8 ms·

Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google?

143 points by mjfern 16y ago

beej71 16y ago
He's stepping down because of the H.264 debacle, obviously! No wait--that's dumb.
brown9-2 16y ago
The article seems to take the stance that Schmidt is "leaving", which seems to run counter to the language of the announcement blog post yesterday.
- fuzzythinker 16y ago
  "Leaving" or not, there's no way he or the trio or the board would allow the notion that he'll be leaving in the post. I side with the author. I just don't think he would be stepping down if he intends to be the chairman for more than a few years. Also, if history is any indication, before he joined Google, he only assumed the role of chief strategist for a year or so after relinquishing from Novell's CEO position. The one place I see him going is Microsoft since he was credited to have turned Novell around during his CEO years there. No one would argue his abilities at Google as well. Microsoft desperately needed someone more capable than a car salesman. In some ways, it would also be a more challenging task (and something new) for him to turn Microsoft around than for him to compete with FB and Apple at Google. One thing for sure, Microsoft would be incredibly lucky to get him since I don't envision anyone else capable AND willing. My 2nd guess would be Facebook, but I don't think Mark wants that unless he truly sees him as a more capable CEO.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    In order for Schmidt to go to Microsoft, Ballmer would have to be forced out. I don't see that happening, given the success of win7, the xbox 360, and potentially wp7. I think wp7 would have to be an unmitgated failure for the board to consider pushing him out. I agree that Schmidt would be a better choice than Ballmer, but I don't see Microsoft's board making that push barring some sort of catalyst.
    - jey 16y ago
      Sounds like a good opportunity for someone to pull a Carl Icahn.
    - fuzzythinker 16y ago
      Yes, win7 was a success, but weighted with Vista's failure & its 5 years to debut, I won't call it so. wp7? we still have to wait it out, but again, it'll have to be weighted along with Kin's billion dollar failure. xbox360 does not define Microsoft. I think you're looking more at what he did, which isn't much in the past 10+ years, in terms of both market penetration (except for IE, but it's declining) and in terms of market capital, instead of what could have been done in hands of more capable person. If Eric Schmidt or say Steve Jobs were running Microsoft in the past 10 years, I don't think Microsoft would languish as is. If the board had been doing its job, it had to have planed his exit for years. Why it hasn't happened yet could be lack of better candidate or lack of excuse like HP's dismiss of Hurd.
      - redthrowaway 16y ago
        If they were going to force him out they would have done so after Vista/Kin. There are plenty of people inside MS who would have been suitable for the position, and there've been capable CEOs on the market in the last 4 years.
      - Encosia 16y ago
        I think it's hard to even begin to understand how deeply the Sherman Act has shaped the last decade at Microsoft. One man's languishing is another's staying out of trouble while continuing to rake in massive profits.
    - yannickt 16y ago
      "In order for Schmidt to go to Microsoft, Ballmer would have to be forced out" Not only that, but Schmidt would also have to win the confidence of Microsoft veterans, some of whom have been rumoured to have CEO ambitions (e.g. Sinofsky). Despite his stellar credentials, this may be harder than it looks. Ray Ozzie (whose vision and ideas would probably align with Schmidt's) stepped down as a CSA after all. And I am not sure if Schmidt understands the consumer space well enough to drive Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. I am not sure he gets business well enough to drive Office either. He gets engineering, and that helped him lead Google this far, but engineering is not enough if you want to lead companies such as Microsoft and Apple.
  - ghaff 16y ago
    To say Schmidt turned Novell around seems a pretty generous reading. Certainly Novell didn't return to broad industry relevance as they were trying to.
  - jlees 16y ago
    Microsoft? Pff, I hear there's a CEO job currently vacant at Apple...
acconrad 16y ago
The one sentence answer is that Google is no longer the top dog, and he doesn't seem to have the steam to weather through the storm. I feel like after the whole Google/Verizon deal, the writing was on the wall.
- lukev 16y ago
  If Google is no longer the top dog, who on earth is?
  - phlux 16y ago
