I wasn’t looking for anything when I found it.
The weeks after the burnout were strange. I was functional again, but directionless. I tried finding new partners. Met a few people, had a few conversations. None of them clicked. I took some job interviews at interesting companies, but I cut every one of them short. Not because the roles were bad. Because the timing felt wrong, and I’d learned enough to stop lying to myself about it.
I wasn’t moving forward. I wasn’t falling apart. I was just… there.
One morning I was scrolling LinkedIn and saw a post from Navot, a VC partner I deeply respected. A startup in his portfolio was looking for a third co-founder.
I commented. Nothing bold, just a question: what area are they working on?
He replied: government automation.
The timing felt almost unreal. Elon Musk and DOGE had been tearing through the US government, and whatever you thought of his methods, the conversation had shifted. People were expecting more from their governments. Efficiency wasn’t a buzzword anymore. It was a demand. And here was a startup actually building it.
I thought that was the end of it. An interesting answer to a casual question.
An hour later, I got a DM from Ido, the CEO and founder of Threefold AI. Navot had told him we should talk. Ido was doing a demo for a big client and said we could connect before or after. He sent me his WhatsApp number.
I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t strategize. Something in me just said: fuck it, let’s try.
We scheduled a call for the next day.
The call was long and unhurried. We asked each other real questions. Not the polished pitch-deck kind. The kind where you’re actually trying to understand how the other person thinks.
Threefold AI was building technology to make governments more efficient. Automating the slow, broken processes that made public institutions frustrating for everyone. It was everything I cared about. The intersection of automation, process intelligence, and real-world impact. The things I’d spent my entire career orbiting.
Ido could sense it. I didn’t have to sell him on my passion. He could hear it.
He talked to Itai, his partner and CPO. They decided to meet me in person. Ido wanted things to move fast. He was ready to start building.
First thing Sunday.
Before Sunday, I met with my mentor. I was stressed in a way I hadn’t been in months.
Because I realized what this was. If they said yes, I would become what I’d been trying to become for two years. An actual entrepreneur. Not someone building alone in his apartment, but someone with a team, a mission, real backing. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I knew it.
After months of being too numb to want anything, wanting something this much felt like standing on a ledge.
I couldn’t sleep. Not that night, not the night after, not the night after that. For three days I did nothing but research.
I went through every commit Ido had ever pushed. He’d been CTO at Zencity for ten years, and now he wanted to step into the CEO role. I could see the transition in his work, in his writing, in how his thinking had evolved. I went through Itai’s GitHub too. I read every post either of them had ever written on X and LinkedIn. Every interview. Every talk. I researched every company they’d ever worked at. I added it all to NotebookLM and cross-referenced everything, looking for patterns, for values, for how they thought about building.
I wasn’t just preparing. I was convincing myself that what I already felt was true. That these were the right people. That this was the right place. That I belonged there.
After three days of this, I reached one conclusion: I wanted this. I needed this.
Sunday morning. I arrived early and waited under Ido’s building on Rothschild Boulevard, just breathing. Not the deep-breathing-exercise kind. The kind where you notice you’re breathing because your body is doing something it doesn’t normally do.
I went up.
Dark green wood in the kitchen. A small living room. Stairs leading to a second floor. The kind of apartment that doesn’t exist in central Tel Aviv. Except it did, and I was standing in it.
Ido opened the door. We shook hands. He was warm, grounded. Ten years of building a company will do that to a person.
Itai was at the dining table, finishing a meeting from his current job. He’d join us in a minute.
I made myself tea. I don’t know why I remember that so clearly. Maybe because the act of making tea in a stranger’s kitchen, during the meeting that might change your life, is the kind of thing your brain holds onto when everything else is moving too fast.
We sat down. Two grown, experienced men across from me. I looked at them and thought about every startup I’d tried to build, every conversation that went nowhere, every feature I’d built instead of picking up the phone.
“I’m going to be honest,” I said. “I’m nervous.”
They smiled. And we started talking.
We talked about how to build an engineering team. How you prioritize between product work and technical debt. How you run discovery meetings, what framework to use, scrum or kanban or something in between. I told them about Lumos AI, about Tonkean, about the venture with Dan and everything I’d learned from it. I told them about my values as a person, about how I believed you build a company for people first. About the books I’d want on every shelf in the office. About the mentoring I’d done for years, the junior developers I’d helped grow. I told them about how I started, building Minecraft servers as a kid, about Ofek in the Air Force, about every step that had led me here.
Ido had to leave for a board meeting at Zencity. He left me with Itai.
We talked for hours. Not small talk. Real, deep conversation about the product, the market, the kind of company they wanted to build, the kind I wanted to build. It was the same company. I could feel it.
But I was too nervous. Even as the words were coming out right, I could feel that something underneath was off. I was trying too hard. Listening to myself talk instead of just talking. The awareness that I wasn’t at my best, and the awareness making it worse. A loop I couldn’t break.
Ido came back. We talked some more. About the vision, about timelines, about what the first six months would look like. Then it was done.
I thanked them and left.
That night, I finally slept. Not because it went well. Because it was no longer up to me.
We’d said we’d talk in the morning.
Morning came and went. Ido was in meetings. I sat in my apartment, alone, waiting. I couldn’t do anything else. Couldn’t read, couldn’t code, couldn’t think about anything other than that phone call. Just waiting.
Then Ido called.
They’d decided not to continue.
Both of them, independently, had reached the same conclusion: I wasn’t experienced enough to build an R&D team.
Something in my chest went tight. I knew they were wrong. I was certain of it, the way you’re certain of very few things in life. I had spent years building, leading, shipping. I’d built teams, built processes from nothing, architected systems that were still running. I’d mentored people who went on to lead their own teams. I could build anything. I could lead anything. I was the right fit. Every cell in my body knew it.
But I didn’t say any of that.
I thanked him. Said I appreciated the opportunity. Wished them good luck.
And I hung up.
About a week later, I called a friend. I was sitting in the same spot I’d been sitting when Ido called. Same apartment, same couch, same view of nothing in particular.
I told him I was bummed out. That I’d had an opportunity that would have changed my life entirely, and I’d missed it. I walked him through the whole thing. The LinkedIn post. The call. The three sleepless nights. The green kitchen on Rothschild. The tea. The nervousness. The hours of conversation. All of it.
He was fascinated. He listened to every detail. And then I got to the last part. The rejection. The thank-you. The good luck. The hanging up.
He went quiet for a second. And then he lost it.
“You ARE the right fit,” he said. “You know that. I know that. Everyone who knows you knows that. So why? Why the hell didn’t you fight for it? Why didn’t you tell them they were wrong? Why didn’t you push back? I would have given anything for that opportunity. Anything. And you just… let it go?”
He wasn’t consoling me. He was angry. Genuinely, deeply angry. Not at them. At me.
I sat there and let him finish. And then I told him the truth.
I had no fight left. After two years of trying, failing, losing a co-founder, building alone, burning out, recovering, researching, preparing, showing up, being vulnerable in a stranger’s kitchen on Rothschild. I had nothing left in the tank.
I didn’t want to be the person who argues for a seat at a table where he wasn’t invited. I didn’t want to convince someone I was worth it when they’d already decided I wasn’t. I didn’t want to become the annoying guy who won’t take no for an answer, who pushes and pleads and negotiates for a place where he wasn’t wanted.
It’s a stupid trait. I know that. But it’s mine.
Sometimes you don’t fight because you can’t. And sometimes you don’t fight because something in you has decided it’s not worth winning if you have to beg for it. I don’t know which one it was. I’m not sure it matters.