Liad Agmon unveils spiritual startup Sunsay

Serial entrepreneur and Sunsay CEO Liad Agmon spoke today with Globes High-Tech Editor Assaf Gilead at the Globes TECH IL Conference and provided interesting insights into the impact of AI, employment of juniors in the tech industry and his opinion on the government’s actions regarding the shekel-dollar exchange rate and the plan revealed by “Globes” on taxation for IDF 8200 unit graduates.

Agmon, who has founded two startups in the past, and was with Insight Partners, left the venture capital fund to once again become an entrepreneur. He was asked why he decided to return to entrepreneurship, and said: “Like everything in life, it’s a process and not a single reason. I’m happiest when I’m building things. My new project chose me, and I didn’t choose it. I tried for a year to make it disappear, and eventually I decided to do it. Besides being a tech entrepreneur, I also facilitate dynamic groups, which is a field in the world of therapy, touching on the worlds of emotion and psychology.”

Sunsay is developing a device that is a kind of “electronic friend”, a hardware-based personal assistant that helps maintain physical, mental and wellness health throughout the day, and draws inspiration from Agmon’s personal experience in facilitating groups and the success of popular assistive devices on the market such as the Aura personal ring and the Whoop wrist health band.

The company, he says, started when Dov Moran introduced him (when Agmon was at Insight) to a company from Netanya that develops sophisticated games for phones, which, while not a good fit for Insight, gave him a few ideas. “We use the worlds of astrology and tarot, when we don’t believe in the metaphysics of these things, but I do believe in my ability and that of others to relate to these worlds for a moment in an open way and to bridge emotional work. You don’t have to believe that the universe sent you the card, but if you are in front of someone in the right setting, something will resonate with you. You can relate to what was said and think about where it meets you and do psychological work,” says Agmon.

What is the product, actually?

“The ritual. If you think about it, in Judaism, putting on tefillin is a rite of passage between the sacred and the secular and vice versa, we are building a ritual that is supposed to bring the user – mainly women, by the way, 80% – into a few minutes of introspection. We are constantly in digital. I wanted to create an object that can be played with, held in the hand, given to others. On a marketing level, just any consumer product, it is critical to quickly understand the unit economy.”

Insight Partners Liad Agmon steps down as managing partner

You came from cybersecurity and enterprise software, how did you come to spirituality?

“I’ve reached a point where, sorry, I can’t sell software to 50-year-old white men anymore. It’s an unpleasant experience, going to boring conferences. On a personal level, it’s not good for me. It’s no fun. I told myself I’m not doing cybersecurity anymore.”

Is it possible to succeed in Israel with a hardware company?

“I don’t know, we’ll find out in a few years. There are very successful consumer companies in Israel. One of the reasons I’m doing it is to get out of my comfort zone. My project was postponed for a month because of a factory in China, I’ve never dealt with. I feel like a kid in a toy store who has to learn how to do it.”

22 years ago you founded a company, then the second 13 years ago. How is founding a company different today than it was then?

“When we founded a company in 2012, the cloud was just starting, and it gave us a crazy comparative advantage over existing rivals. We could move much faster. I’m doing it small here but think about Jeff Bezos founding a startup. Anyone who loves technology can’t sit on the sidelines today when AI is causing crazy disruption.

“I want to stay as long as possible, with fewer than 10 employees. For the first time in my life, development is ahead of the product. Something has changed. I really think it’s possible to start a company with 20% of the manpower I needed three years ago. We do everything with AI, there’s not a single meeting of mine that isn’t recorded, transcribed, and saved. There’s almost nothing I don’t consult with AI about. The place that’s really complicated today is where the line is drawn between our personal contribution and what Cloud or Chat GPT recommends we do. If I see a feature that looks too much like AI designed it, I get upset. I try to find my personal voice. Where am I in the event and where is the AI? That’s the thing about these worlds, AI is great in text, creating an experience for the consumer.”

What are the disadvantages of AI? What can’t it do?

“I would call it taste. In the world of cinema, the great directors – I’m a wannabe film director – have something of a taste. At Sunsay, I tell the designers what I like and what I don’t. It’s a hidden part, there’s a matter of human taste. AI will get there. There’s still a gap, which is our uniqueness. I feel like these are the last years when we can do original things.”

not hiring juniors

What people are you looking to hire?

