Shai Agassi is an Israeli entrepreneur who founded Upper Place, a company that complex and purchased battery-charging and battery-switching services for electric vehicles. He resigned as CEO of Upper Place in October 2012 and Upper Place filed for bankruptcy in Would perhaps 2013.
Prior to that, he was president of the products and era staff at Ways, Applications & Products in Wisdom Processing (SAP SE) until he resigned in 2007. In 2009, Time Magazine included Agassi in its checklist of the 100 most influential people of the 365 days.
Key Takeaways
- Shai Agassi founded Upper Place, an Israel-based startup.
- n the 1990s and 2000s, Agassi was a rising well-known particular person throughout the era and entrepreneur world, and in 2009, Time Magazine included Agassi in its checklist of the 100 most influential people of the 365 days.
- Upper Place raised kind of $900 million from 2009 to 2011, alternatively produced less than 2,000 vehicles.
- Agassi resigned since the Chief Government Officer (CEO) of Upper Place in 2012 and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2013.
- In 2022 Agassi remerged as head of the LiDAR developer Makalu Optics.
Early Life and Coaching
Shai Agassi was born on April 19, 1968, in Ramat Gan, Israel. Agassi earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1990. Agassi set out as a device entrepreneur.
His father, Reuven Agassi, was a colonel throughout the Israel Coverage Forces and an engineer. Along side his father, he co-founded Quicksoft Ltd., TopManage, and Quicksoft Media. He moreover founded TopTier Tool (at first Quicksoft Building) in 1992 and served as chair of the board, chief era officer (CTO), and one day chief government officer (CEO). SAP SE were given TopTier Tool in 2001 for $400 million.
Notable Accomplishments
Agassi is a serial entrepreneur. In 1992 he co-founded TopTier Tool in conjunction with his father (at first known as Quicksoft Building) in Israel and later moved the company’s headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in quite a lot of capacities in conjunction with chairman, chief era officer, and then CEO. TopTier was a primary enterprise portal supplier alternatively most straightforward lasted a few years. Its primary product, alternatively, TopManage, was purchased by means of German instrument maker SAP in 2002 at a price of US$400 million.
After SAP SE’s acquisition, Agassi took the duty of head of global product construction, succeeding SAP SE’s founder Hasso Plattner throughout the place. While at SAP SE, Agassi complex the idea of a green transportation revolution. After Agassi met Andre Zarur, CEO of the biotech company BioProcessors, the two authored a whitepaper titled, “Transforming World Transportation” in 2006.
In December 2006, Agassi gave a talk at the Brookings Status quo, a Washington D.C.-based Suppose Tank. It is been reported that this be in contact included former President Bill Clinton and former Israeli Most sensible Minister Shimon Peres. This match ended up opening doors for Agassi to pitch his plan for a green revolution in transportation. After being passed over for the promotion to CEO of SAP SE in 2007, he surrender the company to came upon Upper Place.
Agassi’s connections afforded him get right to use to very wealthy patrons who‘ve been integral to early, large funding rounds for Upper Place. Usually, Crunchbase has estimated that Upper Place raised $925 million to begin out a trade selling electric vehicles in Israel. Upper Place raised kind of $900 million from 2009 to 2011, alternatively produced less than 2,000 vehicles.
The Upward push and Fall of a Upper Place
Upper Place was a forerunner {of electrical} automobile corporations like Tesla. Its plan was to develop into peculiar gas-powered vehicles into electric ones by means of retrofitting them with replaceable lithium-ion battery packs. Instead of charging the ones vehicles, there might be stations to change out old-fashioned batteries for new ones. Amid so much hype, the company was ready to spice up with regards to $1 billion in startup funding, a record at the time, and making it one of the crucial world’s first “unicorns. Temporarily, he had inked gives to test the vehicles in Israel and Denmark, with other world places lining up behind.
