
Cluny: The Google of 1000 - pg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluny_Abbey
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jyothi
What is the connection ?

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pg
In 1000, Cluny was the most dynamic institution in Europe.

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jmackinn
That's a pretty weak connection. You're comparing a 11th century religious
organization with a capitalist corporation founded 1000 years later. This is
not to say the Cluny wasn't _dynamic_ , but why is it necessary to try and
compare it with Google?

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pg
Cluny was the magnet for smart people that Google has been in recent times.
And it was extremely profitable and fast growing. It's possible nothing before
it had grown so rich so fast, except states by conquest.

Also, here's the thing about comparisons: they're not like scientific
statements, where you should err on the side of parsimony. A statement of the
form "x is like y" is an invitation to consider similarities between them.

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cookiecaper
Is Google really the most prominent "smart people magnet" organization today?
That's pretty silly, imo. The Google love is way, way overblown and it's
getting really annoying.

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pchristensen
Who would you nominate in their stead? Is there some other organization that
both a) attracts people as smart as the ones at Google and b) attracts _as
many_ smart people as Google does?

What I'd love is a list of organizations that have been the Smart People
Magnet throughout history: NASA during the space race, the IAS during the
Einstein/Von Neumann era, Florence during the Renaissance, etc.

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nostrademons
Wall Street, though most people don't think of them as all that smart these
days. ;-)

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Ezra
I think to be the "google" of anything, you pretty much have to be good at
search. That's what I thought the comparison would be.

It's kind of like saying x is the Bill Gates of 1000. There are any number of
things that could mean, but having more money than anyone else is the
comparison that most would make. It's the one I'd expect most people to come
up with.

Personally, I'd more closely relate it to Bell Labs, or Xerox PARC if I had to
make a tech analogy. ie. they have someone to take care of the money, and all
the associated stuff, and they just had to do heavy intellectual lifting, with
no pressure to do things in a certain way, or be necessarily profitable, or
directed.

But even that might be disingenuous, as I'm not sure what Cluny's hours of
prayer have done for me, while Bell and PARC did incredible (tangible) things.

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rms
They were good at "organizing the world's information."

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fallentimes
When Google starts constructing a third abbey, it's put option time.

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adldesigner
Hmm, I don't get it. Can anyone explain?

