30 ms·

Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

702 points by azhenley 8y ago

azhenley 8y ago
"After over 18 years on the Board, Eric Schmidt is not seeking re-election at the expiration of his current term on June 19, 2019. He will continue as a technical advisor to Alphabet. Eric has served as a member of the Board since March 2001. He was Google’s Chief Executive Officer from July 2001 to April 2011, and its Executive Chairman from April 2011 until January 2018." From the press release: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/ https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/
tschwimmer 8y ago
Dropping the Pilot? [1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot
- ergothus 8y ago
  I'm not well-enough versed in history to follow the analogy. Are you saying Schmidt is being asked to leave because of internal differences? Did Bismarck leaving have good/bad implications after the fact that you are alluding to here?
  - groby_b 8y ago
    Oh, Bismarck leaving only led to WWI, no big issues otherwise ;)
    - human20190310 8y ago
      I've never understood why Bismarck doesn't get more blame for creating a system of alliances that could only be safely operated by himself.
      - groby_b 8y ago
        gen220 does an excellent job explaining (above). Essentially, somebody who was brilliant at what they did, operating at the outer edge of their skills envelope, and no replacement at a similar skill level. It's in many ways a good story for tech.
        human20190310 8y ago
        I understood that, I just don't understand why Bismarck is considered a diplomatic genius instead of reviled as the architect of a dangerously fragile diplomatic situation.
        vkou 8y ago
        That's because the pointlessness of the butchery of WWI has largely been white-washed, and stripped of all context. Every year, the British commonwealth celebrates the end of that war. Every year, I ask why after the war, the public didn't string up every one of the leaders that was responsible for plunging the world into that pointless, industrial bloodbath. The silence I hear is, sadly, deafening. Nobody cares to actually look at what caused that war. Nobody wants, or wanted to hold anyone accountable. The world collectively shrugged its shoulders, and forgot all about it.
        kermitismyhero 8y ago
        Having been raised in a Commonwealth nation (Canada), I've come to realize how dreadful our education system is in teaching about WW1. That war, the events leading to it, and the events resulting from it are absolutely critical to understanding why the world is the way it is today. Everything from the Russian Revolution to the modern-day borders in the middle east to Irish independence to the reason why New York City became the financial capital of the world are a direct result of that war. And all that schoolkids here are taught is "The noble British Empire led the glorious allied fight against some bad German people because reasons, here's some pictures of trenches, sometimes soldiers played soccer, now shut up and don't ask any more uncomfortable questions." I also find it truly repulsive that so many people in this country keep repeating the lie that Canada was "born on Vimy Ridge", as if sending wave after wave of terrified and browbeaten conscripts to die in some shell-blasted hellhole is what "made" us. I'd argue that the true birth of Canada was the Suez Canal crisis, when we openly defied the motherland on the world stage and instead spearheaded a peaceful solution to the mess via an international consensus. Fun fact: the Canadian politician who led that peaceful solution to the Suez crisis and would later keep Canada out of the Vietnam War, Lester Pearson, volunteered as a field medic for most of WW1. I can't think of any job more likely to permanently rewire one's brain into a "Never again!" orientation.
  - gen220 8y ago
    Bismarck was a whiz of foreign policy, who had successfully juggled the alliances surrounding the (relatively nascent by European standards) German state throughout his time as a diplomat and Chancellor. His contemporary Hohenzollern monarch (Wilhelm's II predecessor) largely allowed Bismark to take free reign over diplomacy, recognizing him as a generational talent. If Bismarck was an ideological juggler, capable of accepting political loss in the short-term to catch out his adversaries in the long-term, Wilhelm was a firebrand, who refused to play games with "the enemy" (especially the Russians), even if they benefited the long-term survival of his state and person. The cartoon shows Bismarck stepping off the ship, leaving Wilhelm to take over. While this is perhaps an unflattering characterization of Bismarck, it reflects that, even in 1890, it was known that Wilhelm would not be able to lead the nation better than this forcibly-retired titan of European diplomacy. Bismarck probably could have stayed on the ship, because its sailors were largely aligned with him, but he was getting old (75 when he retired); and he tired of suffering the youth and ignorance of the not-so-subtle monarch. His most immediate, and unfortunate legacy was the black hole he left unfilled. The aftermath was a complete lack of long-term thinking, that led to all the European countries (even Russia!! who had a hard time getting along with the UK/France in particular) agreeing to form alliances against Germany. It's quite reasonable to point to Bismarck's departure as the first big slip down the slippery slope that led to WWI. Compare this to Eric Schmidt leaving Google (filled with young Wilhelm IIs?) how you will.
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      Curious who the analogous Wilhelm II is in Google today? Sundar is not one - Sundar is actually very diplomatic and strategically-minded, which is how he ended up CEO of Google in the first place (he managed to avoid all the political struggles common to Google's SVPs at the time, such that he became the obvious successor when they all left to run VCs / got fired for sexual harassment / became top brass at Yahoo/Softbank/Twitter). If anything, Larry was the Wilhelm II who picked fights with a lot of big up-and-comers, but even he was pretty restrained and strategic about it. Google's problem now is that anything smaller than a billion-dollar business is not on their radar screen, which means that by definition they are going to miss the next growth industry. And they don't really have anyone in the company who can do anything about that, because you don't go to Google because you want to work on the small problem that might become big, you go to Google because you want to work on big problems.
anyfoo 8y ago
This is of course extremely subjective, and I have no knowledge of what Google was and is on the inside except for a short internship almost 10 years ago: I somehow always felt that Google with Eric Schmidt as a CEO was a much different Google than later on. Under Eric Schmidt, Google seemed like this extremely innovative company with the brightest minds in the industry. Afterwards, it seemed to instead grow into just another corporation. Though maybe that's just what growth does in general. EDIT: I singled out Larry Page before, but that's a bit skewed, given that he founded Google and was its CEO for the first few years.
