Eric Schmidt used Apple board seat to prepare Google for mobile
Hugo Barra · Hugo Barra: How I Built Hardware for Android, Xiaomi, and Oculus | 20VC #947 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Nov 9, 2022 · at 3:26
Hugo Barra, former Android VP at Google, describes Google's internal strategy following the initial iPhone launch.
0:00 / 0:36exact quote · 36.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Now, back then, and this is kind of incredible, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat on Apple's board of directors, which is a crazy thing to think these days, and it was basically like having a crystal ball. You know, Eric knew that over multiple generations, you know, the iPhone was going to be this massive transformational force, you know, for the world, so he did two really clever things. One was funding a team With hundreds of engineers to build mobile versions of all things Google, and the other was the mobile operating system team that was formed out of the Android acquisition.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Hugo Barra
Chinese tech companies are generally poorly run and waste time
“This work ethic is partly what makes Chinese companies, you know, so competitive, but it's also true that Chinese companies are generally not as well run and sometimes are really messy. So a lot of the time on the ground is, Wasted by, you know, poor communica…”
Meta's Oculus Go failed due to atrocious user retention
“That product was called Oculus Go. It was a 200 dollar VR headset that was built to be kind of your everyday, you know, VR device, and it sold really well, but had absolutely atrocious retention, which means it obviously failed. And, you know, it was basically…”
Consumer hardware V1s must choose to be Feature King or Budget King
“When you're building a consumer hardware product, you have to make one important decision for V-One. You either go for customers who are willing to pay a high price for a full feature product that does the job they expect without cutting any corners, or you fo…”
Barra: Consumer hardware cannot use MVPs and must delight at V1
“There is no such a thing as MVP, you know, in the hardware world. In the hardware world, your V-One must be a delightful product for the audiences that you choose to sell it to and the job that it needs to do.”
Uninterrupted 3.5-hour interviews strip away polished executive responses
“A three and a half hour sort of grilling session where you get the person to talk about a level of detail of what they've done in their careers before, or problems that they've had to solve, or failures that they had to recover from, that they have typically n…”