Louis Monier, Cuil’s VP Product, quietly resigned from the newly launched search engine last week, we’ve heard from a reliable source.
This is a big blow to the troubled search engine - Monier was recruited away from Google a year ago, where he was working on advanced search products. Prior to Google he was the head of search at eBay and was the cofounder and CTO of AltaVista. He is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of Internet search according to search experts Danny Sullivan, John Battelle and others.
Why did Monier leave? We’ve heard but haven’t confirmed that he and CEO Tom Costello just couldn’t agree on the Cuil product road map, and that the botched launch didn’t help things much either. Monier won’t return our calls, and we have an email in to Cuil for comment.
So far Cuil doesn’t seem to have a lot of stickiness with users. Tons of traffic at launch, but it spiked right back down immediately afterwards (Google Trends, Compete, Quantcast).
Update: Vince Sollitto, Cuil VP Communications, confirms Monier’s departure and says he will remain on board as a consultant, continuing to contribute and advise the company. “I’m told by Louis that he believes strongly in the goals and potential of the company, especially its technology,” Sollitto said, adding “We think this will be the best role for the company and for him going forward.” Sollitto says there were philosophical differences in approach and style between Monier and the other management, and that the new consulting role provides the best way for Louis to contribute to the company going forward.
I would too.
A larger index is not the future of search. Common Sense Location Based Structured Simplicity is.
Sounds like a ScapeGoat. Im sure more people than just him are responsible for one of the greatest SearchEngine Debacles in internet history.
Too late for cool to save itself.
If they are smart they will invest and Hire Me and we Will Kick googs backside together. Who am i you ask?
The Father of Location. Search Solved, Game Over!
http://www.killerstartups.com/.....or-network
muahaha. i would have believed you if you said you’re an idiot.
Wow, this is probably the 3rd or 4th time Ive seen you spam your site here. Sorry man, but you site is cluttered and pretty useless. I dont think ‘Categories’ are the future of search. And you can’t depend on users to contribute content.
I’m glad you came along and explained the value of portals to us.
@Jason
‘And you can’t depend on users to contribute content.’
Ever heard of Wikipedia?
Haha, this spam is so ridiculously fun
Why would he leave? Cuil has a bigger search index than Google or does it?
Bad product. Put them in the deadpool.
Unfortunately Cuil has entered about ten years too late. Why has Cuil not indexed anything since launch? They also have a pretty serious communication problem, they need some help in the PR department.
P.S. CrunchBase is still showing the old Cuill logo instead of Cuil.
all lips no substance (site, link, identity, relevant blog) . i eat hater spam for breakfast. come out of the closet sissys.
With a name like cuill i would have left too
what the hell is a cuill?
Gaelic language for ‘cool’
Does he look a bit like Cliff Claven or is it just me?
100%
This doesn’t look good future for a start-up that just launched.
He’s going to work @ Microsoft.
Lol. I don’t know if you’re joking or being serious! It works BOTH ways!
Smart man…
UUUUAAAAAuuuuuuuu
Great blog. Good post. Comming back…
I´m TC and my fans call me TC
kisses
TC
http://amerikasucks.blogspot.com
I kind of understand the reason - he did what he could…
I’m confused. Is it CUIL (one L), or CUILL (two L’s).
Cuil was originally named Cuill. They changed the name sometime mid-2008.
Yeah, its now cuil but I still think they need a new name.
it’s c.r.a.p.
Pronounced, “throat-warbler mangrove.”
I just did a Cuill search for a popular term for my company’s website.
Cuill is using my company’s logo as the image for a site that has nothing to do with my company! Nor does the logo even appear within that third-party’s site.
WTF?
Lesson learned: Don’t mess with Google.
http://www.schoolshift.com
Your Experience. Your Life. Your School.
They should make this tete dans le cul image their logo….
http://images.forum-auto.com/m.....le_cul.jpg
Good to know his name. I will hire him when I will decide to compete against Google.