- zavi 8y ago
  Larry hasn't been the Google CEO for some time now. I do think the company got caught up in incremental goals and internal PC struggles during Sundar's time, making it feel like yet another large company rather than a powerful disruptor it used to be.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > internal PC struggles There's plenty of reasons for why they started taking place, that have nothing to do with who is CEO. Societal expectations have changed, formerly unpopular ideas gained both a voice, and mindshare, and Google's influence over the Internet has grown - and with it, expectations that that influence should be wielded responsibly. Intelligent people strongly disagree as to what 'responsibly' means in this context.
    - avar 8y ago
      Do you think Oracle encourages the sort of open internal debate culture that precipitated that well-known incident? The responsibility for corporate culture is ultimately with the CEO and the board.
      - deleted 8y ago
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      - joshuamorton 8y ago
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shutton 8y ago
Really enjoyed listening to this recent interview with Eric Schmidt. I’d never heard of Bill Campbell before, seems like he was a huge influence around Silicon Valley. https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/ https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/
- heymijo 8y ago
  For a counterpoint on Campbell as a terrific business coach read "Hatching Twitter" [1]. He was hired as Ev Williams' coach and the picture the book paints is bad. Working more for the board of directors instead the person he was hired to help. Telling Williams he was doing great then reporting to the board he was doing terrible. The book is also a great way to understand why Twitter is such a shit show of an organization. The fundamental mismanagement from day one until now also shows the power of finding product/market fit. As the saying goes, you can mess everything else up and still succeed. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitte...
  - lukewrites 8y ago
    I really enjoyed this one as well. The descriptions of Jack in the book give very interesting context for evaluating some of the decisions he's made recently about hate speech and bullying on twitter. I would love recommendations for similar books that aren't just hagiographies of startups/tech giants.
  - streblo 8y ago
    It's really hard to tell what in this book is based in fact. It's almost entirely based off of hearsay and gossip. There are interviews with people recalling minute details of conversations they had ~5 years in the past. You can call bullshit on a lot of it.
    - heymijo 8y ago
      Really good point. My high-level take away though is that it is directionally correct regarding Twitter and its (mis)management.
behnamoh 8y ago
Somehow it's strange seeing these tech giants being handed over to a new generation. Microsoft has long been associated with Gates and Balmer, Steve's DNA still runs in Apple, and Google still reminds me of Schmidt. The newer generation of executives and board directors in these companies has a very difficult task to do: stick to the past or redefine the company for the future.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  Steve Jobs of course famously left Apple (not on the friendliest of terms), then returned several years later to "redefine the company for the future" (very successfully of course). His return marked a major new period for Apple, with major changes in direction and execution.
  - deleted 8y ago
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- lallysingh 8y ago
  Culture is ultimately defined by the promotion and bonus criteria.
krm01 8y ago
Does anyone inside Google care to share how Eric is perceived among fellow engineers?. From the outside, it seems many of the great innovations came when he wS CEO and Larry + Sergey were building the company culture.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  I was there for both the end of the Eric era and the beginning of the second Larry era. I liked Eric - he was an engineer at heart, but he also was effective at making decisions, listened well, and was able to defer to subordinates when they had better ideas. Much of Google's strength came because he tolerated Larry & Sergey running around sponsoring talented engineering teams to work on crazy projects without his knowledge, which must've been challenging as a leader but was ultimately a great thing for Google.
- dekhn 8y ago
  it's kind of a bimodal distribution. many engineers hated him with a passion but then they would learn he wrote lex and set up early networks at Berkeley and kind of come around to the idea that he was a very successful technobusinessman who confronted Microsoft repeatedly.
  - visarga 8y ago
    > he wrote lex Wow, didn't expect that. I used it back in my uni days for a compiler project.
- enneff 8y ago
  I found Eric extremely impressive as a CEO. He always spoke with eloquence and charisma and generally seemed to have the answers and explanations when pressed. Hard to compare Eric and Larry as CEOs because they both led at very different times in the company’s history, each with their own unique set of challenges.
- inlined 8y ago
  I greatly miss his leadership. There was a sense that he knew how to steer the ship.
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neves 8y ago
I'm starting to read "When Google Met WikiLeaks" by Assange. In this book Schmidt is the villain. It will be nice to match Assange's point of view with all the eulogies that we will read about Schmidt now.
- neves 8y ago
  BTW, here is an excerpt of the book: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
- vl 8y ago
  Schmidt's involvement with US's politics is strange, especially for the business leader: he met with Assange, he went to North Korea. There was a hilarious moment at the company meeting when rank-and-file learned from the news that Eric and Larry met with Trump. Somebody demanded explanation, as if it is something strange that business leaders meet with the president. Sundar mumbled something like "yes, I didn't know they are going to meet, but this was a single meeting and many business leaders attended...". Eric rushed on stage and said "To clarify: I met with President Trump more than once, bla bla".
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    Schmidt is like Bloomberg. They aspired to geopolitical power as their ambition exceeded what was available in the business world. Bloomberg had the weird twist of trying to buy his way into British royalty, while Schmidt wants to be "in the room where it happens" from USA to North Korea.
