I can imagine it went something like this: Engineer: "Hey boss, how long did you want the snooze timer to run?" CEO: "Oh, I don't know. Not too long, not too

I can imagine it went something like this: Engineer: "Hey boss, how long did you want the snooze timer to run?" CEO: "Oh, I don't know. Not too long, not too short." Engineer: "What does that mean? Like 10 minutes or so?" CEO: "Sure, I guess that would be fine. Just get it done." Since this is an alarm clock, not a nuclear power plant, it's entirely conceivable that the decision was made very casually. It could have just been someone's gut feeling that 9 or 10 minutes felt right.