
Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors - azhenley
https://twitter.com/ericschmidt/status/1123324575436214272
======
basetop
Eric Schmidt was the anti-privacy leader who dismissed privacy concerns.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't
be doing it in the first place."

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-
schmid...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-
dismisses-privacy)

Keep in mind this is the same guy who blackballed CNET reporters for finding
personal information on him through google search.

[https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/](https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/)

The guy represents every wrong with tech. Privacy for him, but none for thee.
And that's not even including on his shady ties to government.

~~~
throwaway6497
I will always remember him as the guy who would willingly collude with other
mentees of Bill Campbell to not hire engineers from each others companies.
Willingly trying to keep the salaries of engineers low is pure evil. They even
tried to rope-in Zuckerberg into this gentleman's agreement. Zuck asked them
to buzz off. When Eric is involved in shady practices like these, how do all
other leaders on twitterverse who are singing his praises justify their
pandering. I wonder if Eric would have survived now as a Google CEO. Half the
company would walk out today, if they came to know Sundar is in bed with his
other CEO buddies and has agreements not to poach employees from each other's
companies.

~~~
ok-repl
Those poor underpaid Googlers

~~~
nnq
...higher salaries in one place tend to pull up salaries elsewhere too. And
conversely, if you push down the top, you also push down the middle (under the
optimistic assumption that the bottom can't go any further down...).

Also, it's easy for other industries to then justify with: "hey, even Google
is doing it, and they were they guys supposed to 'do not evil', amirite?".

That's the problem with unethical behavior, we're all into copying and
generalizing stuff :|

~~~
kevstev
Indeed- I thank the FANGs everyday for pulling up my salary. In 2013 I was
making about 1/3 what I am now in the financial industry in NYC doing algo
trading/HFT. I was reluctant, but after years of seeming to miss out on the
big money that everyone talked about finance people making, I finally just
decided to look outside the industry. I got a remote job with a company in the
valley, and got a 60% increase in comp, that after 3 years grew to just a hair
shy of 100%. I was pretty much the first defector to leave finance for tech in
my circles, but more followed. I jumped around one more time, with a financial
company who truly pays top tier salaries (to match tech companies), and am now
making a full 3x what I was just a bit over 5.5 years ago, with a much better
work life balance and general work environment.

I can't imagine this would have happened without Goog/FB/Apple/Netfix, etc.
Every day I reap the benefits of their competition for talent without having
worked at any of them.

------
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.

~~~
dekhn
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).

~~~
paganel
I think Page had the right idea, because if you look nowadays at people under
30 for them the Internet is represented by social networks, be it Facebook,
Instagram, WhatsApp or even Snapchat, the internet/web represented by the
browser and by visiting different websites via Google is no longer that
important. I think Page realized that if Google doesn't hop on the social
train they'll end up looking from the outside at a flowering walled garden in
which they will have almost no relevance.

I think they had a similar idea after Apple's iPhone started gaining traction,
it's only that in the case of Android Google's execution was an order of
magnitude better compared to what they did with Google+. I wouldn't put the
blame for the failure of Google+ on Page only, I'd also assign it to Gundotra,
after all he was the man directly in charge of it all, Page's fault is that he
chose and supported the wrong man for the job.

~~~
dekhn
None of G+ was Page's idea. There was a product manager (who left for
facebook!) who did the big pitch deck that got it rolling. Then they put Vic
Gundotra in charge and gave him carte blanche to modify multiple products. I
agree that was the wrong person for the job. But you can't even imagine the
amount of groupthink and ego that Vic surrounded himself with.

I don't think it was super-obvious 10 years ago, but social has turned out to
be a growth product that led to a minefield for the successful companies (look
at Twitter and Facebook now) because the growth strategies were so sketchy
that people and the government ultimately had to reject them.

Ultimately, it's on Page, though. He stood up at TGIF and told all the player
to "get along" when Search had made a coherent argument that coupling the
Social brand with search was brand suicide. I think Google could have made a
much less obnoxious social network, maybe it would have been good, but without
aggressive growth strategies, it wouldn't have been popular (a lot changed
since the Orkut days, most people forget Google had a social network with half
a billion users at one point!)