    Sadly, Facebook. EDIT: Ill add some detail to my point; Google ramped up huge to where they are now, Facebook has been ramping up as well - but as Google enters maintenance mode with all of its service and tech - Facebook is still in a massively growth oriented position. Even if they're new user adoption slows, or even stops - the number of products based on their data-set alone, for their 500MM users that can be built is huge - and the value of those products even larger. This is why all the defections from Google have occurred. They built an amazing foundation for the internet at Google, now they will build upon that with far more specific and deep information of the user base and how they are all related to each other What facebook has is something that is required for the true "semantic web" which has been talked of for decades. Very very deep and specific information on every aspect of it's users interests. This is something that Google thought it was going to accumulate - but the problem is that from googles view, every person is a silo of interests - where they would have to do a lot of correlation on the back-end (which they have done) through their varied products. Facebook, rather, has built a true interest portal and people are throwing ever single bit of human interaction data they can right into i - and linking it all up for facebook. There is a very very interesting future (albeit scary) if facebook doesn't fuck this up.
    - tdfx 16y ago
      It seems to me that people are always valuing Facebook by its potential, whereas Google is judged by its actual performance (which isn't exactly slouching, numbers-wise).
krakensden 16y ago
Engineers are bad at things they can't measure?
- jodrellblank 16y ago
  If they can't measure the results, who is to say they are doing badly?
  - moultano 16y ago
    Their own sense of integrity.
googleisevil 16y ago
Pulling out of China was an amateur move made by amateurs (Brin and Page). No wonder Schmidt lost interest in being CEO of Google after he was out voted by these two.
dennykmiu 16y ago
I believe Eric Schmidt is stepping down because he believes doing so is what is best for Google. And I believe his reason has little to do with whether or not he thinks that he is the right person for the job or that Larry Page is the better candidate. I think Eric believes that it is time for Google to get a real CEO because he has been the CEO in name only. C is for Chief and Eric was never the chief since he was not the person who gets to make the final decision. E is for Executive and Eric never spends much time executing because he was too busy herding cats. O is for Officer and Eric was not able to look out for the interest of all the shareholders, just the two largest ones. Good luck, Larry.
tybris 16y ago
Probably because that was always the plan.
Stormbringer 16y ago
Much as I despise Google's Minority Report style vision for the future where personalised advertising is plastered all over everything, and their evil actions regarding privacy... ... and much as I am allegedly a huge Apple fan ... I still think it is unfair for people to compare the effectiveness of Eric by comparing Google's performance to Apple's performance. Google is operating in a mostly saturated market (online search and advertising) in which they have a Microsoft style almost total monopoly. You just don't get spectacular growth numbers in those scenarios. Doesn't mean you can't squeeze the monopoly position to make great profits of course, but those profits aren't going to increase exponentially year after year without cease. Apple on the other hand has been recently expanding into new markets (okay, some older ones too, and some borrowed and some blue) at an enormous rate. People laughed at them when they said they would enter the phone market. People laughed at them when they said they would enter the tablet market. In fairly short order, they've totally disrupted and defined those two markets. Now personally I believe that their dominance in those markets will be short lived, but I think they will continue to lead the direction of those industries long after their market share has dropped below 10%. Google's done what? They have a really nice e-mail service... but apart from that and the search/advertising thing what do they do? Oh, they bought youtube and slapped ads all over it... yeah... great work guys, but not exactly what I'd call innovative. Oh, they have a browser and a smartphone... but again not especially innovative. I dunno, I just expected more from the 20% time of a bunch of PhDs sitting around?
- majorlazer 16y ago
  Android is the biggest cellphone OS on the market. Chrome is the best browser and it is growing at an extremely fast pace. ChromeOS is well on it's way (it won't compete with the MSFT or AAPL but it has it's niche). Gmail is the best free mail service available (and it definitely was revolutionary, think back to when it was just released). Google AdSense changed the way people monetize on the internet. Google Search was the biggest revolution in the history of the internet. Google Maps/Earth was also a huge revolution and is used by so many different services and software on the internet and on cellphones. Google Documents? Google Voice? Please, Google owns the internet. Sure, Google may not have any hardware revolutions such as Apple, but when it comes to the internet, Google creates and makes possible the most innovative ideas.

