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Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

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Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#2

Post by azhenley »

"After over 18 years on the Board, Eric Schmidt is not seeking re-election at the expiration of his current term on June 19, 2019. He will continue as a technical advisor to Alphabet. Eric has served as a member of the Board since March 2001. He was Google’s Chief Executive Officer from July 2001 to April 2011, and its Executive Chairman from April 2011 until January 2018."

From the press release: https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#4

Post by ergothus »

tschwimmer wrote: post #3

Dropping the Pilot? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot

I'm not well-enough versed in history to follow the analogy. Are you saying Schmidt is being asked to leave because of internal differences? Did Bismarck leaving have good/bad implications after the fact that you are alluding to here?

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#5

Post by anyfoo »

This is of course extremely subjective, and I have no knowledge of what Google was and is on the inside except for a short internship almost 10 years ago: I somehow always felt that Google with Eric Schmidt as a CEO was a much different Google than later on. Under Eric Schmidt, Google seemed like this extremely innovative company with the brightest minds in the industry. Afterwards, it seemed to instead grow into just another corporation.

Though maybe that's just what growth does in general.

EDIT: I singled out Larry Page before, but that's a bit skewed, given that he founded Google and was its CEO for the first few years.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#6

Post by groby_b »

ergothus wrote: post #4
tschwimmer wrote: post #3

Dropping the Pilot? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot

I'm not well-enough versed in history to follow the analogy. Are you saying Schmidt is being asked to leave because of internal differences? Did Bismarck leaving have good/bad implications after the fact that you are alluding to here?

Oh, Bismarck leaving only led to WWI, no big issues otherwise ;)

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#7

Post by zavi »

anyfoo wrote: post #5

This is of course extremely subjective, and I have no knowledge of what Google was and is on the inside except for a short internship almost 10 years ago: I somehow always felt that Google with Eric Schmidt as a CEO was a much different Google than later on. Under Eric Schmidt, Google seemed like this extremely innovative company with the brightest minds in the industry. Afterwards, it seemed to instead grow into jus…

Larry hasn't been the Google CEO for some time now. I do think the company got caught up in incremental goals and internal PC struggles during Sundar's time, making it feel like yet another large company rather than a powerful disruptor it used to be.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#9

Post by dekhn »

anyfoo wrote: post #5

This is of course extremely subjective, and I have no knowledge of what Google was and is on the inside except for a short internship almost 10 years ago: I somehow always felt that Google with Eric Schmidt as a CEO was a much different Google than later on. Under Eric Schmidt, Google seemed like this extremely innovative company with the brightest minds in the industry. Afterwards, it seemed to instead grow into jus…

The other big thing was Larry pushed social on the company without really understanding social as a product, and was absolutely unable to handle the huge negative response both internally and externally to that push. This all happened at the same time Microsoft and Amazon committed to Cloud (which Google has only tepidly adopted).

The one time I met with Schmidt to explain my cloud project, he was delighted and encouraging and helped shape the design in a way that made it much more effective. He was a very effective leader (although not everybody agrees- some people think he's an arrogant asshole).

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