3

Further notes on my Eurekamp 2009 experience, please see here.

So after building Twitya.com during this period, I attended the TechAviv Town Hall Meeting on 2 Sep ’09 having already begun work on Bopgig.

Then I submitted a business plan on 17 Nov ’09 into the TechAviv Angels group for judgement regarding Bopgig (then GigPop.)

[pic 2: 16 Nov 2009 | pic 3: 17 Nov 2009]

It got into the top 10 out of ~45 entries, which was considered a very good result especially because there was no working product at that stage. I ended up sending that business plan to Michael Eisenberg, but he did not reply – that really raised a red flag with me. When I asked if I could send the business plan, he replied “Send Away!” I suppose I should’ve called as well. I had never actually met Mr Eisenberg before but we did exchange a few emails prior to this although I am not 100% sure – I am locked out of a gmail account.

As an aside, I met Ariel Finkelstein at his office for a job at Kampyle in ~2007 and was rejected – that rejection may have been related to all this.. or not. Pity, I could have really assisted him. I enjoyed meeting Jacob Ner-David around this time – nice guy – many vegans are! I also had a job interview at Kontera in ~2008 and was also rejected… but perhaps my rough sketches were a little too… rough, or was it something else!?! I got a call from a woman at Wix at one point when it was just starting for an employment opportunity but I waxed and waned. I was in contact with Ori Soen from MuseStorm, and if they had only raised a new funding round, I may have ended up working there.. or nipped in the bud.. or were they nipped in the bud?! I met with the late Alon Hochberg (SeeToo) and Vitaly Sirota (FoxyTunes) together but that was more for brainstorming. I remember sending suggestions to FoxyTunes back then and they were acquired by Yahoo in 2008. I also met David Kariv from Copenda for a Yogo ice-cream in Neve Tzedek and suggested to keep the site as simple as possible to emulate Plenty Of Fish. This led to a redesign. But the only date I was seeking was a date with destiny!

Continuing, I also spoke to Sequoia and they were interested, but ultimately said there was overlap. Randy Ditzler spoke to his partners about it after speaking to me. Did they call up the “Israelis” to see if I was “legit?”

I was irked when I saw that EventBrite obtained Sequoia as a new investor.

This announcement came prior to my conversation with Mr Ditzler because I remember mentioning Roelof Botha in the call. I am confident (but not certain as yet) that the announcement came after I submitted my business plan to the firm. I am presently attempting (unsusccesfully so far) to enter a Gmail account that should clarify this. Also, my startup was called Gigpop at the time and I switched to Bopgig because I liked the reference to Bebop or a “Bebop gig.” Today I’d use Gigpop with ‘pop’ referring to a father that’s into gigs or just “the father of gigs”.

source

Interestingly, before my discussion with Sequoia I listened to a long interview with Rupert Murdoch, and in my conversation I think I was channeling his style which left a good impression.

Platonix weren’t interested in working with me although the emails with Yishai Beeri were fun. In the last minute, it stayed platonic.

Continuing, I proceeded with Bopgig using US-based developers after the TechAviv comp.

In April 2011, I went to TheMarker Com.Vention while still working on Bopgig.

And that was my final tech conference attended in Israel… for now.

* NB: I also attended OpenCoffee Club and GarageGeeks meetups. In addition, I went to a few one-off events, some even in the CleanTech space as I was interested in wave energy and I was working on an idea called WaveTrific.

Note: Izhar Shay is shown here because I came across him more than any other person out of all the tech events I went to in Israel (except for Shai Tsur.) He even spoke at the IVA Annual Conference 2006 – its press release was removed some months ago (shown at top.)

I even met with Mr Shay after that event with regards to GrooveTip and an internship. In that meeting I suggested that he start a blog, but he said he was interested in keeping a low-profile. It is surprising to see how that self-image has changed over the years. He moved into politics in 2019 alongside Benny Gantz at the time I was working on Ormus King 5.

