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New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

spreadsheets.google.com

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Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#11

Post by tsally »

wallop wrote: post #8

Imagine it's 1998. Google doesn't exist yet. Would Larry Page and Sergey Brin have added their big idea to this spreadsheet? My argument is that if you have any idea that's worthwhile, you're not going to publicize it. It might make sense to get feedback from a few friends. But you don't want potentially dozens of other people trying to execute it before you have had a chance to. Brin and Page are good examples of th…

Brin and Page are good examples of the fact that ideas in themselves can be extremely valuable and are worth guarding.

They're probably one of the worst examples. It was technical brilliance, not their idea, that allowed them to succeed.

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#12

Post by khelloworld »

wallop wrote: post #8

Imagine it's 1998. Google doesn't exist yet. Would Larry Page and Sergey Brin have added their big idea to this spreadsheet? My argument is that if you have any idea that's worthwhile, you're not going to publicize it. It might make sense to get feedback from a few friends. But you don't want potentially dozens of other people trying to execute it before you have had a chance to. Brin and Page are good examples of th…

As far as I can recall reading, they did go to a bunch of places to sell their idea. Needless to say, none of the companies took their idea seriously.

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#13

Post by vlad »

wallop wrote: post #8

Imagine it's 1998. Google doesn't exist yet. Would Larry Page and Sergey Brin have added their big idea to this spreadsheet? My argument is that if you have any idea that's worthwhile, you're not going to publicize it. It might make sense to get feedback from a few friends. But you don't want potentially dozens of other people trying to execute it before you have had a chance to. Brin and Page are good examples of th…

1) I think the actual story has elements of both variants--keeping an idea secret until execution, as well as executing on it and improving the idea.

If PageRank was closely guarded in any way, it could have been so that Page and Brin could submit their research paper about it to SIGIR--at which point it would be public. On the other hand, Page and Brin hosted the search engine for anybody to use.

2) As an aside, assuming the page below is the actual paper, does it mean Larry and Brin already have funding at the time they were writing it up? It mentions that users should try the search engine out at google.stanford.edu, but supposedly, it was their first investor who named Google.

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#14

Post by coryl »

jrockway wrote: post #10
wallop wrote: post #8

Imagine it's 1998. Google doesn't exist yet. Would Larry Page and Sergey Brin have added their big idea to this spreadsheet? My argument is that if you have any idea that's worthwhile, you're not going to publicize it. It might make sense to get feedback from a few friends. But you don't want potentially dozens of other people trying to execute it before you have had a chance to. Brin and Page are good examples of th…

There were plenty of search engines in 1998. Larry and Sergey's implementation just happened to be much better.

The fact thats its 2010 and no one else can get search right shows its pure execution. Google just does it right and keeps doing it right.

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#15

Post by gcheong »

tsally wrote: post #11
wallop wrote: post #8

Imagine it's 1998. Google doesn't exist yet. Would Larry Page and Sergey Brin have added their big idea to this spreadsheet? My argument is that if you have any idea that's worthwhile, you're not going to publicize it. It might make sense to get feedback from a few friends. But you don't want potentially dozens of other people trying to execute it before you have had a chance to. Brin and Page are good examples of th…

Brin and Page are good examples of the fact that ideas in themselves can be extremely valuable and are worth guarding. They're probably one of the worst examples. It was technical brilliance, not their idea, that allowed them to succeed.

Who's technical brilliance? Sergy and Brin's got them a better search engine, but wasn't it the AdWords idea that originated at Goto.com that got them to the Google they are today?

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#16

Post by coryl »

gcheong wrote: post #15
tsally wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brin and Page are good examples of the fact that ideas in themselves can be extremely valuable and are worth guarding. They're probably one of the worst examples. It was technical brilliance, not their idea, that allowed them to succeed.

Who's technical brilliance? Sergy and Brin's got them a better search engine, but wasn't it the AdWords idea that originated at Goto.com that got them to the Google they are today?

Good artists copy, great artists steal?

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#17

Post by tsally »

gcheong wrote: post #15
tsally wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brin and Page are good examples of the fact that ideas in themselves can be extremely valuable and are worth guarding. They're probably one of the worst examples. It was technical brilliance, not their idea, that allowed them to succeed.

Who's technical brilliance? Sergy and Brin's got them a better search engine, but wasn't it the AdWords idea that originated at Goto.com that got them to the Google they are today?

Adwords without Pagerank is useless. The pay per click and auction mechanisms for Adwords are innovative in a sense, but Adwords is not successful because of its technical implementation. Adwords are what people pay for in a literal sense, but the source of Google's money is their search implementation.

EDIT: At this point their brand is also a source of Google's money. Today you need both to compete in search.

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#18

Post by [deleted] »

coryl wrote: post #14
jrockway wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were plenty of search engines in 1998. Larry and Sergey's implementation just happened to be much better.

The fact thats its 2010 and no one else can get search right shows its pure execution. Google just does it right and keeps doing it right.

[deleted]

Re: New Startup Ideas Spreadsheet

#19

Post by amock »

coryl wrote: post #14
jrockway wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were plenty of search engines in 1998. Larry and Sergey's implementation just happened to be much better.

The fact thats its 2010 and no one else can get search right shows its pure execution. Google just does it right and keeps doing it right.

Why do you think no one else can get search right? Have you used other search engines recently? Years ago Google had better results but now I don't really notice a difference in the quality of my results.
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