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A comment on Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness.

Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by nodesocket on Friday October 19, 2018 @01:14AM (#18254370)
> When they sat down with me they said, “we want you to build an email something.”

As I understand Paul began work on Gmail in 2001 at the time Yahoo Mail and Hotmail were market leaders. Interesting Google execs knew they could do better, even though Gmail didn't officially launch until over 3 years later.

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Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by pm90 on Friday October 19, 2018 @01:50AM (#18254463)
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.
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Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by tinkerteller on Friday October 19, 2018 @06:03AM (#18255515)
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.
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Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by YokoZar on Friday October 19, 2018 @04:14AM (#18254997)
it's been widely reported that gmail was a 20% project to start with. That seems inconsistent with this version of events.
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Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by nvarsj on Friday October 19, 2018 @05:58AM (#18255493)
I noticed that as well. Maybe the 20% story is simply a PR stunt for hiring.
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Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by neolefty on Friday October 19, 2018 @10:05AM (#18256795)
Maybe he was already working on something email-y, and they noticed?
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Re:Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great En... by utopcell on Friday October 19, 2018 @01:55PM (#18258587)
But that's not what he reported.
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