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What did these guys do to earn so much press? Ok I get it, ex Googlers taking on the behemoth. David vs Goliath. But jesus, let's move on to other more interest

What did these guys do to earn so much press? Ok I get it, ex Googlers taking on the behemoth. David vs Goliath. But jesus, let's move on to other more interesting and more promising websites. And I'm not posting this as a criticism of posting the story on HN, I mean that the other sites should not be writing about them anymore. Bleh.

josefresco 18y ago
"Chief Executive Tom Costello is an ex-IBMer and was on the research faculty at Stanford University, where he got his PhD. His wife, President Anna Patterson, another brainiac with a PhD, was the architect of Google's large search index, TeraGoogle, still in use today. She also worked with the Internet Archive, the non-profit digital library of Web sites." But but ... they had PhD's and came from Stanford and Google, they can't fail they're too smart! Oh wait, PhD's mean nothing in the startup world besides buying you a whole lot of PR.
- ryanwaggoner 18y ago
  That's not really fair...it sounds like they both had actual real-world experience in building search indexes at massive scale, which you'd think would be worth something in this kind of venture.
axod 18y ago
It does have some interesting lessons in there of how not to do things. Startups would do well to read and analyze all the countless mistakes cuil made. I think it's still being written about because it was such an epic failure of mammoth proportions. They did some things right, they got a ton of buzz, tons of visitors, but they totally messed up their chance. Unlikely they'll be given another one. (Unless they rebrand at least)
- batasrki 18y ago
  I think that their main problem was lack of availability once the buzz reached its highest pitch. I could understand less-than-impressive search results, since that could be an ongoing thing. However, a search engine crashing the way someone's blog folds under the weight of Digg/Reddit/HN effect is unacceptable in my eyes.

josefresco 18y ago

"Chief Executive Tom Costello is an ex-IBMer and was on the research faculty at Stanford University, where he got his PhD. His wife, President Anna Patterson, another brainiac with a PhD, was the architect of Google's large search index, TeraGoogle, still in use today. She also worked with the Internet Archive, the non-profit digital library of Web sites." But but ... they had PhD's and came from Stanford and Google, they can't fail they're too smart! Oh wait, PhD's mean nothing in the startup world besides buying you a whole lot of PR.

ryanwaggoner 18y ago
That's not really fair...it sounds like they both had actual real-world experience in building search indexes at massive scale, which you'd think would be worth something in this kind of venture.

axod 18y ago

It does have some interesting lessons in there of how not to do things. Startups would do well to read and analyze all the countless mistakes cuil made. I think it's still being written about because it was such an epic failure of mammoth proportions. They did some things right, they got a ton of buzz, tons of visitors, but they totally messed up their chance. Unlikely they'll be given another one. (Unless they rebrand at least)

batasrki 18y ago
I think that their main problem was lack of availability once the buzz reached its highest pitch. I could understand less-than-impressive search results, since that could be an ongoing thing. However, a search engine crashing the way someone's blog folds under the weight of Digg/Reddit/HN effect is unacceptable in my eyes.