Pride has quickly given way to consternation in some parts of Israel's tech community, following yesterday's news that Intel will buy hometown hero Mobileye for $15.3 billion. In short, there accusations that Mobileye sold out to Silicon Valley.
But Israeli venture capitalist Mike Eisenberg isn't going with the local crowd. Instead, he argues in a blog post that the Intel purchase will increase global attention on Israel's machine learning sector and, more importantly, inspire new entrepreneurs:
Given Israel's competitive nature (and abounding Chutzpa), people want to beat their icons. Now, they know it is possible to build a global $15 billion company in 10+ years. They will aspire to build a $25 billion company and keep it independent or sell it.