Editor note: In our 2022 Startups to Watch feature, the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times present startups and founders doing unique things in the San Francisco Bay Area. You.com is one of 20 that we have profiled — to read more about our mission and the other startups we're featuring, click here.
The time is right for a search engine that respects users' privacy while also giving them more relevant results, said Richard Socher, CEO of You.com.
"I was frustrated with the experience that I was getting with Google," Socher said, CEO of You.com. "It's kind of crappy that we have this one monopolistic monolith that decides what we all read, buy and consume every day."
So Socher went about creating an alternative, a search engine that uses natural language processing to help users to get summarized information for their queries. Users can also select specific apps, such as Twitter or GitHub, that they want search results to prioritize. The company does not sell users' data to advertisers.
The search engine also lets users specify privacy settings, so they can receive a more personalized search experience when convenient, and a more private experience when they don't want the search engine to save data.
You.com
- Founded: 2020
- Founders: Bryan McCann, Richard Socher
- What it does: Privacy-focused search engine that's more individualized
- Headquarters: Palo Alto
- Employees: Undisclosed
- Total raised: $20 million
- Investors: TIME Ventures, Breyer Capital, Day One Ventures, Sound Ventures
What was the “aha” moment behind your startup? I've spent more than a decade researching artificial intelligence, deep learning and natural language processing. I believe that search — specifically helping people explore and summarize information on the Internet — is the single highest-impact application of these technologies today. ...
For society to thrive in this digital world, it's imperative to create a fairer search system that gives people real agency in their information diet and privacy. It's also essential to provide an opportunity for organizations of all sizes and budgets to have a fair shot appearing on the first page of the search results when their content is relevant without paying what's effectively a tax just to be seen.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in building You.com? In many ways, a startup is like a beautiful, small, fragile flower — you have to make sure you have just the right amount of sun and rain, but not too much. You and our team are constantly working on challenges and solving problems.
For many companies, including ours, hiring is still a challenge. We’re fortunate to have some really strong and incredible talent now, but it took some time, especially before we had launched. There was some healthy skepticism before whether we can pull it off at all to build a great and novel search experience.
Are you already thinking of an exit strategy? We are not thinking about an exit strategy. We’re looking to build a better internet with values of trust, facts and kindness. That won't happen overnight and we're OK with that.