143 points by mjfern 16y ago

He's stepping down because of the H.264 debacle, obviously! No wait--that's dumb.

The article seems to take the stance that Schmidt is "leaving", which seems to run counter to the language of the announcement blog post yesterday.

fuzzythinker 16y ago
"Leaving" or not, there's no way he or the trio or the board would allow the notion that he'll be leaving in the post. I side with the author. I just don't think he would be stepping down if he intends to be the chairman for more than a few years. Also, if history is any indication, before he joined Google, he only assumed the role of chief strategist for a year or so after relinquishing from Novell's CEO position. The one place I see him going is Microsoft since he was credited to have turned Novell around during his CEO years there. No one would argue his abilities at Google as well. Microsoft desperately needed someone more capable than a car salesman. In some ways, it would also be a more challenging task (and something new) for him to turn Microsoft around than for him to compete with FB and Apple at Google. One thing for sure, Microsoft would be incredibly lucky to get him since I don't envision anyone else capable AND willing. My 2nd guess would be Facebook, but I don't think Mark wants that unless he truly sees him as a more capable CEO.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  In order for Schmidt to go to Microsoft, Ballmer would have to be forced out. I don't see that happening, given the success of win7, the xbox 360, and potentially wp7. I think wp7 would have to be an unmitgated failure for the board to consider pushing him out. I agree that Schmidt would be a better choice than Ballmer, but I don't see Microsoft's board making that push barring some sort of catalyst.
  - jey 16y ago
    Sounds like a good opportunity for someone to pull a Carl Icahn.
  - fuzzythinker 16y ago
    Yes, win7 was a success, but weighted with Vista's failure & its 5 years to debut, I won't call it so. wp7? we still have to wait it out, but again, it'll have to be weighted along with Kin's billion dollar failure. xbox360 does not define Microsoft. I think you're looking more at what he did, which isn't much in the past 10+ years, in terms of both market penetration (except for IE, but it's declining) and in terms of market capital, instead of what could have been done in hands of more capable person. If Eric Schmidt or say Steve Jobs were running Microsoft in the past 10 years, I don't think Microsoft would languish as is. If the board had been doing its job, it had to have planed his exit for years. Why it hasn't happened yet could be lack of better candidate or lack of excuse like HP's dismiss of Hurd.
    - redthrowaway 16y ago
      If they were going to force him out they would have done so after Vista/Kin. There are plenty of people inside MS who would have been suitable for the position, and there've been capable CEOs on the market in the last 4 years.
    - Encosia 16y ago
      I think it's hard to even begin to understand how deeply the Sherman Act has shaped the last decade at Microsoft. One man's languishing is another's staying out of trouble while continuing to rake in massive profits.
  - yannickt 16y ago
    "In order for Schmidt to go to Microsoft, Ballmer would have to be forced out" Not only that, but Schmidt would also have to win the confidence of Microsoft veterans, some of whom have been rumoured to have CEO ambitions (e.g. Sinofsky). Despite his stellar credentials, this may be harder than it looks. Ray Ozzie (whose vision and ideas would probably align with Schmidt's) stepped down as a CSA after all. And I am not sure if Schmidt understands the consumer space well enough to drive Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. I am not sure he gets business well enough to drive Office either. He gets engineering, and that helped him lead Google this far, but engineering is not enough if you want to lead companies such as Microsoft and Apple.
- ghaff 16y ago
  To say Schmidt turned Novell around seems a pretty generous reading. Certainly Novell didn't return to broad industry relevance as they were trying to.
- jlees 16y ago
  Microsoft? Pff, I hear there's a CEO job currently vacant at Apple...

acconrad 16y ago

The one sentence answer is that Google is no longer the top dog, and he doesn't seem to have the steam to weather through the storm. I feel like after the whole Google/Verizon deal, the writing was on the wall.

