[richsinn]

Of course it's hard to say if they completely, 100% invented anything from scratch. But they sure did "pioneer" a lot of unique practices that other software companies were not following at the time.

A specific example - the practice of keeping the entire codebase at the company under a single "source" repo. Pre-Google - it would've been considered outrageous to have the entire codebase of a sophisticated software company keep their entire software contents under a single repo. But Google did it, and other companies have followed suit successfully (as Google DNA has leaked to other companies).

Yes, of course keeping code in a single repo is not a "new invention". Linux is a single repo; many smaller companies have only a single repo because their only product is a single web app. Google keeps nearly 100% of their entire codebase in a single repo - and that was definitely a novel approach at the time.