Comments on: Powerset Looking for a New CEO

By: Powerset Will Launch In Coming Weeks

Powerset Will Launch In Coming Weeks — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:17:55 +0000

[...] that Powerset is pitching for additional capital. And the company also appears to have put plans to hire a new CEO on hold - founder Barney Pell is still firmly in charge at the company. CrunchBase Information [...]

By: politicians who died in office

politicians who died in office — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:36:24 +0000

politicians who died in office. Maybe purple dinosaur “Barney Pell”

By: Petri Pokka

Petri Pokka — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:52:11 +0000

As countless previous commenters remarked, Powerset badly needs to ship something to the people.

But, considering that they even stopped sending out their newsletters, I think that ‘better search’ is R.I.P.

By: stone

stone — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:12:25 +0000

Can you imagine failing before ever launching your product? This person, Barney Pell, must be feeling pretty crappy right about now.

By: Project delay

Project delay — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:31:43 +0000

Powerset can no longer get VC arounds. Here’s why… Delay, taking too long, and losing co-founder. You need 20-39 year old in order to get VC.

By: aaron schon

aaron schon — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:34:03 +0000

There was this rumor that Pell and Newcomb had a falling out because one slept with the other’s wife. which one is the one?

By: My PHP Encoder

My PHP Encoder — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:00:40 +0000

Not a great start for them and at the end of the day they don’t have a product. Ultimately from what I’ve seen this company doesn’t really have anything worth shouting about so I think they will find it difficult to find someone who is “world class” to fill this void. Strange things I must admit.

On a second point though, creating a search engine isn’t easy. Someone I know has been building one for two years, but there’s serious knowledge needed these days just in the sheer scale of creating both the crawler, but also processing and accessing the results.

By: Powerless

Powerless — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:06:29 +0000

@27 thanks for links…

My visionary… I think Steve newcomb need money to support himself. He overwork and accidentally delete powerset source code. Maybe he was fired by Anti-Google CEO.

http://www.powerset.com/team

Steve newcomb photo is gone. He was co-founder of powerset.

By: stone

stone — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:04:58 +0000

Erik,

Can you please add these guys to the deadpool???

Rationale:

(1) No product shipped yet
(2) CEO gets whacked
(3) All Hype no substance

Someone tell me I’m wrong!

By: julie

julie — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:27:48 +0000

Finding the right person for that job will probably be a challenge. I was impressed with a CEO who actually has a school to train CEO’s for the enormous role they must fill. http://www.youareaceo.com The founder is CEO Michael E. Parker and he covers the basics but then some: organization management, relationships skills, and business fundamentals ie financial organization.

By: Nat

Nat — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:20:22 +0000

Too bad, i was in S.F when they demo test to public about 3-4 months ago ? although i’m not impressed with it but it’s interesting to see it…tsk

Nat
http://www.workersinc.com

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:31:51 +0000

@27

One more time:

http://www.powerset.com/search.....20deadpool

The link actually works

“Damn it, can some one get this thing to work, we need it!”

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:28:40 +0000

http://www.powerset.com/search.....0new%20CEO
%20who%20can%20save%20powserset%20from%20the%20deadpool

Results: Internal Error

“Damn it, can some one get this thing to work, we need it!”

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:34:36 +0000

@25

I agree with you 100%. I’ve got your back on this one. Let me translate your diplomatic message to @8.

It goes something like this..

@8 listen you turd. This is the internet. Updates and developments in the market travel quickly. Do you think that a AP release is exclusive to the first group that picks it up? Do you think that a post on a blog is only intended for one reader? Thank you for your feedback and for reading my post. In the future my distinguished turd please be nice.
Happy Holidays!
Erick

By: Erick Schonfeld

Erick Schonfeld — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:05:57 +0000

@8, I found out about this independently and posted it as soon as Pell put up his blog post, which was this morning. I don’t know when VentureBeat wrote its story, its current post is dated 11-2 (i.e., today).

When these things happen it is not unusual for more than one outlet to report about it. In any case, I did not read the Venturebeat story until after i posted mine. But thank you for the vote of confidence.