At the 2006 IVA event, I remember Shay saying on stage something like “the enemies of Israel are not with us anymore” – what did he mean by that? Who can speak for Israel as a whole? What was he talking about? People found to be enemies already residing within Israel? Was that going to be me? Did he mean the enemies of the Jews or the enemies of Israel …am I not remembering correctly? At Aish HaTorah Essentials in 2005, Rabbi Ken Spiro mentioned the enemies of the Jews all eventually disappearing in his WorldPerfect talk.

Also, I don’t necessarily agree with Shay, Iran has been a nuclear threat to Israel since the early 2000s. In 2021, to me going after Iran (as has been done) is like someone chasing their own shadow. Why haven’t they disappeared yet?

At TWS2008 (Prime Sagol), Shay walked up to me outside the hall and acted entitled to hear a pitch of mine. I think he saw me speaking to his friend Ofer Wald and that demonstrated some sort of social proof, yet at the time I was already speaking to many entrepreneurs over email, and had even met a few in person. I even covered TWS on my blog.

– Mr Eisenberg second from left, Mr Shay second from the right | source

Before he left, he asked about who my relatives were in Israel, to which I replied an aunt. Perhaps I told him her name as well, or I told him her name at our initial meeting at Aroma (Herzliya Pituach.) I did not end up pitching to him and I think that irritated him. He also blatantly inspected the top of my head, I presume to see if I was wearing a yarmulka. So I was “off the derech,” but was I ever on it ?!?

From 3 days to around a week later an IDF officer thumped 3 times very loudly on my door at the Great Twitya Pad.

I was sweating after having been rollerblading. He spoke in very loud Hebrew but I could only reply in English. He kept speaking, but I didn’t understand. He walked off in a huff. At the time I was over 26 – the usual conscript age-limit.

I think I was geolocated using my phone and was to have “rank pulled” on me. Then again, this officer may have just been lost or looking for directions. Many people did knock on my door, but I’ll never know – I doubt it though because he was very directed in the way he walked off and the knocking and tone of voice was abnormal.

At the TechAviv Town Hall Meeting on 2 Sep 2009, Mr Shay came and sat two seats away with his new associate (I think it was Adi Pundak-Mintz) right next to me. Shai Tsur (who I had first met before at the 2006 IVA Conference) sat down a chair or two away at about the same time. Scott Tobin (and his associate David Sokolic) sat behind me who I even said a few words to when he forgot something mid public intro. The only thing Mr Shay said to me was “you can stay” while looking at Gil Dibner who was sitting on the riser – and that’s the last thing I heard him say directly to me. Also, when I introduced myself to the room (I remained seated) and announced my idea for BopGig to sell downloads and tickets, he leaned over in full view of everyone and tried to disrupt me – or at least signal to the room something about me – something bad I presume. I got the impression that he was smug about his new associate also seated next to me – a position I may have taken when I was interested in an internship back in 2006.

Then, when someone spoke to the room and complained about VCs micro-managing entrepreneurs, I saw a few people begin staring at Mr Shay. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did micro-manage entrepreneurs. I also got the impression that he had Anal retentiveness * back at TWS 2008  when he checked to see if I was wearing a yarmulka (mentioned above) because he also blatantly checked my shoes. I was wearing Converse All-Star at the time.  He also exhibited some strange body language where he was looking around to see who was looking at him. ​Anal retentiveness is something that I think can be determined with certain micro-expressions such as leaning onto tiptoes and staring intensely onto people – something Mr Shay did to me.​ It can also be overcome with Yoga. That’s my own theory (I’ve seen someone else with AR tendencies do it to me) and Anal retentiveness also doesn’t need to be taken literally in terms of someone with a tense sphincter and could be used as an adjective of someone’s character.

* I deny being vindictive here although I am passing judgement – as I perceive he and others have done to me. I have no ill will. In practice, it means he is someone I would not actively seek association with in the future – and he probably feels the same! Who needs the stress?!?