  - fareesh 8y ago
    Some of those leaked videos of the Google team discussing politics with their top management at one of those meetings, are disturbing.
    - baby 8y ago
      Link or it doesn't exist
Animats 8y ago
Who replaces him?
- azhenley 8y ago
  Robin Washington is replacing both Eric Schmidt and Diane Greene. Press release: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/ https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/
  - deleted 8y ago
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mancerayder 8y ago
Google seems to be falling flat on its face growth-wise. Its ad revenue is down, its Pixel 3 platform fell completely flat, it shuttered Google + and had a security breach? How can you have a large scale security breach with a brutal tech hiring process, sky high salaries and a whitepaper-producing workforce? Hell, when you interview at much smaller firms, the tech groups copycat the Google hiring techniques, that's the extent of the influence. Google is a reference implementation that everyone copycats. Then is the Pixel 3's lack of creative innovation symbolic of a strong tech culture that seems to prize science and tech over creativity? For reference, they copied the iPhone in numerous ways aesthetically and marketing-wise: the size is identical, glass replaced metal, the price was pumped up to make it appear premium, even the color names have goofy Apple-y names, etc.
- itsaidpens 8y ago
  Complete aside: all of my friends/acquaintances who work for Google (and in full disclosure, they're generally not engineers) unequivocally agree that Google could fire 30% of their workforce with no disruption in service/revenue. They've become bloated.
  - mancerayder 8y ago
    Ironically they just purchased last year a huge block of Manhattan - presumably for even more employees[1]. 1 - https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/google-bought-manhattans-chelsea-market-building-for-2-4-billion/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/google-bought-manhattans-c...
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      Google already has a huge amount of office space in Chelsea Market, though. That's more about owning rather than renting. If you want to talk expansion, look at the new Hudson Square expansion about a mile south of Chelsea Market: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144448/google-nyc-campus-hudson-square-location-cost-open-date https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144448/google-nyc-camp...
  - 8y ago
meh206 8y ago
Google is an internet monopoly with data and information. I think the only reason they've come this far without being exposed as such was cooperating with the government (learning from Microsoft's mistakes when they were exposed)
- rattlesnakedave 8y ago
  What do they have a monopoly on? The claim that Google, or any FAANG company is a monopoly is absurd. A monopoly is the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. Google definitionally doesn’t have that, because competitors exist.
  - beenBoutIT 8y ago
    It's clear that for some people Google has become synonymous with "the Internet".
    - quixquaxqux 8y ago
      Wouldn't it need to be "the internet" for _all_ people to be a monopoly?
      - MajorBee 8y ago
        I don't necessarily see Google as having a monopoly over the internet, but more as "The Gatekeeper" to the internet. Most people around the world go through Google if they're trying to reach somewhere (especially if they don't already have the target site bookmarked). The fact that they're the de-facto curators of content gives them enormous influence over people's perception of the internet. The question is, do we want a largely unregulated private corporation to hold that much sway over entire populations?
        beenBoutIT 8y ago
        There is no legitimate way to regulate tech, it's an optional thing that people can use or not use. Right now there are people who go out of their way to avoid using Google and they manage to keep their jobs and even get to work using less attractive open source map apps. The practice of regulating tech exists right now in China and unlike communism there's a real possibility of it spreading.
StreamBright 8y ago
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid...
FartyMcFarter 8y ago
Good riddance. Among other problems, Schmidt was one of the organizers of the "no poaching" scandals: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal_non-recruiting_agreements https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal... He also wrote this, to make it clear that he knew he was doing wrong: [let's share this with competitors] "verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?"
- otakucode 8y ago
  "No poaching" is underselling it. It was wage fixing plain and simple. He was also the one who, with a straight face, said "if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to fear" in response to widespread surveillance. Of course, he would not then open himself up to any scrutiny.
  - aceofspades19 8y ago
    That's not what he said at all, even remotely. 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" and that was largely in the context that no matter what Google does, the American government can come in and take any information they want that is stored on Google's servers with very little recourse.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    I am surprised that the Feds didn't go after them or take an interest.
    - otakucode 8y ago
      They did. And they were found guilty. This was widely reported years ago.
- bouncing 8y ago
  That wasn't just him, it was the whole valley.
vertline3 8y ago
I still dislike that they called the company Alphabet, because it's something that we teach our youngest. Commercialization starts early.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  It's meant to be alpha-bet, where alpha is investment return above benchmark.
  - vertline3 8y ago
    Ahh that makes sense, like seeking alpha. I was thinking it was due to indexing things from A to Z.
    - ehsankia 8y ago
      There is definitely double entendre going on, which is why they picked that name. At the surface it means one thing, but it has a second more relevant meaning hidden in there. They make bets which make great returns on investments, and these bets cover everything from A to Z.
otakucode 8y ago
I do hope that his notions about Google's place in society goes with him. The things he wrote in 'A New Digital Age' were terrifying. Simply because they made a great amount of money, he viewed Google as the clearest guide for societies future. He advocated for Google taking an active role in attempting to shape social thinking. That might sound good to some, but I know too much history to be willing to support it. The unintended consequences that come from any attempted society-wide engineering are universally horrific.
systemBuilder 8y ago
So what is the moonshot failure rate now? 100%?
