Hacker News Reader

Well part of the story seems to be that they weren't Google "Execs", it was Larry removing (firing?) all of management and having engineers decide what other engineers to work on.

If I remember correctly there were lot many more people involved pouring various ideas that became final product although Buchheit had a lion’s share and founded the project.

it's been widely reported that gmail was a 20% project to start with. That seems inconsistent with this version of events.

I noticed that as well. Maybe the 20% story is simply a PR stunt for hiring.

Maybe he was already working on something email-y, and they noticed?

But that's not what he reported.