When I first met Izhar Shay in late 2006 after 2 thoughtful cold-emails to obtain such a meeting (after hearing him at IVA 2006 – he came across as very smart,) his expression turned to horror when he first saw me – there was no profile pic of me online prior to that. Also, when I first met Mr Dibner at Genesis Partners, he initially shook my hand like he was holding a wet rag that he wanted to let go of as soon as humanly possible. At least they met me, but was there hidden prejudice?

A relevant quote from Dec 31, 2021:

"Rich and proudly unpopular is a whole thing in today's political scene."

...

"Yep, a lot of people who don't like criticisms of capitalism fail to understand that this system is disguised as a meritocracy but in reality it's a game and you win it by shaking off any moral scruples and stepping on everyone else."

- Hacker News comments: Peter Thiel hires disgraced ex-Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz

That said, I should never have setup those meetings and I had a strong feeling not to go to those meetings or get too involved in that scene at all. Those were timelines I was (and am?) steering clear of. However, the rational, business-oriented, western-trained mind is very strong. Rather, I think my role was to simply live in the holy cities, avoid cults and meet whoever I needed to meet. Even my time studying Gemara was really too powerful for comfort. If I was a Torah master in a previous life, why should I become one again? I can just dream up knowledge whenever it’s needed. Sometimes one doesn’t need to learn.. they need to remember.

Continuing, when Mr Shay finally stood to leave the event, the final look in his eye (as he looked at mine) was very strange, like he was on a mission and something had gone very awry. Maybe it was part of a “Tom and Jerry” scene that I mentioned in Israel Revisited because the look corresponded to my previous discussion with him at TWS2008 (mentioned above) that may have resulted in an IDF officer thumping on my door a few days later.

When Mr Dibner introduced himself, I saw Mr Shay on the edge of his seat (to my left) and ready to tackle me to the ground like I was about to pull a gun or throw something at the riser. Then, when Mr Dibner introduced himself, I got the impression that Mr Dibner was very faintly crying for a few moments whereby I heard (and saw) a sniffle or two just as his boss Jonathan Saacks stared at him (from a few meters) to his left in slight embarrassment (possibly anger.) Yet although there might have been guilt, I doubt there was shame whereby despite all odds, I had made it to a sought-after entrepreneurs’ meetup where people were supposed to help each other and not hinder each other. To me, this only signaled to those opposed to me to step up their efforts. “Why is this Adrian guy even here?”

Ofer Wald, Shai Tsur and Yoav Leitersdorf weren’t too keen to speak to me at this event. Interestingly, I spoke to both Wald and Tsur pretty easily at the next TechAviv event and even have a recording of that (see further down). That next event was after TechAviv Angels.

  • pic ref and source below.
  • Mr Saacks in the navy blue top and beige pants (legs crossed) looking directly at the camera.
  • Yaron Samid stands.
  • Mr Dibner is on the far left of the riser (unseen) although that vaguely looks like him with arms-crossed.
  • Myself, Shay, Tsur, Tobin, Sokolic off-screen behind Wald (dark red shirt with laptop looking down.)
  • Uri Levanon – dark gray shirt with left hand at chest level, two seats up from Wald.
  • By the end of that meetup, there were people overflowing into the entry hall unable to find a seat and I vaguely recall seeing David Nordell and also Erez Perlmuter who I chatted with briefly as I did also at Eurekamp sitting at a table.

Two months later I later went to the Nov ’09 Meetup and then straight afterward got a lift to the Tel Aviv Hilton with Boris Nadion and his team to meet up with my mother and grandmother. Initially in the foyer a bunch of guys were staring hard at me with the ‘evil eye’ until I turned my back on them – why?

While I sat near Nadion and his team during the actual talk, at that event I ended up speaking to many people in the foyer and auditorium and I actually recorded those conversations (including with Nadion) along with much of the talk itself. Someone even kindly gave me Yossi Vardi’s mobile number. I was ready to continue interviewing my grandmother that night at her hotel, and I decided to place my recorder in my pocket. This allowed me to later evaluate my pitching style and rapport.