basetop 8y ago
Eric Schmidt was the anti-privacy leader who dismissed privacy concerns. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid... Keep in mind this is the same guy who blackballed CNET reporters for finding personal information on him through google search. https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ The guy represents every wrong with tech. Privacy for him, but none for thee. And that's not even including on his shady ties to government.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  > Eric Schmidt was the anti-piracy leader who dismissed privacy concerns. You mean anti-privacy I think? It took me way too long to get there.
  - basetop 8y ago
    I fixed that. Thanks for pointing it out. Not sure how I managed to spell it incorrectly once and correctly once in the same sentence.
  - telaport 8y ago
    ARRRRRRRRRRG ya gots it right again me fren!
- jeffdavis 8y ago
  Privacy is usually not about things you don't want anyone to know. It's about things you don't want everyone to know.
  - derefr 8y ago
    More specifically, privacy is about things that you want to isolate to one sub-self and its corresponding social circle. Everyone leads a “double life” (or N lives) to some degree, and privacy is the societal etiquette allowing for the continued separation of those lives (without having to go to the effort of using real OPSEC to isolate them.)
sara1231 8y ago
World's biggest cat Even you can't believe it's size See her video https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-biggest-cat.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-biggest-cat.htm... See the video a dog shopping and lots of other acts like humans http://bit.ly/2DCpo9I http://bit.ly/2DCpo9I Even you can't believe there is a hen in world's biggest animals See the video how they looks and what they do https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q Fish walking with legs like humans See the video on link below http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD This couple is different Girls are both twins and boys are also twin brothers see how they look in video http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs
jaybuff 8y ago
"-- Google Inc.'s top three executives agreed in 2004 to work together at the Internet search and advertising giant for at least 20 years, a company spokesman confirmed on Wednesday." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172640635329643.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172640635329643.html
joeblow21 8y ago
He should join Tesla’s board
JetSpiegel 8y ago
Why is a Google Board Member announcing stuff on Twitter? Is Google wasting all their resources creating dozens of incompatible chat apps, but no blogging platform?
- jfoster 8y ago
  Just to clarify, because we all saw the chat thing. They don't need another blogging platform. Just a modern update to Blogger will do.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Well, he probably could have pulled G+ out of the mothballs.
shmerl 8y ago
I'll remember Eric Schmidt for sabotaging XMPP progress by saying something along the lines of "no one wants to support IM federation, so we should follow suit" and killing off Google Talk (which caused me to lose most of my IM contacts at that time).
- sangnoir 8y ago
  About that - Facebook was leaching off Google's network graph by allowing cross-platform chats (initiated from Fb), but Google couldn't access Fb users from GTalk. IMO, it's a perfectly reasonable response in terms of game theory; the best course of action when the other party defects in a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario is to also defect.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    If FB was a problem, Google could ban FB, and allow federation with those who federate back. They didn't and instead killed the whole thing. It was a pretty bad response in the terms of actually fixing the messed up IM situation. It only made it worse, basically axing XMPP adoption. Game theory doesn't advise doing that. Compare it to one ally defecting. Others defecting in response (instead of looking for more allies) means losing the whole campaign right away, which is exactly what happened. I don't use XMPP at all today and naturally none of my IM contacts are from Google or FB. Good thing something like Matrix is gaining traction. But I have little respect for Google today because of the above.
pacificleo12 8y ago
schmidt happens
tempodox 8y ago
Good riddance. I won't miss him.
sara17361 8y ago
World's biggest cat Even you can't believe it's size See her video https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-biggest-cat.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-biggest-cat.htm... See the video a dog shopping and lots of other acts like humans http://bit.ly/2DCpo9I http://bit.ly/2DCpo9I Even you can't believe there is a hen in world's biggest animals See the video how they looks and what they do https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q Fish walking with legs like humans See the video on link below http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD This couple is different Girls are both twins and boys are also twin brothers see how they look in video http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs
sara123226 8y ago
See the Video this strange fish who has legs and he can walk https://funlandtube.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/see-the-video-of-a-strange-fish-who-has-legs-and-he-can-walk/ https://funlandtube.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/see-the-video-o... Cute dog is dancing just try to control your laugh while seeing this video I am sure you can't https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34557-Cute-dog-dancing https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34557-Cute-dog-dancing Dog went for shopping and he did lots of other acts see his video https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34559-A-dog-doing-shopping-and-lots-of-other-acts https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34559-A-dog-doing-shoppin...
sheinsheish 8y ago
Good riddance!
once-in-a-while 8y ago
https://voat.co/v/GreatAwakening/3191411 https://voat.co/v/GreatAwakening/3191411
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
zer0faith 8y ago
This is what happens when your drops 8% and they move your stock to hold.
danity 8y ago
He's lucky he ruled when he did. Nowadays he'd have been exposed and destroyed for his sexual harrassment (which is why he stepped down originally) and other horrible behavior.
srndh 8y ago
Better late than never, but the main question is who are left behind and do they have the same mindset as Eric. He is the virus that has multiplied well. Just another member in the club of Gates, Ellison, Ballmer, Jobs, Zuckerberg & more. Question is, can we undo the damage done. In 2019 lingo, reverse the Thanos snap. Not sure of Sundar but I still hope that Google twins might do the right thing.

