I don't know about the rest, but for: 1. Gmail - The history makes it seem like an internal project that became public. Wasn't started to beat some new hot st

I don't know about the rest, but for: 1. Gmail - The history makes it seem like an internal project that became public. Wasn't started to beat some new hot startup earning the attention of the fawning public & investors; wasn't built to muscle into the territory of some startup earning bucketloads of cash. 2. Maps - Was about building a better way to distribute maps on the web. Again, not about muscling in onto a hot new space.