TECH - Gmail Turns 20: If You Invested $1000 When Google Went Public 20 Years Ago Here's How Much You'd Have | Benzinga
Gmail turns 20 years old today, on April Fool's Day. It is one of the oldest and longest-living Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) products. Google famously launched it on April Fool's Day and in its announcement, the search giant said this was in response to a user complaint.
“If a Google user has a problem with email, well, so do we,” said Google co-founder and then the president of technology, Sergey Brin.
Picture that – Google launched one of the most used services in the world based on a user complaint. Gmail is used by over 1.5 billion users in the world –nearly 1 in every 4 people has a Google account and uses Gmail.
The Origins Of Gmail
Gmail was a product of Google's famous "20% Project" time, where employees are required to spend one day a week on projects that interest them – this is unrelated to their actual job at the company.
The idea behind Gmail was simple – back then, users were forced to file emails in folders to go back to them at a later date. This broke conversations and made it difficult to follow them.
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