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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Leaked Stanford Talk

392 points by gregzeng95 2y ago

jimsimmons 2y ago
Larry bought Android without telling Eric even though Eric was the CEO of Google at the time. He is a bean counter and the only form of accountability he knows is billable hours.
- tim_sw 2y ago
  False. Eric Schmidt is one of the sharper operators in tech and his effect can be seen when Google started declining after 2011 when he stepped down.
  - Gud 2y ago
    Eric Schmidt killed what Google could become by making it the monster it is today. Essentially, he made it into Microsoft when it was on a trajectory to become a glorious Sun.
    - kaashif 2y ago
      ...but Sun went bankrupt and was acquired by Oracle. Not the best comparison.
      - Gud 2y ago
        Everything dies. For decades, SUN Microsystems was a great place to work. From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on(ZFS anyone?). I prefer organisations like that over organisations that’s only purpose seems to be to extract wealth from the economy, to line the pockets of the few well connected.
        walterbell 2y ago
        > From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on Indeed, including code still in modern Linux distros.
      - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
        That's better than what Google became
        kaashif 2y ago
        I too want Google to go bankrupt and be acquired by Oracle.
- tgma 2y ago
  Wrong. Eric Schmidt might be more of a suit than Larry, but calling him a bean counter is a stretch. He is a Computer Scientist. He has written Lex[1] ffs. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software) P.S. re the Android story, which seems obviously exaggerated, gotta take into account that Eric has a strong incentive to deliberately distance himself from the story given his role on Apple Board of Directors at the time.
  - aswerty 2y ago
    Very interesting, I didn't know anything more than he was more of a suit. Good to be aware he has technical pedigree.
    - tgma 2y ago
      He had a class at Stanford a few years back where you can see some of his insightfulness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns
      - grepfru_it 2y ago
        His technical prowess was peeking its head a few times during this interview. The fact is, he is still very much a business, man.
- ein0p 2y ago
  Schmidt is definitely not a bean counter. Under him working at Google was actually enjoyable. Sundar, on the other hand…
lbj 2y ago
I'll categorize this as 'Unverified'
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hexomancer 2y ago
This is not "leaked", this is on official stanford youtube channel.
- ipsum2 2y ago
  It's sort of leaked? It was on the official youtube channel but got pulled a few hours after some backlash. "Video of Schmidt’s talk was posted on YouTube this week by Stanford Online, a division of the university that offers online courses. The video, which had more than 40,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon, has since been set to private. Schmidt said he asked for the video to be taken down. He declined to comment further. Stanford didn’t respond to a request for comment about the video." https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-work-stanford-f92f4ca5 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-wo...
- websap 2y ago
  They have deleted it. It is available here - https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 One can use yt-dlp to download the video. Not sure what's going on here, but as usual I'd recommend using a VPN.
  - 55555 2y ago
    Anyone have the video? I'd rather watch.
    - ramon156 2y ago
      https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY
      - netsharc 2y ago
        Oh, memory-holed (copyright-struck) by Stanford...
    - websap 2y ago
      https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ipsum2 2y ago
The original video has been reuploaded here: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883. Watch and download it while you can. Stanford is actively trying to take down copies (see example takedown here: https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY)
aksophist 2y ago
I read up to where he started taking questions (less than half the transcript or so?) and these were the interesting quotes that stood out to me: So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want and you don't have to pay all that money to and there's infinite supply of these programs. That's all within the next year or two. … Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. … But certainly in your lifetimes, the battle between the US and China for knowledge supremacy is going to be the big fight. … And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems. And so you're better off as a strategy of national defense to have a very strong offense that you can use if you need to. And the systems that I and others are building will do that. Because of the way the system works, I am now a licensed arms dealer, a computer scientist, businessman, and an arms dealer. Is that a progression? I don't know. I do not recommend this in your group. … And if anyone knows Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would encourage you to delete her from your contact list because she's the one, a single individual is blocking the provision of some number of billions of dollars to save an important democracy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems. This is not actually one of the things to know about war. It's about as far from the truth as you can get.
  - lucianbr 2y ago
    It's funny how this guy, as most rich business types, thinks he actually knows everything, and he's an expert in all domains. What the hell does he know about war? He's not a general or admiral or something. Of course he imagines being CEO of a large company is the same thing, but it's really not. Something to keep in mind when reading his other pronouncements.
bux93 2y ago
[flagged]
- izacus 2y ago
  We can use ChatGPT ourselves, you don't have to spam HN with its output. It doesn't bring value.
  - jvdvegt 2y ago
    That comment saved me the trouble of switching to chatgpt, and saved a lot of kW due to less AI usage.
hu3 2y ago
You can download the video right now with this command: yt-dlp https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 You can install yt-dlp from GitHub: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#installation https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#installa... > According to webarchive, original video was posted on Aug 13 and the talk took place on April 9, 2024.
- heybrendan 2y ago
  Thanks for this guidance. In times like these, I find sunlight is always the best disinfectant. The yt-dlp application functions better alongside ffmpeg, so I recommend installing that too. If on Linux, whatever is available via one's package manager /should/ do the trick. Note, the project does make mention there are issues [1] with "standard ffmpeg", and is therefore minting custom builds [2][3] of ffmpeg, with additional patches applied. [1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies [2] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-b... [3] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied
- philmo1 2y ago
