Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
googleblog.blogspot.com
googleblog.blogspot.com
Larry has been the most involved in the technology details, Sergey has been the most involved in the blue-sky new projects, and Eric has been the most involved in the interaction between Google and other entities (as well as very high level direction.)
He might say things that are controversial, but he's curt enough that he's not going to be misunderstood. If people disagree with him, they're a lot more likely to be disagreeing with what he actually believes rather than how the he's been sound-bited.
The entrepreneurs admire Jobs and Gates, but Schmidt worked his way through Bell labs, PARC, managed the release of Java, was CTO of Sun, CEO of Novell, and brought google from a well executed grad school project to dominate the internet. He turned down a job with the Obama administration to be the governments CTO.
He also did all that as an academic, after getting a Ph.D. from Berkeley.
He has gotten some bad press doing PR for google recently, but the man has been kicking ass in enviable positions since I was a toddler.
After all that, yeah, good on him. Take some time off.
Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed
This one was the best satirical one:
Larry Page has just ousted Eric Schmidt as Mayor of Google on @foursquare. http://bit.ly/hQGNRe
Link: http://twitter.com/#!/pourmecoffee/status/28198140209270784
As indicated by page 29 of Google's 2004 S-1 Filing Eric Schmidt, Page, and Brin run Google as a triumvirate. Eric Schmidt possesses the legal responsibilities typically assigned to the CEO of a public company and focuses on management of the vice presidents and the sales organization. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt)
Google was always a different company. And we should not evaluate this move as if HP's CEO is stepping down, or IBM's etc. After all this time, I believe Larry can make it. Interesting times.
I think as time passes, his reputation's going to grow even more... that was one of the greatest decades of any company ever.
When Schmidt joined, Google was a search company. A damn good search company, but still just search. Now they're a phenomenally influential technology company, who's products affect billions of lives every day. The fact that they didn't just sit on piles of cash but have used it to revolutionize field after field of endeavour is a striking achievement in diversification.
Yes, 10 years ago they were "still just search," because that was the indispensable way to navigate the internet, it was a core technology. During the last five years, the focus has shifted so "just search" is not that important anymore, but Google somehow didn't evolve, but instead has been developing new and new products. And while some of them are very good, in the future they all can be replaced by the competition. Google is just not essential for the Internet anymore, or at least that's my feeling.
Schmidt had some major media slips & blunders in 2010, it just doesn't seem to be his thing.
(btw, Larry and Sergey bought Android without telling Eric, to give you an idea of what could have been)
He said it in passing, while talking about the Google mobile strategy (the summary of what he said was "we sort of fell into this business, nobody really understands it just yet (mobile ads) or how big the opportunity will be")
I agree Android was setting itself up for an acquisition, same as what happen with Danger. They were probably aiming for a carrier or large non-Apple manufacturer.
I'm sorry, but the most likely theory in this case seems to me to be that you're misremembering things, than somehow a whole room of other people were simultaneously rendered incapable of recording or publishing a very interesting quote from Eric.
http://www.businessinsider.com/sometimes-larry-and-sergey-do...
John Gruber linked back to it this morning.
Q: How does Google think generally about leveraging user data, both to better target ads and how to stay competitive with those like Facebook and Microsoft and Yahoo that are leveraging data possibly more so than what Google is today? And I think this is particularly relevant for using search data for your display business but, would love to get your thoughts on that.
Eric Schmidt: "We have a pretty strong opinion that we're not going to do very much of it. The reason is that we take our end-user data privacy incredibly seriously and the trust that people have with respect to giving us that information, both their search histories as well as other pieces of information, they get very upset, very, very quickly if we, in their view, misuse it.
"So, what we typically tell people is we're not going to do the kinds of things that you could do with this, in particular use it to generate sort of strange ads against your history and things like that, without your explicit permission. And we probably, in many cases, won't do it forever."
--Q3 2010 Earnings Call, October 14, 2010 http://www.123jump.com/earnings-calls/Google-Q3-Earnings-Cal...
This kind of quotation doesn't get press, but it's essential if you really want to get a balanced picture of what Eric says about privacy.
You will have to excuse me for not being terribly excited about the words "probably" and "in many cases".
