Google's 20% rule: why not make it 50%?

Posted Apr 14th 2006 3:18AM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Products and Services, Launches, Television, Google (GOOG)

I'm up late watching Charlie Rose's taped interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In raving about Google's 20% rule -- that engineers can spend 20% of their time on projects of their own choosing -- Schmidt says that all of their new products come from that 20% "free time." Charlie asks an obvious question, one that's been bugging me for months: "why not make it 50%?"

Schmidt doesn't answer the question, really (he is a CEO after all), basically saying that, although it's a great idea, and they should do it, anarchy would prevail.

Why would anarchy prevail if 50% of a creative worker's time was spent doing creative, independently-chosen work? I think it's a fantastic idea and one that many companies should employ. If workers are selected for their extreme intelligence and ability to innovate, why not have them create the products they wish existed? We'd all be better for it.

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