Gmail origin story

The first useful thing Buchheit built was a search engine for his own email. (And it did indeed take only a day to accomplish.)

His previous project had been Google Groups, which indexed Usenet discussion groups. All he had to do was hack Groups’ lightning-fast search feature to point it at his mail rather than Usenet.

At first, Buchheit’s email search engine ran on a server at his own desk.

— Time