We talked to Alan at great lengths in the process of putting this together. He is the most insightful person I've ever met on how to structure an organization for great research.
Sam, when I met you at Startup School last year, I wanted to be brief. The most important thing I wanted to communicate to you was my gratitude, and I thanked you for sharing your startup class. I'm blown away by and so grateful for the stuff you've been doing since. I'm very excited to see how these new projects work out. Thank you again man.
I think Google managed to recreate something similar with their 20% projects
Other companies have had the 15% / 20% culture, etc. long before Google. Example, http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1998/01/9858