~~~
pmart123
That’s interesting. I think Google would have been better aiming for something
closer to Twitter instead of trying to copy and mimic Facebook with Google+.
Google’s core strength has been organizing information as a data first company
versus facilating social connections.

~~~
dekhn
The original pitch deck for G+ ([https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-
presentation-that-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-presentation-
that-inspired-google-2011-7)) really laid out a compelling view for a social
network that worked well for people who had multiple distinct subnetworks ad
they didn't want to cross the streams. Personally I thought the presentation
was brilliant and I was behind the general strategy until Vic took over and
started to wield the plus-hammer.

~~~
geuszb
That strategy is dumb because in practice people don't mind or prefer using
distinct apps for each of their subnetworks; and when these networks start
overlapping in the same app, they start posting less (Facebook's problem),
creating multiple accounts ("finstas" on Instagram), or bifurcating their real
friends to another app (Snapchat 3 years ago).

Hell the fact that Snapchat succeeded in growing a credible threat to Facebook
with a fraction of the engineering and marketing resources as Google+ should
tell you how wrong that strategy was...

Each of the networks grew initially by providing an insanely better experience
specific to a subnetwork (FB for alumni networks, Insta for narcissistic hobby
photographers with its filters, Snapchat for horny teens who want to send nude
pics, or who want to be goofy with its funny face filters...)

There were a few niches where Google+ unintentionally ended up being
successful, such as internal to enterprise, and for pro photographers who
liked that pictures had an option to be hosted uncompressed. But the vision
overall had poor market fit and would never have latched on to a dense enough
subnetwork to succeed IMO.

------
FartyMcFarter
Good riddance. Among other problems, Schmidt was one of the organizers of the
"no poaching" scandals:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal_non-
recruiting_agreements)

He also wrote this, to make it clear that he knew he was doing wrong: [let's
share this with competitors] "verbally, since I don't want to create a paper
trail over which we can be sued later?"

~~~
otakucode
"No poaching" is underselling it. It was wage fixing plain and simple.

He was also the one who, with a straight face, said "if you don't have
anything to hide, you don't have anything to fear" in response to widespread
surveillance. Of course, he would not then open himself up to any scrutiny.

~~~
sjg007
I am surprised that the Feds didn't go after them or take an interest.

~~~
otakucode
They did. And they were found guilty. This was widely reported years ago.

------
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/](https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/)

------
shmerl
I'll remember Eric Schmidt for sabotaging XMPP progress by saying something
along the lines of "no one wants to support IM federation, so we should follow
suit" and killing off Google Talk (which caused me to lose most of my IM
contacts at that time).

~~~
sangnoir
About that - Facebook was leaching off Google's network graph by allowing
cross-platform chats (initiated from Fb), but Google couldn't access Fb users
from GTalk. IMO, it's a perfectly reasonable response in terms of game theory;
the best course of action when the other party defects in a Prisoner's Dilemma
scenario is to also defect.

~~~
shmerl
If FB was a problem, Google could ban FB, and allow federation with those who
federate back. They didn't and instead killed the whole thing.

It was a pretty bad response in the terms of actually fixing the messed up IM
situation. It only made it worse, basically axing XMPP adoption. Game theory
doesn't advise doing that. Compare it to one ally defecting. Others defecting
in response (instead of looking for more allies) means losing the whole
campaign right away, which is exactly what happened.

I don't use XMPP at all today and naturally none of my IM contacts are from
Google or FB. Good thing something like Matrix is gaining traction. But I have
little respect for Google today because of the above.

------
neves
I'm starting to read "When Google Met WikiLeaks" by Assange. In this book
Schmidt is the villain. It will be nice to match Assange's point of view with
all the eulogies that we will read about Schmidt now.

~~~
vl
Schmidt's involvement with US's politics is strange, especially for the
business leader: he met with Assange, he went to North Korea.

There was a hilarious moment at the company meeting when rank-and-file learned
from the news that Eric and Larry met with Trump. Somebody demanded
explanation, as if it is something strange that business leaders meet with the
president. Sundar mumbled something like "yes, I didn't know they are going to
meet, but this was a single meeting and many business leaders attended...".
Eric rushed on stage and said "To clarify: I met with President Trump more
than once, bla bla".

~~~
fareesh
Some of those leaked videos of the Google team discussing politics with their
top management at one of those meetings, are disturbing.

