Living In The Future Via Tel Aviv

Happy Friday

It has been a blast here in Tel Aviv catching up with friends.

I come to Tel Aviv a few times a year to speed up my learning curve of living in the future. I have so many trusted technology friends here that have consistently been way ahead of the curve.

Tel Aviv is always fun for me as a tourist, but for the locals, life is hectic and the current national politics are very tense - not for me to best explain though I was quickly immersed in it.

Yesterday I caught up with Omri Casspi and David Citron who a seed fund called Sheva VC (we are LP’s). Omri is a retired NBA player (the first Israeli to play in the NBA) and now scared to play me in a game of HORSE. I was hoping to talk basketball and he was hoping to talk investing so we settled on a cigar and steak.

Last night I spent the night with the Assia’s (from left to right - Yoni, Ronen, HOWIE, Mor, NIlly) who had me over for a barbecue.

I got an incredible tour of AutoGPT from Yoni who helped me whip up a detailed business plan for a media company and really blew my mind.

Every Assia in the photo is doing incredible things as Yoni and Ronen founded Etoro, Mor founded iAngels and Nilly is a best selling detective author (I wrote myself into a future movie adoption). Oh and they have NINE kids between them.

Today my friend Ran Margaliot picked me up early to take me to Jerusalem for a gravel ride in the hills. Ron started the incredible ‘Bartali Organization’. Gino Bartali was a legendary Italian cycling champion and war hero.

Unfortunately, I suck at real gravel riding and tipped in the first 5 minutes and gashed my elbow. I was lucky that a medic was nearby and she cleaned the cut quickly. The ride was cut short but Ran took me to his favorite falafel place. It was fantastic…

Ran also took me to meet his friend Aviad Izrael the founder of Israeli cycling clothing company Jinga at the Tel Aviv Velodrome…

This afternoon I spent time with Ouriel Ohayon who moved to Tel Aviv from France twenty years ago and is building Zengo. We sat on the beach (it was a gorgeous late afternoon and the beach was rocking), ate watermelon and he caught me up on all things crypto and AI in layman terms with lots of demos.

His demo of the Midjourney AI and brainstorm gave me so many fresh insights for just my own creative growth. Here is a sample of a prompt he typed in as we sat and discussed the beach scene around us and the original images we immediately got back…

I am off early am to Amsterdam as I make my way home next week but can’t wait to come in the fall.

Have a great Friday.