The technology was rooted in brain science and built by academics to model the way in which the mind stored and utilized language.
The early technology was derived heavily from WordNet, which was invented by George A. Miller at Princeton University.
[1] Simpli was founded by a number of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and professors meeting in the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University.
Graduate students included the CEO Jeff Stibel, David Landan, and John Santini.
Professors included James A. Anderson and Steve Reiss from Brown University, Dan Ariely from the MIT Sloan School of Management and George Miller from Princeton.