  there you go: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1823932065479581698/vid/avc1/1280x720/MLAGCJ6mtBnj57L_.mp4 https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1823932065479581698/vi...
- wanderingmind 2y ago
  If you just want to download in your phone use the seal app from F-droid which is a yt-dlp wrapper. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/com.junkfood.seal/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.junkfood.seal/
Ozzie_osman 2y ago
His explanation for Google losing to OpenAI on GenAI: "Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning." What a tremendous lack of self-awareness. Let's put aside all the leadership issues, all the politics, all the complacency, all the bureaucracy, and blame people for working from home. (Not saying there aren't folks at Google who are just cruising, etc... but that's a fraction of the problem compared to the leadership issues)
- mathieuh 2y ago
  Sometimes these CEOs and "leaders" make mask-off comments and it just demonstrates the gulf between how they and normal people think. It can be quite frightening sometimes to imagine that these kinds of people are the people who wield power in our world, these people who share such little in common with you
- lawgimenez 2y ago
  Was he the one who’s having an affair with his business partner or something? And with a bunch of legal troubles.
  - yellow_lead 2y ago
    > While Mr. Schmidt was chief executive of Google, he had an extramarital relationship with Marcy Simon, a public relations executive. A decade after they split, things are still messy. John Carreyrou sifted through hundreds of pages of court filings for this article [1]. Yep, he is a great leader! :) /s [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/technology/eric-schmidt-affair.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/technology/eric-schmidt-a...
    - eddiewithzato 2y ago
      he spent so much time at work they became family!
    - dimator 2y ago
      what a shallow ad-hominem. during his tenure he was extremely well liked and growth was booming. why would his spousal relationships make him a bad leader? do you look to your managers for moral leadership?
moberger 2y ago
Are there additional videos of guest lecturers available for that Stanford course? I was unable to find any.
bagels 2y ago
Why did he think it was okay to say this to Stanford people, but then decided nobody else should hear it?
- notinmykernel 2y ago
  Because he's fundraising for his attack drone military startup[1] called White Stork? [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-schmidts-secret-white-stork-project-aims-to-build-ai-combat-drones/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-sc...
- usr1106 2y ago
  Why did he not understand that everything that is recorded will leak anyway? Or he did understand that things get much more attention if they are supposed to be secret and then leaked.
- seydor 2y ago
  It was stanford; not him. Tbf i ve heard him say audacious things since he left google
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
monkeydust 2y ago
I think taking down the video has led to more interest in it than if it just stayed up.
- ProofHouse 2y ago
  Streisand Effect
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming from in US elite circles. I get that china is a direct economic threat. That’s obvious. I also get that china is a philosophical threat on a level different to the Soviet Union (that was freedom produces more wealth than totalitarianism - which the US won.). The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win - china is doing well economically (kinda) - and has not given up its totalitarian control. Their argument was the Soviet Union tried central command economics whereas we are something something power of markets and chinese culture. What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield - this is something where we (being liberal democracies) need to double down on liberal democracy- both the production of wealth and the use of that wealth to raise the living standards of all its citizens - in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful. Yea that’s wealth taxes, yes it’s more spending on infrastructure and education and sharing the wealth, and teaching ourselves to aspire to better. Not (just) having bigger guns.
- klyrs 2y ago
  We'll settle for having more guns per capita
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  We didn't win the ideological battle against communism through liberal democratic means. That's a common misconception. The war against communism was fought and won with violence. Sometimes this violence was meted out directly by the US (in the case of Vietnam (about 0.5 million civilian casualties), North Korea (1 million), Cambodia (150k)), and in a lot of cases by local militias armed and trained by the US (Indonesia 0.5M dead, the Chile coup leading to Pinochet being in power). The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented. Heck, we even armed and trained Bin Laden in the fight against communism! Maybe within the US itself it was fought with liberal democratic means (although, McCarthyism is a thing), most of the world by population had to be convinced violently. That isn't to say that all communists were all nice and peaceful like the ones in Chile and Indonesia; Pol Pot and Stalin need no introduction. But to say we won the war with words and ideas dismisses the suffering and pain of millions as non-existent. And no matter where you stand on the debate, that's a bit disrespectful.
yingnansong 2y ago
A transcript can be found here: https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford_ECON295%E2%A7%B8CS323_I_2024_I_The_Age_of_AI%2C_Eric_Schmidt.txt https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford...
Gigachad 2y ago
In the talk, Eric suggests that very soon you could use AI to automatically generate TikTok clones and publish them repeatedly to the App Store until one of them takes off. Even if we assume this is possible soon, is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it. In what scenario does an app that was generated automatically in seconds result in you becoming the next mega tech company raking in huge profits.
- typewithrhythm 2y ago
  Anything dependent on "user generated content" has a capture factor. It doesn't matter if all the apps are slop, people will follow established creators, and new creators will follow an established audience. I suspect the clones of something existing have no real chance of success without some sort of external marketing hook; better revenue sharing or similar. The rest will be ignored like every other current low effort app.
- te_chris 2y ago
  The world of AI cloud orchestration etc running behind the "siri, make me a tiktok" is going to be hilarious. A beautiful new dawn for black hats.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  > is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it. I'd argue it's already devolved into human generated slop which provides no functionality without taking on a $10+ month subscription and people already are ignoring it. Try it yourself, think of something a small app would be good for that task and try to find an app that you're satisfied with and is worth the money it's asking you to use it. You wont be able to.
doomlaser 2y ago