Continuing, I had already spoken to Nadion at iDrink #9 (see pic higher up with him next to Sun Microsystems logo.) I had also met with Nadion and his team prior to iDrink as a team-for-hire. I almost hired them for Bopgig but ended up using the USA guys I found on Hacker News.

Also, I was at a Water Tech event in Tel Aviv (Watec 2009) around a week earlier, and Shai Tsur when he was standing next to me whispered in the ears of a couple of people sitting down close to him and their expressions turned to horror as they stared at me (very similar to Mr Shay above.) What did he say to them? Was it about me? I think they may have been partners at his firm Giza Venture Capital. All I was interested in was wave energy (my WaveTrific bringing SDE to Australia via Energy Matters) and water desalination. It was during the afternoon, outside, and underneath a sun-shade. Interestingly, SDE turned out to be basically ineffective in delivering, so I moved on.

Also, another Israeli firm Eco Wave Power adopted an essentially identical design to SDE in 2011 as founded by an ex staff-member, Inna Braverman.

What if you could charge your Tesla with the power of the waves

I wonder if this design will ever become popular without a massive shift in consciousness – not that the tech isn’t good, but due to “industry resistance” – same with zero-point (free) energy. Eco Wave Power has only seen 2 small-scale installations setup so far. Is society ready to move to wave energy on a large-scale or will it stagnate? However, it is publically listed so that should bring encouragement.

Moreover, I highly doubt their design has defensible IP due to the Prior Art of the SDE system that was launched in 2010.

SDE - sea wave power plant installed at JAffa port

source

That doesn’t mean Eco Wave Power isn’t, can’t and won’t do a great job – it just means competitors could come from anywhere.

“Eco Wave Power holds 17 patents and patents pending, including patents in the United States and Europe, as well as an International PCT on its proprietary technology.” source

… I should hope so. Mr Ovadia has many patents listed on his LinkedIn page.  Wouldn’t Eco Wave Power’s clash with these? Are Mr Ovadia’s patents still valid? Are they in the public domain?

See here and here –  “System for conversion of sea wave energy” (also – 1 2)

Interestingly, Mr Ovadia filed a patent in 2013 that was withdrawn in 2014 suggesting he wasn’t collaborating with EWP at that time… or was he? Maybe Mr Ovadia has a stake in EWP or they have licensed his designs. Maybe not. I also wonder if Ms Braverman signed a non-compete with SDE as I did.

With regards to Braverman, I was in extensive email communications with SDE and I met the CEO Shmuel Ovadia in person twice (first in October 2008 with a family member present.)

At one point, I showed him the sales agreement I received via email and he was shocked to see it. I ended up using that agreement to talk to Energy Matters (via Jeremy Rich) in Australia.

Mr Ovadia spoke English reasonably well but all the emails from SDE were of very high proficiency and were sent from “Shmuel Ovadia” in the footer (unless that was blank.) More than likely it was either Ms Braverman or someone else acting as an intermediary for Mr Ovadia, and even a sole source. I ended up emailing General Electric on SDE’s behalf to request a meeting for finance, to no avail.

Mr Rich’s (middle below) main concern about the SDE device at first was corrosion from salt and mine was the physical security of the system. I had known Mr Rich since primary school. We could have fairly easily got that wave device setup and even distributed if SDE had been more willing and able –  although I was still a bit hesitant of the final design with hydraulic arms exposed – and still am with EWP. It seems deceiving in the EWP video above that the hydraulic arms aren’t shown. I had already worked at Energy Matters a year or two earlier on their IT and Mr Rich was very enthusiastic about the idea of wave energy – also he probably didn’t want to compete with me.