702 points by azhenley 8y ago

"After over 18 years on the Board, Eric Schmidt is not seeking re-election at the expiration of his current term on June 19, 2019. He will continue as a technical advisor to Alphabet. Eric has served as a member of the Board since March 2001. He was Google’s Chief Executive Officer from July 2001 to April 2011, and its Executive Chairman from April 2011 until January 2018." From the press release: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/ https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/

tschwimmer 8y ago

Dropping the Pilot? [1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot

ergothus 8y ago
I'm not well-enough versed in history to follow the analogy. Are you saying Schmidt is being asked to leave because of internal differences? Did Bismarck leaving have good/bad implications after the fact that you are alluding to here?
- groby_b 8y ago
  Oh, Bismarck leaving only led to WWI, no big issues otherwise ;)
  - human20190310 8y ago
    I've never understood why Bismarck doesn't get more blame for creating a system of alliances that could only be safely operated by himself.
    - groby_b 8y ago
      gen220 does an excellent job explaining (above). Essentially, somebody who was brilliant at what they did, operating at the outer edge of their skills envelope, and no replacement at a similar skill level. It's in many ways a good story for tech.
      - human20190310 8y ago
        I understood that, I just don't understand why Bismarck is considered a diplomatic genius instead of reviled as the architect of a dangerously fragile diplomatic situation.
        vkou 8y ago
        That's because the pointlessness of the butchery of WWI has largely been white-washed, and stripped of all context. Every year, the British commonwealth celebrates the end of that war. Every year, I ask why after the war, the public didn't string up every one of the leaders that was responsible for plunging the world into that pointless, industrial bloodbath. The silence I hear is, sadly, deafening. Nobody cares to actually look at what caused that war. Nobody wants, or wanted to hold anyone accountable. The world collectively shrugged its shoulders, and forgot all about it.
        kermitismyhero 8y ago
        Having been raised in a Commonwealth nation (Canada), I've come to realize how dreadful our education system is in teaching about WW1. That war, the events leading to it, and the events resulting from it are absolutely critical to understanding why the world is the way it is today. Everything from the Russian Revolution to the modern-day borders in the middle east to Irish independence to the reason why New York City became the financial capital of the world are a direct result of that war. And all that schoolkids here are taught is "The noble British Empire led the glorious allied fight against some bad German people because reasons, here's some pictures of trenches, sometimes soldiers played soccer, now shut up and don't ask any more uncomfortable questions." I also find it truly repulsive that so many people in this country keep repeating the lie that Canada was "born on Vimy Ridge", as if sending wave after wave of terrified and browbeaten conscripts to die in some shell-blasted hellhole is what "made" us. I'd argue that the true birth of Canada was the Suez Canal crisis, when we openly defied the motherland on the world stage and instead spearheaded a peaceful solution to the mess via an international consensus. Fun fact: the Canadian politician who led that peaceful solution to the Suez crisis and would later keep Canada out of the Vietnam War, Lester Pearson, volunteered as a field medic for most of WW1. I can't think of any job more likely to permanently rewire one's brain into a "Never again!" orientation.
- gen220 8y ago
  Bismarck was a whiz of foreign policy, who had successfully juggled the alliances surrounding the (relatively nascent by European standards) German state throughout his time as a diplomat and Chancellor. His contemporary Hohenzollern monarch (Wilhelm's II predecessor) largely allowed Bismark to take free reign over diplomacy, recognizing him as a generational talent. If Bismarck was an ideological juggler, capable of accepting political loss in the short-term to catch out his adversaries in the long-term, Wilhelm was a firebrand, who refused to play games with "the enemy" (especially the Russians), even if they benefited the long-term survival of his state and person. The cartoon shows Bismarck stepping off the ship, leaving Wilhelm to take over. While this is perhaps an unflattering characterization of Bismarck, it reflects that, even in 1890, it was known that Wilhelm would not be able to lead the nation better than this forcibly-retired titan of European diplomacy. Bismarck probably could have stayed on the ship, because its sailors were largely aligned with him, but he was getting old (75 when he retired); and he tired of suffering the youth and ignorance of the not-so-subtle monarch. His most immediate, and unfortunate legacy was the black hole he left unfilled. The aftermath was a complete lack of long-term thinking, that led to all the European countries (even Russia!! who had a hard time getting along with the UK/France in particular) agreeing to form alliances against Germany. It's quite reasonable to point to Bismarck's departure as the first big slip down the slippery slope that led to WWI. Compare this to Eric Schmidt leaving Google (filled with young Wilhelm IIs?) how you will.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Curious who the analogous Wilhelm II is in Google today? Sundar is not one - Sundar is actually very diplomatic and strategically-minded, which is how he ended up CEO of Google in the first place (he managed to avoid all the political struggles common to Google's SVPs at the time, such that he became the obvious successor when they all left to run VCs / got fired for sexual harassment / became top brass at Yahoo/Softbank/Twitter). If anything, Larry was the Wilhelm II who picked fights with a lot of big up-and-comers, but even he was pretty restrained and strategic about it. Google's problem now is that anything smaller than a billion-dollar business is not on their radar screen, which means that by definition they are going to miss the next growth industry. And they don't really have anyone in the company who can do anything about that, because you don't go to Google because you want to work on the small problem that might become big, you go to Google because you want to work on big problems.

