It’s widely known that Google was caught off guard by the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. The company went into high alert mode after OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, and deployed multiple teams to formulate a response. Google CEO Sundar Pichai himself acknowledged this back in April at a conference at Stanford University.
Also speaking at a Stanford conference, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently offered his perspective on why the company, which was under his leadership for more than a decade, lagged behind in the AI race. He also criticized the company’s approach to remote work, stating, “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.”
The Advantage of Being a Startup, According to Schmidt
According to Schmidt, startups have an important advantage over established giants like Google. “And the reason startups work is because the people work like hell,” he added. The students present weren’t the only ones who heard these statements. The university captured them in a video and shared it on its YouTube channel.
Eric Schmidt when he was the CEO of Google.
Approximately 48 hours after the executive’s comments began circulating in various media outlets, Schmidt apologized. “I misspoke about Google and their work hours,” Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal. “I regret my error,” he added. He also requested the university to remove the video, which is now listed as “private” on the platform.
Google has historically been very flexible with work dynamics, but after the pandemic, it launched a campaign to encourage many of its employees to return to the office for at least a few days a week, although its exact scope remains unclear. The company initially tried to incentivize its staff to use its modern offices but ultimately ended up penalizing individual performance appraisals.
This article was written by Javier Márquez and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | Village Global | TechCrunch| Alex Dudar
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