It's not leaked. It was posted publicly to YouTube, which is where I watched it. It was the first or second video in my recommended feed. I even left a comment, "Thank you, Stanford, for uploading this talk for us." which Stanford put a heart on, pinning it to the top of the YouTube comments: https://i.imgur.com/LSi6mqN.png https://i.imgur.com/LSi6mqN.png It was a good talk on a technical level. My guess is he ran into trouble when he briefly criticized modern Google's corporate culture when it comes to work-from-home?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- mesebrec 2y ago
  The video is currently private: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA
- ycombinatrix 2y ago
  Thank you, doomlaser, for uploading this screenshot for us.
max_ 2y ago
Short: How he got into the Arms trade (https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1823920847910002913?t=Ol1EfTJ3rPX6TmMSem44Xw&s=19 https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1823920847910002913?t=Ol1EfTJ3...) Full interview: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883?t=Y6SiFSxf8zGdMuqfWrzsRA&s=19 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883?t=Y6SiFSxf8z...
ah27182 2y ago
What an incredible mask-off moment. The war mongering coming from this man is insane, I still don’t get why these people even bother to say they “care about democracy” when it’s clearly a lie. He says China is “lost” or whatever, simply because the West has been unable to control the country in the same way they have done with Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc. I hate these people that justify barbarism and imperialism as a means to a “greater good.” It has “white man’s burden” written all over it.
- seydor 2y ago
  That's a moral argument. In the west we believe liberal values are the best , and we want them around the world. As such, authoritarianism is a priori an enemy
  - skrebbel 2y ago
    There's exactly one country (Japan) where establishing a liberal democracy at gunpoint worked out. The US then tried to do the same in like a quarter of the world and kept failing. At some point some people up there ought to get the message right? I don't know how else to do it but war simply isn't it.
    - seydor 2y ago
      being "an enemy" doesn't imply that we attack them
      - skrebbel 2y ago
        You called China an enemy in response to Schmidt being called a war mongerer. I read that as a defense of Schmidt stance and implicit support for war with China. If I got that wrong then I agree my comment is out of context.
  - ah27182 2y ago
    So destabilizing and destroying a country for the sake of establishing liberal values is a morally righteous decision?
n0n0n4t0r 2y ago
As a worker from home guy (I am fully remote), I feel offended by this over-simplifying statement: I'm one of the top contributor in the company I work for (it was officially acknowledged). Also, as a solo parent, work life balance is uppermost important to me. What he miss out is that by restricting the bucket of employees/human you consider, you get ride of top talents that aren't to your norms.
- musha68k 2y ago
  He apparently has taken back his comments there in the meantime; at least partially: > A Schmidt spokesperson wrote in an email to Business Insider: "Eric misspoke about Google and their work hours and regrets his error." https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-criticism-remote-work-google-openai-2024-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-crit...
  - StrLght 2y ago
    Sounds more like: "Sorry it became public"
- metadat 2y ago
  I am similar, having built and run many high-performance, remote-friendly teams, several of which have built hundreds of millions+ in value, maybe a few billion because it continues to compound over time. Schmidt is entitled to his opinion, though it's been a long time since he's been personally involved in personally getting things done. He's also been hanging out with his friend Elon and absorbing that narrative into his brain. Also, it's difficult to comment what WFH looks like "on average". In my career I've learned the brutal reality of what "average" really means and looks like. Spoiler alert: Average human behavior is often surprisingly lr even shockingly lower than I anticipated. Yet, Google, and the Bay Area and other tech hubs are full of at least slightly to moderately above average people, due to the natural competition to even survive and be successful in these areas. TL;DR: Don't take it personally, there are exceptions to every rule. Cheers and keep doing your thing.
  - deleted 2y ago
lz400 2y ago
I am surprised at how out of touch Schmidt is that he said all these things about WFH, AI and other topics so plainly and thought he wouldn't get massive blowback. I think he ruined his reputation with many people with this, and his reputation was very decent. He realized this of course, and that's why he's trying to remove the talk from YouTube, apologized officially, etc. Obviously this is how he thinks, it was transparent and no amount of apologizing can fix that, but usually people like him are extremely good at concealing what they think. He seems to have believed that his position was not controversial, which smells of too much time in board rooms and country clubs.
thrance 2y ago
> If TikTok is banned, here's what I propose each and every one of you do. Say to your LLM the following. Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it and in one hour, if it's not viral, do something different along the same lines. That's the command. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Pure insanity. This sounds like a joke. The more I hear those people's thoughts, the more I think they deserve none of the power and wealth they have. They contribute nothing of value to society.
- seydor 2y ago
  Yet this guy is drafting AI legislation and selling arms (presumably to ukraine). That doesn't mean his public speaking must be true however; he may be exagerrating things (because i doubt he doesn't know)
  - jiwidi 2y ago
    he clearly has no idea of what he is saying or has total idea and purposedly lying to his own benefit (my take)
- skrebbel 2y ago
  Did Eric Schmidt go nuts with age, or was he always this insane?
  - AlanYx 2y ago
    Throughout the whole talk he's using an alternatively flippant/hyperbolic speaking style that probably has been effective for him in the past when addressing high-level non-technical policymakers. He speaks to their policy/strategic insecurities about technological change and conveys a sense of inflated urgency. It probably wasn't the right tone for this audience though. But it's a style of rhetoric that's probably intentional.
- mrkramer 2y ago
  I think Eric started drinking Kool-Aid....he maybe has a point but the way he expresses his thoughts is a little bit disturbing.
qwertox 2y ago
Reminds me of this tweet [0]: If 1 million tokens is a lot, how about 2 million? Today we’re expanding the context window for Gemini 1.5 Pro to 2 million tokens and making it available for developers in private preview. It’s the next step towards the ultimate goal of infinite context. #GoogleIO In theory, if you have an infinite context, you could build an AI assistant which accompanies you throughout your whole life and would have all the info on what you've done at your disposal for immediate query or discussion. Also, in theory, if you'd then die, the world would have a digital replica of you up to the point of your death. [0] https://x.com/Google/status/1790430189916225799 https://x.com/Google/status/1790430189916225799
