Ryan Tate of Wired wrote the best summary of it I’ve seen:104 Here is what [20 percent time] is not: A fully fleshed corporate program with its own written policy, detailed guidelines, and manager. No one gets a “20 percent time” packet at orientation, or pushed into distracting themselves with a side project. Twenty percent time has always operated on a somewhat ad hoc basis, providing an outlet for the company’s brightest, most restless, and most persistent employees—for people determined to see an idea through to completion, come hell or high water. For example, engineer Paul Buchheit
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