tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:/tag/powersethas_many :through - powerset2007-02-09T20:08:00-08:00tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/762007-02-09T20:08:00-08:002008-01-24T00:19:34-08:00Powerset de-cloaking (and hiring too)Josh Susser<p>Today is a <a href="http://www.powerset.com/press/07/02/09/parc.html">big news day</a> for my company, <a href="http://www.powerset.com/">Powerset</a>. We have started to disclose information about our formerly super-sekrit technology, and today there are articles about us in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/technology/09license.html?_r=2&ref=technology">New York Times</a> and <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/08/powersets-search-technology-scoop-may-scare-google/">VentureBeat</a>. There's also a bit on <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/09/powerset-hype-to-boiling-point/">TechCrunch</a>, a bunch of Diggs, and <a href="http://technorati.com/search/powerset">Technorati</a> shows another minor blogstorm brewing.</p>
<p>So what's the big deal? The executive summary is that we obtained an exclusive license to best-of-breed NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology that has been developed at Xerox PARC over the last 30 years, and many of the creators of that technology have either come to work at Powerset or will be working with us while at PARC. I know that people are right to be skeptical about the kinds of claims we have been making, but perhaps this will go a ways toward showing that we aren't all hype. We're not just based on a good idea that only takes a couple years to bring to market - we've got some serious technology that can't be duplicated in less than a decade of effort, and we know what we're doing with it.</p>
<p>Our founders have a few good posts today. Our COO Steve Newcomb (not to be confused with the other Newcomb writing about us today) has a nice piece on <a href="http://www.blognewcomb.com/blog/2007/02/be_david_when_facing_goliath.html">Be David when facing Goliath</a>, our Product Architect Lorenzo Thione discusses <a href="http://blog.lorenzothione.com/2007/02/powerset_and_parc_join_forces.html">Powerset and PARC join forces to revolutionize search</a>. I'm sure our CEO Barney Pell will have a post at some point, but it will probably require surgical removal of the phone that has been grafted to his ear before he has a few minutes to write one.</p>
<p>The other cool thing is that today we finally have our <a href="http://www.powerset.com/careers.html">job openings online</a>, and they include several positions for Rails and Ruby developers. Check these out:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://tbe.taleo.net/NA6/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=POWERSET&cws=1&rid=18">RubyOnRails Developer, Natural Language Tools & Systems</a></li>
<li><a href="http://tbe.taleo.net/NA6/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=POWERSET&cws=1&rid=15">Junior Software Engineer, Natural Language Tools & Systems</a></li>
<li><a href="http://tbe.taleo.net/NA6/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=POWERSET&cws=1&rid=14">Front End Web Software Developer</a></li>
</ul>
<p>So far Powerset has four Ruby/Rails developers. There's me, of course, and also <a href="http://glu.ttono.us/">Kevin Clark</a> of <a href="http://thar.be/svn/projects/plugins/arts">ARTS</a> and <a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/seattlerb/">Heckle</a> fame. Next week we will be joined by Tom Werner, creator of <a href="http://gravatar.com">Gravatar</a>, and <a href="http://vandev.com/">Chris Van Pelt</a>. I can't say enough good things about working at Powerset, and we're in love with Rails for building our internal tools. And there are some other things brewing I'll be talking about as soon as I can. If you are a Rails wizard or master of Ruby and want to be part of an amazing team, this is the place to be.</p><p>Today is a <a href="http://www.powerset.com/press/07/02/09/parc.html">big news day</a> for my company, <a href="http://www.powerset.com/">Powerset</a>. We have started to disclose information about our formerly super-sekrit technology, and today there are articles about us in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/technology/09license.html?_r=2&ref=technology">New York Times</a> and <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/08/powersets-search-technology-scoop-may-scare-google/">VentureBeat</a>. There's also a bit on <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/09/powerset-hype-to-boiling-point/">TechCrunch</a>, a bunch of Diggs, and <a href="http://technorati.com/search/powerset">Technorati</a> shows another minor blogstorm brewing.</p>
<p>So what's the big deal? The executive summary is that we obtained an exclusive license to best-of-breed NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology that has been developed at Xerox PARC over the last 30 years, and many of the creators of that technology have either come to work at Powerset or will be working with us while at PARC. I know that people are right to be skeptical about the kinds of claims we have been making, but perhaps this will go a ways toward showing that we aren't all hype. We're not just based on a good idea that only takes a couple years to bring to market - we've got some serious technology that can't be duplicated in less than a decade of effort, and we know what we're doing with it.</p>
<p>Our founders have a few good posts today. Our COO Steve Newcomb (not to be confused with the other Newcomb writing about us today) has a nice piece on <a href="http://www.blognewcomb.com/blog/2007/02/be_david_when_facing_goliath.html">Be David when facing Goliath</a>, our Product Architect Lorenzo Thione discusses <a href="http://blog.lorenzothione.com/2007/02/powerset_and_parc_join_forces.html">Powerset and PARC join forces to revolutionize search</a>. I'm sure our CEO Barney Pell will have a post at some point, but it will probably require surgical removal of the phone that has been grafted to his ear before he has a few minutes to write one.</p>
