Saar Wilf is an Israeli innovator, businessman,
angel investor
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...
and
poker player
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game wa ...
[ who provides capital for ]start-up
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
businesses.
Career
Wilf served in the Israeli Defense Forces
Israeli may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel
* Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel
* Modern Hebrew, a language
* ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008
* Guni Israeli ...
' intelligence Unit 8200
Unit 8200 ( he, יחידה 8200, ''Yehida shmone -Matayim''- "Unit eight - two hundred") is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for collecting signal intelligence (SIGINT) and code decryption. Military pub ...
.Gemalto
Gemalto was an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, and managed services. It was formed in June 2006 by the merger of two companies, Axalto and Gemplus In ...
in 2010.eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
through PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
in 2008 for $169 million, where he worked until 2010.Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
), Pointgrab, Deep Optics.CallApp
CallApp is a mobile app offering caller ID, call blocking and call recording. It gives background information about the entities behind incoming or outgoing calls by utilizing the user's community-generated content and social networking servic ...
, Crosswise (acquired by Oracle
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word '' ...
), Supersonic (merged with IronSource
ironSource Ltd. is an Israeli software company that focuses on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy.
Among others, ironSource was chosen as one of the '20 hottest star ...
). As of 2014, Wilf was the chairman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, 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 grou ...
of Wikiwand
Wikiwand, formerly stylized as WikiWand, is a proprietary interface developed for viewing Wikipedia articles. Its interface includes a sidebar menu displaying the table of contents, a navigation bar, personalized links to other languages, new typ ...
, a mobile app and web browser extension for Wikipedia.
Bzigo
Bzigo is a technology start-up company that develops autonomous devices for a pest-free life. Its first product detects and locates mosquitoes, and future products will both detect and eliminate mosquitoes and other pests autonomously. The company ...
, that he co-founded in 2016, has developed a machine which scans a room for mosquitos
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning "gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "litt ...
and tells mobile phones
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
where they are, describing itself as "an Iron Dome
Iron Dome ( he, כִּפַּת בַּרְזֶל, Kippat Barzel) is a mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short- ...
for mosquitos".probabilistic analysis
Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking ...
to predict the likely solution to questions about controversial events such as war crimes, murder cases, and airline crashes. For example, it attributes the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack
The Ghouta chemical attack, was a Chemical warfare, chemical attack carried out by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in the early hours of 21 August 2013 in Ghouta, Syria during the Syrian civil war. Two Syrian opposition, oppos ...
in Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
to the Syrian opposition and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Cont ...
to the Russia-aligned Donetsk People's Republic.Quahl
Quahl ( ), formerly known as Initiative Q, was an attempt to create a new payment network and digital currency. It was created by Israeli entrepreneur Saar Wilf, who previously founded Fraud Sciences, a payment security company acquired by PayPal ...
(originally known as Initiative Q), backed by American economist Lawrence H. White and branded a "pyramid scheme
A pyramid scheme is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly im ...
with grandiose ideas" by the ''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
.'' However, Mashable disagreed explaining "The important bit is that there's no money changing hands here".Brain Preservation Foundation
The Brain Preservation Foundation is an American non-profit organization with the goal of promoting validated scientific research and technical services development in the field of whole brain preservation for long-term static storage, as well as ...
Prize, which was won on March 13, 2018.
Wilf has been playing Poker since 2005, with career earnings of over $1.3 Million as of 2023.
References
Israeli poker players
Israeli businesspeople
Israeli inventors
Living people
Date of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
1974 births
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