anyfoo 8y ago

This is of course extremely subjective, and I have no knowledge of what Google was and is on the inside except for a short internship almost 10 years ago: I somehow always felt that Google with Eric Schmidt as a CEO was a much different Google than later on. Under Eric Schmidt, Google seemed like this extremely innovative company with the brightest minds in the industry. Afterwards, it seemed to instead grow into just another corporation. Though maybe that's just what growth does in general. EDIT: I singled out Larry Page before, but that's a bit skewed, given that he founded Google and was its CEO for the first few years.

zavi 8y ago
Larry hasn't been the Google CEO for some time now. I do think the company got caught up in incremental goals and internal PC struggles during Sundar's time, making it feel like yet another large company rather than a powerful disruptor it used to be.
- vkou 8y ago
  > internal PC struggles There's plenty of reasons for why they started taking place, that have nothing to do with who is CEO. Societal expectations have changed, formerly unpopular ideas gained both a voice, and mindshare, and Google's influence over the Internet has grown - and with it, expectations that that influence should be wielded responsibly. Intelligent people strongly disagree as to what 'responsibly' means in this context.
  - avar 8y ago
    Do you think Oracle encourages the sort of open internal debate culture that precipitated that well-known incident? The responsibility for corporate culture is ultimately with the CEO and the board.
    - deleted 8y ago
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    - joshuamorton 8y ago

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shutton 8y ago

Really enjoyed listening to this recent interview with Eric Schmidt. I’d never heard of Bill Campbell before, seems like he was a huge influence around Silicon Valley. https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/ https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/

heymijo 8y ago
For a counterpoint on Campbell as a terrific business coach read "Hatching Twitter" [1]. He was hired as Ev Williams' coach and the picture the book paints is bad. Working more for the board of directors instead the person he was hired to help. Telling Williams he was doing great then reporting to the board he was doing terrible. The book is also a great way to understand why Twitter is such a shit show of an organization. The fundamental mismanagement from day one until now also shows the power of finding product/market fit. As the saying goes, you can mess everything else up and still succeed. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitte...
- lukewrites 8y ago
  I really enjoyed this one as well. The descriptions of Jack in the book give very interesting context for evaluating some of the decisions he's made recently about hate speech and bullying on twitter. I would love recommendations for similar books that aren't just hagiographies of startups/tech giants.
- streblo 8y ago
  It's really hard to tell what in this book is based in fact. It's almost entirely based off of hearsay and gossip. There are interviews with people recalling minute details of conversations they had ~5 years in the past. You can call bullshit on a lot of it.
  - heymijo 8y ago
    Really good point. My high-level take away though is that it is directionally correct regarding Twitter and its (mis)management.

behnamoh 8y ago

Somehow it's strange seeing these tech giants being handed over to a new generation. Microsoft has long been associated with Gates and Balmer, Steve's DNA still runs in Apple, and Google still reminds me of Schmidt. The newer generation of executives and board directors in these companies has a very difficult task to do: stick to the past or redefine the company for the future.

jrochkind1 8y ago
Steve Jobs of course famously left Apple (not on the friendliest of terms), then returned several years later to "redefine the company for the future" (very successfully of course). His return marked a major new period for Apple, with major changes in direction and execution.
- deleted 8y ago
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lallysingh 8y ago
Culture is ultimately defined by the promotion and bonus criteria.

krm01 8y ago

Does anyone inside Google care to share how Eric is perceived among fellow engineers?. From the outside, it seems many of the great innovations came when he wS CEO and Larry + Sergey were building the company culture.

nostrademons 8y ago
I was there for both the end of the Eric era and the beginning of the second Larry era. I liked Eric - he was an engineer at heart, but he also was effective at making decisions, listened well, and was able to defer to subordinates when they had better ideas. Much of Google's strength came because he tolerated Larry & Sergey running around sponsoring talented engineering teams to work on crazy projects without his knowledge, which must've been challenging as a leader but was ultimately a great thing for Google.
dekhn 8y ago
it's kind of a bimodal distribution. many engineers hated him with a passion but then they would learn he wrote lex and set up early networks at Berkeley and kind of come around to the idea that he was a very successful technobusinessman who confronted Microsoft repeatedly.
- visarga 8y ago
  > he wrote lex Wow, didn't expect that. I used it back in my uni days for a compiler project.
enneff 8y ago
I found Eric extremely impressive as a CEO. He always spoke with eloquence and charisma and generally seemed to have the answers and explanations when pressed. Hard to compare Eric and Larry as CEOs because they both led at very different times in the company’s history, each with their own unique set of challenges.
inlined 8y ago
I greatly miss his leadership. There was a sense that he knew how to steer the ship.

