Reaching the Clouds   

Chaim Landau traveled a long way from his origins in Williamsburg to Silicon Valley to his new home in Jerusalem. Now he’s deeply gratified to be able to give back to his own, watching all the pieces come together

The sun glints off the skyscrapers on this warm morning in Tel Aviv, and I squint as I look up at Israel’s tallest building, the Azrieli Sarona Tower on Begin Road. It is home to hundreds of international businesses like Citi and Meta (Facebook), with several floors dedicated to a business hotel.

I head for the 28th floor, home to the offices of Amazon Web Services (AWS), where I’m scheduled to meet Chaim Landau, principal cloud delivery architect at AWS.

Emerging from the elevator, I take in the colossal view of the city and the surrounding ocean, before Landau, who, with his trademark curled peyos, looks rather different from the others here, takes me for a quick spin around the floor. We pass tens of meeting rooms, presentation rooms, and conferences in progress. In a large open area, people sit at computers, some in green army fatigues, plugging away.

“My team,” Landau says, indicating the team he leads.