Coming from an academic family, I tried to do PhD but it was just 2 years of procrastination. So I decided, screw it, I'll find a job, and I am a programmer in a corporation since.
It's pretty good, but somehow I wish I had more time to pursue things that go beyond one quarter. So I wish, like Feynman did, there was a place where I could do normal programming most of the time and yet when I have an idea, to pursue that idea. Google 20% time comes close (although it has really been dead for maybe 10 years), but it's still not quite that.
And you could have that for any field, not just software. So perhaps we don't need ivory towers where people pursue basic research full-time, but something more balanced.
(Trust me, I spent 3 years of 20% time writing an HTML5 parser that was largely obsolete by the time it was released. It was desperately needed when I started it in 2010 and the only options were validator.nu and html5lib. It wasn't so needed by the time it was released in 2013 and you also had JSoup, Hubbub, html5ever, and probably others to choose from.)
Same reason part-time startups usually go nowhere.
I think that the system that actually does work is something like Silicon Valley, where if in the course of your job, you see an idea, you can just quit and try it. If it doesn't work out, there's always another job out there waiting, which won't hold the work you spent on that idea against you. Anyone with a modicum of financial discipline should also be able to save enough money off a Silicon Valley engineer salary that they have the option to go a year or two without income, too.
Anyway, I am glad that 20% still works, it's better than nothing IMHO. I wouldn't do startup because I am not really interested in the logistics of pitching etc.
It's interesting that even though perhaps a majority of people believes that some freedom on the job would be beneficial, we cannot create a society which has this freedom.
You do have to be really ruthless about what features you cut from v1 of the product for this to work, though, and you have to be somewhat unorthodox about problem selection.
As for freedom - you actually do have freedom to work on whatever you want at work, and this applies to most corporations, not just Google and its 20% time. Most employers would actually rather that you take full ownership of getting the task done, and give them a better outcome rather than blind obedience. The problem is that with freedom comes responsibility. As long as you do exactly what your boss tells you to, you can't be blamed when things go wrong. If you do something additional or contravene your boss's orders, they will usually not mind as long as it works out better than expected. Your boss will usually be happy to claim credit for it, and if you're lucky, you may even end up with a promotion & a raise. But if it works out poorly and your boss has to clean up the mess, you're going to get fired. As long as you're willing to take responsibility for getting fired, you can do whatever you want at work.
I feel like a lot of my effectiveness at Google (and that of many of the coworkers who I considered effective) was that I was willing to get fired. And when, after 5 years there, I felt myself getting a little complacent and hewing a little too closely to the party line, I quit. You still have agency as a human being, even in a big company.
Is that supposed to still hold true with a family and mortgage, or is it just me that finds that hard? I can totally understand swinging that with less life responsibilities, but I find it hard to save in this region where the cost of living is so high and there's five of us. :/
My wife grew up in Cupertino and thinks it strange that I want our eventual kids to have their own bedrooms; she shared a room with her brother until she was about 10. We live in a 2BR townhome and the other units in the complex (all 2BR) include a family with 4 kids and a grandfather; a family with 3 kids; and a multi-generational family with a couple, the wife's mother, and an infant.
The bargain you make for Silicon Valley is that you'll have great career opportunities, a laid-back work environment, huge diversity of food & culture, awesome outdoor sports and great weather, and a small shot at great wealth, and in return you put up with terrible traffic, near-constant work, lots of superficial people, and crummy housing stock that, if it doesn't fall down in an earthquake, will be eaten by termites in 10 years. Some people like that bargain, some don't - and in particular, it's often a better bargain when you're young than when you're older. If you don't, you should carefully consider whether Silicon Valley is the right place for you.
I have a fairly large house, but I'm also an hour north of SF, which while better, really just means that prices are very, very high instead of insane. My daughters share a room because even though I'm drowning in space, most of it is very poorly utilized in new construction (and this is new). My home office is in one of the walk in closets off the master, and I comfortably use less than half of it. My master bedroom is large enough to make two rooms easily, but the layout makes that impracticable. The one saving grace? The large formal living room which we converted to the main office for my fiance's business (fully utilized, shelves stacked with supplies on all walls).
The other options in the area? 50 year old houses with 75% the floor space (admittedly better used), and an actual back yard. Same listing price range, but you'll have to fix a lot of stuff immediately or soon.
Being new factored heavily into our decision process, but at this point I'm thinking we might have made a poor choice. Then again, the grass is always greener...
On the other hand, some descriptions of people using 20% time sounds like it just opens the door to them feeling okay about using company time to persue open source side projects with or without approval, as long as they are getting their work done. That's probably a good middle-road, because as long as the company is happy with your performance, and you are happy with the possibility that not spending that extra time to wow your managers might delay your advancement somewhat, it's probably as open as you could want. This of course assumes a salaried position.
“Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You’re not in contact with the experimental guys. You don’t have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!”