"Cluny's agreement to offer perpetual prayer (laus perennis, literally "perpetual praise") meant that specialization in roles went a step further at Cluny. Cluny became perhaps the wealthiest monastic house of the Western World and this allowed the House to hire managers and workers instead of the brothers themselves doing any work. Such wealth allowed the Brothers to spend their hours in almost constant prayer thus elevating their position into a profession."
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?
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.
The Cluny did attract smart people and was fast growing and profitable. This, however, was in large part due to donations and endowments making it a charity and not a business and much of the wealth obtained by the Cluny was a direct result of state conquest as their greatest patrons were kings and royals. Another reason for its rapid growth was the fact that subordinate houses (priories) were given the same privileges of having no secular obligations (by Pope Benedict VIII). This caused many already established abbeys, of the Benedictine order, to associate themselves as Cluniac houses. This differs entirely from the growth of Google who received no special privileges from any governing bodies and relied upon a superior technology for success.
There is a tenable connection in the fact that a great deal of resources in Benedictine monasteries (not just Cluny) were used to collect, catalog and preserve information (mostly in libraries). The Cluny Abbey itself had what some consider to be one of the best libraries in Europe at the time.
A statement of the form "x is like y" is an invitation to consider similarities between them, it's also an invitation to consider their differences, which in this case out way the similarities.
As stated before, why is it necessary to compare the Cluny with Google? The Cluny is an interesting and important topic on its own. Perhaps the reason to compare it was to add sensation to the headline or so that the 'this is off topic kiddies' on YC News don't cry foul, but either way, not necessary.
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.
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.
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.