~~~
baby
Link or it doesn't exist

~~~
vl
Ironically, one google search away: there is a surreal leaked video of
company-wide meeting after Trump Election:

[https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-
googl...](https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-
leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/)

Google's response: "Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to
suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate
our products."

Which of course is not true, as was ironically demonstrated on the same
meeting pre-election, when instant answer cards in search results were popping
up for Hilary queries, but not for Trump queries.

------
krm01
Does anyone inside Google care to share how Eric is perceived among fellow
engineers?. From the outside, it seems many of the great innovations came when
he wS CEO and Larry + Sergey were building the company culture.

~~~
dekhn
it's kind of a bimodal distribution. many engineers hated him with a passion
but then they would learn he wrote lex and set up early networks at Berkeley
and kind of come around to the idea that he was a very successful
technobusinessman who confronted Microsoft repeatedly.

~~~
visarga
> he wrote lex

Wow, didn't expect that. I used it back in my uni days for a compiler project.

------
shutton
Really enjoyed listening to this recent interview with Eric Schmidt.

I’d never heard of Bill Campbell before, seems like he was a huge influence
around Silicon Valley.

[https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/](https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/)

~~~
heymijo
For a counterpoint on Campbell as a terrific business coach read "Hatching
Twitter" [1]. He was hired as Ev Williams' coach and the picture the book
paints is bad. Working more for the board of directors instead the person he
was hired to help. Telling Williams he was doing great then reporting to the
board he was doing terrible.

The book is also a great way to understand why Twitter is such a shit show of
an organization. The fundamental mismanagement from day one until now also
shows the power of finding product/market fit. As the saying goes, you can
mess everything else up and still succeed.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-
twitte...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitter)

~~~
streblo
It's really hard to tell what in this book is based in fact. It's almost
entirely based off of hearsay and gossip. There are interviews with people
recalling minute details of conversations they had ~5 years in the past. You
can call bullshit on a lot of it.

~~~
heymijo
Really good point.

My high-level take away though is that it is directionally correct regarding
Twitter and its (mis)management.

------
jaybuff
"\-- Google Inc.'s top three executives agreed in 2004 to work together at the
Internet search and advertising giant for at least 20 years, a company
spokesman confirmed on Wednesday."

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172640635329643.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120172640635329643.html)

------
otakucode
I do hope that his notions about Google's place in society goes with him. The
things he wrote in 'A New Digital Age' were terrifying. Simply because they
made a great amount of money, he viewed Google as the clearest guide for
societies future. He advocated for Google taking an active role in attempting
to shape social thinking. That might sound good to some, but I know too much
history to be willing to support it. The unintended consequences that come
from any attempted society-wide engineering are universally horrific.

------
behnamoh
Somehow it's strange seeing these tech giants being handed over to a new
generation. Microsoft has long been associated with Gates and Balmer, Steve's
DNA still runs in Apple, and Google still reminds me of Schmidt. The newer
generation of executives and board directors in these companies has a very
difficult task to do: stick to the past or redefine the company for the
future.

~~~
jrochkind1
Steve Jobs of course famously left Apple (not on the friendliest of terms),
then returned several years later to "redefine the company for the future"
(very successfully of course). His return marked a major new period for Apple,
with major changes in direction and execution.

------
danity
He's lucky he ruled when he did. Nowadays he'd have been exposed and destroyed
for his sexual harrassment (which is why he stepped down originally) and other
horrible behavior.

------
JetSpiegel
Why is a Google Board Member announcing stuff on Twitter?

Is Google wasting all their resources creating dozens of incompatible chat
apps, but no blogging platform?

~~~
jfoster
Just to clarify, because we all saw the chat thing. They don't need _another_
blogging platform. Just a modern update to Blogger will do.

------
tschwimmer
Dropping the Pilot? [1]

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropping_the_Pilot)

~~~
ergothus
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?

~~~
gen220
Bismarck was a whiz of foreign policy, who had successfully juggled the
alliances surrounding the (relatively nascent by European standards) German
state throughout his time as a diplomat and Chancellor.

His contemporary Hohenzollern monarch (Wilhelm's II predecessor) largely
allowed Bismark to take free reign over diplomacy, recognizing him as a
generational talent.

If Bismarck was an ideological juggler, capable of accepting political loss in
the short-term to catch out his adversaries in the long-term, Wilhelm was a
firebrand, who refused to play games with "the enemy" (especially the
Russians), even if they benefited the long-term survival of his state and
person.

