Yanki Margalit () is an Israeli

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

and speaker best known for starting

Aladdin Knowledge Systems Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. was a company that produced software for digital rights management and Internet security. The company was acquired by Safenet Inc, in 2009. Its corporate headquarters are located in Belcamp, Maryland, Belcamp, Maryl ...

. He was the

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

SpaceIL, a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

space technology organization competing for the

Google Lunar X Prize The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a lunar rover on t ...

. He is also a partner in Innodo, a

seed In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...

investment fund An investment fund is a way of investment, investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These ad ...

. Margalit is on the boards of Idealist.org, Latet, College4all.org, Meet.mit.edu, Adama.org.il and SpaceIL.com

Early life

Margalit was raised in

Bat Yam Bat Yam ( ) is a city on Israel's Mediterranean Sea coast, on the Central Coastal Plain just south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area and the Tel Aviv District. In , it had a population of . History British Mandate Bat Y ...

, a suburb of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

. At the age of 11, he and his younger brother Oded were identified as exceptionally intelligent children and they were invited to join special classes for

gifted Intellectual giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average and is also known as high potential. It is a characteristic of children, variously defined, that motivates differences in school programming. It is thought to pe ...

children. As a teenager, he was interested in the emerging discipline of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. In 1977, at the age of 15, he built his first computer together with his brother, Oded Margalit.

Career

Aladdin Knowledge Systems

In 1985, Margalit founded

Ltd. In its early years the company developed two product lines, an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

package (which was dropped early on) and a hardware product to prevent unauthorized

software copying Software consists of computer programs that instruct the execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital computers in the mid-20th cen ...

, similar to

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

. Margalit raised just $10,000 as an initial capital for the company. His brothers Danny Margalit and Gady Margalit have joined Aladdin as CTO and IT directors. The

product by 1993 generated sales of $4,000,000. The same year that company had an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

raising $7,900,000. In 1996 Aladdin has acquired FAST

software Security Application security (short AppSec) includes all tasks that introduce a secure software development life cycle to development teams. Its final goal is to improve security practices and, through that, to find, fix and preferably prevent security is ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and in 1998 Aladdin acquired ESafe Technologies. In 2004 the company's shares were also listed on the

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE; ), colloquially known as The Bursa, is the only public stock exchange in Israel and a public company itself, listed on its own exchange since August 1, 2019. It is regulated by the ''Securities Law (1968)'' a ...

. In 2006 Aladdin acquired

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

-based Preview Systems and in 2008 Aladdin acquired SafeWord. By 2008 the company's annual revenues reached over $125 million. In mid-2008, Vector Capital attempted to purchase Aladdin. Vector initially offered $14.50 per share, but Aladdin's founder Margalit refused the offer. Aladdin's

shareholders A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...

agreed on the

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

in February 2009 at $11.50 per share, in cash. In March 2009, with close to $150M in sales, Vector Capital acquired Aladdin and officially merged it with SafeNet.

Lectures

Margalit has appeared as a professional speaker about

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a n ...

, and

human evolution ''Homo sapiens'' is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism, bipedalism, de ...

, while studying and working in more recent interests of

biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...

clean energy Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Definitions of sustainable energy usually look at its effects on the environment, the economy, and s ...

and

space exploration Space exploration is the process of utilizing astronomy and space technology to investigate outer space. While the exploration of space is currently carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted bo ...

. Some of his lectures include: * Homo-Sapiens 2.0 – talk at DOKU:TECH * The future of the future – on Singularity, evolution and technology. * On entrepreneurship and innovation. * Space-IL – Towards landing a spaceship on the moon. * Dream it – Make it! – A TEDxJerusalem talk on DIY and the Makers Movement., TEDxJerusalem channel

CheckPoint Software Technologies

When they were still a startup, CheckPoint Software Technologies offered Margalit half of the company for $200,000. He refused the offer and often regards it as his biggest regret in life, considering the market cap of CheckPoint is $12,000,000,000 as of 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Margalit, Yanki Living people Israeli Jews Israeli businesspeople 1962 births