“I don’t hire young people, I’m on a small team with people who are top of the game. Juniors need guidance, and that takes attention from someone experienced. In the past, if you wanted to be a carpenter, you were going to be an apprentice and after a decade you go independent. In high-tech, you’re an apprentice programmer with NIS 35,000 a month and free meals. I don’t need this because I only have 2 developers. Even when I expand the team now, I interview for very high IQ, give homework related to working in AI, check how they work and where their voice is, and look for some X factor that is a little more elusive. I have the ability to identify talent, at least I think so.”

You predict a very bleak future for juniors?

“Yes, because in the end, in programming, what can a junior do if Claude is better than him? In June, our CTO has dozens of agents running, but he needs to integrate and check if something is not working, and he needs a lot of experience. I talked about this in frustration at the company. I sometimes do projects on weekends. If I used to be a programmer, today my role has been reduced to the very insulting role of junior manual QA. I give a task to Claude who does all the sophisticated things and he does it in hours that would have taken me months. My experience is sometimes very insulting. I got the unpleasant part of the job.”

The recent layoffs in the tech industry, are they really because of AI? On the other hand, tech salaries are at an all-time high. How do you explain that?

“AI is real. For companies like Artlist and Wix, AI has pulled the rug out from under their business model. The shekel-dollar exchange rate is also a real pain. I believe that AI in the short term will make us all superpowers, but in the future it will replace us. Industrial companies like my father’s that couldn’t afford projects today can do it cheaply. That’s in the short term, we’ll see an increase in demand for people who know how to do things with AI. In the long term it will decrease.

“There’s a story about two horses in New York at the end of the 19th century and a car breaks down. One horse says to the other, ‘We’ll be replaced,’ the other says, ‘You need to be a mechanic to operate it, it’ll be a niche.’ Today there are almost no horses in New York. Today, humanity is the highest intelligence on Earth, the other animals have lost, we are the dominant ones, we are before an era when we will be number 2 in intelligence. We’re getting there and it’s scary.

“I don’t think that anyone in Jerusalem cares about the ordinary citizen”

What does the Ministry of Finance need to do to influence thr shekel-dollar exchange rate?

“I wouldn’t hire the finance minister for the most junior position. I think he lacks any abilities. We are in a completely socialist country, in a Likud government. A large part of the economic problems is that it is a very partial socialism that is directed at power groups. The crazy drop in the shekel-dollar exchange rate has not led to a drop in prices. Who is connected to the government’s interests? The importers and the big committees. We are in a situation where I don’t think anyone in Jerusalem cares about the ordinary citizen. The only way is to replace the government with a government that has some kind of concern. They will sell us good things during an election campaign. I am cynical.”

And what about grants for startups?

“I don’t believe it, it’s a drop in the ocean, how do you decide who should receive it? Usually they react too slowly, too late, and not the most efficient way. The government needs to worry about macroeconomics, we need to limit the institutions because we have an inverse correlation between the rise in the S&P 500 and the fall in the shekel-dollar exchange rate. A lot of dollars and shekels are changing hands, and this can be stopped with legislation or a temporary order. It has nothing to do with Israel’s economic situation. We need to understand the source of the situation and deal with it. I’m in the spiritual business right now. Someone in Jerusalem should do something about it.”

What is your reaction to “Globes” report about an initiative to tax IDF 8200 graduates?

Agmon laughs: “It sounds almost as absurd as recruiting Haredim (to the army). It’s stupid, publicity-driven nonsense. I don’t think it stands the test of case law. I don’t understand it in depth, but it’s populist nonsense. If a bunch of guys come out and set up a gym, does he need to be taxed? I joined the army as a hacker. I wouldn’t sign a three-year contract. You could say they earned a lot, but they gave 6-9 of their best years. It’s so stupid, but everything here has been stupid in recent years.”

Full disclosure: Globes is grateful to the partners that helped in holding the TECH IL Conference: Phoenix Group, Phoenix ESOP, Ondas Israel, Microsoft Israel R&D, Fischer (FBC), Voicenter, Cyberstarts, and the Israel Innovation Authority.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on June 17, 2026.

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