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Peter Fogel

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RE: The President That Hates His Country By Joan Swirsky
2/15/2012 2:53:51 PM
Hello Friends,

I just read an article about B Hussein's latest plan to subsidize GM's electric car at the rate of $10,000 per car. This is in addition to the bailout GM received along with their unsuccessful cars including their electric car.

The below article tells about the latest waste of taxpayers money for a company that hasn't succeeded in returning the bailout monies it received despite claims to be in the black. As you'll understand from the article it's another ploy to get votes but we already knew that didn't we?


In the next post I'll give the Israeli version of the electric car and the history of this venture from day one. BTW, there was no government support or subsidies and the founder raised all the necessary monies for this project on his own due to his past business acumen, successes and brilliance.

Shalom,

Peter

Obama to Increase Electric Car Subsidies

by V2A

My jaw dropped when I saw this at the Daily Caller this morning:

The White House intends to boost government subsidies for wealthy buyers of the Chevy Volt and other new-technology vehicles - to $10,000 per buyer.

That mammoth subsidy would cost taxpayers $100 million each year if it is approved by Congress, presuming only 10,000 new-technology autos are sold each year.

But the administration wants to get 1 million new-tech autos on the road by 2015. The subsidy cost of that goal could reach $10 billion.

The planned giveaway will likely prompt populist protests from GOP legislators, but it will likely also will be welcomed by auto-industry workers in the critical swing state of Michigan.

That welcome is critical for President Barack Obama, who is touting his support for blue-collar manufacturing programs to help offset his low public approval ratings.

Peter Fogel
Babylon 7
+0
Peter Fogel

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RE: The President That Hates His Country By Joan Swirsky
2/15/2012 5:07:21 PM
Hello Friends,

I first met Shai Agassi when he was around 12-14 years old. I was renting a house from his parents Reuvein and Paula while my home was being built. Reuvein was an army Major and was living on base somewhere in the country. We became friends and when he came to visit family he always dropped in for a visit with us with his kids. It was very obvious that Shai was a brilliant kid then and we all had no doubts he would go far in the computer business, a prediction that came true in a spectacular manner.

After high school and upon completion of his military service he studied at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, graduated and started his entrepreneurial career shortly thereafter. He founded Top Tier Soft ware in Israel in 1992 and sold it in 2001 (at the age of 33) for $400 million. The majority of the companies shares belonged to him and his father Reuvein who was his partner (it was with his father's savings and military pension that they founded Top Tier). He founded a few other companies after that and later sold them to the same company that bought Top Tier.

Shai became a top executive in SAP as you'll see in the articles below. He was supposed to become the CEO of SAP and that went sour and Shai resigned from the company.

In 2008 Shai founded Better Place and partnered with Renault and Nissan Motor company. Shai's idea was to establish country wide stations where batteries can be exchanged (takes less then 5 minutes) along with electric connections in the home and work place that can recharge the batteries. The electric connections in the homes are special connections and use electricity bought from Better Place..

Denmark, Australia and in 2 US states (Hawaii and Northern California) already have cars running through Better Place and 2 weeks ago they launched the first cars here in Israel with 33 stations around the country with many more in the final stages of completion. The cars are absolutely silent and have as much power as gas run cars.

As you'll see from the below articles all the monies for this project were raised by Shai Agassi and never received any subsidies from the Israeli government. With the proper planning and technology it can be done and at competitive prices.

Shai Agassi was recognized as one of the top business people in the world and one of the most influential.

Shalom,

Peter


Shai Agassi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shai Agassi
Born 1968
Israel Ramat-Gan, Israel [1]
Residence United States San Francisco, USA
Nationality IsraeliIsrael
Education Technion, BA, 1990
Occupation Founder and CEO of Better Place
Spouse Married
Children 2 [2]
Website
Betterplace.com

Shai Agassi (Hebrew: שי אגסי‎, born 1968) is an Israeli entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for employing electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel technology. Agassi was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG. In 2003, at the age of 36, Agassi was named one of the top 20 'Global Influentials for 2003' by CNN-Time magazine.[citation needed] In 2009, Agassi was included in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people list.[1] In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine included Agassi on its annual list of the 100 most influential global thinkers.[2]

Contents

[hide]

Business entrepreneurship

Shai Agassi in 2006

After graduating Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur. He founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001 at a price of $400 million USD.

