Their technology is being used. Maybe not to its full extent yet, but it's a start, and they're able to use the technology to impact many more people than they would have been able to as a standalone company trying to compete against a large number of search engines.
Yeah, now they're buried somewhere in advanced features or the invisibly being used. In the same amount of time they probably would have created some real product by now. Huge corporations stifle innovation.
Huge wads of cash? Even if they had kept hacking on their own and even if they'd managed to come up with something better than the current search engines, there is no guarantee they would have made much more money.
When faced with the choice between lots of money today or to gamble that money on uncertain odds for an unknown quantity of money tomorrow, I can't really blame people who take the first option. Especially if they get to keep working on the project after having been handed the huge pile of money.
Edit: Another point of course is that actually setting up and running your own search engine requires you actually run a business and do all kinds of business things which have no relation to hacking on cool algorithms. A lot of startup founders that I know care a lot more about cool algorithms than running profitable companies, seeing the latter as a necessary evil that allows them to do the former. Those sort of people would no doubt jump at the chance of being offered a lot of of money to never have to think about the profitable company bit, and focus all their energy on the cool algorithm bits.
Of course but with Powerset it's way to early. It's as if YouTube would have been sold before they actually have published the first video. Most startups sell too early. Also selling in a bad economy means a much lower price as well.
Powerset would have been 10 times as much in 2 years or even 100 times.
I see that happening all over the place. projects sold before they reach critical mass or long before have reached their peek. In most cases the lose steam afterwards.
Powerset would have been 10 times as much in 2 years or even 100 times.
Powerset could have been... There are no guarantees in business. Turning down the money would have been a gamble no matter how you look at it, and not all people are gamblers.
This is what I don't understand about promising startups: How can you throw away your product like that?