{"id":8655,"date":"2026-08-09T10:40:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T10:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forbes.co.il\/e\/?p=8655"},"modified":"2026-08-09T10:40:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T10:40:46","slug":"the-depth-premium-why-deep-thinking-is-becoming-scarcer-in-the-ai-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forbes.co.il\/e\/the-depth-premium-why-deep-thinking-is-becoming-scarcer-in-the-ai-era\/","title":{"rendered":"The Depth Premium: Why Deep Thinking Is Becoming Scarcer in the AI Era"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Most VCs will tell you they invest in people<\/em>. Push them further, and you\u2019ll hear the same formula of exceptional team, large market, and right timing. It is recited so often it has become meaningless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Yuval Ariav, Founder and Managing Partner of Symbol, doesn\u2019t give me that answer. Ask him what he looks for in a founder, and he\u2019ll acknowledge that integrity and grit matter, but then he sets that all aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I had to put one overarching theme for us, it\u2019s depth,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe like to see that founders went to the validation threshold the capital market requires \u2014 and then way beyond it. Because what that tells us is that they are really interested in the problem, that they really understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the theme of today\u2019s conversation is about depth, and how to avoid \u201cnon-deep\u201d thinking (I try to avoid the term \u201cshallow\u201d). For Ariav, the ability to go deep is the willingness to go so far into a problem that you exit the comfortable zone of apparent mastery and enter the uncomfortable zone of knowing how much you don\u2019t know. \u201cWe like to see people whose level of expertise forces them to say, on some things, \u2018we don\u2019t know.\u2019 Because that\u2019s how you really know they know their stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Symbol is a $50 million pre-seed and seed fund Ariav co-manages with Racheli Kogan, and bets on founders working outside the mainstream of Israeli venture, in sectors the local capital community has traditionally dismissed. We spoke soon after Business Insider named Symbol to its 2026 Seed 100,<\/a> the first time an Israeli fund has appeared on a list that includes Sam Altman, Accel, and Greylock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ranking\u2019s stated criteria, which highlighted those who identify technologies before they become mainstream categories, are basically Symbol\u2019s entire thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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