- quonn 2y ago
  A replica of what? Of your words? Your thoughts? How would it access those thoughts? What about your feelings? What about the things that actually go on in your physical body outside the brain?
  - qwertox 2y ago
    If it hears what you hear, hears what you say, reads what you write, sees what you see, notes what you do, it will end up knowing more about you than you yourself. The way you can interact with it will be the same way others can interact with it. Also, sensors like HRMs or activity monitors could give it insights into your emotional state. It could replicate your reactions.
  - nilirl 2y ago
    Encoding the human experience will probably get much better over time. They're already experimenting with audio and video interfaces. I saw some other products that combine fitbit like sensors with an LLM. I don't know what the results of combining all that data with an LLM will look like, but I think recording our experience to be used by an AI will only get better.
steve1977 2y ago
I think a core problem with executives talking about success (or lack thereof) is that they tend to attribute their success purely to their skills or something they did, whereas in reality there is usually a good amount of luck and just "being at the right place at the right time". Which is also why these people often cannot replicate their previous successes.
seydor 2y ago
You can watch it on twitter here https://twitter.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://twitter.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
ionwake 2y ago
>So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want I was perturbed by the way some google programmers behaved during and after I had an issue, and so feel confident saying that yes, they are probably mostly arrogant as hell in google. However, Im annoyed at this statement. Not all programmers are, you just mostly hired arrogant ones. >does what you want. Again, if you can't convey the specs correctly - that is also a you issue. I don't know guys, this sentence from the transcript just didn't sit well with me. If I heard someone say this I would immediately think, this guy surrounded himself with terrible people willingly.
surfingdino 2y ago
Fighting WFH is old. It's a change like any other and a lot of companies have adapted already. The only problem I see with it is that it was not proposed and promoted by Harvard Business Review and therefore all old guys moan about it.
mrkramer 2y ago
It's not leaked because the video was on the official Stanford's YouTube channel for like one and a half day. I was surprised he was so aggressive towards Google, taking in consideration he was long time CEO there and he earned billions from Google. My opinion is that he is a smart business manager but he knows very little of the actual software development judging from his bizarre comments on Google's AI.
kkfx 2y ago
Alphabet losses (not just in ML) are due to the switch from a tech-oriented to a financial oriented enterprise, for a certain, not long, amount of time, the switch makes money, than the fall. We do not live on finance, we live on Earth, we can play others and for a bit it will work, but it can't work in the long term. Google success was technical, lost them there is little interest left.
mikewarot 2y ago
>So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want Human programmers try really hard to give you what you actually need, and not what you want. Most problems are posed to programmers in such a way that they would result in totally unacceptable results if delivered to those specifications. Think any story involving a Genie and 3 wishes. It's amazing to me that someone who employed so many programmers just doesn't get it. To quote the philosopher Jägger: You can't always get what you want But, if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need.
DragonStrength 2y ago
Maybe if the people running these companies didn't seem to hate their own employees so much they'd get more out of them. Schmidt is the same one who was campaigning for more tech visas as layoffs were cranking up in 2022 because he thought the Democrats would lost the Senate in midterms (they didn't). Another example of employees watching their bosses treat them like dirt: firing them while actively trying to drive their wages down with cheaper talent.
blibble 2y ago
after reading that speech I'm convinced that Google could have picked a random guy off the street in 2001 would have had equal if not better success than it had with Schmidt right place, right time
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Why do we need this when the video is available? Correction: was available (saw this a few days ago, what happened?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245150) Edit 2: ah, see elsewhere in here notes about video being removed etc
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Former Google CEO blames remote work for company's struggles https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241682
khimaros 2y ago
are there any archives of the video?
metadat 2y ago
Here is a gist with a mobile-friendly copy of the transcript: https://gist.github.com/sleaze/bf74291b4072abadb0b4109da3da21ac https://gist.github.com/sleaze/bf74291b4072abadb0b4109da3da2...
Elmerm 2y ago
For those interested in the full video and not just the transcript, you can find it on X at the link below. https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883
rldjbpin 2y ago
interesting to read the reactions here regarding wfh even though it was less than a minute of the whole conversation. all i would say about that is this: it appears that we haven't found a way that has made "better" working conditions (and remote work) bring out the best results at a macro scale. there is an element of truth to what he said and as companies grow very big, they will always face stuff like this. in tech, anyways, we want to have the cake and eat it too. now that i have lost 95% of the ones who bothered reading this, i would take bigger offense to his perspective on the ai space. he appears to have drunk the koolaid as well and it is very interesting to see that a lot of future use cases are still around llm and not other equally-impactful works. especially when he mentioned using AI in defense applications. having a good offensive system as a way to defend oneself seems like the same dangerous slippery slope that brought the atomic bomb. while not giving specific examples, he used the tech used in current war in east europe as a point to support this. an actual example used there are drones that self-identify and explode targets from the defender's side (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875446). no matter what you feel about either parties, this is just a few steps away from a black mirror episode. plus the major military powers want to advance on this before the others and this arms race is what worries me more than "muh productivity". the fact that most of the discourse, whether in the lecture hall or in the comments here, seems to not bat an eye around this subject makes me anxious about the public attitude towards this.
tndibona 2y ago
My issue here is not so much with his brazen designs for world, rather it is the people sitting that actually clap, cheer, and laugh.