<p>The other cool thing is that today we finally have our <a href="http://www.powerset.com/careers.html">job openings online</a>, and they include several positions for Rails and Ruby developers. Check these out:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://tbe.taleo.net/NA6/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=POWERSET&cws=1&rid=18">RubyOnRails Developer, Natural Language Tools & Systems</a></li>
<li><a href="http://tbe.taleo.net/NA6/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=POWERSET&cws=1&rid=15">Junior Software Engineer, Natural Language Tools & Systems</a></li>
<li><a href="http://tbe.taleo.net/NA6/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=POWERSET&cws=1&rid=14">Front End Web Software Developer</a></li>
</ul>
<p>So far Powerset has four Ruby/Rails developers. There's me, of course, and also <a href="http://glu.ttono.us/">Kevin Clark</a> of <a href="http://thar.be/svn/projects/plugins/arts">ARTS</a> and <a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/seattlerb/">Heckle</a> fame. Next week we will be joined by Tom Werner, creator of <a href="http://gravatar.com">Gravatar</a>, and <a href="http://vandev.com/">Chris Van Pelt</a>. I can't say enough good things about working at Powerset, and we're in love with Rails for building our internal tools. And there are some other things brewing I'll be talking about as soon as I can. If you are a Rails wizard or master of Ruby and want to be part of an amazing team, this is the place to be.</p>tag:blog.hasmanythrough.com,2006-02-27:Article/652006-10-11T09:51:00-07:002008-01-24T00:19:33-08:00Life at PowersetJosh Susser<p>I just took a look at my posting history on this blog and see that I haven't posted anything in a whole month. I've been at <a href="http://www.powerset.com/">Powerset</a> for two months now, and definitely have a serious case of <em>startupitis</em>. While I'm working my keister off, I'm also loving it bigtime. I haven't been this engaged in my job since my OpenDoc days at Apple. But between work stuff and working on my RubyConf presentation, I haven't had much time for blogging. I'm hoping the situation will change in about a month: I'll be done with RubyConf and will have a new Rails developer starting to help me out with my workload.</p>
<p>Speaking of that, I can now share that awesome Rails developer <a href="http://glu.ttono.us/">Kevin Clark</a> will be <a href="http://glu.ttono.us/articles/2006/10/10/big-changes">joining Powerset</a> at the start of next month. That will make two full-time Rails developers at Powerset, and both of us are <a href="http://rubyconf.org/agenda.html">speaking at RubyConf</a> this month. I'm really excited Kevin is joining us - besides being a great guy he's got a lot to bring to our team.</p><p>I just took a look at my posting history on this blog and see that I haven't posted anything in a whole month. I've been at <a href="http://www.powerset.com/">Powerset</a> for two months now, and definitely have a serious case of <em>startupitis</em>. While I'm working my keister off, I'm also loving it bigtime. I haven't been this engaged in my job since my OpenDoc days at Apple. But between work stuff and working on my RubyConf presentation, I haven't had much time for blogging. I'm hoping the situation will change in about a month: I'll be done with RubyConf and will have a new Rails developer starting to help me out with my workload.</p>
<p>Speaking of that, I can now share that awesome Rails developer <a href="http://glu.ttono.us/">Kevin Clark</a> will be <a href="http://glu.ttono.us/articles/2006/10/10/big-changes">joining Powerset</a> at the start of next month. That will make two full-time Rails developers at Powerset, and both of us are <a href="http://rubyconf.org/agenda.html">speaking at RubyConf</a> this month. I'm really excited Kevin is joining us - besides being a great guy he's got a lot to bring to our team.</p>
<p>While I haven't been blogging, lots of others have been. There was a little blogstorm over Powerset last week giving us a lot of unexpected (and probably premature) publicity. Check out the <a href="http://technorati.com/search/powerset">Technorati search</a> to see 400+ blog postings in at least four languages from all over the planet. Our CEO Barney Pell has a nice <a href="http://www.barneypell.com/archives/2006/10/the_powerset_bl.html">recap</a> of the blogstorm, and our product architect and resident genius Lorenzo Thione talks a bit about the <a href="http://blog.lorenzothione.com/2006/10/we_are_all_natural_language_se.html">inevitable destiny of search</a>. So now that it's in the open, I can say that what we are building is a new search engine using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_processing">natural language processing</a>. I can't talk about our products yet, but when I can I will.</p>
<p>The whole blogstorm thing was a little weird to experience. It was very distracting, but also exciting. The frustrating part was having to sit back and watch while skeptics ragged on my company for being nothing but hype and vaporware. Of course people are completely justified to be skeptical at this point, since we haven't told anyone what our products will be or shown anyone a demo of our search technology. But I have to say I'm amused at how many bloggers felt they had to say <em>something</em>, so we got a lot of criticism of how lame our public website is, and how foolish it is to compete with Google or do natural language search. It's like watching CNN do one of those live reports where they have no facts. "We know for a fact that shots <em>may</em> have been fired. And now, 23 hours of baseless speculation..."</p>
<p>I think the fact that I went to work at Powerset demonstrates that I believe in the company and its potential. I had a lot of options open to me, but I chose Powerset. Every day I'm convinced I made the right choice. Having the time of my life? You bet!</p>
<p>With luck (and Kevin's help), I'll have some time for more Rails writing soonish. I'm already planning an article to talk about some of the things I've set up to help manage our internal Rails development process.</p>