“We Israelis are a country of survivors,” he says. “And in the mode of surviving, we’re always looking for unique solutions. It’s just something in our DNA.”
When you picture what today’s top high-tech inventors were like as children, you probably imagine some little genius taking apart an old radio and rebuilding it into some kind of postmodern device while his parents immediately sign him up for accelerated university courses. Well, international high-tech personality Dov Moran — inventor of the USB flash drive, the Flash-based storage for cellular phones, and other life-altering patents — wasn’t one of them.
He was a hard worker in school, not, he says, one of those natural-born geniuses, and his path to fame and success was paved with failures and disappointments, but Dov Moran never gave up. Maybe it has to do with his general outlook on life: When he’s asked to describe himself in one sentence, he says, “I’m one of the happiest people in the world.”
Despite his vast wealth and fame though, Moran, a father of four and one of the most prominent Israeli high-tech leaders in the world, remains modest and unassuming. We met in his Tel Aviv office to hear about his path — how it all started, and what lessons he’s learned over his 30-plus years as an entrepreneur, inventor, and investor.
“A lot of inventors are born geniuses, but not me,” he says. “I’m very much a late bloomer. I remember coming home with my report card in first grade and facing my parents who were sitting on the couch in the living room. I said, ‘Don’t worry, there was a kid whose report card was worse than mine.’
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