Good morning.
The brutal terror attacks on Israel and the escalating violence they have triggered have cast a terrible pall over the world for the last two weeks. Many CEOs have spoken out on the issue, as Yale’s Jeff Sonnenfeld writes in a commentary piece here. Many more are dealing with consequences affecting employees with friends and family in both Israel and Gaza.
I had an interesting conversation with one Israeli entrepreneur this week who found a silver lining amid the horror. His name is Gal Krubiner, and he is co-founder and CEO of Pagaya. The company employs 700 people, 400 of whom are in Israel. It works with U.S. banks to make loans to people who otherwise would not have access to credit, using AI to qualify them. “Fifty percent of people applying for a loan are getting denied,” Krubiner said. Pagaya aims to help fix that. The company went public through a SPAC transaction last year, and currently has a market cap of around a billion dollars. It has funded more than $16 billion in loans.