He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say, and then throwing in a couple of qualifiers that pretty much leave the company open to doing whatever they decide to do in the future. If someone calls Him on it, well he did say "probably", and "in many cases"
Now I don't know Eric Schmidt from Adam, but I did watch the interview where he said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." (yes, I listened to it in context, the quote is not the only part I heard). While that quote perhaps does not mean all that people have made it out to mean, I still find it deeply disturbing -- especially coming from the (now "former") CEO of a company which is in such a great position to abuse their collected information if they decide to.
Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
He said categorically that it would not happen without the user's permission. And then went on to further say that it probably would not happen at all (even with the user's permission). The last sentence was further limiting the scope of what Google will do, not expanding it.
> He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say
He is talking to investors, not privacy advocates. He is saying the opposite of what investors want to hear. Investors would want him to say "we are sitting on a high-value treasure trove of marketing information, and of course we will use it to enhance the value of our ads products whenever we can." Instead he is saying exactly the opposite of what would increase Google's perceived value.
> Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
What about the fact that his very next sentence was: "If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."
Google is not the only search engine that keeps logs, and any US company that keeps logs is subject to government subpoenas. This is reality. If Eric or any other search engine CEO told you differently, they'd be lying to you.
> > You will have to excuse me for not being terribly excited about the words "probably" and "in many cases".
> He said categorically that it would not happen without the user's permission. And then went on to further say that it probably would not happen at all (even with the user's permission). The last sentence was further limiting the scope of what Google will do, not expanding it.
That totally depends on how you read that entire (2 short paragraph) response -- you can take it with an optimists viewpoint and say he really is saying they have no intention of ever abusing that information. But I'm sorry, if that truly was his intent he chose his words very poorly. "And we probably, in many cases, won't do it forever." can easily be taken to be applied to his entire comment, and that doesn't inspire confidence in me that I can take his comments for what I perceive he wants me to take them to mean.
Yeah, I'd like to live in a world where I can take the word of business executives at face value, and never be concerned that what they appear to be saying may not be what they are actually saying. However, life experience has shown that the world I live in is not such a world.
> > He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say
> He is talking to investors, not privacy advocates. He is saying the opposite of what investors want to hear. Investors would want him to say "we are sitting on a high-value treasure trove of marketing information, and of course we will use it to enhance the value of our ads products whenever we can." Instead he is saying exactly the opposite of what would increase Google's perceived value.
Regardless of the audience that was immediately before him, Schmidt knows his words will be out in public view. I was not arguing that he was telling investors what they wanted to hear, I was arguing that he could be telling users of Google's search engine what they want to hear. If you are trying to project the message that Google won't abuse data they've collected about you regarding your browsing habits, as a Google executive, you will try to make it sound like that is true no matter what forum you are in -- if there is significant chance that the public will hear about it. I still say there is a decent chance of Schmidt wanting to have it both ways here -- wanting the public to believe Google won't abuse the data, but still leaving the possibility that they can change their policy in the future (while, of course, intending the public to believe that that will never ever happen).
> > Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
> What about the fact that his very next sentence was: "If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say here. I wasn't arguing that Schmidt was not trying to cover Google's legal responsibilities (in fact, I totally agree that he was trying to do that). I was arguing that he has not convinced me that covering said responsibilities was the only thing he was trying to do (I put the "only" in the first part of the first sentence, I should have also said "only intention" at the end of the second sentence). Bottom line is I am not convinced that Schmidt has zero intentions of allowing Google to exploit data gathered about individual's use of Google's search engine (and anything they can tie that use to) for financial gain.
They really just need to make a compelling social product that appeals to the masses, not just tech geeks.
I suspect Schmidt dropped the ball on buying Twitter at some point, and Buzz, Wave, etc. were all duds. He's great at selling ads, so they've put him in charge of that while the cofounders work on future product development.
I can just imagine the conversation. "So, Sergey, you're okay with Larry taking the CEO title, what will yours be?"
"You can call me 'Co-Founder', bitch"
"Co-founder" makes it clear what his position is: power without any official duties. Pretty sweet deal.
Forget for a moment who is who and just consider the picture.
There are two dudes in the 'self driving car', sitting in-sync with arms wide open. There is also another guy with crossed arms who is next to, but not in, the 'self driving car'.
Can you guess where Eric is in the picture?
Review the picture again and make your own conclusions..
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/TTirzCdsGgI/AAAAAAAAHW...
Jobs will find a product guy to take over, and that's not Schmidt.
EDIT: Name one hit Google product Schmidt oversaw (again, save for Gmail) that wasn't an acquisition. This is supposed to be a company of innovation.