From the beginning, alternatively, Agassi had unrealistic expectations for what the company might do in the market with the money it had. Agassi used his very good connections to strike a maintain the CEO of Nissan-Renault, Carlos Ghosn, to build Upper Place’s cars. Ghosn reportedly suggested they start by means of building 50,000 vehicles, which would possibly represent a part of the Israeli automobile market. Agassi inflated this amount to 100,000 when he went public to discuss his plans for the company.
Agassi wanted his vehicles to be reasonably priced than gas-powered conceivable alternatives, which at the time was not conceivable. In subsequent funding rounds, production costs had been downplayed and Agassi’s narrative of transformational era was used to justify wildly unrealistic claims.
Upper Place moreover made numerous dangerous keep watch over picks. As an example, now not some of the founding group of workers had revel in throughout the automobile industry. Reasonably than focusing on rising an concept and then building it with the help of product managers who might be certain a reliable and relatively priced product, Agassi began hiring promoting group of workers far and wide the sector who‘ve been tasked with lobbying national governments outdoor of Israel for favorable tax breaks.
At the time, it appeared as despite the fact that Agassi might do no unsuitable. Even Thomas Friedman, the American political commentator, author, and recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes, writing throughout the New York Cases in 2008, suggested that the U.S. government would do upper to fund Agassi’s startup than save Detroit from the financial crisis that almost destroyed the infrastructure of the city.
However, in the summer of 2009, Agassi’s vision and optimism seemed to birth unraveling. He relocated from California to Israel without telling his colleagues up to now, and his relationship in conjunction with his partner were given right here to an end. His new feminine pal started attending government meetings with him, and he out of place a key employee Eliza Peleg (who was reportedly an important counterpoint to Agassi’s untoward optimism).
The company’s costs ballooned as Agassi insisted that Upper Place put money into building the entire thing from charging stations to navigation era. At a time when the company should were scaling once more its costs and taking into consideration outsourcing, it was actually losing large quantities of finances every day. it is been speculated that the amount of money the company was losing every day on operating expenses like product sales, R&D, salaries, and expenses to Âsuppliers exceeded $500,000.
Finally, it because of clear to the company’s patrons that Upper Place’s costs had been out of keep watch over and that the company did not have a viable path to profitability. In late 2012, Agassi resigned as CEO. Usually, the company purchased less than 1,500 vehicles of its projected 100,000, maximum recurrently to group of workers and through corporate leases. He resigned as CEO of Upper Place in October 2012 and Upper Place filed for bankruptcy in Would perhaps 2013.
Since his departure from Upper Place, Agassi has stored a quite low profile. Agassi’s LinkedIn presentations that he was the CEO of a company known as Newrgy from 2014 to 2015. In 2022, Agassi returned to the practical supply startup scene as government chairperson of Israel-based Makalu Optics, a LiDAR company, alternatively which continues to be in stealth mode and has not been officially unveiled.
What Is Shai Agassi’s Provide Company?
In 2022, it was presented that Agassi would be in agreement head up Israeli tech startup Makalu Optics. Consistent with the company, it plans to extend a 4D LiDAR (x, y, z, tempo of objective)Â to be used in driverless vehicles and other systems.
Why Was once Agassi’s Automobile Company Known as “Upper Place”?
Upper Place was {an electrical} automobile start-up that got its determine from “Mission Upper Place.” This was inspired by means of a question posed by means of the German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab at the 2005 World Monetary Dialogue board in Davos, Switzerland: “How do you make the sphere a better place by means of 2020?”
Why Did Upper Place Fail?
Upper Place failed on account of a mix of overstretch, over-investment in battery swapping era, fundamental mismanagement, and a misconception of the consumer name for for Green transportation at the time.
The Bottom Line
Shai Agassi may be absolute best recognized for the spectacular failure of his electric automobile company, Upper Place, alternatively corporations like Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors (TSLA) have picked up where Agassi left off. In this day and age, electric vehicles are being complex and manufactured by means of many mainstream automakers as neatly, and client name for far and wide the sector is best. This, possibly, is a lesson in being too early of a mover. However, Agassi has returned to autotech space, operating on LiDAR ways to be used by means of impartial vehicles.