They have spelt their company name wrong, there should be no “i” in CULL .
If you didn’t already know his name, you’re not going to be competing against Google.
Can you at least spell Cuil (vs Cuill) consistently in the same article?
Cuil’s product is not as good as the big 3s. it’s a shame, it would have been nice to see this succeed.
Quite frankly, Cuil’s product is just not good.
Rest in Peace Cuill. We are counting on you dying.
A Dedicated Goog Employee
By the way, When is Mahalo dying?
When the celebrity leaves.
let’s hope the survive
CUILL managed to put up a perfect example of “Creating mountain out of a molehill(It’s technology)…
http://www.vantrix.net
This a very expensive piece of garbage. When you type in terms in can’t find it gives you and error message stating you have made a spelling error. These guys talk too much.
SG
This is probably a career ending move for him. doesnt speak very highly of his decision making skills. why the heck did he join a mess like this to begin with. disasterous launch. you want to compete with google, you need to be better than them
So then him sticking with the mess would indicate strength?
The entire board here is incompetent - how could you ever have given the green light for a launch? It is obvious that not one of the board actually used the pre-release product, because its relevance problems and bugs (e.g., image mismatches) would have been obvious in about 10 minutes of use.
You all deserve to take a bath for the $33MM you invested, if that was the level of hands-on participation you had.
im sure that money is getting put to good use. housing, carpayments, daycare, vacation, overtime, business overhead, plumber, dentist all the things that make this country great. (consumer spending)
the people that invested that money can afford to lose it or they never would have invested. no real heartache loss. It would be worse to have that money just sitting and not doing anything. now that would be a loss.
there is alot of money in failure. failure pays alot of peoples bills. if everything in life was perfect and under control no one would need to hire you.
Are you sure he left or did you just use Cuil search to try to find him?
that’s a nice shock at Cuil
This dude looks like Clif Claven, from the 1980s cit-com Cheers.
New opportunities always await. Good luck!
Hi Mike, I hope TC50 went well for you. you can tell who this is by the IP.
As for Cuil, I think my youtube video was partially responsible for the initial reaction, though not totally. They really didn’t have a chance in hell.
I work with a huge team now which is larger than Cuil’s and I would be horrified if we were tasked with creating a search engine. It’s not something you can bootstrap up to anymore. Social networking either. I will content myself to finish mine alternately and sell it as an inexpensive script.
It’s just too much. You’re either on top, or you’re no where with the top 10 site types on Alexa. Social networking, portal, search, wiki. Those are off limits to entrepreneurs now unless they want to be sure at 100% of failure.
Taking on Google is no mean feat and Cuil has a massive task at hand to be successful. Just proves that success does not come overnight - it takes hard work and planning.
I’m fan of yuil
1 sinking ship - 1 rat = nothing newsworthy
The site is all crap. This should be the only search engine now which does not have Google Chrome on its search for ‘Chrome’
This is horrible. When the site launched, I thought things would get better but I was wrong. I’m sure a guy like that will have no problem getting back on his feet, but if he isn’t sure what to do I could definitely use some help.
So, Louis, if you’re reading the comments here - http://www.tvlampsnbulbs.com - we’re small (actually it’s just me) but if you could make Cuil into the PR decable it is, I’m sure we could do something ever more dreadful.
Namaste.
for a test i put in my favorite restaurant into cuil
sweet mama’s good kitchen, 11768
ZERO results
Went To Google
same exact query
got 636 results. im gonna check back in a few days and see if google is 637.. after indexing this page .. lol
HAHA. Yep. checked back 24 hours later. and this webpage here shows up as like the 4th in line!! gotta love google. that alone should sink cuil.
“Sollitto says there were philosophical differences in approach and style between Monier and the other management”
I am guessing here but I think these “philosophical differences” may relate to their claim of having indexed 120 bln+ pages which was certainly a veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrryyyyyyyyy looooooooooooooonnnnnnnggggggggg streeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttttttchhhhhh.