4 ms·
I don't know about bad business decisions, but he certainly had a bad year for putting his foot in his mouth. And there's certainly no shortage of unpopular, n
by roc 16y ago
I don't know about bad business decisions, but he certainly had a bad year for putting his foot in his mouth.
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".
- nkassis 16y ago"the Scan-First-Ask-Later library project and settlement process" that move was pure genius in my book. Evil genius maybe but asking for permission in these type of things leads to stalemate. Google to a huge risk but a calculated one. I think it's defensible more than just business-wise. At the end of the day, publishers have always tried to put sticks in the wheels of anything new in the book world. Google's move is good for man kind in a way and I think it was also helpful to groups like the Internet Archive.