The Guy Who Had the Idea of Google Before Google
Here's a guy who had the same ideas for searching the Web that Google developed, and had them before Google. Unfortunately, he never was able to develop his ideas. In fact, he presented his ideas at an Internet conference in California, and one of the people in the audience was Larry Page, co-founder of Google.But in a refreshing twist in our world of litigation and envy, he's not suing anyone and he's not bitter about the way things turned out.
Naturally, he's Italian.
First, you see the contrast between our American capitalist system where Page found someone willing to risk his own money on this new idea, vs. the Italian following a more formal, academic process that in the end funded an academic project rather than an entrepreneurial venture. Perhaps the Italian would have been better off skipping the University and looking for funding from someone with the imagination to see the possibilities of his idea. But I think this has as much to do with a European mentality that doesn't have the same appreciation for the entrepreneur that we Americans do.
The second takeaway is that this guy Marchiori sounds like a decent sort who enjoys what he does and hasn't been sucked into the money web in which we Americans sometimes find ourselves entangled. Seems he lives in a small apartment near Venice and fixes his own 11-year old car - and doesn't appear to pine for the sort of money and toys that a lot of entrepreneurs wind up accumulating.
In any case, I like this guy - at least the way he's portrayed in the article. And while I agree that capitalism provides more fertile soil for the development of business ideas, you sometimes get the impression that all we Americans care about is making money and showing everyone that we did. People don't matter as much as what they have.
(Read the whole article HERE.)
Naturally, he's Italian.
After the speech, Marchiori returned home in the hopes of realizing his ambitious design. "When I came back to Italy, I asked the university for 20,000 euros to develop a search engine, but instead, they financed a project about the history of copper metallurgy in Italy," he says. Meanwhile, Page got his first $100,000 check from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. A spokeswoman for Google in Milan declined to comment.Two takeaways here:
First, you see the contrast between our American capitalist system where Page found someone willing to risk his own money on this new idea, vs. the Italian following a more formal, academic process that in the end funded an academic project rather than an entrepreneurial venture. Perhaps the Italian would have been better off skipping the University and looking for funding from someone with the imagination to see the possibilities of his idea. But I think this has as much to do with a European mentality that doesn't have the same appreciation for the entrepreneur that we Americans do.
The second takeaway is that this guy Marchiori sounds like a decent sort who enjoys what he does and hasn't been sucked into the money web in which we Americans sometimes find ourselves entangled. Seems he lives in a small apartment near Venice and fixes his own 11-year old car - and doesn't appear to pine for the sort of money and toys that a lot of entrepreneurs wind up accumulating.
In any case, I like this guy - at least the way he's portrayed in the article. And while I agree that capitalism provides more fertile soil for the development of business ideas, you sometimes get the impression that all we Americans care about is making money and showing everyone that we did. People don't matter as much as what they have.
(Read the whole article HERE.)
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