Paul Buchheit

Early Career

Buchheit was hired by Google as their 23^rd employee during their initial days and he is considered one of the innovators of many revolutionary programs.Paul is known as one of the creators and innovators of the mail application Gmail. Gmail is known to have close to 900 million users today. He was also responsible for the conceptualization and idea of Adsense, through which Google make millions, every single day.After Google, Buchheit decided to start his own company and came up with FriendFeed in 2007. FriendFeed was a success and was later obtained by Facebook in a private transaction worth millions.

Gmail Creator

After graduating from Case Western Reserve University with a degree in computer science, he joined Google in 1999 as its 23rd employee. Tasked with developing a web-based email service, Buchheit began working on Gmail in August 2001. He aimed to address existing email limitations by integrating robust search capabilities and offering substantial storage space.

Gmail was officially launched on April 1, 2004, providing users with 1 GB of storage—significantly more than competitors at the time—and advanced search functions, revolutionizing email communication. Beyond Gmail, Buchheit contributed to the development of Google AdSense and proposed Google's former company motto, "Don't be evil." After leaving Google, he co-founded FriendFeed, which was later acquired by Facebook, and became an angel investor, supporting various startups.

Later life

After selling Friendfeed and working for Facebook for a few years, he decided to shift his focus towards angel investing. With his money, he has invested in over 83 start ups all over the United States.He founded a capital firm known as Y Combinator and is responsible for investing in budding startups around the nation. Apart from that, he is also well known for creating the Google motto, “Don’t be Evil”.A staunch supporter of equality and using technology the right way, he has been quoted as saying that technology can pave the way for more resources and food.

He claims that we are using only a fraction of the resources available to us to aid the poor and needy and that more needs to be done.“I don't have to work. I choose to work. And I believe everyone deserves the same freedom I have. If done right, it's also economically superior, meaning we will all have more wealth. We often talk about how brilliant or visionary Steve Jobs was, but there are probably millions of people just as brilliant as he was. 

" If everything you do works, then you're not taking many risks and probably aren't innovating either " - Paul T. Buchheit

The difference is they likely didn't grow up with great parents, amazing teachers, and an environment where innovation was the norm. Also they didn't live down the street from Steve Wozniak. Economically, we don't need more jobs. We need more Steve Jobs. When we set everyone free, we enable outlives everywhere. The result will be an unprecedented boom in human creativity and ingenuity.”