In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.

SAP executive

He was next in line for the position of CEO of SAP after Henning Kagermann vacated that space in 2007. However, Mr. Kagermann's contract as CEO was extended until 2009 by the supervisory board. This led Agassi to resign.[3][4]

At SAP he was responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position, he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver, SAP xApps packaged composite applications, SAP SRM, and SAP Business One. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-led the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.

Better Place

In January 2008, the Israeli government announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between Better Place, Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company. Renault and Better Place are working on development of exchangeable batteries.[5][6]

Agassi initially raised $200MM for this project, one of the largest and fastest seed rounds in history.[citation needed] Investors include VantagePoint Venture Partners, Israel Corporation, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Morgan Stanley, and private investors led by Michael Granoff of Maniv Energy Capital.[7] In 2009 he raised an additional $135 million for Better Place Denmark, including an investment from DONG Energy the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place had launched its network in Denmark, Australia and in two US locations - Hawaii and Northern California. The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 countries around the world. In early 2010, Better Place raised its Series-B round at an amount of $350MM[8] led by new investors from HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, as well as all previous investors. In November of 2011, the company raised its third equity financing round of $200 million from a group of investors including GE, UBS bank and others. The last round's valuation of $2.25B is one of the highest valuations for pre-revenue companies in history.

In April 2008, Deutsche Bank analysts reportedly concluded that the company's approach could be a "paradigm shift" that causes "massive disruption" to the auto industry, and which has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."[9] Charlie Rose interviewed Agassi on December 1, 2010 for his show where he discussed the electric car.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Salzman, Alan."The 2009 TIME 100:Shai Agassi". TIME magazine. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
  2. ^ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,27
  3. ^ Agassi, Shai. (2007-03-28) "New Challenges & Farewell", SAP Community Network
  4. ^ "SAP Realigns Executive Board Responsibilities". SAP. 28 March 2007.
  5. ^ Erlanger, Steven (2008-01-21). "Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  6. ^ "Renault-Nissan and Project Better Place prepare for first mass produced electric vehicles". 2008-01-21. Archived from the original on 2008-01-28. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  7. ^ "Michael Granoff, leading cleantech investor, interviewed by Ynet". Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  8. ^ Better Place Inc. (2010-05-07). "SEC Form D, 2010-05-07". SEC Form D, 2010-05-07, Better Place Inc., CIK 0001426900. United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
  9. ^ "Deutsche Bank: Project Better Place has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine"". Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
  10. ^ http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11323

External links


Peter Fogel
Babylon 7
+0
RE: The President That Hates His Country By Joan Swirsky
2/16/2012 3:27:45 AM

Peter, you know so many interesting people. By following some of the links in this article I was able to learn a lot of how these electric cars operate. Fascinating and if it were not for politics and all the restrictions here in the USA we could very well have had someone who could have invented ways for us to become less energy dependant on foreign oil.

Quote:
Hello Friends,

I first met Shai Agassi when he was around 12-14 years old. I was renting a house from his parents Reuvein and Paula while my home was being built. Reuvein was an army Major and was living on base somewhere in the country. We became friends and when he came to visit family he always dropped in for a visit with us with his kids. It was very obvious that Shai was a brilliant kid then and we all had no doubts he would go far in the computer business, a prediction that came true in a spectacular manner.