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neves 8y ago

I'm starting to read "When Google Met WikiLeaks" by Assange. In this book Schmidt is the villain. It will be nice to match Assange's point of view with all the eulogies that we will read about Schmidt now.

neves 8y ago
BTW, here is an excerpt of the book: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
vl 8y ago
Schmidt's involvement with US's politics is strange, especially for the business leader: he met with Assange, he went to North Korea. There was a hilarious moment at the company meeting when rank-and-file learned from the news that Eric and Larry met with Trump. Somebody demanded explanation, as if it is something strange that business leaders meet with the president. Sundar mumbled something like "yes, I didn't know they are going to meet, but this was a single meeting and many business leaders attended...". Eric rushed on stage and said "To clarify: I met with President Trump more than once, bla bla".
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  Schmidt is like Bloomberg. They aspired to geopolitical power as their ambition exceeded what was available in the business world. Bloomberg had the weird twist of trying to buy his way into British royalty, while Schmidt wants to be "in the room where it happens" from USA to North Korea.
- fareesh 8y ago
  Some of those leaked videos of the Google team discussing politics with their top management at one of those meetings, are disturbing.
  - baby 8y ago
    Link or it doesn't exist

Animats 8y ago

Who replaces him?

azhenley 8y ago
Robin Washington is replacing both Eric Schmidt and Diane Greene. Press release: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/ https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/
- deleted 8y ago
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mancerayder 8y ago

Google seems to be falling flat on its face growth-wise. Its ad revenue is down, its Pixel 3 platform fell completely flat, it shuttered Google + and had a security breach? How can you have a large scale security breach with a brutal tech hiring process, sky high salaries and a whitepaper-producing workforce? Hell, when you interview at much smaller firms, the tech groups copycat the Google hiring techniques, that's the extent of the influence. Google is a reference implementation that everyone copycats. Then is the Pixel 3's lack of creative innovation symbolic of a strong tech culture that seems to prize science and tech over creativity? For reference, they copied the iPhone in numerous ways aesthetically and marketing-wise: the size is identical, glass replaced metal, the price was pumped up to make it appear premium, even the color names have goofy Apple-y names, etc.

itsaidpens 8y ago
Complete aside: all of my friends/acquaintances who work for Google (and in full disclosure, they're generally not engineers) unequivocally agree that Google could fire 30% of their workforce with no disruption in service/revenue. They've become bloated.
- mancerayder 8y ago
  Ironically they just purchased last year a huge block of Manhattan - presumably for even more employees[1]. 1 - https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/google-bought-manhattans-chelsea-market-building-for-2-4-billion/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/google-bought-manhattans-c...
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    Google already has a huge amount of office space in Chelsea Market, though. That's more about owning rather than renting. If you want to talk expansion, look at the new Hudson Square expansion about a mile south of Chelsea Market: https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144448/google-nyc-campus-hudson-square-location-cost-open-date https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144448/google-nyc-camp...
- 8y ago

meh206 8y ago

Google is an internet monopoly with data and information. I think the only reason they've come this far without being exposed as such was cooperating with the government (learning from Microsoft's mistakes when they were exposed)

rattlesnakedave 8y ago
What do they have a monopoly on? The claim that Google, or any FAANG company is a monopoly is absurd. A monopoly is the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. Google definitionally doesn’t have that, because competitors exist.
- beenBoutIT 8y ago
  It's clear that for some people Google has become synonymous with "the Internet".
  - quixquaxqux 8y ago
    Wouldn't it need to be "the internet" for _all_ people to be a monopoly?
    - MajorBee 8y ago
      I don't necessarily see Google as having a monopoly over the internet, but more as "The Gatekeeper" to the internet. Most people around the world go through Google if they're trying to reach somewhere (especially if they don't already have the target site bookmarked). The fact that they're the de-facto curators of content gives them enormous influence over people's perception of the internet. The question is, do we want a largely unregulated private corporation to hold that much sway over entire populations?
      - beenBoutIT 8y ago
        There is no legitimate way to regulate tech, it's an optional thing that people can use or not use. Right now there are people who go out of their way to avoid using Google and they manage to keep their jobs and even get to work using less attractive open source map apps. The practice of regulating tech exists right now in China and unlike communism there's a real possibility of it spreading.

StreamBright 8y ago

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid...

FartyMcFarter 8y ago

Good riddance. Among other problems, Schmidt was one of the organizers of the "no poaching" scandals: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal_non-recruiting_agreements https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal... He also wrote this, to make it clear that he knew he was doing wrong: [let's share this with competitors] "verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?"

otakucode 8y ago
"No poaching" is underselling it. It was wage fixing plain and simple. He was also the one who, with a straight face, said "if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to fear" in response to widespread surveillance. Of course, he would not then open himself up to any scrutiny.
- aceofspades19 8y ago
  That's not what he said at all, even remotely. 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" and that was largely in the context that no matter what Google does, the American government can come in and take any information they want that is stored on Google's servers with very little recourse.
- sjg007 8y ago
  I am surprised that the Feds didn't go after them or take an interest.
  - otakucode 8y ago
    They did. And they were found guilty. This was widely reported years ago.
bouncing 8y ago
That wasn't just him, it was the whole valley.

vertline3 8y ago

I still dislike that they called the company Alphabet, because it's something that we teach our youngest. Commercialization starts early.

ehsankia 8y ago
It's meant to be alpha-bet, where alpha is investment return above benchmark.
- vertline3 8y ago
  Ahh that makes sense, like seeking alpha. I was thinking it was due to indexing things from A to Z.
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    There is definitely double entendre going on, which is why they picked that name. At the surface it means one thing, but it has a second more relevant meaning hidden in there. They make bets which make great returns on investments, and these bets cover everything from A to Z.