The cartoon shows Bismarck stepping off the ship, leaving Wilhelm to take
over. While this is perhaps an unflattering characterization of Bismarck, it
reflects that, even in 1890, it was known that Wilhelm would not be able to
lead the nation better than this forcibly-retired titan of European diplomacy.

Bismarck _probably_ could have stayed on the ship, because its sailors were
largely aligned with him, but he was getting old (75 when he retired); and he
tired of suffering the youth and ignorance of the not-so-subtle monarch. His
most immediate, and unfortunate legacy was the black hole he left unfilled.

The aftermath was a complete lack of long-term thinking, that led to all the
European countries (even Russia!! who had a hard time getting along with the
UK/France in particular) agreeing to form alliances against Germany. It's
quite reasonable to point to Bismarck's departure as the first big slip down
the slippery slope that led to WWI.

Compare this to Eric Schmidt leaving Google (filled with young Wilhelm IIs?)
how you will.

~~~
nostrademons
Curious who the analogous Wilhelm II is in Google today? Sundar is not one -
Sundar is actually very diplomatic and strategically-minded, which is how he
ended up CEO of Google in the first place (he managed to avoid all the
political struggles common to Google's SVPs at the time, such that he became
the obvious successor when they all left to run VCs / got fired for sexual
harassment / became top brass at Yahoo/Softbank/Twitter). If anything, Larry
was the Wilhelm II who picked fights with a lot of big up-and-comers, but even
he was pretty restrained and strategic about it.

Google's problem now is that anything smaller than a billion-dollar business
is not on their radar screen, which means that by definition they are going to
miss the next growth industry. And they don't really have anyone in the
company who can do anything about that, because you don't go to Google because
you want to work on the small problem that might become big, you go to Google
because you want to work on big problems.

~~~
solipsism
_Google 's problem now is that anything smaller than a billion-dollar business
is not on their radar screen_

That seems quite wrong, given that: 1\. Google can buy into growth
opportunities by making aquisitions. 2\. Google is invested in many, many pre-
billion-dollar businesses.

------
srndh
Better late than never, but the main question is who are left behind and do
they have the same mindset as Eric. He is the virus that has multiplied well.
Just another member in the club of Gates, Ellison, Ballmer, Jobs, Zuckerberg &
more.

Question is, can we undo the damage done. In 2019 lingo, reverse the Thanos
snap. Not sure of Sundar but I still hope that Google twins might do the right
thing.

------
Animats
Who replaces him?

~~~
azhenley
Robin Washington is replacing both Eric Schmidt and Diane Greene.

Press release:
[https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/](https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/0430/)

------
meh206
Google is an internet monopoly with data and information. I think the only
reason they've come this far without being exposed as such was cooperating
with the government (learning from Microsoft's mistakes when they were
exposed)

~~~
rattlesnakedave
What do they have a monopoly on? The claim that Google, or any FAANG company
is a monopoly is absurd. A monopoly is the exclusive possession or control of
the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. Google definitionally
doesn’t have that, because competitors exist.

~~~
inapis
While definitely not a monopoly under the contemporary definition, I do not
find it hard to believe that these companies are having an outsized influence
on markets, society and politics. They end up having monopolistic effects
without actually being a monopoly.

Case in point, it’s extremely hard to get discovered on internet without
paying google/Facebook. Even if you are not running ads, google can wipe out a
significant chunk of your internet traffic with their algorithm changes. Or
google’s insane policy for Android OEM manufactures (which EU took a notice
of). Amazon controls your retail presence - you can’t have cheaper products
anywhere else. If you have a particularly popular product, Amazon will make
its own version.

The average consumer still has an abundance of choice and low prices so the
current market powers of these companies do not fit the definition of monopoly
that was applied to Microsoft in the 90s. I think there needs to be another
word or the definition of a monopoly needs to be updated. These companies
still have an influence which teeters close the impact created by historical
monopolies.

~~~
lallysingh
There's no law against that, and we (USA) try to be a country of law.

~~~
ionised
That's why you add new laws to prohibit things you find damaging to society.

------
zer0faith
This is what happens when your drops 8% and they move your stock to hold.

------
StreamBright
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-
schmid...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-
dismisses-privacy)

------
tempodox
Good riddance. I won't miss him.

------
sheinsheish
Good riddance!

------
systemBuilder
So what is the moonshot failure rate now? 100%?

------
pacificleo12
schmidt happens

------
vertline3
I still dislike that they called the company Alphabet, because it's something
that we teach our youngest. Commercialization starts early.

