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''Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle'' is a 2009 book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer about the economy of Israel.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://startupcamel.com/ep-30-saul-singer-startup-nation )〕 It examines how Israel, a 60-year-old nation with a population of 7.1 million, was able to reach such economic growth that "at the start of 2009, some 63 Israeli companies were listed on the NASDAQ, more than those of any other foreign country."〔 In 2010, ''Start-up Nation'' was ranked fifth on the business bestseller list of ''The New York Times''.〔(NYT Hardcover Business Best Sellers )〕 It also reached ''The Wall Street Journal'' bestseller list.〔(The Massachusetts-Israel Economic Relationship )〕 ==Book overview== The Council on Foreign Relations states in its publisher's blurb for the book that ''Start-up Nation'' addresses the question: "How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million people, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources—produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the United Kingdom?"〔 ''The Economist'' notes that Israel now has more high-tech start-ups and a larger venture capital industry per capita than any other country in the world. The success of Israel's high-tech sector over the past two decades has attracted recent attention from business journalists and ''The Economist'' describes ''Start-up Nation'' as the most notable of a "growing pile" of books on the subject.〔 In their attempt to explain Israel's success in this area, Senor and Singer discard "the argument from ethnic or religious exceptionalism, dismissing 'unitary Jewishness' or even individual talent as major reasons for Israel's high-tech success" and analyze two major factors that, in the authors' opinion, contribute most to Israel's economic growth. Those factors are mandatory military service and immigration.〔 The authors argue that a major factor for Israel's economic growth can be found in the culture of the Israel Defense Forces, in which service is mandatory for most young Israelis. The authors believe that IDF service provides potential entrepreneurs with the opportunities to develop a wide array of skills and contacts. They also believe that IDF service provides experience exerting responsibility in a relatively un-hierarchical environment where creativity and intelligence are highly valued.〔 IDF soldiers "have minimal guidance from the top, and are expected to improvise, even if this means breaking some rules. If you're a junior officer, you call your higher-ups by their first names, and if you see them doing something wrong, you say so."〔 Neither ranks nor ages matter much "when taxi drivers can command millionaires and 23-year-olds can train their uncles," and "Israeli forces regularly vote to oust their unit leaders."〔 The book also dwells at length on immigration and its role in Israel's economic growth: "Immigrants are not averse to start from scratch. They are by definition risk-takers. A nation of immigrants is a nation of entrepreneurs. From survivors of the Holocaust to Soviet refuseniks through the Ethiopian Jews, the State of Israel never ceased to be a land of immigration: 9 out of 10 Jewish Israelis today are immigrants or descendants of immigrants the first or second generation. This specific demographic, causing fragmentation of community that still continues in the country, is nevertheless a great incentive to try their luck, to take risks because immigrants have nothing to lose."〔 Additional factors cited by the authors include a sense of dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, a culture where individuals frequently tinker with technology, and government policies friendly to start-ups.〔 Using stories and anecdotes, the book provides examples of Israel's technological and medical achievements, among them "the Israeli innovations that made possible Google Suggest, the list of suggestions that appear instantly in menu form as you type a search request, the capsule endoscopy, a miniature camera embedded in a pill so that 18 photos per second can be wirelessly and painlessly transmitted from gastrointestinal tracts."〔 While the book describes Israel's many successes in technological innovation, it also attempts to address, in the words of one reviewer, why Israel still lacks its own Nokia, Samsung, or IBM. According to the book's authors, this is partly because Israeli startups tend to be bought up by large foreign companies and partly because Israeli business has thus far failed to develop the kind of mature management culture needed to run such companies.〔 Senor and Singer interviewed over 100 people to write the book, among them leading Israeli venture investors including key players in Google, Intel, and Cisco; and historians, U.S. military leaders, and Israeli heads of state.〔Senor and Singer, pp. 240-241.〕 Their conclusion is that "while Israel has much to learn from the world, the world has much to learn from Israel."〔Senor and Singer, p. 236.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Start-up Nation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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