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Shai Agassi

Shai Agassi
BusinessBusiness LeadersCeos

Shai Agassi is an Israeli entrepreneur who founded Better Place, a company that developed and sold battery-charging and battery-exchanging services for electric cars. He surrendered as CEO of Better Place in October 2012 and Better Place sought financial protection in May 2013.

Prior to that, he was leader of the products and technology group at Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP SE) until he surrendered in 2007. In 2009, Time Magazine remembered Agassi for its rundown of the 100 most powerful individuals of the year.

Early Life and Education

Shai Agassi was brought into the world on April 19, 1968, in Ramat Gan, Israel. Agassi earned a four year certification in computer science from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1990. Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur.

His dad, Reuven Agassi, was a colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and an engineer. With his dad, he helped to establish Quicksoft Ltd., TopManage, and Quicksoft Media. He likewise founded TopTier Software (initially Quicksoft Development) in 1992 and served as chair of the board, chief technology officer (CTO), and eventually chief executive officer (CEO). SAP SE acquired TopTier Software in 2001 for $400 million.

Notable Accomplishments

Agassi is a serial entrepreneur. In 1992 he helped to establish TopTier Software with his dad (initially called Quicksoft Development) in Israel and later moved the company's headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in different limits including chairman, chief technology officer, and afterward CEO. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor yet just endured a couple of years. Its leading product, be that as it may, TopManage, was purchased by German software maker SAP in 2002 at a price of US$400 million.

After SAP SE's acquisition, Agassi took the job of head of global product development, succeeding SAP SE's founder Hasso Plattner in the job. While at SAP SE, Agassi developed the possibility of a green transportation revolution. After Agassi met Andre Zarur, CEO of the biotech company BioProcessors, the two wrote a whitepaper named, "Changing Global Transportation" in 2006.

In December 2006, Agassi gave a talk at the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.- based Think Tank. It has been reported that this talk included former President Bill Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. This event ended up opening entryways for Agassi to pitch his plan for a green revolution in transportation. In the wake of being passed over for the promotion to CEO of SAP SE in 2007, he quit the company to found Better Place.

Agassi's associations managed the cost of him access to extremely affluent investors who were essential to ahead of schedule, large funding adjusts for Better Place. Altogether, Crunchbase has estimated that Better Place raised $925 million to start a business selling electric cars in Israel. Better Place raised roughly $900 million from 2009 to 2011, however delivered under 2,000 vehicles.

The Rise and Fall of a Better Place

Better Place was a precursor of electric vehicle companies like Tesla. Its plan was to change over ordinary internal combustion vehicles into electric ones by retrofitting them with replaceable lithium-particle battery packs. Rather than charging these cars, there would be stations to swap out old batteries for new ones. In the midst of much publicity, the company had the option to raise almost $1 billion in startup funding, a record at that point, and making it one of the world's first "unicorns". Before long, he had inked deals to test the cars in Israel and Denmark, with different countries arranging behind.

All along, be that as it may, Agassi had unreasonable expectations for what the company could do in the market with the money it had. Agassi used his incredible associations with strike a deal with the CEO of Nissan-Renault, Carlos Ghosn, to build Better Place's automobiles. Ghosn reportedly suggested they start by building 50,000 vehicles, which would represent half of the Israeli vehicle market. Agassi inflated this number to 100,000 when he opened up to the world to examine his plans for the company.

Agassi wanted his cars to be less expensive than internal combustion alternatives, which at the time was not possible. In subsequent funding adjusts, production costs were minimized and Agassi's story of groundbreaking technology was used to legitimize stunningly ridiculous claims.

Better Place additionally pursued several awful management choices. For instance, none of the founding employees had experience in the automobile industry. As opposed to zeroing in on making a concept and afterward building it with the assistance of product managers who could guarantee a reliable and affordable product, Agassi started hiring marketing employees around the world who were entrusted with campaigning national governments outside of Israel for favorable tax breaks.

At that point, it seemed like Agassi couldn't possibly be at fault. Even Thomas Friedman, the American political analyst, writer, and beneficiary of three Pulitzer Prizes, writing in the New York Times in 2008, suggested that the U.S. government would improve to fund Agassi's startup than save Detroit from the financial crisis that almost annihilated the infrastructure of the city.

In any case, in the late spring of 2009, Agassi's vision and idealism appeared to start disentangling. He moved from California to Israel without telling his partners ahead of time, and his relationship with his significant other reached a conclusion. His new sweetheart started going to executive gatherings with him, and he lost a key employee Eliza Peleg (who was reportedly a vital contrast to Agassi's inappropriate hopefulness).

The company's costs expanded as Agassi demanded that Better Place invest in building all that from charging stations to route technology. At the point when the company ought to have been downsizing its costs and considering outsourcing, it was really losing huge amounts of funds consistently. it has been speculated that the amount of money the company was losing every day on operating expenses like sales, R&D, salaries, and payments to \u00adsuppliers surpassed $500,000.

Eventually, it because clear to the company's investors that Better Place's costs were wild and that the company didn't have a viable path to profitability. In late 2012, Agassi surrendered as CEO. Altogether, the company sold under 1,500 vehicles of its projected 100,000, generally to employees and through corporate leases. He surrendered as CEO of Better Place in October 2012 and Better Place petitioned for financial protection in May 2013.

Since his takeoff from Better Place, Agassi has stayed under the radar. Agassi's LinkedIn shows that he was the CEO of a company called Newrgy from 2014 to 2015. In 2022, Agassi returned to the smart vehicle startup scene as executive chairperson of Israel-based Makalu Optics, a LiDAR company, however which is still in stealth mode and has not been formally revealed.

The Bottom Line

Shai Agassi might be best known for the breathtaking failure of his electric vehicle company, Better Place, however companies like Elon Musk's Tesla Motors (TSLA) have taken up where Agassi left out. Today, electric vehicles are being developed and manufactured by numerous mainstream automakers also, and consumer demand around the world is high. This, maybe, is an example in being too right on time of a mover. In any case, Agassi has returned to autotech space, working on LiDAR systems to be used via autonomous vehicles.

Highlights

  • Better Place raised around $900 million from 2009 to 2011, however delivered under 2,000 vehicles.
  • Agassi surrendered as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Better Place in 2012 and the company sought financial protection in 2013.
  • n the 1990s and 2000s, Agassi was a rising star in the technology and entrepreneur world, and in 2009, Time Magazine remembered Agassi for its rundown of the 100 most compelling individuals of the year.
  • In 2022 Agassi remerged as head of the LiDAR designer Makalu Optics.
  • Shai Agassi founded Better Place, an Israel-based startup.

FAQ

What Is Shai Agassi's Current Company?

In 2022, it was announced that Agassi would assist with heading up Israeli tech startup Makalu Optics. As per the company, it plans to foster a 4D LiDAR (x, y, z, velocity of target) to be used in driverless vehicles and different applications.

Why Was Agassi's Car Company Called "Better Place"?

Better Place was an electric vehicle start-up that got its name from "Undertaking Better Place." This was motivated by an inquiry posed by the German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab at the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "How would you make the world a better place by 2020?"

For what reason Did Better Place Fail?

Better Place failed due to a mix of overextend, over-investment in battery swapping technology, general mismanagement, and a misconception of the consumer demand for Green transportation at that point.