# Jews and high-tech business success **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 2, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876 "2010-08-02T12:38:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/41 "2010-08-03T18:29:21Z")
Marginalized people can react in one of two ways: work harder than anyone else, work smarter, network; give up. Guess which tack most Jews (including me) took. As it happens I know somewhat one of those entrepreneurs. He is from a Russian immigrant family (although his father is a mathematics professor) and he just worked harder than anyone else. His main supporter was his thesis advisor, who certainly isn’t Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/42 "2010-08-03T19:13:12Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > If the usual explanation is inadequate, it’s probably because it looks at Jews as a _culture_ rather than a _religion._ Now that most Jews are relatively secular, that’s becoming a kind of unacknowledged taboo - something one best be circumspect and even vague when talking about. Huh? What’s the taboo? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/43 "2010-08-03T21:27:13Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Isn’t more of an Ashkenazi thing? How many major entrepreneurs (of the same importance as those that were named in the OP) or Nobel winners are Sphardi? What about [these guys](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print)? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/44 "2010-08-03T21:34:38Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > > > If the usual explanation is inadequate, it’s probably because it looks at Jews as a _culture_ rather than a _religion._ Now that most Jews are relatively secular, that’s becoming a kind of unacknowledged taboo - something one best be circumspect and even vague when talking about. > > Huh? What’s the taboo? Talking about the culture. People tend to want to steer the topic to the religion - I suppose because it’s safer. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/45 "2010-08-03T22:23:30Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Talking about the culture. People tend to want to steer the topic to the religion - I suppose because it’s safer. I dunno; I’ve never encountered any reluctance to discuss Judaism as a culture or ethnicity. As you note, lots of people are not religiously Jewish, indeed not religious at all, yet consider themselves culturally or ethnically Jewish (like me!). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/46 "2010-08-03T22:39:29Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > A few other thoughts, since time has expired… > > I’d be interested in _how_ these new-media entrepreneurs’ Jewishness manifests itself. Does it help, say, to come from a fully Jewish home (culturally or religiously, doesn’t matter) rather than being the product of a mixed marriage? Does being from New York, or having strong ties to New York, confer an advantage? And if there are correlations (such as these), are they causative? New York City, as with many other large cities, is a cultural, financial, educational, social and economic hub. Being from the New York area confers an advantage much in the way that being from rural Arkansas does not. IOW, if you want to grow up to be a lawyer, investment banker or tech guy, it helps to grow up in a place where there are a lot of law firms, investment banks and tech startups, as well as the schools that train people to do these things. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/47 "2010-08-03T23:31:03Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > … See, I think that the high number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, and the high number of Jews who go into academic fields, or become doctors and lawyers, can both be explained by the fact that Jews, in general, value education extremely highly. > > What I think is not the case is that the fact that Jews value education extremely highly explains their success as entrepreneurs. Because, even if this trait is not as prevalent in other cultures, the fact that there are so many more non-Jews in the world than Jews means that the number of people from other cultures/backgrounds who value education just as highly as Jews should be at least equal if not higher than the total number of Jews in the world, and yet they are not as equally represented in the successful tech companies we all know and the ones featured daily on [venturebeat.com](http://venturebeat.com), [techcrunch.com](http://techcrunch.com), [wired.com](http://wired.com), etc… But “the number of people from other cultures/backgrounds who value education just as highly as Jews should be at least equal if not higher than the total number of Jews in the world, and yet they are not as equally represented in” the ranks of Nobel prize winners (and not just in science, literature too). I do not disagree that it takes more than education to achieve as an entrepreneur (or an [Academy Award winning directors](http://www.adherents.com/movies/Oscar_directors.html) for that matter); I just think that you underestimate the importance of those other cultural features for other areas that you think of as more academic. The Nobel Prize is not won by those who memorized the most, but those who thought about what they learned in significantly new ways, even against strongly held status quos. That is the crux of an old Jewish proverb/insult (Talmudic I think): “He is a bookcase, not a scholar.” I am not sure but I doubt many other faiths put so much stock in a human being able to _argue_ with God. Yeah, a stiff-necked people. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/48 "2010-08-04T02:11:34Z")
You know where Jews seem to be overrepresented? On this MB! ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/49 "2010-08-04T04:44:30Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > > > Talking about the culture. People tend to want to steer the topic to the religion - I suppose because it’s safer. > > I dunno; I’ve never encountered any reluctance to discuss Judaism as a culture or ethnicity. As you note, lots of people are not religiously Jewish, indeed not religious at all, yet consider themselves culturally or ethnically Jewish (like me!). I’m culturally Jewish, I’m not religious – another for the “No taboo” boat. There’s never been any compunction about talking about it for me, or others I’ve met. > [@DSeid](#): > > I am not sure but I doubt many other faiths put so much stock in a human being able to _argue_ with God. > > Yeah, a stiff-necked people. I’m not sure there’s any other religion that says “You can’t operate equipment on Sabbath,” and goes “Fuck it, the elevator will open itself!” ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/50 "2010-08-04T14:42:02Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > > [@DSeid](#): > > > > I am not sure but I doubt many other faiths put so much stock in a human being able to _argue_ with God. > > > > Yeah, a stiff-necked people. > > I’m not sure there’s any other religion that says “You can’t operate equipment on Sabbath,” and goes “Fuck it, the elevator will open itself!” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Judaism, as a religion and a code of laws, customs and behaviour, is an extremely logical and rational system - based on an extremely irrational and illogical set of premises. 😉 Generations of rabbis arguing with freedom and insight over the minutae and complexities of the law as set out in the Talmud is, apparently, a good cultural basis for arguing over the complexities of the secular laws, or the laws of nature. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876/51 "2010-08-08T06:20:18Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > I hate to bring up this issue, since it usually brings accusations or implications of anti-semitism and/or association with all sorts of anti-semitic loons, but I think there is an interesting phenomenon that begs to be analyzed, especially since it is a subject people aren’t usually willing to talk about. > > Basically, I have noticed lately that, of many tech startups that became successful, if you look at their founders/CEOs, they are Jewish by a much larger percentage than in the general population. > > But it’s not just the cream of the crop. Many of the somewhat successful companies that I read about in the news or on blogs are Jewish. > > As a Doper, I’m naturally curious as to why such a statistic occurs. > > Some possible answers (not that I necessarily accept any of them, I’m just listing them) > [ol] > [li]Some cultures are over-represented in some professions (e.g., say, Irish-Americans in the police force, not sure if this is true) and this is a self-perpetuating phenomenon, since you are most likely to follow the profession of people around you.[/li][li]The Jewish culture is such that it encourages entrepreneurship.[/li][li]The Jewish culture is such that it provides people with a mindset that is useful for success in business[/li][li]People in the Jewish community help each other out, in such a way that it increases the odds of a startup company to succeed, and it is done in a way or to a degree that other ethnic groups (e.g. Italian-Americans) don’t do for each other.[/li][/ol] Part of it is high population iq. You get a greater proportion of people with particularly high intelligence amongst Ashkenazi jews. [http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf](http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jews-and-high-tech-business-success/548876.md?page=2)