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Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
231–240 of 498 posts
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#232No companies should be offering 20% time anyway because it's a difficult promise to keep between crunch schedules and need to keep work between teams synchronized. Some companies also have creative interpretations of "20% time" as "We offer 20% time: you can spend 20% of your time doing whatever marketing needs you to do" turning the whole notion of 20% time into a disincentive. Hack Days work much better. Easier to…
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Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have a solid idea that Google would benefit from and allow you to work on it in your 20% time, why not quit and do something similar on your own? To be fair, not everybody is interested in running a company, and doing all the "other stuff" that it entails beyond writing code. Also, Google provide great resources and infrastructure, which it would be hard to replicate (assuming the hypothetical project in quest…
I think that when it comes to an idea one truly believes in, even if one is not inclined towards running a company, one is likely to give it a shot anyway. I'm talking about real passion here. The kind of passion that would cause you to break down if Google were to decide that your 20% time is misused and make you do other things instead, or if your side project took off and was taken away from you.
I think that when it comes to an idea one truly believes in, even if one is not inclined towards running a company, one is likely to give it a shot anyway.
I can see where that would be true for some people, but I doubt it's universally true. And it may even be that it just makes more sense to do the idea inside Google than doing it independently anyway. Again, look at the resources and infrastructure Google already have assembled.
And some people may have just bought into the Google mission / vision / whatever, and / or just feel a sense of loyalty to GOOG.
Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that it never makes sense to quit and do your own thing. I mean, hell, I probably would, as far as that goes. I'm just saying that there are some legitimate reasons why some people might prefer to just work within Google than quit and run off to start a new business of their own.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#234The title of this article may unintentionally embody a point about 20% time, because GMail and AdSense have something else in common that Occam's razor implies was more important than Google policies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Buchheit
Are you saying giving gifted and talented people resources and means to build things that they build amazing things? This is ludicrous!
To your point though, Google probably has many "Paul Buchheits" (by that I mean at his level of intellect and ability), and so do many other companies. Being on the end of having a good idea, and not having the companies backing to build it, it sucks and discouraging. Thats why people make startups though (or at least why I like to believe some people do), to take that idea that the company didn't give them the time/resources for and build it themselves. One part to show the company that they were dumb, but also because they believe in the idea. I think as corporations try to maximize profits and throw things like 20% time out the door, the world will see even more startups and I do believe we are currently seeing that type of trend with the newer generation. Ideas can consume people, and if corporations learned to harness that power (Like 20% time and hackathons) they could innovate in ways that people believed impossible.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#235That's sad.
I remember being in direct competition on a project with a google 20% team, and only beating them by a few weeks. We had fun with that.
I guess that's just the natural life cycle of companies?
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#236As a Googler, I can confirm that this article is... completely wrong. I don't have to get approval to take 20% time, and I work with a number of people on their 20% projects. I can also confirm that many people don't take their 20% time. Whether it's culture change due to new hiring, lack of imagination, pressure to excel on their primary project, I'm not sure, but it is disappointing. Still, in engineering No permis…
I am not a googler but what you say is more in line with my thinking. You don't ask for, but simply take the 20% time. Ask forgiveness, not permission. Until they send out a memo saying you're only allowed to work or think about tasks assigned by a superior officer, then assume you're an autonomous being :-)
The policy is that you don't ask, you tell. If your manager needs you to focus on your primary project, she can ask you to bank your 20% time for up to a quarter, but then you get to use that saved time.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Way to hijack the thread with anti-Google propaganda ...
My post in fewer words: Page and Brin have wandered from their roots. That's not "anti-Google propaganda". That's honest criticism from an old geek.
Not really, as zeckalpha pointed out, this is quoted out of context and was talking about OpenText:
"The difference between Google's advertisements and OpenText's is Google (usually) identifies advertisements as advertisements."
Also, Google results have gotten significantly better than they were in 1998 so even if we ignore the OpenText context, I don't see how this could be a successful prediction as you're trying to imply.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#238I can confirm this. When I went on interview at Google and asked various engineers what they did for their 20% time they all said they didn't have time for it.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#239> And what’s more, if 20% time has been abandoned at Google, are other companies, which reportedly include Apple, LinkedIn, 3M and a host of others, wise to continue trying to copy it?
I thought it was Google that copied it from 3M, who invented the Scotch Tape during the 20% time?
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are sooooo right on with this. The top-10 MBA cult is awful. These are usually those people you knew in high school/college who were excellent at studying for and passing tests. Excellent at getting great grades on projects. Excellent at everything except building ANYTHING. I think that the people who are best at building things that people want don't want to get an MBA. They instead choose to spend their time bu…
I don't think it's the MBA degree itself that causes this. Most MBA programs go very heavily into the idea of culture and competitive advantage - and obviously stopping a core part of your culture like the 20% time would be against what most MBAs are taught. This problem has nothing to do with education and everything to do with short term professional management that is compensated based on short term results. If yo…
>If you want to blame anyone, you need to blame current financial thinking by most board of directors.
I don't have an MBA, but my understanding is that this is what MBA programs teach, and is at least partly to blame for Wall St's, and boards of directors, short-term, bottom-line, quarterly focus.
There are some people in the MBA world trying to correct that, one of which I know of are the Throughput Accounting [1] advocates. Maybe more as well.
Can't come soon enough.