Why we'll keep losing to California in high tech
By adamg - Mon, 07/28/2008 - 3:35pm.
Bijan Sabet is impressed by a new search engine called Cuil for a couple of reasons. One is its technology (although David at Blue Mass. Group is completely non-impressed). But the other is the way the new site came about: It was built by some former Google engineers - and they could do that because they live in California, where non-compete agreements in contracts are against the law, unlike in Massachusetts:
... So CA entrepreneurs have more rights & flexability compared to entrepreuneurs in NYC or MA or WA etc.
California has it right. We need to give startups & entrepreneurs the ability to innovate without breaking any NDAs or trade secrets. But they should be able to compete fairly and openly. That is how innovation happens. ...
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Try cuil-ing Cuil... it
Try cuil-ing Cuil... it can't even find itself! "Cuil" yields 124,000 results, while "is Cuil a joke?" yields 200 million.
Though it does find google, it just takes forever to do it.
Also, type too fast (culi) and you are taken to an italian porno site.
If it were April 1 this would make more sense-- Cuil makes new Coke look like sliced bread.
Also, the name is stoopid
Sorry, but I see that and I think back to the way they used to speak in the old neighborhood down in Brooklyn ("dere was a little goil, who had a little cuil ...")
Sounds Like Part of an Irish Bar Inscription
Anybody know if "cuil" means anything in Gaelic?
"is Cuil a joke?" yields
Googling "is google a joke" without the quotes (which from trying your query is the same way you queried Cuil) yields 1,590,000 results. Try quoting the phrase. Then you can get "no results because of high load" which is much more useful.
Non competes
If non-competes are against the law in CA, how come I had to sign one for every job I had. Netscape REALLY enforced theirs, too, after AOL took over. They do have non-competes in CA, but they might not be enforced with the vigor that they are here. But I know of several people whose careers were ruined by Ca non-competes.
non competes
They are not enforced in California except in the case of a merger or acquisition. There are many studies that point this out.
Many times you have to sign them but they are not enforced. there is actually a specific statute on the books to that effect.
Are you sure you aren't talking about NDAs or NSAs?
Non-competes in California
When I joined BEA (recently bought by Oracle), I had to sign one of the worst, most restrictive employee agreements I have ever seen. I had to wrangle with the corporate lawyer to make several changes. And yet, there was no non-complete clause, because BEA is a California company and such clauses are illegal.
Perhaps the law making them illegal was passed after your experience? There must be some explanation.
I briefly tested Cuil site
I briefly tested Cuil site yesterday, and the hit relevance was *abysmal*. The reason the Google stood out when it first started was that they had better relevance. Perhaps Cuil has some good technology that's not yet deployed, but at the moment its performance appears 10 years out of date.
Non-competes
I completely agree that we should get rid of non-compete agreements in Massachusetts.
That said, does anyone know of an actual case in which an engineer was sued successfully on the basis of a non-complete clause? I'd be very interested to know.
I heard, via a Harvard Law School professor who studied this issue, that the only successful suits have been for sales representatives, who left their companyh and took their customers with them.
If I were the new Cuil founders, I would worry a lot about the "trade secret" clause in my employee contract. Google might sue them, claiming that they are using proprietary technology that they learned at Google. This may be more of a real threat.