Category Archives: Business & Finance

Jews in the World of Business and Finance

Jew of the Week: Danny Lewin

The ‘Fighting Genius’ of 9/11

Danny Lewin

Daniel Mark Lewin (1970-2001) was born in Denver, Colorado. He spent his early childhood there, playing sports and the violin, and programming his first Apple II computer when he was just nine years old. His family made aliyah to Israel when he was 14. Living near Jerusalem, Lewin found school of little challenge and often skipped class to work out at a gym. It wasn’t long before he won the Mr. Teenage Israel bodybuilding competition. Not surprisingly, he joined the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. After four years as an officer – attaining the rank of captain – Lewin went to study at Technion, while also working for IBM. From there, he got a full scholarship to MIT and studied towards a PhD in computer science. During this time, he came up with a new algorithm that had the potential to revolutionize the nascent internet. Others didn’t see it that way, and felt his concept wouldn’t go very far. Despite the opposition, he teamed up with one of his professors and started a new company, Akamai Technologies. In March of 1999, a series of events caused a surge in internet activity that crashed many websites. It appeared that only the sites served by Akamai had survived. Akamai Technologies became an overnight sensation. A successful IPO shortly after made Lewin a billionaire. On September 11, 2001, Lewin boarded American Airlines flight 11. According to air traffic control recordings, Lewin attacked two of the terrorists on board, but was surprised by a third knife-wielding terrorist from behind. He was killed about 30 minutes before the plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Lewin therefore carries the tragic distinction of being the first victim of 9/11. He left behind a wife and two small children. At just 31 years of age, he was expected to make big waves, with some predicting he could have become an Israeli prime minister (like fellow Sayeret Matkal graduates Barak and Netanyahu), or one of the world’s true tech titans. His Akamai Technologies is still a multi-billion dollar internet giant today. In his honour, Cambridge, Massachusetts has a Danny Lewin Square and Park, and the annual award for best student paper on computing is named after him, too.

Words of the Week

Long after we have forgiven you for killing our sons, we will be working to forgive you for turning our sons into killers.
– Golda Meir

Jews of the Week: Samuel and Ron Popeil

Salesmen of the Century

Ron Popeil with some of his inventions (Credit: David McNew)

Samuel Popeil (1915-1984) was born in New York, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His uncle, Nathan Morris, was a successful salesman and took Popeil on as an apprentice. In 1945, Popeil moved to Chicago to start a kitchen gadgets business with his brother. Soon, Popeil had ideas for better product designs and invented a number of his own kitchen gadgets, including a juice extractor, sandwich pie-maker, and donut maker. Together with his creative marketing and sales pitches, business for Samuel Popeil soared rapidly.

His son, Ronald Popeil (b. 1935) started working in his factory at just 13. By 17, he started his own business selling his father’s gadgets, despite the two having a poor relationship. Ron quickly became a top salesman, making over $500 a day in his late teens. By 1958, he began selling his father’s inventions on television, starting with the “Chop-O-Matic”. With his novel – and now classic – sales pitches (“But wait, there’s more!” and “If you order now…”) the Chop-O-Matic quickly sold over 2 million units. (Click here to see Ron Popeil’s 1959 Chop-O-Matic commercial.) Following this success, Samuel produced the Dial-O-Matic, Whip-O-Matic, Mince-O-Matic, and then its most popular invention, 1963’s Veg-O-Matic, which sold 11 million units. Many more gadgets were made as the company slowly faded away, and was sold and liquidated in 1979. Samuel Popeil died five years later, and Ron’s own company, Ronco Teleproducts, went bankrupt. Ron didn’t stop there, though, and rebuilt the kitchen gadget empire with his own inventions and products, like the Beef Jerky Machine and Giant Dehydrator. Most popular of all was the Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ. Inspired by seeing a long line-up at Costco for rotisserie chicken, Ron spent a great deal of time crafting a small, kitchen-friendly machine, and ended up filing twelve different patents for his unique rotisserie design. His work paid off, with the Showtime Rotisserie bringing in over a billion dollars in sales – primarily through Ron’s 28-minute infomercial – and becoming America’s best-selling kitchen appliance. Ron Popeil would go down as America’s “Salesman of the Century” (also the title of his autobiography). When awarded the 1993 Ig Nobel Prize in Consumer Engineering, Ron was described as having “redefined the industrial revolution”. He has appeared (or been parodied) in countless songs, books, films and TV shows. Ron sold his company for $55 million in 2005 so that he could spend more time with his family, yet still works as an inventor and salesman, never abandoning his passion.

Words of the Week

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.
– Ayn Rand

Jew of the Week: Larry Ellison

A Mega Philanthropist

Larry Ellison

Lawrence Joseph Ellison (b. 1944) was born in New York and raised in Chicago by his aunt and uncle, who were his adoptive parents. Ellison studied computer programming at the University of Illinois but dropped out following the death of his adoptive mother. He moved to California shortly after, and bounced from one job to the next for eight years before settling at the Ampex Corporation. There, he worked on a project (code-named “Oracle”) to create database software for the CIA. A few years later, he put in $1200 of his own money (and $800 from two partners) to start a new company, Software Development Laboratories. By 1982, IBM started using their program and the company (now renamed Oracle Systems Corporation) was making millions. At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Ellison was ranked as the highest-paid executive of any company, earning nearly $2 billion. Between 1997 and 2002, he was on the board of directors of Apple. In 2010, Ellison had Oracle acquire Sun Microsystems, another tech giant, for $7.4 billion. The following year, Forbes ranked Ellison the 5th richest person in the world. Aside from business, Ellison is a cup-winning yacht sailor, and a licensed pilot who owns two fighter planes. He has vast real estate holdings, and owns 98% of Lanai, the sixth largest island in Hawaii. Most importantly, Ellison is a huge philanthropist. By 2004, it was estimated that he had donated over $150 million. Since then, he has donated many millions more, including $10 million to the IDF, whom he described as “some of the bravest people in the world”. Most recently, Ellison donated a whopping $200 million to create a new cancer research centre at the University of Southern California. He has pledged to give as much as 95% of his wealth. Interestingly, he has also spent hundreds of millions on anti-aging research, saying that “death makes me very angry”.

Words of the Week

To become old is a grave sin.
– Rabbi Nachman of Breslov