ITGumbo: spicing IT up

I came across an article last week that mentioned that despite the increasing trend of immigrants to Israel, the country still has more natives leaving than immigrants coming in. I brought this up with two relatives of mine who are native Israelis working in the high-tech industry here and they said that they have noticed its effects on high-tech. Earlier this year, EE Times Europe ran an article on what role Israel's successful high-tech industry, but small economy and market, plays in fueling this trend.

The article states that "Key knowledge, people and technologies are moving abroad, especially to the United States, and some people question whether startups are offering sustainable value." It then goes on to mention reasons for this, such as successful Israeli companies are being merged or acquired and Israel lacks a significant amount of entrepreneurs (and those who are, are serial entrepreneurs).

Although, this article raises several good points, based on what I have learned over the past few months, I don't think Israel's high-tech sector is in as grave a danger as it makes it out to be. First, though foreign influence in the high-tech sector has taken away several key players, there are still immigrants from other countries with high-tech backgrounds coming in that can help fill part of the void (though not all of it), and who might be entrepreneurs that start up their own companies in Israel that will become successful. Also AT&T's announcement recently of its plans to build a new R&D center in Israel, shows that there is still interest in Israel and job opportunities here, and that maybe, there's still an untapped wealth of knowledge in Israel that will continue to renew itself.

What are your thoughts on this? Based on your experience or connection to Israel's high-tech industry, do you agree, disagree, or have some other ideas on this? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.