2026-11-03
The 100 PMs Who Changed the World · #49 | Paul Buchheit: Everyone Thought His 1GB Free Inbox on April Fools' Day Was a Hoax
【World's Top 100 Product Managers #49 · 87 OVR】On April 1, 2004, when Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail gave free users a measly 2MB to 4MB of storage—forcing people to delete emails daily—Google employee #23 Paul Buchheit dropped a bomb: 1,000 MB (1GB) of free storage, 500x the competition. The entire tech press assumed it was an April Fools' prank. Here is how Buchheit built the first Gmail prototype in a single day, pioneered Ajax web apps, coded the first AdSense prototype over a weekend, and coined 'Don't be evil.'
