In less than four years, entrepreneurs Danny Brickman and Amit Zimerman built a company worth about $1 billion, signing a letter of intent under which Israeli cybersecurity company Cyera is expected to acquire Oasis Security, the startup they founded.Above all, it is an unusual all-Israeli exit: both the buyer and the acquired company are Israeli. In practice, it is the fastest all-Israeli startup exit to reach the $1 billion mark. “It all started in the army, when he kept coming over to my desk, hanging around and asking lots of questions,” Danny says of his partner Amit.GalleryDanny Brickman and Amit Zimerman (Photo: Ohad Kab)The two have a long history together, beginning with their service in Unit 81 of Military Intelligence and continuing all the way to the exit. “We’re like a married couple. Even if we get sick of each other for a moment, the next day we fall in love again. It goes in loops.”Amit is 36, married, the father of a toddler with another child on the way. Danny is 33 and single. They share the same sense of humor and constantly complete one another’s stories and sentences.Danny grew up in Ramat Gan. His parents immigrated from Russia in the 1990s, less than a year before he was born. His extended family, including his parents and grandparents, all lived together in a three-room apartment. His parents worked 12 to 14 hours a day, and he was largely raised by his grandparents under what he describes as a strict Soviet-style upbringing, while seeing his parents mainly on weekends.To earn pocket money, he started working at age 8 in his father’s software company. Life outside the home was not easy either. In his Ramat Gan neighborhood, he was sometimes subjected to insults and harassment because of his Russian background and became involved in fights.“I grew up in the Elite neighborhood in Ramat Gan, on the other side of the Diamond Exchange. The 1990s weren’t easy for people from the Russian immigration wave. I would speak Russian with my parents off to the side so no one would hear. I found myself in violent situations against my will many times.“I went to Ohel Shem High School in Ramat Gan. At home, we were taught that nothing is owed to you. You need to be a good student, you need to work to achieve things and win. We were raised to understand that there was a glass ceiling, and there still is a glass ceiling today. People who came from Russia didn’t have connections. By the time my siblings were growing up in the 2000s, things were already a little different, but it’s something that is still deeply ingrained in me.”And how does all of that lead to the top of the global technology industry and a $1 billion exit?