Computing and Telecoms award winner 2011

Paul Buchheit is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He is the creator and lead developer of Gmail, a free web-based email service provided by Google Inc., and created the prototype that developed into Google’s AdSense advertising platform. Prior to joining Google in 1999, Buchheit worked as an engineer at Intel, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. Buchheit also is the person who suggested Google’s motto “don’t be evil” in a 2000 meeting on company values.

Buchheit, who was Google’s 23rd employee, developed the original prototype of Google AdSense as part of his work on Gmail. AdSense is an online advertising application that enables website owners to earn revenue by placing contextually relevant ads from Google on their website. Each time a visitor clicks on one of these ads, the website owner earns a share of the revenue that Google charges the advertiser.

Buchheit made the first AdSense prototype on a whim, as a side project on his own volition. He and his colleagues had talked about developing a content-based online advertising system for a long time, but didn’t think people would click on the ads however it has since become a significant economic driver for Google.

Gmail, the other major Google product that Buchheit developed, was released in 2004. It offers users 7.6 gigabytes of free storage, with additional amounts available for a monthly fee. Hundreds of millions of people now use Gmail for their electronic mail. It is the third most popular email service on the web, after Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, according to comScore, a market research firm. Gmail is Google's second most popular online property.

The Gmail interface offers search-oriented features and manages email in ways similar to an Internet forum; and offers community-driven spam filtering that enables any user to help identify spam for all Gmail users. Gmail Labs, launched in 2008, allows users to test new or experimental features of Gmail, such as bookmarking of e-mail messages, customer keyboard-shortcuts and games. That user input helps Google engineers assess the popularity of new features in order to improve them. 

After leaving Google, Buchheit in 2007 founded FriendFeed, a service that enables people to keep up to date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that friends and family are sharing. Facebook acquired FriendFeed in 2009. In 2010, Buchheit left Facebook to become a partner at the venture capital firm Y Combinator. Y Combinator is helping to produce the next generation of Google-Scale companies such as Air BNB and Dropbox.