[from reunion]

I did actually come up with some designs of my own that I mentioned (but didn’t actually show) to SDE over email, including the logo above. As mentioned, I also signed a non-compete agreement with SDE and SDE threatened to sue me at one point. I wonder if that was Ms Braverman who made that threat because she was ready to compete directly with SDE and didn’t want me implementing that indefensible buoy design with Energy Matters exclusively. Or was it actually Mr Ovadia worried I’d work directly with that design without him? I really need to know more about who was working at SDE during those years. There may have been someone else working there and Inna Braverman has never heard of me.

Australia should have a good wave energy sector and the SDE / EWP floating buoy design can be a great starting point for anyone, anywhere. If EWP can use SDE’s design, then anyone can.

I have the idea that pivoting buoys identical to SDE and EWP should be built within (or retrofitted) to the pylons of off-shore windfarms and drive flywheel accumulators rather than
electro-hydraulic accumulators (as with SDE and EWP) kept within each pylon. Then, if wave heights get too high (which can be sensed by windspeed), the buoy should be retracted into the pylon or elevated up the outside of the pylon. Can I do that without legal repercussions? EWP seems only limited to breakwaters at present. Thus, don’t windfarms still have this opportunity to obtain more energy in this way? Finally, couldn’t someone directly copy EWP and then challenge EWP’s patents based on the existence of SDE’s patents and videos?

Unlike the Porsche flywheel, the ocean flywheel would be driven mechanically by the buoy’s oscillation, but similarly it would use a torque-vectoring device on the wheel, offering resistance to its spin and the buoy’s oscillation to create current.

Best of luck to Ms Braverman regardless: perhaps she can start a fashion blog too.

Not just knee deep?

Continuing, later Shay ignored an email I sent to Canaan Partners about Seedcamp (or Startup Stadium) while I was doing Bopgig (around 2012.) Some years later (around 2017) he even befriended my Israeli cousin Dhalia on Facebook after I made my friends list public – I’m still unsure if it was a coincidence or not.

All very odd indeed – and overall that’s how I would describe this person based on experiences interacting with him.

Yet at the same time, one of my VC blog posts in late 2006 was about Mr Shay, and perhaps he found this odd – I don’t know but I did email him a link about it and spoke in the meeting about Awarenex. I said Awarenex would only be open to high net-worth individuals… accredited investors.

On the topic of tickets, I actually worked closely with a startup CEO in 2003-04 which sold tickets (Moshtix) and it was acquired in 2007. I helped it expand from Sydney to Melbourne. Its first signup was Bennetts Lane and I was at the initial sales meeting – one of many I helped setup. In hindsight, I should’ve also invested in Moshtix – and it was a real possibility to do so at the time.

While I don’t have a picture of Mr Dibner at the Town Hall Meeting (2 Sep 2009) – I didn’t take any, he and others mentioned are on the event’s attendees page (marked in red below.) I am currently shown as ‘Former Member.’ I also did comment on the event’s blog post, username Twitya.

Also, Mr Dibner can be found on the TechAviv members page from 1 Sep 2009 and Mr Shay and myself can additionally be found on the members page from 1 October 2009.

As mentioned, Jonathan Saacks was at this event as was Eden Shochat (both Genesis Partners – Mr Dibner’s firm.)

At one point, Saacks stood up and said “we back winners” while looking at me. Saacks is listed on the TechAviv Angels screenshot above, as is someone from Canaan Partners (Daniel Ciporin) – Shay’s firm at the time.

Also, there are additional people who were aware of me at this event to varying degrees. One person was Yoav Leitersdorf, a VC who I had interviewed for Launchpadisrael.com and who I worked for remotely for a few days. Another person was Ofer Wald, an entrepreneur who I had last spoken to at TWS2008 (mentioned above.) Ofer held Shay in high regard. At this meetup I was wearing my long-lost “Tara” cap and would’ve stood-out as I was the only one wearing a cap.

[ pic 2 | pic 3 – Ofer at TWS 2008 | pic 4 – Ofer from inside the actual room – full pic]

I did enjoy the event except for the underlying drama, which made imprints on my mind.

On the topic of Dark Retribution, earlier in the year I was removed from the IVC-Online industry database.