otakucode 8y ago

I do hope that his notions about Google's place in society goes with him. The things he wrote in 'A New Digital Age' were terrifying. Simply because they made a great amount of money, he viewed Google as the clearest guide for societies future. He advocated for Google taking an active role in attempting to shape social thinking. That might sound good to some, but I know too much history to be willing to support it. The unintended consequences that come from any attempted society-wide engineering are universally horrific.

systemBuilder 8y ago

So what is the moonshot failure rate now? 100%?

basetop 8y ago

Eric Schmidt was the anti-privacy leader who dismissed privacy concerns. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmid... Keep in mind this is the same guy who blackballed CNET reporters for finding personal information on him through google search. https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ The guy represents every wrong with tech. Privacy for him, but none for thee. And that's not even including on his shady ties to government.

lostlogin 8y ago
> Eric Schmidt was the anti-piracy leader who dismissed privacy concerns. You mean anti-privacy I think? It took me way too long to get there.
- basetop 8y ago
  I fixed that. Thanks for pointing it out. Not sure how I managed to spell it incorrectly once and correctly once in the same sentence.
- telaport 8y ago
  ARRRRRRRRRRG ya gots it right again me fren!
jeffdavis 8y ago
Privacy is usually not about things you don't want anyone to know. It's about things you don't want everyone to know.
- derefr 8y ago
  More specifically, privacy is about things that you want to isolate to one sub-self and its corresponding social circle. Everyone leads a “double life” (or N lives) to some degree, and privacy is the societal etiquette allowing for the continued separation of those lives (without having to go to the effort of using real OPSEC to isolate them.)

sara1231 8y ago

World's biggest cat Even you can't believe it's size See her video https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-biggest-cat.html https://howto105.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-biggest-cat.htm... See the video a dog shopping and lots of other acts like humans http://bit.ly/2DCpo9I http://bit.ly/2DCpo9I Even you can't believe there is a hen in world's biggest animals See the video how they looks and what they do https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q Fish walking with legs like humans See the video on link below http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD This couple is different Girls are both twins and boys are also twin brothers see how they look in video http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs

jaybuff 8y ago

"-- Google Inc.'s top three executives agreed in 2004 to work together at the Internet search and advertising giant for at least 20 years, a company spokesman confirmed on Wednesday." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172640635329643.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172640635329643.html

joeblow21 8y ago

He should join Tesla’s board

JetSpiegel 8y ago

Why is a Google Board Member announcing stuff on Twitter? Is Google wasting all their resources creating dozens of incompatible chat apps, but no blogging platform?

jfoster 8y ago
Just to clarify, because we all saw the chat thing. They don't need another blogging platform. Just a modern update to Blogger will do.
jacquesm 8y ago
Well, he probably could have pulled G+ out of the mothballs.

shmerl 8y ago

I'll remember Eric Schmidt for sabotaging XMPP progress by saying something along the lines of "no one wants to support IM federation, so we should follow suit" and killing off Google Talk (which caused me to lose most of my IM contacts at that time).

sangnoir 8y ago
About that - Facebook was leaching off Google's network graph by allowing cross-platform chats (initiated from Fb), but Google couldn't access Fb users from GTalk. IMO, it's a perfectly reasonable response in terms of game theory; the best course of action when the other party defects in a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario is to also defect.
- shmerl 8y ago
  If FB was a problem, Google could ban FB, and allow federation with those who federate back. They didn't and instead killed the whole thing. It was a pretty bad response in the terms of actually fixing the messed up IM situation. It only made it worse, basically axing XMPP adoption. Game theory doesn't advise doing that. Compare it to one ally defecting. Others defecting in response (instead of looking for more allies) means losing the whole campaign right away, which is exactly what happened. I don't use XMPP at all today and naturally none of my IM contacts are from Google or FB. Good thing something like Matrix is gaining traction. But I have little respect for Google today because of the above.

pacificleo12 8y ago

schmidt happens

tempodox 8y ago

Good riddance. I won't miss him.

sara17361 8y ago

sara123226 8y ago

See the Video this strange fish who has legs and he can walk https://funlandtube.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/see-the-video-of-a-strange-fish-who-has-legs-and-he-can-walk/ https://funlandtube.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/see-the-video-o... Cute dog is dancing just try to control your laugh while seeing this video I am sure you can't https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34557-Cute-dog-dancing https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34557-Cute-dog-dancing Dog went for shopping and he did lots of other acts see his video https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34559-A-dog-doing-shopping-and-lots-of-other-acts https://www.predatortalk.com/topic/34559-A-dog-doing-shoppin...

sheinsheish 8y ago

Good riddance!

once-in-a-while 8y ago

https://voat.co/v/GreatAwakening/3191411 https://voat.co/v/GreatAwakening/3191411

deleted 8y ago

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zer0faith 8y ago

This is what happens when your drops 8% and they move your stock to hold.

danity 8y ago

He's lucky he ruled when he did. Nowadays he'd have been exposed and destroyed for his sexual harrassment (which is why he stepped down originally) and other horrible behavior.

srndh 8y ago

Better late than never, but the main question is who are left behind and do they have the same mindset as Eric. He is the virus that has multiplied well. Just another member in the club of Gates, Ellison, Ballmer, Jobs, Zuckerberg & more. Question is, can we undo the damage done. In 2019 lingo, reverse the Thanos snap. Not sure of Sundar but I still hope that Google twins might do the right thing.