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I am seriously having issues visualizing someone saying "this is not a good idea" to google founders. Perhaps I am too young or perhaps S&L were terrible salesm
by tx 19y ago
I am seriously having issues visualizing someone saying "this is not a good idea" to google founders. Perhaps I am too young or perhaps S&L were terrible salesmen, but I simply fail to see how come a relevant search seemed like a bad idea to VCs they talked to: and this is not 1995 we're talking here, back when Google was starting it was clear to many that everything was going to be online, and finding stuff will be hard, this is why everyone was into catalogs/portals.
Maybe I am too much of an "idea guy", but in my opinion the reason why there aren't many googles is simply because there aren't many good ideas around. I don't even consider social networking to be of any significant value (I'm with Maroon on this one). In that regard it was awkward to see Facebook and Google mentioned in the same sentence several times.
Even something as awesome as RSS isn't taking off (and it's been like 5 years already), let alone toys like Twitter that only a certain "inner circle" of people are using talking mostly to themselves. Not good enough.
Yes, yes - "implementation is more important", but without an idea there is nothing to implement to begin with. Most startups I know a little bit about seem more like an excuse for smart and driven people to work together: they aren't building anything particularly innovative. An no, they won't become next google regardless of what VCs or potential acquirers will do, it's a very rare case where I don't agree with Paul at all.
- paul 18y agoGoogle will be obsolete once the semantic web arrives ;) I remember being pretty skeptical of Google. Better search seemed like a nice idea, but it wasn't clear how they were going to compete with the established players who all had more money, more users, more engineers, more features, etc. Also, Google wasn't the only company trying to build a better search engine. It seemed like there was a new one every month.
- pg 18y agoIf once = iff, that's the most optimistic assessment of Google I've ever read.
- paul 18y ago:) Semantic web jokes are the best..
- schammy 18y agoHate to break it to you, but the semantic web is a fairly tale, and is not arriving anytime soon.
- aswanson 18y agoHow did you bump into Google, coming from the middle of the country? What made you get over the initial skepticism and join? (If you don't mind me asking.)
- paul 18y agoI was working at Intel in Santa Clara. As for skepticism, I'm always skeptical, but I liked the people and product, so...
- aswanson 18y agoThe rest is history. I was interviewing at Altera and Xilinx at the time. Never would have occured to me that something that big was brewing not to far away.
- neilk 18y agoSergey and Larry were famous in the valley for supposedly being clueless about how business worked. http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/12/04/let-me-cut-you-wacky-kids-a-check/ http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/12/04/let-me-cut-you-w... I also know a guy that Sergey tried to recruit in the early years. Imagine if you saw this logo: http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-com-history/1998.jpg http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-com-history/1998.jpg ..on a business card printed out from a laser printer on ordinary office paper. The guy pushing this on you is some grad school dropout with a strange voice who keeps saying he's going to change the world. Look like a winner to you?
- aswanson 18y agoI would have known they were winners from the "Linux Search" option.