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Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

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Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#31

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

Eric has a penchant for saying things he thinks before thinking about how they might be heard. He famously said, "There is no privacy, get over it. If you're not doing anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about."

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#33

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/billionaires-and-the-evolution...

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#35

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

I took this more as Schmidt being disappointed in what Google has become. He really did build Google, its completely valid for him to be mad about the state of the company culture wise.

But he also was the "adult in the room" that basically destroyed whatever moral core Google had as a startup.

It might have the been the correct move from a business standpoint and there was no way they'd keep "don't be evil" as a compass, but Eric Schmidt was there to push it all over the edge. The company's current PR issues[0] is perfectly seeded in his contribution to the company.

[0] PS: not counting the company potentially broken up a few years down the line.

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#36

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

> I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer.

Correction: this statement was made by the interviewer, Erik Brynjolfsson, and not Schmidt.

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#37
What is Google supposed to win at? Being the most popular search engine? Being the highest grossing ad agency? Having the highest average salaries? Selling the most used cars? Curing cancer? Owning more generators than anyone else? Contributing money to youth groups? How do we judge whether Google is winning?

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#38

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

I took this more as Schmidt being disappointed in what Google has become. He really did build Google, its completely valid for him to be mad about the state of the company culture wise.

Or maybe mad that he wasted his life having no work-life balance and then realizing that lots of companies with work-life balance are productive and profitable.

I’m ordering something from Europe where the factory is shut down for the entire month of August. I just have to wait an extra month for that item. The company still gets my money because I need the item.

I also use a piece of software written by a European company. I will get no releases/patches this month. But that software company still got my money. I need/want the software.

I wonder how many hustle culture US tech founders find out that a lot of Europeans just don’t work at all for a whole month and finally start questioning some of this bullshit.

Clearly, not enough have come to their senses.

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#39
post #24

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

Lots of great startups have remote teams so this argument by Schmidt is pretty weak. Google is hybrid, not even remote. Also, I don't think that well motivated and engineers work or produce less while WFH. It could be the opposite. Less interruptions are key, as explained in Peopleware . But bad managers love controlling people in open plan offices. Regardless, I found it surprising Schmidt didn't talk about other st…

>>I don't think that well motivated and engineers work or produce less while WFH.

Thats the whole problem isn't it. Years back I was involved in a project(not WFH), like everyone worked at office. But the manager/lead was sort of a totally disengaged person. He would sit in a conf room all day. And come up with some weird things about freedom to work the way people liked.

There was no ticketing system, the code repo had no real commit and PR rules, no stand ups, no bug tracking, no feature backlog, nobody measuring how the project was going, and if it was even making progress. Only real visible thing about progress was a odd demo every now and then. To make things worse, there were two senior engineers who seem to make their own power structures and bully people into doing whatever they wanted. The project folded quickly enough of course.

Sure if every one was motivated and organised enough, things could have been better. But most people are not. And if people aren't engaged enough they just do whatever they want, or even worse do nothing.

If you are keeping lights on in a project, and have lots of old employees things do work fine with remote work. I think building things quickly, especially big things quickly, does require close 1-1 collaboration, and engagement. I don't think its too much to ask. Sometimes thats just how things work.

Re: Eric Schmidt deleted Stanford interview

#40

> Brynjolfsson: ”I asked Sundar [about Google losing the initiative]. He didn't really give me a very sharp answer. > Schmidt: Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. The reason startups work is because the people work like hell. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if you go found a company and compete against the other star…

> you're not going to let people work from home and only come in one day a week Huh, I guess I dreamed the first start-up I worked for (a couple of decades ago) where indeed I only came in one day a week. Yes of course you "work like hell". We had a nasty leak bug and I set things up so that day or night if the leak was detected my stereo would go maximum volume and play "Straight Outta Compton". How does commuting c…

People who sit in their cars an hour every morning, stressed by traffic and pollution before they even set foot in the office, who then attend back-to-back meaningless meetings and email and slack, and then get back in the goddamn car again for another hour if they're lucky, think everyone who doesn't perform this unhealthy and destructive ritual is a slacker.
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