Schmidt personally seems to have political-power aspirations and has been practically transparent about using the chairmanship of Google to that end for himself

Schmidt personally seems to have political-power aspirations and has been practically transparent about using the chairmanship of Google to that end for himself and as a proxy for the company. The motivation for all this freelance diplomacy doesn't even need to be for specific favors - it can be to raise his and Google's stature with the world's political power machinery. Consider that, while it doesn't make it any less troubling, they might even have good intentions in what they're doing. I'm not trying to be an apologist for it, just thinking about what would motivate a company like Google -or rather, people at the top- to do stuff like this.