Press

Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan helped turn Google into an ad giant. Now they’re starting over with a service whose only customers are its users.

Neeva's pitch is pretty simple: It's search without the ads. It's a cleaner, nicer-looking system, and one that doesn't try to game users into clicking on things they didn't want.

Sridhar Ramaswamy, former Google Ads SVP and Neeva CEO, joins ‘Tech Check’ to discuss how his subscription-based search engine which will take on Google and makes the case for why people would pay for search.

Neeva, founded by former Google executives, will charge $4.95 per month. Sridhar Ramaswamy says the project could not have been attempted at his former company.

Giants like Facebook and Google have long resisted the concept of paying newspapers and information services they link to or include in feeds, but Neeva is willing to share income with partners.

Neeva says it will commit to sharing "at least 20%" of its revenue with content creators, offering payouts when their content directly answers a user's search query.

Neeva said it would share at least 20% of its sales with content partners such as Quora and Medium in another break from search giant Google, which for years has faced criticism for not remunerating publishers.

We see our long-term responsibility in supporting the monetization of long-tail content in ways that don’t all completely depend on ads.

The goal is to create a deeply personal search engine that can trawl through emails and other files to provide the most relevant information.

“Neeva users will pay...to get the search results they want rather than what advertisers want them to see.”

“...Neeva’s most radical departure from the Google playbook is that it charges a subscription, promising fewer ads and greater privacy.”

“Sridhar Ramaswamy, sees an opportunity—he is developing a search engine that will be ad-free and focused on giving people the best results.”

“Neeva is developing a paid, privacy-focused search engine … ‘We hope the DOJ’s actions will create a more equal playing field for search apps like Neeva that want to create real options for customers.’”

“Part of my reason for starting Neeva was I did not want this very important function [search] to become a monoculture,’ says Ramaswamy.”

“His [Sridhar Ramaswamy’s] bet is that an engine spitting out ad-free results — with other features, such as an ability to scan personal data stored on, say, your laptop — will be a compelling alternative.”

“Neeva is a search engine that looks for information on the web as well as personal files like emails and other documents. It will not show any advertisements and it will not collect or profit from user data.”

“Perhaps in the ultimate rebellion against his former employer, Sridhar Ramaswamy, once head of Google’s $115b advertising arm, has founded a new search engine that neither shows ads nor profits from user data.”

The Past, Present, and Future of Search

How Do You Compete Against the Biggest Companies?

Would You Give Up Google for This?

Future of Search — with Sridhar Ramaswamy

Sridhar Ramaswamy On Becoming Google Ads Boss And Then Raising $77 Million

Why Ex-Google Ads Boss Sridhar Ramaswamy is Building An Ads-Free Search Engine

Sridhar Ramaswamy of Neeva

Your search history is incredibly personal

Neeva's Sridhar Ramaswamy: 'We can do better than Google'

Neeva co-founder Sridhar Ramaswamy

Create a Center of Excellence with VIP Guest Sridhar Ramaswamy

What an alternative to Google can look like