– 3 screenshots directly above taken 2 April 2009. The 3rd pic as linked from Google should’ve shown my full profile page (prior to its deletion.) The 1st pic shows that my name was still in the search index at the time even if the actual page was already deleted.

Regarding this, in the TechAviv forum on 30 August 2009, I created the thread: “IVC-Online a site failure or larger systemic failure”

– screenshot take 9 January 2010

This was created 3 days prior to the Town Hall Meeting and so I was expecting drama, especially since I had already seen what happened at Eurekamp.

A further oddity occurred on 8 June 2010, when I was blocked from viewing the Genesis Partners website after sending them a message through a form. It was around this time Mr Dibner moved from Genesis Partners to another firm in Israel – see his profile (snippet below).

I applied to Seedcamp Europe 2012 after meeting Reshma at TWS2008. I was rejected from that in around September 2012 and stopped working on the site at around the same time and focused on Bitcoin. Philipp (@pmoe) was fired (or quit) Seedcamp in December 2013 who I had been communicating with up until my application for some months.

Regarding Mr Dibner, who I have only met with once and only replied to the first of his two group emails sent to me. The first one was sent regarding leaving Genesis Partners and the second about starting at Gemini – both in mid 2010. My reply was a one sentence trivial response. But why did he even write to me at all? Also with regards to my blog post about Mr Dibner in late 2006 (1 of 3 blog posts regarding VC meetings I was having at the time), the only controversial thing I remember to have written was something akin to: “As such, we did not proceed with further discussions.” So I was saying in my blog post that I was rejected from him and that firm with regards to my ideas and propositions. Going into the meeting I did not sign an NDA and I recall sending a link to that blog post to the person that setup the meeting initially via email. Later I sent a link to the post to Mr Dibner personally, to which he did not reply.

In January 2014, he posted “Towards a VC code of conduct” [archive] which alerted me to the fact that I was potentially dealing with someone consciously hypocritical, and in looking back today I think he was just being silly or else treacherous. Probably hateful (see twitter results below.) That’s just my own opinion because no one with a “Code of Conduct” would ever do anything to harm someone, right? Also, that article had/has an image of the 10 commandments at top, why? Are they interchangeable?

By July 2014, I put up a picture on my FB.

Within a few months (possibly days) he put up a similar picture on his Twitter.

[ 1, 2, 3, 4 (22 March 22) ]
[5,6 – censored (23 March 22), 7 – uncensored (same day); censored again – or is this a bug with twitter’s UI?]

A dangerous chap. But he may not be wholly responsible for his actions if he has been strongly influenced by others and that is a real possibility.

Note: unlike Anakin, actual *baseless* hatred is still real amongst Jews – especially in Israel as sensed by myself and others. It’s the opposite of mateship – it’s hateship. Furthermore, in a documentary on prison life I saw once, an inmate said that many people would love the opportunity to “hate on” someone else – it’s an emotional outlet. Anakin had reasons for his hate even if they were based on complete misapprehensions. Baseless hatred on the other hand is like free-floating anxiety – no real cause.

Continuing, in his Crunchbase profile above, it mentions him being a team member at Yedda. Was he aware of all the tips I had sent that startup when he was defaming me at Eurekamp in 2009 (my contention) as mentioned in Part 2? Did/would those tips make him jealous?

At that point I blocked his FB. I then unblocked it in September 2015 at which point he almost instantly deactivated his FB. He deactivated his Instagram too, I am almost certain.

His wife (Millia) also deactivated her FB at exactly the same time… why? (*I never had anything to do with her or his family in any way, shape or form*)  I only knew about her due to his mention or reference to her, and I wasn’t following her.

7 years later Mr Dibner’s twitter profile picture still remains (as of 15 Mar 2022) and the aeroplane header picture has been there for almost the same amount of time.

[ pic ]


Very odd indeed.

I suspect he was following my FB for many years due to some similarly-themed posts although I might be wrong. That was a concern of mine. Was I in for more surprises offline? Would that have anything to do with him anyway?

