Morris Kahn, an Israeli billionaire entrepreneur and businessman and a co-founder of Amdocs, passed away at the age of 95.
In the later chapter of his business life, Kahn focused on biomedical investments, primarily through the venture capital fund Aurum Ventures. To the broader public, he is best remembered as the driving financial force behind Beresheet, the private Israeli initiative to launch and land a spacecraft on the moon. Led by the SpaceIL association in collaboration with Israel Aerospace Industries, the project aimed to land a probe on the lunar surface in 2019. Although the landing ultimately failed, the initiative played a major role in promoting science education and public interest in space technology in Israel.
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Morris Kahn.
(Photo: Orel Cohen)
The interview took place in the courtyard of his villa in Beit Yanai shortly after he turned 95. “I came from a poor family,” he said, “but today in the garage I have a Mercedes, a Porsche, and a Jaguar; in the port I have a yacht; at the airport I have a plane; and in front of the house there are horses they’re trying to arrange so I can ride them with my oxygen cylinder.”
“I don’t want to add years to my life, but life to my years,” Kahn said. “And there’s a price for that. I do things to enjoy myself even if they shorten my life.” He recalled being warned against diving because of the condition of his lungs. “They explained to me in detail all the ways diving could kill me. I said, ‘Okay, but this is what I want to do, and this is what I will do.’ And so I did.” He added that he continued smoking until two years ago. “I remember the pleasures to the end. I forget the regrets.”
“I live like a prince, but I earned it honestly, and I also help people,” he said.
Kahn acknowledged the physical decline that came with age but emphasized the importance of mental clarity. “I no longer have the strength and drive I once had. But that’s okay, as long as I don’t lose my intelligence, because that’s who I am. My body betrays me in a way, but I can still continue with what I have,” he said, speaking through a speaker connected to a hearing aid.
“The secret is love,” he added. “It’s an important spice in life. I like to be with people who inspire me. I’m lucky that I’ve always been able to do what I wanted. A beach in Thailand is nothing compared to what I have here in my bedroom.”
Kahn was among the first generation of Israeli high-tech billionaires. He founded Yellow Pages in the late 1960s and was one of the founders of the software giant Amdocs. In the 1970s, he also founded Coral World, which established the Underwater Observatory in Eilat. The company, now run by his son Benji Kahn, went on to develop underwater centers around the world, including in Australia, Hawaii, and Spain.
In the final years of his life, Kahn devoted himself primarily to philanthropy, investing an estimated $200 million. He was particularly committed to biomedical research, channeling roughly $50 million into the field. Among his investments was the establishment of a manufacturing laboratory for Precise Bio, a company developing technology to print corneas, and eventually retinas, for eye transplants.
“Amdocs is the past,” Kahn said. “It gave me satisfaction and financial security, which allowed me to do what I do now. Is there anything more important than saving a person’s life? That’s the only thing that gives satisfaction. Otherwise, what is life? You are born, you live, and you die. I don’t want to be the richest person in the cemetery.”
“In fact, I’m no longer a billionaire, but a millionaire,” he added. “Where did the money go? Philanthropy. I also intend to leave my children only a reasonable amount, not everything. The rest will go to philanthropy.”
The most prominent public project Kahn financed was Beresheet, which in 2019 carried the first Israeli spacecraft to the moon. The probe ultimately crashed on the lunar surface due to human error. “I’m proud of this project,” Kahn said. “We were the first non-governmental organization to reach the moon with relatively limited resources. We did it in a very innovative way, by hitchhiking on a rocket that orbited the Earth.”
“The landing failed. it was a hard landing,” he said. “But the main thing is that we reached the moon. It had enormous educational value. It made children dress up as astronauts on Purim.”
Kahn was born in South Africa but struggled to find his place under the apartheid regime. At the age of 25, he immigrated to Israel and purchased a farm in Moshav Beit Yanai. His early business ventures in Israel largely failed. The turning point came in 1967, when he won a Ministry of Communications tender to market telephone directories through a company he founded, Dapey Zahav.
In 1982, he partnered with Avi Naor and Boaz Dotan to establish Orek Information, a company focused on computerizing telephone directories. The firm sold services in the U.S. through an American entity called Amdocs, which later evolved into a developer of billing and customer-management software for telecommunications companies. Three years later, the business was sold to Southwestern Bell.
In 1998, Amdocs was listed on the U.S. stock exchange at a valuation of $2.75 billion, and Kahn sold shares worth approximately $1 billion in the offering. In 2004, he also sold his holdings in Yellow Pages to the Markstone fund, netting an additional half a billion shekels.