Gmail wasn't a 20%, I don't know why anyone thinks it is. Buchheit was asked to work on it.
It's because some media stories used GMail as an example of a 20% project -- and -- those stories also end up being cited in places like Wikipedia:
- >Google is credited for popularizing the practice that 20 percent of an employee's time may be used for side projects. At Google, this led to the development of products such as Gmail and AdSense. : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_project_time#cite_note-:1....
The Time Magazine article is one of the places where they say GMail was not a 20% project:
- >Gmail is often given as a shining example of the fruits of Google’s 20 percent time, its legendary policy of allowing engineers to divvy off part of their work hours for personal projects. Paul Buchheit, Gmail’s creator, disabused me of this notion. From the very beginning, “it was an official charge,” he says. “I was supposed to build an email thing.” : https://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/#:~:text=Gmail...
Thanks for mentioning that for the rest of HN’s sake.
DoubleClick and Waze are two other big ones that I remember seeming important at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
I’m pretty sure it was Keyhole, for what it’s worth. Curiously, both Google and Keyhole are In-Q-Tel investments, although I’m not sure if that impacted/steered/influenced the acquisition, however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#History
https://web.archive.org/web/20130605121646/http://www.busine...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
From that page:
> As of 2016, In-Q-Tel listed 325 investments, but more than 100 were kept secret, according to the Washington Post. The absence of disclosure can be due to national security concerns or simply because a startup company doesn’t want its financial ties to intelligence publicized.
> […]
> While In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit corporation, it differs from IARPA and other models in that its employees and trustees can profit from its investment. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that in 2016, nearly half of In-Q-Tel's trustees had a financial connection with a company the corporation had funded.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160831020609/https://www.wsj.c...
Which is to say, apparently insider trading isn’t just “illegal except when Congress/the President does it, except when it is illegal, actually,” if I’m parsing all this correctly; apparently In-Q-Tel gets special treatment too, in some cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_congressional_insider_tra...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#By_members_of_...
Be like Chad Hurley.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39054947
I’d be glad to hear your perspective or thoughts in this thread or as a reply to my post re: Google Earth/Keyhole.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Acquisitions
- https://medium.com/@lewgus/the-untold-story-about-the-foundi...