The real crux and importance of this exposé is that people have disappeared in Israel after I have met and become friends with (starting in 2014) … and this should be elaborated upon in the greater specifics of Dark Retribution. In fact, I suspect an entire business that I worked for was shutdown. This was the CU-agency (2nd or 3rd floor, 50 Yitzhak Sadeh street, Tel Aviv) soon after mid-2017 when I mentioned it on FB in my resume and its manager Sharon.

It’s absurd, and I really might be wrong here, and even if I am, there are still many more examples to contend with.

But to me, it’s not about winning some high stakes game, it’s rather about waking up from an epic dream!

Referring to Yogo:

FENDACE: Fendi by Versace Collection | Campaign Film | Versace

Also see Versace:

 

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…from the video: “by connecting to existent man-made structures such as piers, breakwaters, jetties” (0:41) — Has EWP factored security-costs into each setup? Someone could stab or melt the hydraulic hoses and the units could be vandalized. Will owners need to insure against subsequent blackouts? At Jaffa port, acid could be poured over rubber surfaces and local Arabs would be blamed a few days later after failure.

 

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pics
en.wikipedia.og/wiki/Unicorn#/media/File:DomenichinounicornPalFarnese.jpg
✓ 3 years ago

Fast and loose race at a slow and steady pace!

The story of Bopgig is a long one –  and not without hiccups. 

(updated: 2 May 2022)

(note: additional information about BopGig in Israel Tech Scene 2006-2011 and GrooveGuide)

2000: The name comes to mind.

GrooveTip in its inception was about tipping artists in the same way people tip street buskers. FairTunes.com (2000) worked on that concept, which had a WinAmp plugin. I took an interest in media metadata at the time as that should’ve contained the information for any funds to travel back to content creators.

I had thought… “once people have downloaded songs from Napster… then what?” … ideally, a voluntary tip by the listener/viewer to the creator!

src

2001: Final-year undergrad student enters MBA competition.

pic 2 | 3

2003: Multiple PHP apps cobbled together. Later GrooveGuide (more info here) is added – a free street-press magazine. 500 copies were printed and distributed around Melbourne. Problem: lack of app integration and hence automated signups.

src | 2

2009: Rethinking the business model and user experience. BopGig or GigPop?

2010: A working prototype launches. A Y-Combinator application occurs.

Overworked and under-utilized. Music + Entertainment industry. (Jerusalem, 20 Oct '10)

John on the left, Sup on the right.

Bopgig from Adrian on Vimeo.

2011: Development moves from USA to Israel.

Bopgig pitch (Jan, 2011)

 

2012: Public launch and then a pivot into indefinite hibernation!

 

2020: Hibernation continues!

2022: Thinking about it again!

source

Gigwell Productivity Suite for Booking Agents & Artists

note: With GrooveTip 2000 in mind, I would instead look at making it easier for listeners to give rather than own. Maybe both.
✓ 3 years ago

2010 – The Twitter UI gets an overhaul

March 2009:

pic 4 notes: (2010 screenshot)
(1) Browse pre-selected twitter accounts from a menu that is opened.
(2) Searchable list of celebrity accounts from @valebrity within a dropdown.
(3) 2nd and 3rd columns (middle and right) could be switched with the preference remembered between sessions.

  • 1st and 3rd columns floated into view (with fresh user data) whenever a user was selected within the middle column.
  • The basis of this site was done by Scribu in Romania using jQuery according to my spec. I ended up building upon that foundation very substantially in the subsequent months. The site became unusable when Twitter changed their API in August 2010 but I still have the code and had fun building it. I initially launched it via a Techcrunch comment.