392 points by gregzeng95 2y ago

Larry bought Android without telling Eric even though Eric was the CEO of Google at the time. He is a bean counter and the only form of accountability he knows is billable hours.

tim_sw 2y ago
False. Eric Schmidt is one of the sharper operators in tech and his effect can be seen when Google started declining after 2011 when he stepped down.
- Gud 2y ago
  Eric Schmidt killed what Google could become by making it the monster it is today. Essentially, he made it into Microsoft when it was on a trajectory to become a glorious Sun.
  - kaashif 2y ago
    ...but Sun went bankrupt and was acquired by Oracle. Not the best comparison.
    - Gud 2y ago
      Everything dies. For decades, SUN Microsystems was a great place to work. From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on(ZFS anyone?). I prefer organisations like that over organisations that’s only purpose seems to be to extract wealth from the economy, to line the pockets of the few well connected.
      - walterbell 2y ago
        > From SUN came some amazing technology that still lives on Indeed, including code still in modern Linux distros.
    - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
      That's better than what Google became
      - kaashif 2y ago
        I too want Google to go bankrupt and be acquired by Oracle.
tgma 2y ago
Wrong. Eric Schmidt might be more of a suit than Larry, but calling him a bean counter is a stretch. He is a Computer Scientist. He has written Lex[1] ffs. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software) P.S. re the Android story, which seems obviously exaggerated, gotta take into account that Eric has a strong incentive to deliberately distance himself from the story given his role on Apple Board of Directors at the time.
- aswerty 2y ago
  Very interesting, I didn't know anything more than he was more of a suit. Good to be aware he has technical pedigree.
  - tgma 2y ago
    He had a class at Stanford a few years back where you can see some of his insightfulness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRxFRgNpns
    - grepfru_it 2y ago
      His technical prowess was peeking its head a few times during this interview. The fact is, he is still very much a business, man.
ein0p 2y ago
Schmidt is definitely not a bean counter. Under him working at Google was actually enjoyable. Sundar, on the other hand…

lbj 2y ago

I'll categorize this as 'Unverified'

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hexomancer 2y ago

This is not "leaked", this is on official stanford youtube channel.

ipsum2 2y ago
It's sort of leaked? It was on the official youtube channel but got pulled a few hours after some backlash. "Video of Schmidt’s talk was posted on YouTube this week by Stanford Online, a division of the university that offers online courses. The video, which had more than 40,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon, has since been set to private. Schmidt said he asked for the video to be taken down. He declined to comment further. Stanford didn’t respond to a request for comment about the video." https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-work-stanford-f92f4ca5 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-eric-schmidt-ai-remote-wo...
websap 2y ago
They have deleted it. It is available here - https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 One can use yt-dlp to download the video. Not sure what's going on here, but as usual I'd recommend using a VPN.
- 55555 2y ago
  Anyone have the video? I'd rather watch.
  - ramon156 2y ago
    https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY
    - netsharc 2y ago
      Oh, memory-holed (copyright-struck) by Stanford...
  - websap 2y ago
    https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883

deleted 2y ago

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ipsum2 2y ago

The original video has been reuploaded here: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883. Watch and download it while you can. Stanford is actively trying to take down copies (see example takedown here: https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY https://youtu.be/UUuNnmIIcbY)

aksophist 2y ago

I read up to where he started taking questions (less than half the transcript or so?) and these were the interesting quotes that stood out to me: So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want and you don't have to pay all that money to and there's infinite supply of these programs. That's all within the next year or two. … Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. … But certainly in your lifetimes, the battle between the US and China for knowledge supremacy is going to be the big fight. … And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems. And so you're better off as a strategy of national defense to have a very strong offense that you can use if you need to. And the systems that I and others are building will do that. Because of the way the system works, I am now a licensed arms dealer, a computer scientist, businessman, and an arms dealer. Is that a progression? I don't know. I do not recommend this in your group. … And if anyone knows Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would encourage you to delete her from your contact list because she's the one, a single individual is blocking the provision of some number of billions of dollars to save an important democracy.

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thaumasiotes 2y ago
> And one of the things to know about war is that the offense always has the advantage because you can always overwhelm the defensive systems. This is not actually one of the things to know about war. It's about as far from the truth as you can get.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  It's funny how this guy, as most rich business types, thinks he actually knows everything, and he's an expert in all domains. What the hell does he know about war? He's not a general or admiral or something. Of course he imagines being CEO of a large company is the same thing, but it's really not. Something to keep in mind when reading his other pronouncements.

bux93 2y ago

[flagged]

izacus 2y ago
We can use ChatGPT ourselves, you don't have to spam HN with its output. It doesn't bring value.
- jvdvegt 2y ago
  That comment saved me the trouble of switching to chatgpt, and saved a lot of kW due to less AI usage.

hu3 2y ago

You can download the video right now with this command: yt-dlp https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 You can install yt-dlp from GitHub: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#installation https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?tab=readme-ov-file#installa... > According to webarchive, original video was posted on Aug 13 and the talk took place on April 9, 2024.

heybrendan 2y ago
Thanks for this guidance. In times like these, I find sunlight is always the best disinfectant. The yt-dlp application functions better alongside ffmpeg, so I recommend installing that too. If on Linux, whatever is available via one's package manager /should/ do the trick. Note, the project does make mention there are issues [1] with "standard ffmpeg", and is therefore minting custom builds [2][3] of ffmpeg, with additional patches applied. [1] https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#dependencies [2] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-b... [3] https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied
philmo1 2y ago
there you go: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1823932065479581698/vid/avc1/1280x720/MLAGCJ6mtBnj57L_.mp4 https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1823932065479581698/vi...
wanderingmind 2y ago
If you just want to download in your phone use the seal app from F-droid which is a yt-dlp wrapper. [1] https://f-droid.org/packages/com.junkfood.seal/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.junkfood.seal/