EDIT 2: I regret the use of mediocre. I'm sure the technology, like everything that comes out of Google, was top notch. Certain products though, like Buzz, Wave, and TV, and the bizarrely bifurcated-from-Android Chrome OS, lacked a degree of oversight and discipline before launch that ended up hurting their brand in the space of consumer products. I also think something to consider is that this culture of acquisition has to be very bad for their employee turnover rate.
Update: Also, thought of a few... Translate, Chrome, Talk, and Reader. I'm sure there are more, definitely if you include ones based on acquisitions (Analytics, Earth, Apps, etc).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Development_history
While we have yet to see the effects of ChromeOS, its release will no doubt be massively disruptive, and the ability to recognize the different functionality both operating systems serve and launch both consecutively despite the fact that it looks like a very odd play to the naive masses, takes balls and isn't something I would say ANY other company even a twentieth the size of Google would attempt, and I predict this will pay off in the end.
I also disagree that Wave, TV and Buzz lacked discipline and oversight. Not everything a company can do is going to be a revolutionary success. A lot of times markets just need to be probed or explored, and if there's a hit great but if not there's no huge loss of resources and returns will still be made in some form or another (eg. wave code being reused in Docs or buzz maybe showing up as part of another social product in the future). For Google TV in particular, it really hasn't been outperformed significantly by competitors, and really the world just isn't ready for that type of media. But when it is Google will be there.
I mean, I don't know Shcmidt's exact role in all these products but sometimes I think people are too quick to dismiss the Google products that don't live up to the expectations of Gmail, Maps, etc, when really they are minuscule investments by the company among many others, and even if one in ten is the next Gmail then that's a damn solid business model.
And there's certainly no shortage of unpopular, not-classically-Google-like decisions (though thoroughly defensible business-wise) in the recent past: Buzz Privacy, StreetView WiFi debacle, Net Neutrality reversal, the WebM reversal, the Scan-First-Ask-Later library project and settlement process, etc.
If we put any weight into the rumors that the entire triumvirate didn't see eye to eye on all those things, mixed in with publicly-recognized conflicts (such as the way that Sergey clearly trusted Schmidt on the China deal, which backfired spectacularly) I think you can make a pretty good argument for "Schmidt Messed Up".
EDIT, Context being tech: Hastings, Ellison, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates. I'd say Google was a company in the spirit of these before WorldCom, Enron and Countrywide Financial.
You weren't pointing to traits specific to founders when you replied. You took a very broad interpretation of what I was saying and provided a counter to that broad interpretation. There's nothing particularly insightful or relevant in doing that.
Watch this talk he gave a couple years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFb2rvmrahc
Doesn't strike me as CEO material, especially for a company like Google.
Good link in other respects too: an insightful look into his priorities, motivations, and thinking patterns. The insight and ideas that he inherited from his father are particularly interesting, and worthwhile. While visions of a better world over the long term have to be tempered by present promises to shareholders, I think it's important to be able to articulate the purpose and goals of a firm beyond simply maximizing quarterly growth.
On a related note, here's a 2001 Charlie Rose interview where Larry Page & Sergey Brin discuss what it's like to run a search engine that handles 100m queries per day, and more importantly why they had just brought Eric Schmidt on board. http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/3017
Don't be Evil to Customers and Shareholders !!!
But be as Evil as possible if (and Only if) someone tries to screw you !!!
Just saying.
But it's also fun to fantasize, speculate, and gossip about really rich and important people.
Eric is still around and filling an important role (basically doing what he used to mostly do, he just doesn't have to sit in on earnings calls anymore):
Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership--all of which are increasingly important given Google's global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.
Brin was quoted above in the google earnings address, "We’ve Touched 1 Percent Of What Social Search Can Be" ~ http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/20/sergey-brin-weve-touched-1-...
"... Eric is still around and filling an important role ..."
I think this could be a bigger adjustment than you think. Google under Schmidt has not gained ground on social search and in effect dropped the ball. An important lesson running a product on the open Internet. Google with the massive financial and technical lead can loose ground and revenue to competitors.
Found a company and become it's CEO.
When it's time for the company to "grow up", bring in a well respected CEO who can structure the company for growth and stability while teaching the young founder.
When the founder has learned the ropes he takes over again as CEO.
I though John Shirley was the CEO for most of the 80's:)