[3] Recanati started his career at his family business, the Overseas Shipholding Group, in 1978.
[2] He was forced to leave OSG in 1995 after a dispute about the company's investments in cruise ships.
[2] Recanati founded Orama, a venture capital firm based in New York City and Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1999.
[8] He also endowed the Recanati Family Professor of Science and professor of Microbiology and Medicine at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at New York University[9] In 2002, Recanati and his partner Ira Statfeld made a $5 million donation to the then Hampton Day School,[10][11] taking control of the board of trustees and changing the name of the school to the Morriss Center in honor of Statfeld's father,[12] however the school merged with the Ross School in 2006.
[13] In 2007, it was reported that Recanati and his partner had donated $30 million to the Child Study Center at New York University to establish an Asperger's Institute.