Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

20% time isn't dead -- I have been using it at Google consistently for over 7 years, and it has immensely benefited me. You don't need any permission, at least in engineering.

However, I would agree that it is "as good as dead". What killed 20% time? Stack ranking.

Google's perf management is basically an elaborate game where using 20% time is a losing move. In my time there, this has become markedly more the case. I have done many engineering/coding 20% projects and other non-engineering projects, with probably 20-40% producing "real" results (which over 7 years I think has been more than worth it for the company). But these projects are generally not rewarded. Part of the problem is that you actually need 40% time now at Google -- 20% to do stuff, then 20% to tell everyone what you did (sell it).

I am a bit disappointed that relatively few of my peers will consciously make the tradeoff of accepting a slower promotion rate in return for learning new things. Promotion optimizes for depth and not breadth. Breadth -- connecting disparate ideas -- is almost invariably what's needed for groundbreaking innovation.

Eh, from my perspective 20% time is both implicit and unwanted.

It's implicit because I'm not coding to a spec. I've got an area of responsibility and some general goals the people above me would like to see accomplished. If I have an idea, I try it out. I could see someone in a more spec-based, feature-driven role wanting to have time to work on their own features off the spec.

On the other hand, I personally don't want conventional 20% time. I don't really like working on two projects at once. One fills my head and all of my ideas relate to it and a second one gets in the way. I once again understand that some people can work on two things at once and enjoy it, but hey, I'm not one of them.

So I'm not sure there's an actual problem. If most of your engineers are like me, and are working with a great deal of independence on a project they find interesting, why would they want 20% time?