~~~
ehsankia
It's meant to be alpha-bet, where alpha is investment return above benchmark.

~~~
vertline3
Ahh that makes sense, like seeking alpha. I was thinking it was due to
indexing things from A to Z.

~~~
ehsankia
There is definitely double entendre going on, which is why they picked that
name. At the surface it means one thing, but it has a second more relevant
meaning hidden in there. They make bets which make great returns on
investments, and these bets cover everything from A to Z.

------
mancerayder
Google seems to be falling flat on its face growth-wise. Its ad revenue is
down, its Pixel 3 platform fell completely flat, it shuttered Google + and had
a security breach?

How can you have a large scale security breach with a brutal tech hiring
process, sky high salaries and a whitepaper-producing workforce? Hell, when
you interview at much smaller firms, the tech groups copycat the Google hiring
techniques, that's the extent of the influence. Google is a reference
implementation that everyone copycats.

Then is the Pixel 3's lack of creative innovation symbolic of a strong tech
culture that seems to prize science and tech over creativity? For reference,
they copied the iPhone in numerous ways aesthetically and marketing-wise: the
size is identical, glass replaced metal, the price was pumped up to make it
appear premium, even the color names have goofy Apple-y names, etc.

~~~
itsaidpens
Complete aside: all of my friends/acquaintances who work for Google (and in
full disclosure, they're generally not engineers) unequivocally agree that
Google could fire 30% of their workforce with no disruption in
service/revenue.

They've become bloated.

~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
> Google could fire 30% of their workforce with no disruption in
> service/revenue.

Isn't that true for a large amount of large tech companies?

I was under the impression that a large amount of the workers are working on
incremental improvements to existing services or working on new
features/services entirely. If those people stop working that shouldn't
disrupt the service and you shouldn't see the revenue fall until a competitor
catches up & out innovates.

~~~
minwcnt5
I think it's more that there are a large number of employees who don't
actually contribute much and treat it like a retirement gig. I've seen people
who are only in the office from 10-5, take long breaks for lunches,
socializing, working out, massages, etc. and regularly "WFH" one day a week on
top of that, and clearly aren't very productive (note: there are people who
keep that kind of schedule and _do_ get a lot done; I'm not talking about
them).

It's possible to give the appearance of being busy and valuable if you make
every project way more complex than it needs to be by scheduling lots of
meetings that end up mostly involving bike shedding, publishing lots of design
docs and spreadsheets to gain visibility, submitting mediocre code so that you
can subsequently submit lots of cleanup CLs, and so on. The game is easier to
play these days because the company is so large that entire teams can go off
the radar and not have to be accountable.

This happens at every big company and it isn't the norm at Google, but it
happens quite often. It's really hard to fire employees, and a pain for
managers. It's way easier to just let them be, and for a low-mid level manager
that can even make it easier for them to justify additional headcount, which
makes their org bigger and increases their standing.

~~~
throwawaytoday5
Why is it hard to fire employees? Workers have extremely weak protections in
the United States. I never buy this argument. If google wanted to clean shop
they can, other tech companies do it regularly (IBM, Oracle, etc).

~~~
minwcnt5
In addition to what vkou said, firing individuals for low performance in the
US, as opposed to mass layoffs, typically requires putting them through the
PIP process (performance improvement plan), which is onerous and stressful for
the manager. My limited understanding is it involves the manager, HR, and
employee agreeing on a project and timeline that would constitute satisfactory
performance, then constantly checking in and documenting progress. The purpose
is for the company to collect proof the employee can't perform their job to
indemnify themselves.

But I've seen people just temporarily work really hard and/or get lots of help
while they're on a PIP, succeed at it, and then revert to old habits. In a lot
of cases rather than go through the trouble to put a report through a PIP,
which may not have the desired outcome anyway, the manager will just put them
off in a corner and give them unimportant tasks, making it that much easier
for them to just coast.

~~~
vkou
Also, doing so demonstrates a failure on the manager's part (How did they let
a formerly good report get so bad that they need a PIP? Were they paying any
attention to what they were doing for the past year?)

