I don't work there any more, but you are correct. Many successful products started with banked 20% time. However, most individual 20% projects are not standalo

I don't work there any more, but you are correct. Many successful products started with banked 20% time. However, most individual 20% projects are not standalone projects. They are often tools or components or features or mini-sabbaticals with other teams. It is more possible to entrepreneurial at Google than any other company I know of. The workload is really high, but even so, the main barrier to effective 20% time is still oneself. Even at Google, most people talk about their brilliant ideas and don't do anything about them.