After high school and upon completion of his military service he studied at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, graduated and started his entrepreneurial career shortly thereafter. He founded Top Tier Soft ware in Israel in 1992 and sold it in 2001 (at the age of 33) for $400 million. The majority of the companies shares belonged to him and his father Reuvein who was his partner (it was with his father's savings and military pension that they founded Top Tier). He founded a few other companies after that and later sold them to the same company that bought Top Tier.

Shai became a top executive in SAP as you'll see in the articles below. He was supposed to become the CEO of SAP and that went sour and Shai resigned from the company.

In 2008 Shai founded Better Place and partnered with Renault and Nissan Motor company. Shai's idea was to establish country wide stations where batteries can be exchanged (takes less then 5 minutes) along with electric connections in the home and work place that can recharge the batteries. The electric connections in the homes are special connections and use electricity bought from Better Place..

Denmark, Australia and in 2 US states (Hawaii and Northern California) already have cars running through Better Place and 2 weeks ago they launched the first cars here in Israel with 33 stations around the country with many more in the final stages of completion. The cars are absolutely silent and have as much power as gas run cars.

As you'll see from the below articles all the monies for this project were raised by Shai Agassi and never received any subsidies from the Israeli government. With the proper planning and technology it can be done and at competitive prices.

Shai Agassi was recognized as one of the top business people in the world and one of the most influential.

Shalom,

Peter


Shai Agassi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shai Agassi
Born 1968
Israel Ramat-Gan, Israel [1]
Residence United States San Francisco, USA
Nationality IsraeliIsrael
Education Technion, BA, 1990
Occupation Founder and CEO of Better Place
Spouse Married
Children 2 [2]
Website
Betterplace.com

Shai Agassi (Hebrew: שי אגסי‎, born 1968) is an Israeli entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for employing electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel technology. Agassi was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG. In 2003, at the age of 36, Agassi was named one of the top 20 'Global Influentials for 2003' by CNN-Time magazine.[citation needed] In 2009, Agassi was included in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people list.[1] In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine included Agassi on its annual list of the 100 most influential global thinkers.[2]

Contents

[hide]

Business entrepreneurship

Shai Agassi in 2006

After graduating Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur. He founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001 at a price of $400 million USD.

In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.

SAP executive

He was next in line for the position of CEO of SAP after Henning Kagermann vacated that space in 2007. However, Mr. Kagermann's contract as CEO was extended until 2009 by the supervisory board. This led Agassi to resign.[3][4]

At SAP he was responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position, he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver, SAP xApps packaged composite applications, SAP SRM, and SAP Business One. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-led the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.

Better Place

In January 2008, the Israeli government announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between Better Place, Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company. Renault and Better Place are working on development of exchangeable batteries.[5][6]

Agassi initially raised $200MM for this project, one of the largest and fastest seed rounds in history.[citation needed] Investors include VantagePoint Venture Partners, Israel Corporation, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Morgan Stanley, and private investors led by Michael Granoff of Maniv Energy Capital.[7] In 2009 he raised an additional $135 million for Better Place Denmark, including an investment from DONG Energy the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place had launched its network in Denmark, Australia and in two US locations - Hawaii and Northern California. The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 countries around the world. In early 2010, Better Place raised its Series-B round at an amount of $350MM[8] led by new investors from HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, as well as all previous investors. In November of 2011, the company raised its third equity financing round of $200 million from a group of investors including GE, UBS bank and others. The last round's valuation of $2.25B is one of the highest valuations for pre-revenue companies in history.