Ozzie_osman 2y ago

His explanation for Google losing to OpenAI on GenAI: "Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning." What a tremendous lack of self-awareness. Let's put aside all the leadership issues, all the politics, all the complacency, all the bureaucracy, and blame people for working from home. (Not saying there aren't folks at Google who are just cruising, etc... but that's a fraction of the problem compared to the leadership issues)

mathieuh 2y ago
Sometimes these CEOs and "leaders" make mask-off comments and it just demonstrates the gulf between how they and normal people think. It can be quite frightening sometimes to imagine that these kinds of people are the people who wield power in our world, these people who share such little in common with you
lawgimenez 2y ago
Was he the one who’s having an affair with his business partner or something? And with a bunch of legal troubles.
- yellow_lead 2y ago
  > While Mr. Schmidt was chief executive of Google, he had an extramarital relationship with Marcy Simon, a public relations executive. A decade after they split, things are still messy. John Carreyrou sifted through hundreds of pages of court filings for this article [1]. Yep, he is a great leader! :) /s [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/technology/eric-schmidt-affair.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/technology/eric-schmidt-a...
  - eddiewithzato 2y ago
    he spent so much time at work they became family!
  - dimator 2y ago
    what a shallow ad-hominem. during his tenure he was extremely well liked and growth was booming. why would his spousal relationships make him a bad leader? do you look to your managers for moral leadership?

moberger 2y ago

Are there additional videos of guest lecturers available for that Stanford course? I was unable to find any.

bagels 2y ago

Why did he think it was okay to say this to Stanford people, but then decided nobody else should hear it?

notinmykernel 2y ago
Because he's fundraising for his attack drone military startup[1] called White Stork? [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-schmidts-secret-white-stork-project-aims-to-build-ai-combat-drones/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-sc...
usr1106 2y ago
Why did he not understand that everything that is recorded will leak anyway? Or he did understand that things get much more attention if they are supposed to be secret and then leaked.
seydor 2y ago
It was stanford; not him. Tbf i ve heard him say audacious things since he left google
deleted 2y ago
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monkeydust 2y ago

I think taking down the video has led to more interest in it than if it just stayed up.

ProofHouse 2y ago
Streisand Effect

lifeisstillgood 2y ago

I would love to understand where the war-like anti-Chinese sentiment is coming from in US elite circles. I get that china is a direct economic threat. That’s obvious. I also get that china is a philosophical threat on a level different to the Soviet Union (that was freedom produces more wealth than totalitarianism - which the US won.). The problem with China is that the argument is much harder to win - china is doing well economically (kinda) - and has not given up its totalitarian control. Their argument was the Soviet Union tried central command economics whereas we are something something power of markets and chinese culture. What gets me is that this is not something to win on the battlefield - this is something where we (being liberal democracies) need to double down on liberal democracy- both the production of wealth and the use of that wealth to raise the living standards of all its citizens - in other words if we think freedom is better we make it so fucking obvious we live in utopia it’s painful. Yea that’s wealth taxes, yes it’s more spending on infrastructure and education and sharing the wealth, and teaching ourselves to aspire to better. Not (just) having bigger guns.

klyrs 2y ago
We'll settle for having more guns per capita
wesselbindt 2y ago
We didn't win the ideological battle against communism through liberal democratic means. That's a common misconception. The war against communism was fought and won with violence. Sometimes this violence was meted out directly by the US (in the case of Vietnam (about 0.5 million civilian casualties), North Korea (1 million), Cambodia (150k)), and in a lot of cases by local militias armed and trained by the US (Indonesia 0.5M dead, the Chile coup leading to Pinochet being in power). The forceful intervention of the US in foreign countries whenever they tried to be even slightly leftist is well documented. Heck, we even armed and trained Bin Laden in the fight against communism! Maybe within the US itself it was fought with liberal democratic means (although, McCarthyism is a thing), most of the world by population had to be convinced violently. That isn't to say that all communists were all nice and peaceful like the ones in Chile and Indonesia; Pol Pot and Stalin need no introduction. But to say we won the war with words and ideas dismisses the suffering and pain of millions as non-existent. And no matter where you stand on the debate, that's a bit disrespectful.

yingnansong 2y ago

A transcript can be found here: https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford_ECON295%E2%A7%B8CS323_I_2024_I_The_Age_of_AI%2C_Eric_Schmidt.txt https://github.com/ociubotaru/transcripts/blob/main/Stanford...

Gigachad 2y ago

In the talk, Eric suggests that very soon you could use AI to automatically generate TikTok clones and publish them repeatedly to the App Store until one of them takes off. Even if we assume this is possible soon, is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it. In what scenario does an app that was generated automatically in seconds result in you becoming the next mega tech company raking in huge profits.

typewithrhythm 2y ago
Anything dependent on "user generated content" has a capture factor. It doesn't matter if all the apps are slop, people will follow established creators, and new creators will follow an established audience. I suspect the clones of something existing have no real chance of success without some sort of external marketing hook; better revenue sharing or similar. The rest will be ignored like every other current low effort app.
te_chris 2y ago
The world of AI cloud orchestration etc running behind the "siri, make me a tiktok" is going to be hilarious. A beautiful new dawn for black hats.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
> is there any way that this doesn’t result in the App Store immediately devolving in to auto generated slop and all users leaving the platform or just ignoring it. I'd argue it's already devolved into human generated slop which provides no functionality without taking on a $10+ month subscription and people already are ignoring it. Try it yourself, think of something a small app would be good for that task and try to find an app that you're satisfied with and is worth the money it's asking you to use it. You wont be able to.

