I'm not even sure how to answer... so I'll just post some random bits. * Part of it is cultural. From a young age regardless of whether religious or not, criti

I'm not even sure how to answer... so I'll just post some random bits. * Part of it is cultural. From a young age regardless of whether religious or not, critical thinking is taught. Frequently that comes from studying the Talmud (~30% of the population is religious, ~85% of the population takes some Talmud class). That extends to the fact that dissension is seen as positive, and argument valuable. There's a long running joke that Israel's problem is that no one knows how to think inside the box. * Military service is mandatory - this helps a tremendous amount with regards to organization, "just getting it done", work ethic, etc. * Military protocol - Israel's military is very, very different from the US. Whilst there's plenty of "just do it", questioning is very much encouraged, though there's a time and a place. * Entrepreneurship - I've never, ever met anyone (<50) in Israel who doesn't have some form of a side hustle. Stay at home moms will sell food, the janitor at the local school will sell knowledge. The woman down the street runs a tea and cakes story hour in the park. It's not always for money, but it has goals. * Super intense community - Everyone knows everyone else, always. The number of ways people are connected to each other is rather intense. There's a famous story where a woman drives 5 hours north to attend the funeral of her mother, only to find out that she was her next door neighbour's teacher, and her other next door neighbour's camp counsellor - and no one grew up in the city they were in. * No excuses attitude - it's just unacceptable period to have an excuse. When things fail, there's a why. When you or I fail, we fail, no sugar coating. The issue is learning from it - or not. * Chutzpah - and this is huge. If you run into someone (say a VC) in an elevator and you have anything close to an idea - there's a 100% assumption by everyone in that interaction that you're going to pitch it, good or bad. There are TONNES of bad things that come out of this too. But the above are some of the things I love.