Jay Bhatti

Co-foundator of Spock.com

«People will either type in a search on Spock or Google for people within 6 months, and nowhere else»

(Easybourse.com) How did you get the idea of creating Spock?
The idea came up around the time we realized how hard it was to just search for the right people within our own address book. We decided to build an engine that could do that for us.

Why do people need to know more about people?
People are always curious about other people. It has been that case since the mists of time. We wanted to create a application that could help you find the right person within 1 minute of using.
 
What are the advantages of using Spock, compared to Yahoo! or Google?
We only organize information around people - so anything you type in Spock will deliver results concerning people.  On Google or Yahoo!, you may get a lot of web documents, but not a lot of organizations.

We are also community powered, so there will be a lot of information in Spock that will never be indexed by the other search engines.
 
What about your business rivals, such as ZoomInfo or Winks?
They are not really our rivals. ZoomInfo is a directory and we could probably partner up with them to index their results on Spock. Wink is turning into more of a social network and their search experience is much different from ours. I don’t consider them as competitors. Google is our main rival. People will either type in a search on Spock or Google for people within 6 months, and nowhere else. 

Spock surfs on the Web 2.0 wave… Doesn’t it?
No. We never intended to ride the Web 2.0 wave. I think we are one of the companies defining what web 2.0 is all about – information organization, community contribution to the information, etc.

According to you, does Spock present a threat to peoples’ privacy?
No - unlike all other search engines (including Google), we do our best never to display private data, such as your social security number, home address, email address, etc. On different search engines, this information is shown openly.

And what about spamming? Doesn’t the private information Spock has in its database make it easier to flood the mailboxes?
No, we never give contact information out - so it is not possible for anyone to spam people who are indexed on Spock.

How many people work for Spock?
23

What does the world say about Jay Bahtti? Tell us more about yourself.
Hmmm - that’s a tough one.  Most people know me mainly as the co-founder of Spock and someone who attended the Wharton School.  That is how the community is really voting on me. 

Interview realized by Marjorie Encelot