In April 2008, Deutsche Bank analysts reportedly concluded that the company's approach could be a "paradigm shift" that causes "massive disruption" to the auto industry, and which has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."[9] Charlie Rose interviewed Agassi on December 1, 2010 for his show where he discussed the electric car.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Salzman, Alan."The 2009 TIME 100:Shai Agassi". TIME magazine. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
  2. ^ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,27
  3. ^ Agassi, Shai. (2007-03-28) "New Challenges & Farewell", SAP Community Network
  4. ^ "SAP Realigns Executive Board Responsibilities". SAP. 28 March 2007.
  5. ^ Erlanger, Steven (2008-01-21). "Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  6. ^ "Renault-Nissan and Project Better Place prepare for first mass produced electric vehicles". 2008-01-21. Archived from the original on 2008-01-28. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  7. ^ "Michael Granoff, leading cleantech investor, interviewed by Ynet". Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  8. ^ Better Place Inc. (2010-05-07). "SEC Form D, 2010-05-07". SEC Form D, 2010-05-07, Better Place Inc., CIK 0001426900. United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
  9. ^ "Deutsche Bank: Project Better Place has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine"". Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
  10. ^ http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11323

External links


+0
RE: The President That Hates His Country By Joan Swirsky
2/16/2012 3:34:46 AM

This article, by Judi McLeod, came out today in the Canada Free Press. She is a great writer and one of my favorites. She usually manages to hit the nail on the head and this article is no exception.

For all evil deeds and the lies that cover them, Vengeance is the Lord’s

Obama King Herod of His Day?

Judi McLeod Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Someday it will go down as one of history’s most indelible ironies: the man who imposed birth control on Catholics was one without a valid birth certificate or any other kind of provable identity.
This is how future generations will read about how it all happened:
About 50 years ago in real time, ‘someone’ gave birth ‘somewhere’ to a baby. From red diapers, the baby grew up to be touted as ‘The Community Organizer of All Time’. The main trajectory of this story took an activist from off the streets of Chicago to the Senate, then into the Oval Office as President of the United States of America, and, according to the legend of himself he carries in his own mind, self-crowned ‘King of the World’.
Under his grinding regime, right became wrong, wrong became right in block-by-block New World Order construction, driven by hardcore Marxism, whose evil mission was the Fundamental Transformation of America no one seemed willing to stop.
As we all know, in the three and a half year timeline of his first term in office, Barack Hussein Obama began openly shooting down religious freedom by imposing birth control among Catholic institutions.
Long before imposing his will on Christians, Obama had been Abortion’s Number One World Advocate. Ostensibly he did it, not for the children, but for women. Obama was already forcing American taxpayers to pay for millions of abortions in foreign lands. Championed by his wife Michelle as “courageous” in a fundraising letter extolling abortion, Obama believes babies who survive abortion should be slaughtered upon drawing their first breath. (Lifesite and CFP)
Up to the debut of Obama, Your Agent for Change, King Herod held the record as the world’s most reviled infamous baby killer.
Born 73 or 74 BCE, Herod, a Roman “client king of Judea”, was also known as Herod the Great. Horrid as Herod was, We the People of Herod’s day knew his father was Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean.(wikipedia)
Just like Obama, King Herod dangled through life on someone else’s puppet strings. ‘Client state’ is one of several phrases used to describe the economic, political and/or military subordination of one state to a more powerful state: satellite state, associated state, puppet state, neo-colony, protectorate, vassal state and tributary state.
Herod’s puppet masters went about their business in togas and sandals; Obama’s go about theirs in tailored suits and Teleprompter techniques, fortified by 2 million member- ‘Truth Squads’.
Even after 2000-plus years, the heartrending screams of the mothers of baby boys slaughtered before their very eyes can still be heard through the mists of time. Stories of the screams of latter-day babies, who survive the abortion procedure, are suppressed and silenced lest the squeamish turn on the source who allows it to happen. The agonized screams of baby slaughter in modern times are also covered over to make way for the rhetoric of politicians citing “womens’ rights” come election time.
We, perhaps, will never know in our lifetime what particular circumstances saw Barack Obama’s mother bring her child to full term. Indeed, other than what her son wrote in an allegedly ghost-written book, we don’t even know who is his mother.
Throughout the ages, people in high places have pretended to be what they were not. Herod told the Three Wise Men to find the Christ Child and to come back and tell him the Baby’s location, so he, too, could go and adore Him. The trio returned to their homes by circuitous routes and never saw the evil Herod again.
Obama, top baby killer of his time, claimed at the recent National Prayer Breakfast that he gets down on his knees in prayer.
There are those who say that only Satan could shoot down Freedom of Religious rights while swearing allegiance to the Creator.
For all evil deeds and the lies that cover them, Vengeance is the Lord’s.
Herod’s gruesome death is worth noting: “Josephus wrote that Herod’s final illness—sometimes named as “Herod’s Evil (38)—was excruciating. (39). From Josephus’ descriptions, some medical experts propose that Herod had chronic kidney disease complicated by Fournier’s gangrene. (40). Modern scholars agree he suffered throughout his lifetime from depression and paranoia (41). More recently, others report that the visible worms and putrefaction described in his final days are likely to have been scabies; the disease might have accounted for both his death and psychiatric symptoms (42). Similar symptoms attended the death of his grandson Agrippa 1 in CE 44. (wikipedia)
There was only (thank God) one Herod, just as there is only (thank God) one Barack Hussein Obama.
If there is to be continuation of a Free West after November 6, 2012, the question that matters most reflects the babies who survive abortion but get no second chance: Will Obama be given a second chance through reelection?

