German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/20/eu-google-competitor-gets-165million-cash-injection/

by jcwentz • 19 years ago

9 44 19 years ago

pg5• 19 years ago

This and Quaero will serve as valuable lessons for the governments that sponsored them. You can compete with Boeing this way, but not with startups.

I admit I'm kind of surprised they still need this lesson. You'd think they'd have already learned this from the British government's attempt to set up ICL as a competitor to the Google of its era, IBM, in 1968. Never heard of ICL? Exactly.

PindaxDotCom3• 19 years ago

Um, you can't even compete with Boeing this way.

When will other countries understand that: the best role of government is to ensure the rights of businesses and people. If you get that right, the rest will follow. They shouldn't be using tax dollars as venture seed money. They'd be better off refunding it to the taxpayers!

ivankirigin10• 19 years ago

Boeing gets billions from the US Military.

Tichy3• 19 years ago

100% agree - I never saw the rationale for the government making risky investments, just because purportedly nobody else does. Imagine your bank adviser telling you they are going to put your money into high risk investments because nobody else does. Yet if the government spends our money like that, few people seem to realize that it is basically the same thing happening.

pg5• 19 years ago

They don't even need to ensure the rights of businesses. That's included in the rights of people (the shareholders).

gibsonf110• 19 years ago

From my experience having a German wife and visiting Europe yearly (which is limited experience but helpful), many Europeans genuinely believe that the government can do things better than private groups. The evidence for the validity of this belief speaks for itself (not valid). In Europe, security seems to be one of the highest considerations in taking action which leads Europeans to have far more trust in large old corporations than in untested and untried new companies. The exceptions to this view are Eastern European countries like Czech Rep, and Poland and Romania, etc.

ivankirigin10• 19 years ago

To a certain extent, Europe does do socialism better. I'm sure if you could plot the corruption & waste per taxpayer dollar, the US would win.

Former Eastern Block states had a completely incompetent and corrupt government, meaning movement to open markets was the only direction and the results are awesome. Estonia is a perfect example.

willarson2• 19 years ago

Good point. I think even in America that most people are uncomfortable when they say the free market will lead to the best/optimal/most efficient solutions. Its just they are even more uncomfortable to say that a big government will.

Then again, it looks like universal healthcare will be at least an interesting side-story in the upcoming US presidential race. Perhaps socialism is finding some roots in US politics.

gibsonf110• 19 years ago

Wow, this could be as successful as Airbus's biggest plane :)

ivankirigin10• 19 years ago

This is perhaps the exact opposite of barebones seed funding.

pg5• 19 years ago

Yes, I was thinking that too. This is as far from traditional VC as Y Combinator is, but in the opposite direction. Which seems a further predictor of doom, because the trend in venture funding lately has been a shift toward the low end.

ivankirigin10• 19 years ago

Indeed. Also, didn't France already try to make a google killer? That I haven't heard much lately implies the fate of this program.

staunch2• 19 years ago

Sad really that so much money will go to waste. There are some amazing hacker entrepreneurs in Germany -- many of them move to the US. Giving 165 teams $1m would have resulted in at least one billion dollar company (and probably more like 20) even with incompetent decision-making.

pg5• 19 years ago

The money will not merely go to waste. It will actually harm German startups. A lot of smart hackers who might otherwise have started or worked for startups will get drawn into this doomed project instead.

staunch2• 19 years ago

That makes a lot of sense. I was just accusing Google of doing the same thing world wide. Do you think there's any difference between them hiring 5k developers they can't really make use of and what Germany is doing here?

chris_l• 19 years ago

Hey, give us some credit! Humour me on the "smart hacker", but this German search founder will steer well clear of the government projects...

adnam• 19 years ago

A $165 million kiss of death

Tichy3• 19 years ago

News like that make me hate paying taxes so much :-(

lkozma• 19 years ago

This will give a new meaning to the expression "design by committee".

German government puts up $165 million to start Google competitor

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