Chapter FiveSilicon Valley Throws Some Shade
Who will guard the guardians?
—Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 347–348
Adam Raff and Shivaun Moeran were the founders of the most promising startup you've never heard of.
In the late 1980s, Raff was studying programming at the University of Edinburgh, while Moeran was focused on physics and computer science at King's College London. Even though they grew up half a mile apart, they had not met. Friends thought they would get along, given their science and engineering backgrounds. Their friends were right; they met and married soon after.
The pair spent their careers working in technology. Shivaun managed software projects for Boots and General Motors, while Adam looked after the supercomputers for the European weather‐forecasting service.
The idea came to Adam one day as he had a cigarette outside his office: What if you could create an engine to find the best price for products? In 2006 the couple started Foundem, a website for finding cheap online prices. Adam and Shivaun's technology was very good and could figure out which websites charged hidden shipping fees and which had the lowest prices. The Raffs quit their jobs and launched Foundem.com to beta testers. They thought they were onto a big winner.
Once Foundem.com was available to the entire world, the excitement faded quickly. At first, users were rushing to use the site, but then suddenly after the second day, visitors left and never came back.1
The Raffs were startled. They ...
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