+0
Peter Fogel

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RE: The President That Hates His Country By Joan Swirsky
2/16/2012 6:58:26 AM
Hi Evelyn & Friends,

Shai Agassi's concept works and is running in 4 countries at the moment with an additional 25 soon to join the Better Place family. I posted the below video in my joke thread but thought it should be here as well to compliment the article about Better Place and the Renault-Nissan electric cars.

Shalom,

Peter

Quote:
Hello Friends,

Yesterday I posted an article about Shai Agassi and the company he founded Better Place in my President's thread.

So far Shai Agassi with the Renault-Nissan electric cars and Better Place battery exchange stations are working in 3 countries with another 25 soon to be a part of his vision to have over a billion electric cars on the roads by 2015 and part of his Better Place family.

Shai is an Israeli and he founded the company in Israel in 2008 and just a few weeks ago he launched the 33 exchange stations spread out over the country with many more in the planning. So Israel is the fourth country that will run with the Better Place stations and Renault-Nissan electric cars.

Below is a video of how the battery exchange works. It's quite fascinating and fully automated. Takes about as long as filling a tank with gas and possibly less time.

Shalom,

Peter


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VR3oLV4fdcE


Quote:

Peter, you know so many interesting people. By following some of the links in this article I was able to learn a lot of how these electric cars operate. Fascinating and if it were not for politics and all the restrictions here in the USA we could very well have had someone who could have invented ways for us to become less energy dependant on foreign oil.

Quote:
Hello Friends,

I first met Shai Agassi when he was around 12-14 years old. I was renting a house from his parents Reuvein and Paula while my home was being built. Reuvein was an army Major and was living on base somewhere in the country. We became friends and when he came to visit family he always dropped in for a visit with us with his kids. It was very obvious that Shai was a brilliant kid then and we all had no doubts he would go far in the computer business, a prediction that came true in a spectacular manner.

After high school and upon completion of his military service he studied at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, graduated and started his entrepreneurial career shortly thereafter. He founded Top Tier Soft ware in Israel in 1992 and sold it in 2001 (at the age of 33) for $400 million. The majority of the companies shares belonged to him and his father Reuvein who was his partner (it was with his father's savings and military pension that they founded Top Tier). He founded a few other companies after that and later sold them to the same company that bought Top Tier.

Shai became a top executive in SAP as you'll see in the articles below. He was supposed to become the CEO of SAP and that went sour and Shai resigned from the company.

In 2008 Shai founded Better Place and partnered with Renault and Nissan Motor company. Shai's idea was to establish country wide stations where batteries can be exchanged (takes less then 5 minutes) along with electric connections in the home and work place that can recharge the batteries. The electric connections in the homes are special connections and use electricity bought from Better Place..