lukev 16y ago
If Google is no longer the top dog, who on earth is?
- phlux 16y ago
  Sadly, Facebook. EDIT: Ill add some detail to my point; Google ramped up huge to where they are now, Facebook has been ramping up as well - but as Google enters maintenance mode with all of its service and tech - Facebook is still in a massively growth oriented position. Even if they're new user adoption slows, or even stops - the number of products based on their data-set alone, for their 500MM users that can be built is huge - and the value of those products even larger. This is why all the defections from Google have occurred. They built an amazing foundation for the internet at Google, now they will build upon that with far more specific and deep information of the user base and how they are all related to each other What facebook has is something that is required for the true "semantic web" which has been talked of for decades. Very very deep and specific information on every aspect of it's users interests. This is something that Google thought it was going to accumulate - but the problem is that from googles view, every person is a silo of interests - where they would have to do a lot of correlation on the back-end (which they have done) through their varied products. Facebook, rather, has built a true interest portal and people are throwing ever single bit of human interaction data they can right into i - and linking it all up for facebook. There is a very very interesting future (albeit scary) if facebook doesn't fuck this up.
  - tdfx 16y ago
    It seems to me that people are always valuing Facebook by its potential, whereas Google is judged by its actual performance (which isn't exactly slouching, numbers-wise).

krakensden 16y ago

Engineers are bad at things they can't measure?

jodrellblank 16y ago
If they can't measure the results, who is to say they are doing badly?
- moultano 16y ago
  Their own sense of integrity.

googleisevil 16y ago

Pulling out of China was an amateur move made by amateurs (Brin and Page). No wonder Schmidt lost interest in being CEO of Google after he was out voted by these two.

dennykmiu 16y ago

I believe Eric Schmidt is stepping down because he believes doing so is what is best for Google. And I believe his reason has little to do with whether or not he thinks that he is the right person for the job or that Larry Page is the better candidate. I think Eric believes that it is time for Google to get a real CEO because he has been the CEO in name only. C is for Chief and Eric was never the chief since he was not the person who gets to make the final decision. E is for Executive and Eric never spends much time executing because he was too busy herding cats. O is for Officer and Eric was not able to look out for the interest of all the shareholders, just the two largest ones. Good luck, Larry.

tybris 16y ago

Probably because that was always the plan.

Stormbringer 16y ago

Much as I despise Google's Minority Report style vision for the future where personalised advertising is plastered all over everything, and their evil actions regarding privacy... ... and much as I am allegedly a huge Apple fan ... I still think it is unfair for people to compare the effectiveness of Eric by comparing Google's performance to Apple's performance. Google is operating in a mostly saturated market (online search and advertising) in which they have a Microsoft style almost total monopoly. You just don't get spectacular growth numbers in those scenarios. Doesn't mean you can't squeeze the monopoly position to make great profits of course, but those profits aren't going to increase exponentially year after year without cease. Apple on the other hand has been recently expanding into new markets (okay, some older ones too, and some borrowed and some blue) at an enormous rate. People laughed at them when they said they would enter the phone market. People laughed at them when they said they would enter the tablet market. In fairly short order, they've totally disrupted and defined those two markets. Now personally I believe that their dominance in those markets will be short lived, but I think they will continue to lead the direction of those industries long after their market share has dropped below 10%. Google's done what? They have a really nice e-mail service... but apart from that and the search/advertising thing what do they do? Oh, they bought youtube and slapped ads all over it... yeah... great work guys, but not exactly what I'd call innovative. Oh, they have a browser and a smartphone... but again not especially innovative. I dunno, I just expected more from the 20% time of a bunch of PhDs sitting around?

majorlazer 16y ago
Android is the biggest cellphone OS on the market. Chrome is the best browser and it is growing at an extremely fast pace. ChromeOS is well on it's way (it won't compete with the MSFT or AAPL but it has it's niche). Gmail is the best free mail service available (and it definitely was revolutionary, think back to when it was just released). Google AdSense changed the way people monetize on the internet. Google Search was the biggest revolution in the history of the internet. Google Maps/Earth was also a huge revolution and is used by so many different services and software on the internet and on cellphones. Google Documents? Google Voice? Please, Google owns the internet. Sure, Google may not have any hardware revolutions such as Apple, but when it comes to the internet, Google creates and makes possible the most innovative ideas.