death of the search startup
DESCRIPTION
My argument that there cannot be another search startup because of the extreme expense of building a search engine. I worked at three search startups: SideStep, Komsix, and Powerset.TRANSCRIPT
The Death of the Search StartupMark Johnson (@philosophygeek)Bing Lead Program Manager
Search Startups are Dead“After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for
centuries in a cave – a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for
thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we – we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.”
- Nietzsche, Der Fröhliche Wissenschaft
∑ ≠
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Standard Disclaimer
The numbers that you are about to see are the opinion of the author and calculated using speculative
(but informed by experience) numbers pulled out of his ass. There are probably numerous cases of over- and under-estimation, but I’m not trying to create a
definitive “cost of a search engine.” What I’m trying to do is to give you ammunition to call bullshit on any entrepreneur who tells you he can build a full-scale, general-purpose search engine for under $100M. My employer, Microsoft,
was not involved in the creation of any of the following dubious dollar values.
An Equation
Ĵ� (SC+ Rel + RT) + (P* t) = [a number too big to invest in]๏Ĵ� = Ĵohnson coefficient๏SC = Storage/Crawling๏Rel = Relevance๏RT = Runtime ๏P = People๏t = Time (in years)
Hardware People
The Web is big
It’s (even) bigger than you think
Freshness: Things change quickly
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Serving relevant results
Out with the bad
And then all the other stuff
Speed is everything
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Divide and conquer
* The Johnson CoefficientĴ�
People
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Adding it all up Ĵ� (SC+ Rel + RT) + (P* t) = $100M on the lower end>$300M on the high end
Case Study 1: SearchMe
Case Study 2: Powerset
Keep Hope Alive
The Moral of the Story
[ don’t invest in general purpose search engines ]
Thanks![Follow me on Twitter: @philosophygeek]
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