In fact this is enshrined as an official corporate policy - engineers get 20% of their time to do with pretty much as they please, and are judged in part on how they use that time. I found a speech claiming that over half of Google's applications started as a 20% project.<p>&#62;&#62; (I'm surprised that the figure is so low.)<p>I wonder why you are surprised? Actually it's very high. Imagine Google don't offer 20% for its' employees, will their productivity (in their real jobs) increase? Probably not, you won't work 100% of your time, you'll work 70% or 80% in best cases.<p>Google profit from this wasted 20% to turn it into useful mini-applications, that can turn big in the future and the best example is Gmail.