Yes, Cuil is pants. Though its
founders insist they're building a Google killer, the results turned up
by this new-age search engine are even more ridiculous than its name.
Which is still pronounced "Cool."
Quantum computing queries have been known to reveal random pornography (NSFW) - even when "safe search" is turned on. And as countless Reg readers will tell you, that's just a start.
But there's reason to forgive the company's epic ineptitude. Cuil is
the helpless victim of outlandish Silicon Valley social norms that
force net startups into wasting their venture capital on strawberries
and muffins while giving employees free rein to work as little as they
like.
Ireland-based Sunday Times columnist Sarah Carey is an old
college friend of Cuil CEO Tom Costello, and the Palo Alto,
California-based startup recently hired her as its "Strategist to the
CEO" - even though she sees Silicon Valley as a some sort of Stepford Wives-like alternate universe.
The strategic mother of two describes her first descent into the Valley's heart of darkness in a recent column posted to her personal web site.
"I stay in a hotel in Palo Alto and walk around to the office each
morning, slowly adjusting to the fact that I am supposed to smile and
greet fellow pedestrians and joggers," she writes. "The tree-lined
streets are perfumed with flowers and weirdly quiet. They have so much
space here that buildings are low rise, mostly only two-storey and the
noise of their huge cars is lost into the atmosphere."
At one point, she even suspected that much of Palo Alto's native
population had been kidnapped and sent north in boxes. "The serenity is
catching – I become conscious of my foot fall. People speak quietly,
even the children. It’s beautiful, but surreal. You can’t help
wondering if all the loud, crazy people have been rounded up and
shipped into San Francisco."
But what amazed her most was the way Tom Costello and the Cuil kids
spent their $33 million in venture capital. "Lunch is ordered in every
single day," she writes. "Huge fridges burst with snacks and drinks.
Bowls of strawberries and muffins lie around the rest area.
"The company pays for a personal trainer and gym membership for
everyone. A doctor calls round each Friday, after the weekly barbeque,
to see if everyone’s in good health. Employees drift in an out at times
that suit themselves."
In attempt to earn her keep as Strategist to the CEO, she warned her
college classmate that he was heading down the road to ruin. But he
explained that in the Valley, that path is unavoidable.
"When I observed this [strawberry and muffin] behaviour first I was
appalled and took my CEO friend aside," Carey says. "This was
disastrous! His company would never succeed if he wasted money like
this and didn’t crack the whip. He laughed. This is the way it works
out here. You have to be nice to people."
And in the end, even Sarah Carey was sucked into the Valley's
swirling vortex of profligacy. "Well, if that was the case, he could be
nice to me," she says. "I wasn’t going to fly home in the back of the
plane. I summoned up the audacity to ask for business class travel and
was granted it without hesitation. Knowing the cost of the ticket was
over €2000, which is about $5 million given the current exchange rate,
I had to walk around for 15 minutes afterwards chanting 'I’m worth it.
I’m worth it. I’m worth it.'"
Yes, she convinced herself. When you're in Valley, you can't help
but give in. So forgive Cuil for launching a shite search engine. And
forgive them for calling it Cuil. ®
From : http://www.theregister.co.uk/
Link To Website : Cuil
