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He catches a lot of shit for his phrasing, but Schmidt had a habit of saying true things in a way that maximized the odds they'd be received poorly. (In contex
by shadowgovt 4y ago
He catches a lot of shit for his phrasing, but Schmidt had a habit of saying true things in a way that maximized the odds they'd be received poorly.
(In context, they were talking about the long-retention and implicit-digital-footprint effects on online services, and he was noting that the trends were only going to become "more observation" and "more retention" over time... At some point, it becomes much cheaper to just not do the thing online if you want to preserve your privacy
... and in general, he was right. It's not just government observation; it's corporate observation and private observation, and the ability to churn through someone's entire Twitter history, etc., etc.).
- deelowe 4y agoA bit of a shitty answer though when the context surrounding the discussion was about whether Google was doing anything to protect privacy. Apple, by comparison, seems to have navigated the same environment extremely well. They of course can't prevent certain things from happening, but for what's within their control, they are doing what they can.
- donalhunt 4y agoAs someone who heard this first hand (probably at an all-hands or TGIF), the quote from the earlier post was very much not "don't use communication channels that leave a trail" and much more "don't do illegal shit". In addition, I fondly remember him quibbing that there is no internet in jail. :/ Saying that, I'll leave you in the knowledge that Google Meet is excellent for off the record conversations (and executives are great for ignoring rules set for the rest of the company).
- wmeredith 4y agoSchmidt doesn't get shit for saying true things. He gets shit for being a rich hypocritical asshole. At the time he was spouting his holier-than-thou bullshit, he was colluding with other high-tech firms (Apple, et al.) to suppress workers' salaries, and he was actively hiding the evidence of doing so. It came out in court anyway and Google was part of a half-billion dollar settlement over the matter. Eric Schmidt is not some misunderstood truth-sayer. He's a crook and a hypocrite and the things he says are received poorly because he's an elitist who's made his $25,000,000,000 fortune punching down.
- shadowgovt 4y agoSo you're saying he was doing something that he didn't want anyone to know, and maybe he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place? ;)