By: Construction Worker

Construction Worker — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:40:50 +0000

Is Powerset available at Ace Hardware or Home Depot?

By: stone

stone — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:37:03 +0000

Please take notice: These guys haven’t even launched their product yet. Why does a founder step aside *before* the product launches? Does this make any sense on any level? So what if he’s a tech guy. Launch the tech product then step aside after the successful launch. This guy got crushed because they *can’t* launch their product and he’s taking the fall.

By: Joe Duck

Joe Duck — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:33:43 +0000

This seems an odd move to come so soon after they tweaked the hype machine. Contrast with Google where Schmidt was “added” to the dynamic duo to give the company a respectability they would not have had otherwise. Powerset is not really even on any Wall Street radar screens yet, let alone needing a shakeup to prepare them for IPO.

So, why would this happen? It seems pretty obvious to the extent you can know anything about companies these days - their semantic technology is not scaling to the full web. The early “great results” are going to be reproducible when they are taking millions of queries per minute. IBM Webfountain has given better results than Google for years - but it has never been scalable.

By: Laurentvw

Laurentvw — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:23:13 +0000

Powerset fails. Let’s continue discussing this when it launched.

By: powerskeptic

powerskeptic — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:41:21 +0000

Good first step. Don’t stop now!

While it’s not a big deal that the founding CEO, a technical guy, moves over to CTO to bring in new management blood, it’s never a good sign when a brand new startup has a CEO, COO, CTO, /and/ product architect. There is just no way all those chiefs can positively contribute. Everyone should be working only on the product, they can’t all be chief.

So eliminating the COO role is a good move. But CTOs are always borderline unnecessary too. It’s a glamor title, but often the guy in that role ends up spouting ideas and never being held accountable for product, schedule, and quality, which falls on the vp of engineering.

And WTF is a chief science officer? what do you do? teach physics? How’s that for burning half a million bucks a year?

Here’s my recommendation for Powerset: Don’t stop here. Cut some more chiefs. Don’t hire a CEO until just before revenue starts. Then find one that’s sales focused. Leave one of the two guys accountable for the product until then. Any other position that isn’t direct-line responsible for delivering the 1.0 product, coding the product, or testing the product should be immediately eliminated. You get to have one guy who sits on the side and works out the tricky algrithmic problems that crop up, but he ain’t a chief of anything.

btw - I’m not voting for the deadpool on this one. I just expect them to develop some obscure niche over 8 or 10 years where they can apply the technology for some income. It won’t be sexy like consumer search, but it’ll eventually pay the bills. PurpleYogi just had an exit on that schedule.

By: Fabian Schonholz

Fabian Schonholz — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:30:03 +0000

Right or wrong, I think it is pretty ballsy to step down and not let your pride and egotism get in the way of your venture. As with a lot of things, product or not, time will tell.

By: OnceAVC

OnceAVC — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:19:08 +0000

Ron Kaplan - “Chief Science Officer” - what kind of job is that? isn’t he kind of redundant since Pell’s taken over his job? Probably should change that title to Director of Engineering, don’t you think, Pell?

By: OnceAVC

OnceAVC — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:14:58 +0000

How about a round of speculative guesses on the comment thread…

LOL… man, this is so full of dirt.. I’ll go with

My guess… EIR at Foundation Cap
Steve Waterhouse

By: OnceAVC

OnceAVC — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:11:10 +0000

“Bringing in a new world-class CEO will help the company grow and take advantage of the great opportunity ahead of us”

Looking forward to seeing who the world-class CEO is..

By: OnceAVC

OnceAVC — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:03:43 +0000

Here’s the dirt of the VC world, every so often, when a startup’s founder step down as CEO, made by the decision of boards (VCs and Founders), the intend is to bring in an external CEO ( good friend of VC ) with promise to bring the company to the next level. This CEO more than often will hold a board seat and thus strengthens the decision making power of the VCs, since CEO more than often has to suck up to the VC since he got the job through who? of course no other than the VC. Pell, this is the first signs of erosion of your company, take charge! before it’s too late.