Today I learnt about Quaero. It was a company set up in 2005 to be Europe’s answer to Google in the search market. It was jointly funded between the French and German governments.
It didn’t last long. The French and German governments went separate ways in 2006, each investing in their own search technology, and sinking in the range of 100 million euros a piece. Quaero closed down by 2013; years too late.
Their vision was grand, but the execution was poor, and the market was terrible. In the case of Quaero, the recipe of a big government organisation handing money to a private company to try build a new search engine was always going to come out undercooked. Not to mention Google already being lightyears ahead with their technology investment and innovation.
The context within which I discovered Quaero was commentary in the Economist on how Europe should avoid being knee-jerky in its reaction to American subsidies supporting the rollout of renewable energy and electric vehicles. If Europe chooses to go down a similar protectionist pathway—which is at odds with it foundations as an open, free-trading economy—European nations could end up in a messy subsidy race.
Quaero serves as an interesting example—and one not talked about enough, in my opinion—of how throwing public money at a problem can result in more headaches and waste than gain. In a world that’s desperate to decarbonise, it’s hard to see mistakes like this not being made.