“We are in a crisis - we should get used to saying the word”

“We are in a crisis - we should get used to saying the word. It is not a bad word, it is a description of the situation. Those of us who are old enough have seen this at least twice over the last 20 years. The bubble burst in 2001/2002, the global financial crisis in 2008, both of them were real crises that had to be managed from a high-tech perspective as well.”

The remarks were made by Izhar Shay, Former Minister of Science and Technology of Israel and Chairman of the Board at Peak Ventures. Having spent 30 years in high-tech, he then served three parliament terms and one as a minister. Today, he is back in the high-tech scene and anticipating what comes next.

He continued: “We are facing that magnitude of a crisis today, valuations are going down dramatically, the public markets, this trickles into the private markets as well where the high-tech sector is playing. We should face reality and reality sinks in as we speak.”

It’s not all bleak, however. “Every challenge is an opportunity. There definitely are significant numbers of opportunities out there both for investors and entrepreneurs to start new companies, grow them gradually over the next few years, and create great big companies,” he concluded.

You can watch the entire exchange in the video above.