A Focused Mind
Assaf Rappaport walks like someone who has practised focus. He speaks like someone used to problems that do not care about prestige. Most stories about him sound neat: Talpiot and Unit 8200. A successful exit with Adallom. A senior role at Microsoft. Then Wiz, the cloud security start-up that scaled so fast it redefined Israeli tech. That narrative is true, but it misses the choices that made the win possible.
The Small Decisions That Mattered
The pivot moment arrived through small, deliberate decisions. When Rappaport and his co-founders started Wiz in 2020, they didn’t aim to build the world’s default cloud security layer. They listened fast and often to the people who would actually use it. The founders, who met in elite Israeli tech units, spent weeks on calls with chief information security officers, learning what kept them awake. That customer-first urgency turned a technical idea into a solution and cut months off the road to product-market fit. Investors noticed, and customers signed up not because of hype but because the product solved a real problem.
Lessons from Israel’s Elite Tech Units
Rappaport’s path to entrepreneurship began inside Israel’s technical elite. The discipline and teamwork of Talpiot and Unit 8200 shape Wiz’s culture. Those units train people to solve ambiguous problems with limited information. Rappaport turned that mindset into a habit of speed and clarity. He built systems that let teams move quickly, test, fail, and iterate without ego or bureaucracy. It explains why Wiz moved from launch to category leader in just a few years.
From Microsoft to Market Force
Wiz’s rise has public milestones. Rappaport’s first company, Adallom, sold to Microsoft in 2015. He spent the next few years helping build Microsoft’s cloud security stack and leading its Israel R&D centre. When Wiz launched, the team raised aggressively and executed faster than expected, grabbing major enterprise customers. By 2025, Wiz was a market force with massive recurring revenue and an Alphabet offer of around $23 billion. Rappaport turned it down. Months later, Wiz agreed to be acquired by Google for about $32 billion the largest acquisition of an Israeli tech company. It wasn’t just about price. It was timing and conviction.
A Modest Visionary
There’s a personality behind those decisions that surprises many. Rappaport is deliberate, not flashy. Colleagues describe him as someone who prefers simplicity. He often takes public transport and dresses casually. But that modest routine hides a sharp, executive mind. When a potential buyer values your company in the tens of billions, you don’t just hire lawyers, you model customer retention, test assumptions, and keep builders focused on the mission. That mix of humility and ambition defines his leadership.
Culture Built for Speed
Leadership for Rappaport is practical and human. He makes unusual calls from hiring non-technical staff as full employees to ensuring broad ownership across the company. Wiz treats its “wizards” as people who must be protected from bureaucracy and encouraged to argue until there’s clarity. Investors note his speed of decision-making. When customers asked for Google Cloud support, Wiz delivered fast. When the market wanted better risk remediation, Wiz acquired smaller teams and shipped features quickly. That responsiveness is deliberate, not luck.
Balancing Business and Politics
Scaling globally has exposed tougher realities. As an Israeli founder, Rappaport has navigated domestic politics and global perception. He hasn’t avoided speaking on Israel’s internal issues and made operational moves to protect his company, including relocating funds and certain operations. Those actions show how modern founders must manage geopolitical, regulatory, and ethical complexities while leading hyper-growth businesses. It’s one more layer of leadership due diligence.
What Founders Can Learn
Rappaport’s story offers clear lessons. First, obsess over the user, not the investor deck. Second, scale processes with the same care as code. Third, make the hard calls. Turning down a massive offer worked because it was a calculated bet backed by data, customer traction, and execution strength.
The Human Side
There are softer notes too. Rappaport’s stories about his late dog Mika became small human anchors in the press, revealing a leader grounded in ordinary life even while negotiating billion-dollar deals. It helps explain why people at Wiz describe him as approachable. It’s a reminder that company milestones are built on small human moments. When a CEO cares about people, it shapes hiring, retention, and culture.
Beyond the Deal
Assaf Rappaport’s arc shows discipline, timing, and the courage to choose long-term value over fast exits. The Google deal, if finalised, will be a headline, but the deeper story is about a founder who kept asking inconvenient questions, turned good offers into better outcomes, and built a team that carried a product from a whiteboard to the heart of cloud computing. For founders who want to scale big, the message is simple. Build what customers need. Hire smart, humble people. Move quickly but not carelessly. Take the bus if you want. The rest follows.