doomlaser 2y ago

It's not leaked. It was posted publicly to YouTube, which is where I watched it. It was the first or second video in my recommended feed. I even left a comment, "Thank you, Stanford, for uploading this talk for us." which Stanford put a heart on, pinning it to the top of the YouTube comments: https://i.imgur.com/LSi6mqN.png https://i.imgur.com/LSi6mqN.png It was a good talk on a technical level. My guess is he ran into trouble when he briefly criticized modern Google's corporate culture when it comes to work-from-home?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mesebrec 2y ago
The video is currently private: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA
ycombinatrix 2y ago
Thank you, doomlaser, for uploading this screenshot for us.

max_ 2y ago

Short: How he got into the Arms trade (https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1823920847910002913?t=Ol1EfTJ3rPX6TmMSem44Xw&s=19 https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1823920847910002913?t=Ol1EfTJ3...) Full interview: https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883?t=Y6SiFSxf8zGdMuqfWrzsRA&s=19 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883?t=Y6SiFSxf8z...

ah27182 2y ago

What an incredible mask-off moment. The war mongering coming from this man is insane, I still don’t get why these people even bother to say they “care about democracy” when it’s clearly a lie. He says China is “lost” or whatever, simply because the West has been unable to control the country in the same way they have done with Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc. I hate these people that justify barbarism and imperialism as a means to a “greater good.” It has “white man’s burden” written all over it.

seydor 2y ago
That's a moral argument. In the west we believe liberal values are the best , and we want them around the world. As such, authoritarianism is a priori an enemy
- skrebbel 2y ago
  There's exactly one country (Japan) where establishing a liberal democracy at gunpoint worked out. The US then tried to do the same in like a quarter of the world and kept failing. At some point some people up there ought to get the message right? I don't know how else to do it but war simply isn't it.
  - seydor 2y ago
    being "an enemy" doesn't imply that we attack them
    - skrebbel 2y ago
      You called China an enemy in response to Schmidt being called a war mongerer. I read that as a defense of Schmidt stance and implicit support for war with China. If I got that wrong then I agree my comment is out of context.
- ah27182 2y ago
  So destabilizing and destroying a country for the sake of establishing liberal values is a morally righteous decision?

n0n0n4t0r 2y ago

As a worker from home guy (I am fully remote), I feel offended by this over-simplifying statement: I'm one of the top contributor in the company I work for (it was officially acknowledged). Also, as a solo parent, work life balance is uppermost important to me. What he miss out is that by restricting the bucket of employees/human you consider, you get ride of top talents that aren't to your norms.

musha68k 2y ago
He apparently has taken back his comments there in the meantime; at least partially: > A Schmidt spokesperson wrote in an email to Business Insider: "Eric misspoke about Google and their work hours and regrets his error." https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-criticism-remote-work-google-openai-2024-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-crit...
- StrLght 2y ago
  Sounds more like: "Sorry it became public"
metadat 2y ago
I am similar, having built and run many high-performance, remote-friendly teams, several of which have built hundreds of millions+ in value, maybe a few billion because it continues to compound over time. Schmidt is entitled to his opinion, though it's been a long time since he's been personally involved in personally getting things done. He's also been hanging out with his friend Elon and absorbing that narrative into his brain. Also, it's difficult to comment what WFH looks like "on average". In my career I've learned the brutal reality of what "average" really means and looks like. Spoiler alert: Average human behavior is often surprisingly lr even shockingly lower than I anticipated. Yet, Google, and the Bay Area and other tech hubs are full of at least slightly to moderately above average people, due to the natural competition to even survive and be successful in these areas. TL;DR: Don't take it personally, there are exceptions to every rule. Cheers and keep doing your thing.
- deleted 2y ago

lz400 2y ago

I am surprised at how out of touch Schmidt is that he said all these things about WFH, AI and other topics so plainly and thought he wouldn't get massive blowback. I think he ruined his reputation with many people with this, and his reputation was very decent. He realized this of course, and that's why he's trying to remove the talk from YouTube, apologized officially, etc. Obviously this is how he thinks, it was transparent and no amount of apologizing can fix that, but usually people like him are extremely good at concealing what they think. He seems to have believed that his position was not controversial, which smells of too much time in board rooms and country clubs.

thrance 2y ago

> If TikTok is banned, here's what I propose each and every one of you do. Say to your LLM the following. Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it and in one hour, if it's not viral, do something different along the same lines. That's the command. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Pure insanity. This sounds like a joke. The more I hear those people's thoughts, the more I think they deserve none of the power and wealth they have. They contribute nothing of value to society.

seydor 2y ago
Yet this guy is drafting AI legislation and selling arms (presumably to ukraine). That doesn't mean his public speaking must be true however; he may be exagerrating things (because i doubt he doesn't know)
- jiwidi 2y ago
  he clearly has no idea of what he is saying or has total idea and purposedly lying to his own benefit (my take)
skrebbel 2y ago
Did Eric Schmidt go nuts with age, or was he always this insane?
- AlanYx 2y ago
  Throughout the whole talk he's using an alternatively flippant/hyperbolic speaking style that probably has been effective for him in the past when addressing high-level non-technical policymakers. He speaks to their policy/strategic insecurities about technological change and conveys a sense of inflated urgency. It probably wasn't the right tone for this audience though. But it's a style of rhetoric that's probably intentional.
mrkramer 2y ago
I think Eric started drinking Kool-Aid....he maybe has a point but the way he expresses his thoughts is a little bit disturbing.

