My guess is this is aimed at stopping Google from hemorrhaging engineers in Facebook's general direction. "Look, we've got a programmer in charge again!"
Eric Schmidt is a programmer. He was one of the authors of lex.
Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
121–130 of 160 posts
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#122Me thinks Eric Schmidt will replace Steve Jobs (for now) to restore confidence in Apple when Steve steps down.
He's an interesting dark horse candidate, but I don't think they'd pick an outside candidate. Apple's like FC Barcelona--they're so successful doing it their way that it's better to promote from within than to teach an outsider how to do it their way.
Love the comparison to FC Barcelona!
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#123Eric is joining Apple when Steve leaves.
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#124No mention if he keeps his role of Chief Dismisser of Privacy Concerns
This meme is based on a few isolated and misinterpreted quotations. Let's take an earnings call, where we would expect him to be showing his true colors as someone who purportedly doesn't care about privacy: Q: How does Google think generally about leveraging user data, both to better target ads and how to stay competitive with those like Facebook and Microsoft and Yahoo that are leveraging data possibly more so than…
"... And we probably, in many cases, won't do it forever."
You will have to excuse me for not being terribly excited about the words "probably" and "in many cases".
He sounds to me like someone who is saying exactly what he thinks people want him to say, and then throwing in a couple of qualifiers that pretty much leave the company open to doing whatever they decide to do in the future. If someone calls Him on it, well he did say "probably", and "in many cases"
Now I don't know Eric Schmidt from Adam, but I did watch the interview where he said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." (yes, I listened to it in context, the quote is not the only part I heard). While that quote perhaps does not mean all that people have made it out to mean, I still find it deeply disturbing -- especially coming from the (now "former") CEO of a company which is in such a great position to abuse their collected information if they decide to.
Yes, perhaps Schmidt was only trying to cover the company's collective rear end for when federal laws require them to disclose information, but if so, He has done an extremely poor job of convincing me (and obviously many others in the world) that such was his intention.
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#125I bet this means Eric is on his way out. He'll stay on for a year or so, so as not to rattle investors, and then he'll leave the company.
I doubt it, he's too young to be doing nothing. He'll come to his senses and stay on!
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
What decisions made by Eric Schmidt would you consider "bad"?
Leading a decade of mediocre home-grown products (save for Gmail)? EDIT: Name one hit Google product Schmidt oversaw (again, save for Gmail) that wasn't an acquisition. This is supposed to be a company of innovation. EDIT 2: I regret the use of mediocre. I'm sure the technology, like everything that comes out of Google, was top notch. Certain products though, like Buzz, Wave, and TV, and the bizarrely bifurcated-from…
It would have been very easy for Google to cave to criticism about Chrome OS and Android. Instead, they're letting things play out. Having used both, I think it's going to turn out to be a pretty smart bet. At the very least, you have to applaud that they're willing to take risks like this.
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#127From a programmer nerd, Schmidt has the most enviable resume.
The entrepreneurs admire Jobs and Gates, but Schmidt worked his way through Bell labs, PARC, managed the release of Java, was CTO of Sun, CEO of Novell, and brought google from a well executed grad school project to dominate the internet. He turned down a job with the Obama administration to be the governments CTO.
He also did all that as an academic, after getting a Ph.D. from Berkeley.
He has gotten some bad press doing PR for google recently, but the man has been kicking ass in enviable positions since I was a toddler.
After all that, yeah, good on him. Take some time off.
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who knows where they might have been, it could even have been better.
They probably would have never made a dollar, but it would have been awesome (btw, Larry and Sergey bought Android without telling Eric, to give you an idea of what could have been)
That's pretty interesting. Do you have a cite? Android (the company) was essentially designed as something to sell to Google. I wonder if the guys at Android bypassed Schmidt because they knew he'd be a tougher sell.
Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#129Larry becoming CEO sounds like the same path that Bill Gates had. Found a company and become it's CEO. When it's time for the company to "grow up", bring in a well respected CEO who can structure the company for growth and stability while teaching the young founder. When the founder has learned the ropes he takes over again as CEO.
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Re: Eric Schmidt: On April 4th I Will Step Down, Larry Page to be CEO
#130Most underrated executive of all time? Google's been incredible under his tenure, blown away the wildest projects, and yet Schmidt's press has been kind of neutral to bad... actually, that doubly sucks because it seems like people get upset when he says true-but-uncomfortable things instead of just giving politically correct non-answers.
I think as time passes, his reputation's going to grow even more... that was one of the greatest decades of any company ever.