Paul Buchheit

Paul Buchheit
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Case Western Reserve University
Occupation	computer programmer, software developer
Known for	FriendFeed, Gmail, one of Google's early employees
Website	paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

Paul T. Buchheit is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He is the creator and lead developer of Gmail. He developed the original prototype of Google AdSense as part of his work on Gmail. He also suggested Google's now-famous company motto "Don't be evil" in a 2000 meeting on company values.

Early life and education

Buchheit grew up in Webster, New York. He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio where he rowed crew.

Career

He worked at Intel and later became the 23rd employee at Google. At Google he began developing Gmail in 2001, with its innovations in search and storage. He also prompted what would become AdSense. Leaving google in 2006, Buchheit started FriendFeed, which was launched in 2007 and was acquired by Facebook in 2009 in a private transaction.

In 2010, Buchheit left Facebook to become a partner at the investment firm Y Combinator. From 2006 (when he started investing) until 2008, Buchheit invested about $1.21 million in 32 different companies. He also continues to oversee angel investments of his own in "about 40" startups (by his own estimate).

Honors and Certificates

Buchheit won the 2011 The Economist Innovation Awards for the Computing and telecommunications field.

Other interests

Buchheit believes society has the technology and resources to provide adequate food, housing, education, and healthcare for everyone, using only a fraction of available labor and resources. In his view, this implies it is possible to put an end to wage slavery. Buchheit further stated:

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. 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 the outliers everywhere. The result will be an unprecedented boom in human creativity and ingenuity.

External links

• (May 23, 2012). Buchheit discusses his views on the future of technology entrepreneurship and venture capital, and other key aspects of starting a company and building and growing it into a large business, including e.g. the Y Combinator model versus the traditional model for venture capital.