qwertox 2y ago

Reminds me of this tweet [0]: If 1 million tokens is a lot, how about 2 million? Today we’re expanding the context window for Gemini 1.5 Pro to 2 million tokens and making it available for developers in private preview. It’s the next step towards the ultimate goal of infinite context. #GoogleIO In theory, if you have an infinite context, you could build an AI assistant which accompanies you throughout your whole life and would have all the info on what you've done at your disposal for immediate query or discussion. Also, in theory, if you'd then die, the world would have a digital replica of you up to the point of your death. [0] https://x.com/Google/status/1790430189916225799 https://x.com/Google/status/1790430189916225799

quonn 2y ago
A replica of what? Of your words? Your thoughts? How would it access those thoughts? What about your feelings? What about the things that actually go on in your physical body outside the brain?
- qwertox 2y ago
  If it hears what you hear, hears what you say, reads what you write, sees what you see, notes what you do, it will end up knowing more about you than you yourself. The way you can interact with it will be the same way others can interact with it. Also, sensors like HRMs or activity monitors could give it insights into your emotional state. It could replicate your reactions.
- nilirl 2y ago
  Encoding the human experience will probably get much better over time. They're already experimenting with audio and video interfaces. I saw some other products that combine fitbit like sensors with an LLM. I don't know what the results of combining all that data with an LLM will look like, but I think recording our experience to be used by an AI will only get better.

steve1977 2y ago

I think a core problem with executives talking about success (or lack thereof) is that they tend to attribute their success purely to their skills or something they did, whereas in reality there is usually a good amount of luck and just "being at the right place at the right time". Which is also why these people often cannot replicate their previous successes.

seydor 2y ago

You can watch it on twitter here https://twitter.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://twitter.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883

ionwake 2y ago

>So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want I was perturbed by the way some google programmers behaved during and after I had an issue, and so feel confident saying that yes, they are probably mostly arrogant as hell in google. However, Im annoyed at this statement. Not all programmers are, you just mostly hired arrogant ones. >does what you want. Again, if you can't convey the specs correctly - that is also a you issue. I don't know guys, this sentence from the transcript just didn't sit well with me. If I heard someone say this I would immediately think, this guy surrounded himself with terrible people willingly.

surfingdino 2y ago

Fighting WFH is old. It's a change like any other and a lot of companies have adapted already. The only problem I see with it is that it was not proposed and promoted by Harvard Business Review and therefore all old guys moan about it.

mrkramer 2y ago

It's not leaked because the video was on the official Stanford's YouTube channel for like one and a half day. I was surprised he was so aggressive towards Google, taking in consideration he was long time CEO there and he earned billions from Google. My opinion is that he is a smart business manager but he knows very little of the actual software development judging from his bizarre comments on Google's AI.

kkfx 2y ago

Alphabet losses (not just in ML) are due to the switch from a tech-oriented to a financial oriented enterprise, for a certain, not long, amount of time, the switch makes money, than the fall. We do not live on finance, we live on Earth, we can play others and for a bit it will work, but it can't work in the long term. Google success was technical, lost them there is little interest left.

mikewarot 2y ago

>So imagine a non-arrogant programmer that actually does what you want Human programmers try really hard to give you what you actually need, and not what you want. Most problems are posed to programmers in such a way that they would result in totally unacceptable results if delivered to those specifications. Think any story involving a Genie and 3 wishes. It's amazing to me that someone who employed so many programmers just doesn't get it. To quote the philosopher Jägger: You can't always get what you want But, if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need.

DragonStrength 2y ago

Maybe if the people running these companies didn't seem to hate their own employees so much they'd get more out of them. Schmidt is the same one who was campaigning for more tech visas as layoffs were cranking up in 2022 because he thought the Democrats would lost the Senate in midterms (they didn't). Another example of employees watching their bosses treat them like dirt: firing them while actively trying to drive their wages down with cheaper talent.

blibble 2y ago

after reading that speech I'm convinced that Google could have picked a random guy off the street in 2001 would have had equal if not better success than it had with Schmidt right place, right time

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Why do we need this when the video is available? Correction: was available (saw this a few days ago, what happened?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDM8io4lUA https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245150) Edit 2: ah, see elsewhere in here notes about video being removed etc

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: Former Google CEO blames remote work for company's struggles https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241682

khimaros 2y ago

are there any archives of the video?

metadat 2y ago

Here is a gist with a mobile-friendly copy of the transcript: https://gist.github.com/sleaze/bf74291b4072abadb0b4109da3da21ac https://gist.github.com/sleaze/bf74291b4072abadb0b4109da3da2...

Elmerm 2y ago

For those interested in the full video and not just the transcript, you can find it on X at the link below. https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883 https://x.com/quasa0/status/1823933017217482883

rldjbpin 2y ago

interesting to read the reactions here regarding wfh even though it was less than a minute of the whole conversation. all i would say about that is this: it appears that we haven't found a way that has made "better" working conditions (and remote work) bring out the best results at a macro scale. there is an element of truth to what he said and as companies grow very big, they will always face stuff like this. in tech, anyways, we want to have the cake and eat it too. now that i have lost 95% of the ones who bothered reading this, i would take bigger offense to his perspective on the ai space. he appears to have drunk the koolaid as well and it is very interesting to see that a lot of future use cases are still around llm and not other equally-impactful works. especially when he mentioned using AI in defense applications. having a good offensive system as a way to defend oneself seems like the same dangerous slippery slope that brought the atomic bomb. while not giving specific examples, he used the tech used in current war in east europe as a point to support this. an actual example used there are drones that self-identify and explode targets from the defender's side (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36875446). no matter what you feel about either parties, this is just a few steps away from a black mirror episode. plus the major military powers want to advance on this before the others and this arms race is what worries me more than "muh productivity". the fact that most of the discourse, whether in the lecture hall or in the comments here, seems to not bat an eye around this subject makes me anxious about the public attitude towards this.

tndibona 2y ago

My issue here is not so much with his brazen designs for world, rather it is the people sitting that actually clap, cheer, and laugh.