alt Hacker NewsWix too. Very interesting that founders of Waze and Wix have Unit 8200 pedigree and Wiz co-founder was part of an elite recruitment program in the IDF. On account of the mandatory draft, it was bound to happen but those three companies have very similar names as well.
Everyone in Israel who is entrepreneurial tries to self-select into 8200 - it's the equivalent of American high schoolers who want to enter VC and tech entrepreneurship targeting CS@Stanford.
In Israel, the university you attended matters less than the unit you served. For example, if you want to become a senior politician, you join Sayeret Matkal and if you want to become an academic you end up in Talpiot (which the founders of Wiz are alums of).
8200s success is largely due to a couple early exits by 8200 alums (Gili Raanan, Nir Zuk, Shlomo Kramer) who were biased in recruiting from their unit. 8200 alums aren't better or worse than other Israelis - they just have a better network.
And Israel has multiple SIGINT and offensive/defensive cybersecurity units, all of whom created similar networks as well.