OMG I’m leaving Aleph
The next stop on my journey of professional discovery
I’ll start with the end… I’m leaving Aleph to join JoyTunes.
Now let’s go back to how it all started:
Like Eden Shochat’s previous executive assistant (EA), Gili Leska, I was once a lawyer (I think Eden just likes to hire people who are used to working around the clock!). Like Gili, my career path at a top Israeli law firm was secure. But I wasn’t happy.
At the law firm, I specialized in managing the legal side of financing large, national infrastructure projects like power plants, wind farms, desalination plants and major roads (like Road 6 and the Carmel tunnels). My role included negotiating and drafting the financial and tender documents to support these complex deals, often involving different government entities.
It sounds kind of interesting, right? It was indeed interesting at first. As time passed, however, I felt more and more like a tiny cog in a giant machine. It occurred to me that no matter how much I contributed to the legal aspects of any project, at the end of the day, as a lawyer, I would never have as much impact as I could if I were working on the core business itself.
I was always an advisor, never a decision-maker nor an executor. I wanted to help move the needle.
I was intrigued by the thriving high tech industry in Israel, but with my background I had little chance of finding a relevant role outside of a legal framework, and I no longer wanted to pursue a legal career. Coming from a small kibbutz in the north, and not having served in an elite intelligence unit in the IDF, I also had a very limited network in the Israeli startup world.
I had zero knowledge of what working in high tech actually involved; I thought seed was an agricultural term and that ecosystem had more to do with a habitat than entrepreneurship. But I was excited by the potential of taking an idea and in a very short time making it a reality that could impact the world.
I had one friend who worked at a startup (it only takes one!) who thought of me immediately when Eden posted that he was looking for a new EA.
“This is perfect for you,” my friend said. “This is the best place for you to learn about the high tech world from an insider’s perspective.”
And it was.
Despite critical voices that couldn’t understand why I would leave a secure legal career in order to work as an executive assistant, I applied. In truth, it wasn’t much of a dilemma. My gut told me it was the right thing to do, and that it would be the best place to learn about how startups work and pursue my dream to get my hands dirty on the business side. After a lengthy recruitment process (which would not embarrass even the likes of the Mossad), I started working at Aleph.
Learning the Ropes
On my very first day, Eden sent me the Aleph — Welcome Aboard!, a three-page onboarding document that describes Aleph’s principles and procedures. The first principle on that list stood out to me:
Service the hell out of our entrepreneurs: our customers are entrepreneurs at large, and our portfolio specifically. Always prefer their interest over ours, or our investors’. This will pay dividends over time.
Back then, I had no idea what this principle really meant. But as my work with Eden progressed, I encountered more and more instances where this came into play: moving very important meetings to accommodate an urgent meeting with a portfolio company (including postponing meetings with our own investors if needed), scheduling last minute trips abroad to support a portfolio deal and even allocating Aleph’s own engineers to help a portfolio company that experienced rapid growth but didn’t have the required workforce. Having this principle as a lighthouse has constantly helped me and my team make the right decisions independently.
That was one of the first things I learned from Eden. But because Aleph is a completely transparent organization, I was granted unlimited access to insight and lessons about how startups operate, from seed stage companies to those approaching IPOs. I attended privileged meetings with Eden, I was exposed to the insider dynamics between startups, founders and investors; I even acted on his behalf with different external projects and associations.
It wasn’t always easy to work with Eden and his impossible standards. But it was exactly this approach that pushed me to expand my own boundaries.
After more than two years as Eden’s EA, I joined our Ampliphy platform team. Ampliphy is the Aleph Value Generator, the platform we developed to leverage our unique global network to provide meaningful services and value at scale to our portfolio companies and the entire Israeli high tech ecosystem.
The transition was one I was looking forward to, as now I could directly contribute to our companies. Working alongside our talent, bizdev, follow-on funding and deal flow teams, I truly felt I was finally helping to move the needle. The lighthouse here, too, was always what generates the best value for our entrepreneurs and our companies, even despite our own best interests as a fund.
We saw the unique potential we had built in providing true value at scale to our startups through Ampliphy and exactly where I fit in on this exciting roadmap. The horizon looked clear; my professional journey was established.
Facing the Music
That was exactly why my immediate answer to JoyTunes was, “No way. I am not leaving Aleph.” Yet, after a first strong push, I relented and agreed to listen.
JoyTunes has always been one of our companies I am most passionate about — not just because of their mission to let anyone learn to play a musical instrument, but because of their unique DNA as a company. JoyTunes is organized by a flat pod structure composed of small, independent teams designed to maximize impact velocity (better explained by Yuval in this post). Despite their impressive growth, they are a humble team of super talented individuals with a get-things-done mentality. They measure everything and always strive to improve themselves based on data and iteration.
At this unique point in JoyTunes’ growth, I will be joining the team to help build the organizational infrastructure and operations as they capitalize on their incredible growth. I will try to make the company even more productive and resilient while maintaining their core values and ensuring that growth would be healthy and sustainable
It was an opportunity I couldn’t ignore.
I immediately spoke with Eden. I knew I had to talk to him before making a decision. To be honest, I was a bit worried about how he might react. After all, we had a set plan for me at Aleph and this was not an ideal time for me to be leaving.
But Eden, as Eden has always done, turned a principle into reality: “Tamar, as much as this is not ideal for Aleph and may create an organizational gap, portfolio first.”
Eden didn’t only put the portfolio first. He also put me first.
“If it had been any other company, or any other role, I’d fight over you,” Eden told me. “But it’s been clear that your future is leading operations. If the opportunity is opening up, you take it.”
Eden appreciated that this was an opportunity to fulfill my dream to continue to develop myself professionally and really get my hands dirty and learn to execute on the ground, within a startup. This is the right time for me to spread my wings.
Aleph, it has been an absolute pleasure being part of the team, and it is a privilege for me to be staying part of the (extended) family.