Denmark, Australia and in 2 US states (Hawaii and Northern California) already have cars running through Better Place and 2 weeks ago they launched the first cars here in Israel with 33 stations around the country with many more in the final stages of completion. The cars are absolutely silent and have as much power as gas run cars.

As you'll see from the below articles all the monies for this project were raised by Shai Agassi and never received any subsidies from the Israeli government. With the proper planning and technology it can be done and at competitive prices.

Shai Agassi was recognized as one of the top business people in the world and one of the most influential.

Shalom,

Peter


Shai Agassi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shai Agassi
Born 1968
Israel Ramat-Gan, Israel [1]
Residence United States San Francisco, USA
Nationality IsraeliIsrael
Education Technion, BA, 1990
Occupation Founder and CEO of Better Place
Spouse Married
Children 2 [2]
Website
Betterplace.com

Shai Agassi (Hebrew: שי אגסי‎, born 1968) is an Israeli entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for employing electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel technology. Agassi was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG. In 2003, at the age of 36, Agassi was named one of the top 20 'Global Influentials for 2003' by CNN-Time magazine.[citation needed] In 2009, Agassi was included in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people list.[1] In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine included Agassi on its annual list of the 100 most influential global thinkers.[2]

Contents

[hide]

Business entrepreneurship

Shai Agassi in 2006

After graduating Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur. He founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001 at a price of $400 million USD.

In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.

SAP executive

He was next in line for the position of CEO of SAP after Henning Kagermann vacated that space in 2007. However, Mr. Kagermann's contract as CEO was extended until 2009 by the supervisory board. This led Agassi to resign.[3][4]

At SAP he was responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position, he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver, SAP xApps packaged composite applications, SAP SRM, and SAP Business One. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-led the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.

Better Place

In January 2008, the Israeli government announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between Better Place, Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company. Renault and Better Place are working on development of exchangeable batteries.[5][6]

Agassi initially raised $200MM for this project, one of the largest and fastest seed rounds in history.[citation needed] Investors include VantagePoint Venture Partners, Israel Corporation, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Morgan Stanley, and private investors led by Michael Granoff of Maniv Energy Capital.[7] In 2009 he raised an additional $135 million for Better Place Denmark, including an investment from DONG Energy the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place had launched its network in Denmark, Australia and in two US locations - Hawaii and Northern California. The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 countries around the world. In early 2010, Better Place raised its Series-B round at an amount of $350MM[8] led by new investors from HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, as well as all previous investors. In November of 2011, the company raised its third equity financing round of $200 million from a group of investors including GE, UBS bank and others. The last round's valuation of $2.25B is one of the highest valuations for pre-revenue companies in history.

In April 2008, Deutsche Bank analysts reportedly concluded that the company's approach could be a "paradigm shift" that causes "massive disruption" to the auto industry, and which has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."[9] Charlie Rose interviewed Agassi on December 1, 2010 for his show where he discussed the electric car.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Salzman, Alan."The 2009 TIME 100:Shai Agassi". TIME magazine. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
  2. ^ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,27
  3. ^ Agassi, Shai. (2007-03-28) "New Challenges & Farewell", SAP Community Network
  4. ^ "SAP Realigns Executive Board Responsibilities". SAP. 28 March 2007.
  5. ^ Erlanger, Steven (2008-01-21). "Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  6. ^ "Renault-Nissan and Project Better Place prepare for first mass produced electric vehicles". 2008-01-21. Archived from the original on 2008-01-28. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  7. ^ "Michael Granoff, leading cleantech investor, interviewed by Ynet". Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  8. ^ Better Place Inc. (2010-05-07). "SEC Form D, 2010-05-07". SEC Form D, 2010-05-07, Better Place Inc., CIK 0001426900. United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
  9. ^ "Deutsche Bank: Project Better Place has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine"". Cleantech Investing in Israel. 2008-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
  10. ^ http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11323

External links


Peter Fogel
Babylon 7
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