Noa Argamani is venturing out

Noa Argamani on a rooftop in New York. Sydney Krantz for BI A fter 246 days in Hamas captivity, Israeli special forces rescued Noa Argamani and carried her by helicopter to a hospital outside Tel Aviv. There, a doctor turned to her and said, "Noa, we're really happy that you're here with us." Argamani was confused. "The first thing I asked is, 'How do you know my name?'" she recalls. "I didn't realize the whole world knew who I was." At 25, Argamani had become one of the faces of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. On the morning of her kidnapping, she was a college student about to begin her third year studying artificial intelligence. She imagined becoming a software engineer. Maybe she would start a company someday. Argamani started a new role at Vine Ventures in September. Sydney Krantz for BI This month, she started a new job. Argamani has joined the venture capital firm Vine Ventures, which backs early-stage startups, especially in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and defense tech. She's working with Israeli founders and companies looking to grow their business in the United States. Her new role puts her contact list to work: Her ordeal thrust her onto a global stage, connecting her to world leaders and business titans alike. "In this moment, if I want to learn and make an impact, VC is the right place for me," she says. "I want to be surrounded by people who dream big." For Israeli founders, America is often the market that determines whether a promising startup becomes merely successful or truly enormous. Argamani sees herself as a potential bridge between the two countries — someone who can help Israeli founders turn their companies into global category leaders. "My mission is to help Israeli startups go to market and really break this border," she says. If she succeeds, she could bring more of the world's best technology, networks, and business know-how back to her home country. Argamani at Vine Ventures's New York office. Sydney Krantz for BI On an early fall morning, Argamani, now 28, met me in the lobby of Vine's New York office, clutching an iced matcha. She is willowy, her long dark hair falling down her back. In a blue button-down, faded jeans, and mules, she could be any West Village twenty-something on her way to work. She speaks softly and deliberately, holding unbroken eye contact. She flew into town for this interview before heading to San Francisco for meetings. Argamani has spent much of the past two years being asked to revisit what happened to her. This time, she wanted to talk about what came after. Before we met, she texted: "This interview is so special cuz [we're] focused on back to life and rising from hell." Hours after the initial assault on October 7, a mob of Gazans swept through the Nova music festival grounds looking for survivors. They found Argamani and forced her onto a motorbike. Someone filmed it. Argamani, eyes wide, her mouth open, stretches her arms toward her boyfriend and begs her captors, "Don't kill me." The video ricocheted across newscasts and social media, turning Argamani into an accidental celebrity. This past weekend, Israel's military said it killed the terrorist who drove the motorcycle used to abduct her. In the months after her rescue on June 8, 2024, she became a prominent advocate for the hostages who remained in Gaza, meeting with presidents and diplomats and speaking at events including the Time100 Gala. She stood in the gallery of the House chamber as Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress. She wore a borrowed suit; her own clothes stopped fitting after eight months of captivity. "I want to be surrounded by people who dream big," Argamani says. Sydney Krantz for BI She went back to school at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, a public research university in southern Israel. She found that artificial intelligence had remade the field of software engineering during her captivity. Models wrote better code. Digital workers, known as "agents," were starting to take on work once reserved for humans. Argamani jumped back in. She and her classmates used large language models to scan news articles for patterns of antisemitic rhetoric, then map the countries where they originated. They built a website where users could pick a date and see where that rhetoric appeared most heavily. Through an entrepreneurship program, she designed a startup aimed at helping children with autism. But the life waiting for her outside school had changed. "There's the person you were before October 7, and the person you are after," she says. Strangers stopped her in airports and crosswalks. She spoke on stages and shared glimpses of her life with her 201,000 Instagram followers: posing on the steps of the United States Capitol, gazing from the bow of a yacht, and video-calling her dad from her seat at the World Cup final. Job offers followed. She could join a company or help start one. She could make a career of public speaking or modeling. A desk job no longer f