Serial entrepreneur and SensAI CEO Liad Agmon spoke today with Globes tech editor Asaf Gilad at the Globes TECH IL conference, where he discussed AI, the future of junior hires in tech, the dollar’s impact on the industry, and a reported proposal to tax graduates of Unit 8200. Agmon, who previously founded two companies and later worked at Insight before returning to entrepreneurship, said his new project was not really his choice. "I am happiest when I build things," he said, adding that he spent a year trying to make the idea go away before deciding to do it.
Agmon said SensAI began after Dov Moran introduced him, while he was at Insight, to a Netanya company developing sophisticated mobile games. He described his current product as a "ritual" that uses astrology and tarot as tools for emotional work, without requiring belief in metaphysics. The company is aimed mostly at women, he said, around 80% of users, and is meant to create a physical object people can hold and use as part of a brief inward-looking experience. He said he wanted to build something consumers can touch, and stressed that any consumer product must quickly prove its unit economics.
Explaining his move away from cyber and enterprise software, Agmon said, "I can’t sell software to white men in their 50s anymore," describing the conferences and the work as unpleasant and joyless. He said he does not know whether hardware can succeed in Israel, but wants to leave his comfort zone. He also argued that AI has changed startup building, saying he wants to keep the company under 10 employees for as long as possible, and that for the first time in his life product development is ahead of product planning. In his view, AI can help a company run with about 20% of the staff needed three years ago.
Agmon said AI is already reshaping hiring and the labor market, especially for junior engineers. He said he does not hire young employees, preferring a small team of top-level people, because juniors require too much guidance. In his view, if Claude is better than a junior programmer, the junior has little to do. He said AI is powerful at text and consumer experiences, but humans still have an edge in taste, though he believes that gap will shrink.
On macroeconomics, Agmon said recent layoffs in tech are real and linked to AI, while companies such as Artlist and Wix have had their business models shaken by it. He also blamed the weak dollar for hurting the sector, said the finance minister is incompetent, and argued that Israel’s economic system serves powerful groups rather than ordinary citizens. He dismissed startup grants as ineffective and called on the government to address the underlying currency problem, but said he is cynical about Jerusalem’s willingness to act. On the reported tax plan for Unit 8200 alumni, he called it populist nonsense, comparing it to taxing a former Shayetet commando who opens a gym.
