Ask HN: Has the Gaza war affected the HN crowd?
In Israel, the war has triggered a noticeable academic brain drain, with foreign students and collaborators pulling back from Israeli institutions (Haaretz). In tech, the impact has been even more pronounced: thousands of workers have relocated abroad, especially to the U.S., and investment in Israeli startups has dropped sharply. Some VCs now require Israeli companies to incorporate outside Israel to mitigate perceived risks (Calcalist).
At the same time, there's growing tension within global tech companies. Internal protests—especially at firms like Google and Microsoft—have raised questions about how Israeli professionals are perceived, and whether political affiliations or national origin are starting to affect hiring, collaboration, or workplace culture. Google recently fired 28 employees after a sit-in protest over its cloud contract with Israel (The Verge), and Microsoft faced a lockdown after activists occupied its president’s office (NYT).
It’s also important to acknowledge that Palestinian professionals and supporters of Palestine may be facing their own challenges. In some cases, expressing solidarity or criticism has led to workplace tensions, reputational risks, or even job insecurity. For many of us who are just observing what is happening online there is also an impact. This can shape how we feel about the historical conflict. These dynamics are complex and vary widely by geography and company culture, but they’re part of the broader picture.
For those of you working in tech, academia, or investing:
- Have you seen changes in how Israeli or Palestinian colleagues are treated?
- Are relocation trends affecting your teams or hiring decisions?
- Is internal culture shifting in response to the war or related protests?
- Have your opinions changed over the course of the 'war'?
Would love to hear perspectives from founders, engineers, researchers, and investors—especially those with ties to Israel, Palestine, or working in globally distributed teams.
== sources ==
Academic brain drain from Israel Haaretz: “Foreign Students Are Fleeing Israeli Universities” https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-20/ty-article/.premium/foreign-students-are-fleeing-israeli-universities/0000019f-2e6e-dc3c-a7df-3f6e2f7b0000
Investment decline and relocation in Israeli tech Calcalist: “ההייטק הישראלי איבד 8800 עובדים מאז תחילת המלחמה” https://www.calcalist.co.il/local-news/article/hyq0j00x0c
Google employee firings over protest of Israel cloud contract The Verge: “Google fires employees who protested its cloud contract with Israel” https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/google-fires-employees-protest-israel-project-nimbus
Microsoft office protest over Israel ties New York Times: “Microsoft Protest Over Israel Ties Ends With Lockdown” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/technology/microsoft-protest-israel.html
Everybody talks, but no body cares, no body takes serious actions. Kids, women, elderly, whole families are being killed for almost two years and no body gives a shit.
Millions of people trapped in a land and moved from north to south from south to north like animals, have you seen videos of starving people running in masses to get food from aids thrown from the air? I can’t beilieve such things are happening in 2025! Sometimes I think, what would I do if I was put under such circumstances? How much hate would I accumulate? What if something happens to my kids? What if I see my kids starving in front of me and I can do nothing about it?
Also big companies, they only care about money, ethics and morale do not exist, they only care about money money and more money.
Countries fighting for women rights in Iran and Saudi (which I agree with) but at the same time, those same countries don’t say anything about the killing of innocent people, pure hypocrites.
If anyone from Gaza Sky Geeks is reading this, please consider sharing those updates on your blog as well as on your email newsletter, so that they can be shared more widely.
[0] https://gazaskygeeks.com/
On a personal level, I boycott all Israeli products and companies, including companies that do business with Israel (to the best of my ability, I still need an alternative to NVIDIA).
The VC community, weighted by AUM is profoundly Zionist.
I worked at one of the most prominent funds and 4 of my coworkers (American) literally relocated to Israel for ideological reasons
You can't bite the hand that feeds even if it's morally right.
Foreign Students are come and go anyway. Unlike in USA they can't stick around in Israel.
Israeli tech companies raised record amounts in Q2
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-tech-companies-ra...
But I also thought we were kind of beyond outright corruption and jingoism too. That these societies that you think are sophisticated and educated are actually not different at all from the sensibilities of societies that crucified people, enslaved people, wholesale eradicated people, economically suffocated people ...
There's nothing about our advanced society that has markers of advanced character, certainly not advanced moral character.
To be fully clear, if you show me a cohort of high school graduates from this year, with wonder in their eyes and a lot of talk about "the future will be good and just", I will absolutely give no credence to it. They are branch of this long torrid code base, and the romance of us as a species is mostly over in my heart (IDGAF how many rockets we launch into space, and how cool AI is). This is not a new type of epiphany, as I'm sure many people were broken throughout history exactly like this. If you believed the young people of 20-40 years ago that their innocence would persist and they would truly build a better world, you got catfished. None of us were ever going to be really different than the shitheads from yesteryear, and the dark truth is this will probably be the case long after our current iteration has mostly passed on.
In short, human innovation and energy is something I no longer believe is sufficient enough for building a sound world anymore. I falsely believed scientific and infrastructural advancement would be enough to keep lifting society. It's clear we morally platued quite some time ago, while technology has trended way way up.
I don't consider myself part of the HN crowd, rather just someone with a waning tech background and persistent interest in many things. I'm unaffiliated with any identity regarding the conflict. A mere American, dizzy and uneasy.
Personally, the effects for me, coupled with Ukraine, instill a sense of illness. I deliberately avoid the numbers as I would the flu. My delusions of a wonderful world are presently reserved for intoxicants and occasional suspensions of disbelief which come sparsely. The tension surrounding the topic, however, is palpable.
I wish you the extensive discussion the subject deserves.