September 2010:

[source]

Evan Williams Explains New Twitter Interface

0:58: “We had a bunch of changes in mind that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. And sometimes you can make them incrementally and sometimes it kind of takes a big rethinking. And so this was one of those times where we decided to take a big leap forward just to create the best product we can.” ~ Evan Williams, 9/2010

further reading here
✓ 3 years ago

Brighter Days

From the time I moved into the Great Twitya Pad to the time I left, there was always something going on. Life could’ve been much worse though.

updated: 23 April 2023

By May 2008, I found myself back at Hayarkon hostel, Tel Aviv:

Then, after pondering what to do, I decided to return to acting so I took these headshots and sent them to CU-Agency – the talent agency who had already spotted me in Jerusalem in 2005:

This led to my first extras role since my original 2005 role as a Roman soldier for a History/NatGeo documentary (Mount Zion). Sharon ran the agency:

At the hostel, another Australian guest took issue with me living at the hostel even after making ‘aaliyah.’ Regardless, I found myself wanting to leave anyhow.

Soon after I found the Great Twitya Pad while literally walking up the street (just after dark) with my bags after grabbing a newspaper. Whoever picked up my phone call first had my business. I was so keen to find brighter days.

On the corner of Levontin and Allenby, many people door knocked. I rarely answered because they were strangers.

Outside my door was another door into a corridor and groups would congregate, chatter, unlock the door and then close it behind them. So it was noisy but it didn’t matter. It was far better than nothing at all.


During my time at the Great Twitya Pad starting in mid 2008, I returned to Tsfat and attended a few tech events.

I’d also go rollerblading to Tel Aviv port and the skatepark.

Rollerblade Tel Aviv port

I ended up in a number of film, TV and advertising productions including Bena and David and Kamal. I also acted with a small dog in a Chevrolet advertisement.

In February 2009 while working diligently on Twitya, there was a callout to do this supermarket TV ad. It was a welcome break (and brake) to my train of thought!

מגה בעיר - Mega in the city - TV Ad / Feb 09

The Al Foster Quartet even played up the road:

These activities continued into 2009 before I left to Jerusalem in early 2010. By that stage I had lost hair and developed adult acne in that apartment, which all soon dissipated. I had real trouble with Hebrew but I felt I was moving forward regardless. I had learned Hebrew at King David School for around 5 years, so I could speak, read and write it pretty well but not converse in it, strangely. It was also my least favourite subject.

So in terms of Brighter Days:

Seek, and you shall find – Luke 11:9

[April ’10]

I stopped working for CU agency because my roles would remain non-speaking as my Hebrew wasn’t good enough to progress. Regardless, I kept getting call-outs because I was almost always successful in auditions, and I eventually changed my phone number in order to put an end to it.
✓ 7 months ago

2009: Believing is seeing!

A girl is mugged, but she ends up fine in a surreal incident !

It is 25 June 2009 around 3am, and I am listening to news of Michael Jackson’s death (and his music) on my computer inside my apartment in Tel Aviv:

 

I was reading various people’s thoughts on Hacker News:

When I first heard of his death, “Never Can Say Goodbye” seemed like the most appropriate track for that moment.

Michael Jackson Never Can Say Goodbye Live (HD)

But then I started hearing squeals (not really screams) from the street below and I thought they were coming from drunk girls and so didn’t pay too much attention:

 

However, the squeals persisted. After about 20 – 30 seconds I peer out and a woman is lying on the road holding her handbag with one hand, while a bagsnatcher is trying to yank it away from her. There is a bicycle on the ground between them. He is still standing up. I yell aggressively a few times at the man, he looks around (not at me,) lets go and sprints around the corner:

Interestingly, the street was empty and quiet at the time.

I go downstairs and the police have already been called by a bystander. The police arrive and I thought I saw the same man up the street again but an officer told me that he had already been apprehended in the area and was known to them.

I go to the station with the woman in a police car. She appeared unhurt (perhaps grazed) and was speaking Russian. She could have been a prostitute. Her handbag was damaged.

My witness report was emailed to the station officer later due to language difficulties.

I got a call some weeks later from a lawyer asking what I was doing up at that hour and I told them about MJ.

It was a surreal, very sad and unnerving night to say the least.
✓ 3 years ago