Has anyone dealt with this problem before?  Successfully?  It is a difficult one, and yet it is a fascinating problem.  Does it have a solution?

My friend, a candidate I placed 15 years ago at MicroOptical Corporation (the company Google bought the "Google Glass" patents from) is a former Everest climber, who wrote the book on the search for Mallory and Irvine (first team to summit Everest in 1924, but died on the descent).

He has a client who has developed a search engine that is much better than Google or Bing (much more specific, no extraneous results, searches text perfectly to find results, understands text rather than merely parsing it, etc.). The client has no money, but is looking for a CEO -- to help raise VC funding.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Has anyone successfully dealt with a scenario like this before? I ask because of the previous article on Google losing the Firefox gig, because their search engine really does suck, and better ones are inevitable and potentially valuable.

Let me also add that lots of people (my friend included) are experts at raising money... as CEO he raised 10 million pounds for a company in England under very difficult circumstances.