Ze'ev Drori is an Israeli-born American technology entrepreneur currently residing in California.
19 Facts About Ze'ev Drori
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Ze'ev Drori helped engineer the turnaround of struggling electric carmaker Tesla Motors as President and CEO from 2007 to 2008.
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Ze'ev Drori was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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Ze'ev Drori's father worked for the Tel Aviv Municipality and his mother was a homemaker.
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Uninterested in school, he left home at 15 to move to Kibbutz Hulda, where despite his young age Ze'ev Drori worked in the fields.
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Ze'ev Drori enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces at 17, and moved through the ranks to become an officer in the Paratroopers Brigade.
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At the completion of his military service, Ze'ev Drori passed his Israeli matriculation exams and went to the United States to study.
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Ze'ev Drori was promoted to head IBM's semiconductor memory operation as the engineering manager.
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Ze'ev Drori left IBM after receiving a job offer from Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View, one of the pioneering Silicon Valley electronics firms.
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Ze'ev Drori left Fairchild to start his own company in 1970.
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In 1970, Ze'ev Drori founded Monolithic Memories, a semiconductor firm that pioneered advances in memory and logic technology.
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Ze'ev Drori served as President, CEO, Chairman of the Board and CTO of Monolithic through 1981 and as chairman of the board from 1981 to 1987.
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In 1985, having given up day to day control over operations at Monolithic Memories, Ze'ev Drori became the full-time CEO and president.
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Ze'ev Drori brought cutting edge innovations to the auto security industry by incorporating the latest "Silicon Valley" technologies.
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Ze'ev Drori grew Clifford Electronics into one of the world's leading automobile security companies, before selling the company to Allstate Insurance in 1999.
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Ze'ev Drori was specifically tasked with bringing the company's struggling Roadster prototype to market, which he was able to do in 2008.
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Ze'ev Drori was on the board as vice-chairman, but has since left the company.
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An avid race car driver, Ze'ev Drori has been actively competing in Formula Cars since 1997.
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Ze'ev Drori has twice participated in the Long Beach Toyota Grand Prix, and competed in The Formula Car Challenge presented by Goodyear from 2005 until 2009.