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Eric Schmidt

Founder & Chair, SCSP · 3 appearances on the record.

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Eric Schmidt is the former CEO and executive chairman of Google. He currently serves as founder and chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project.

16statements → 7claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.88/5average certainty → 2.25/5average debate potential → 2said about them ↓

2 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

7 assertions · 1 opinion · 8 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Eric argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Schmidt feared AdWords auction would bankrupt Google, imposing Friday cash limits
“I was absolutely convinced that this would bankrupt the company. And I was so convinced that I ordered a cash restriction period Where the only thing that you could do was spend money on Friday mornings at 10. You had to come to my office and you had to convin…”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 11:47 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
75% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Everything Eric Schmidt said on Masters of Scale that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Schmidt: Companies must roll back 'bring your whole self to work'
“So now what has happened is there's been this view that you should bring your whole self to work. And now we're being forced to crawl that back because your whole self is maybe not what we want in work.”
Eric Schmidt Aug 17, 2023 ▶ 6:21 How great cultures are built and rebuilt | Masters of Scale
Opinion
Eric Schmidt: Companies are walking back 'bring your whole self to work'
“So now what has happened is there's been this view that you should bring your whole self to work, and now we're being forced to crawl that back because your whole self is maybe not what we want in work.”
Eric Schmidt Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 5:37 How to transform a company’s culture (stories from Apple, Google & Uber) | Masters of Scale 2022
Insight
Schmidt: Startups must hire the smartest people and tolerate difficult personalities
“Hire the smartest people you possibly can and put up with them, right? And we all understand what that means, right? But you really need them for competitive advantage.”
Eric Schmidt Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 24:47 How to transform a company’s culture (stories from Apple, Google & Uber) | Masters of Scale 2022
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Schmidt: 80% of management turns over in a corporate turnaround
“The number is 80% of the management team will turn over in a turnaround.”
Eric Schmidt Aug 17, 2023 ▶ 11:23 How great cultures are built and rebuilt | Masters of Scale
Insight
Schmidt: Leaders have six to nine months to change company culture
“The other thing I learned, and this is from Lou Gerstner, Who said, who had written a whole book on this, and his IBM turnaround, he said, you only have six to nine months to change the culture of a company before you're stuck with it.”
Eric Schmidt Aug 17, 2023 ▶ 17:26 How great cultures are built and rebuilt | Masters of Scale
Insight
Schmidt: Cross-functional 'glue people' add little value and are unnecessary
“And glue people are very nice people who sit between functions and help either side, but don't themselves add a lot of value. And I thought, these are nice people, but we don't really need them. We can have these groups talking directly.”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 25:47 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Insight
Schmidt: Startups must hire the smartest people and tolerate them
“The answer is simple. Hire the smartest people you possibly can and put up with them. Right. And we all understand what that means. Right. But you really need them for competitive advantage.”
Eric Schmidt Aug 17, 2023 ▶ 28:41 How great cultures are built and rebuilt | Masters of Scale
Assertion Supported
Schmidt feared AdWords auction would bankrupt Google, imposing Friday cash limits
“I was absolutely convinced that this would bankrupt the company. And I was so convinced that I ordered a cash restriction period Where the only thing that you could do was spend money on Friday mornings at 10. You had to come to my office and you had to convin…”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 11:47 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Insight
Schmidt: Google 20% time served as a check on engineering managers' power
“What it really served as Was a check and balance on the power of the engineering management over the subject. So if an employee is under pressure, the manager says, you've got to work harder. You've got to give me everything you have. That employee can legitim…”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 21:06 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Insight
Schmidt: 80% of management turns over during corporate turnarounds
“The number is 80% of the management team will turn over in a turnaround.”
Eric Schmidt Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 10:56 How to transform a company’s culture (stories from Apple, Google & Uber) | Masters of Scale 2022
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Schmidt: Novell presented different revenue numbers on his first day as CEO
“The reality, of course, hit on the first day, because I was presented with different numbers for revenue for the quarter than I'd been told when I was interviewing.”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 4:39 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Assertion Supported
Schmidt: Google made the decision to acquire YouTube in about 10 days
“We made the decision to purchase YouTube in about 10 days, right? Incredibly historic decision because we were ready.”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 18:16 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Insight
Schmidt: Persistence and curiosity are the top predictors of knowledge worker success
“Persistence is the single biggest predictor of future success, and so we would look for persistence. And the second thing was curiosity. What do you care about? The combination of persistence and curiosity is a very good predictor of employee success in a know…”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 26:59 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Assertion Partly supported
Schmidt: Shared CEO office with Google engineer until IPO
“So with the engineering story is that we stayed, we actually liked each other so much that he stayed as my office mate until we were a public company where I couldn't violate the various SEC laws.”
Eric Schmidt Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 20:25 How to transform a company’s culture (stories from Apple, Google & Uber) | Masters of Scale 2022
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Schmidt: Google's early culture and perks mirrored Stanford Graduate School
“I think a fair statement is that the founders built the company in the image of what they saw at the Stanford Graduate School.”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 9:16 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Schmidt: Many Google AI, search, and maps initiatives came from 20% time
“Many, many initiatives in the company have come out of 20% time ideas. Much of the mapping work, many of the search ideas, many of the advertising Many of now the AI work have come from people working and practicing in new areas.”
Eric Schmidt May 12, 2023 ▶ 20:02 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos

The other half of the tape: Eric Schmidt's own voice is left out of every number here. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Eric Schmidt, by other people (2)

Insight
Heffernan: Competent CEOs Are Starved for Argument and Debate
“Any CEO worth their salt is starved for argument and debate. So I'm not incredibly surprised by Schmidt's response, because one of the big problems with power is that most people won't argue with you if you're in a powerful position.”
Margaret Heffernan May 12, 2023 ▶ 7:51 Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos
Insight
Mayer: Executive leadership is defense and clearing roadblocks for teams
“Ultimately, as Eric Schmidt will always say, you know, leadership is defense. You know, he's like, look, unfortunately, as an executive, like, you don't get to write code, you don't get to design things anymore. Your job is point the team in a direction and th…”
Marissa Mayer Mar 29, 2023 ▶ 29:03 How to make the star employees you need (with Lumi Labs' Marissa Mayer)

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
How to transform a company’s culture (stories from Apple, Google & Uber) | Masters of Scal Sep 18, 2024 5m
How great cultures are built and rebuilt | Masters of Scale Aug 17, 2023 8m
Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO): Innovation is managed chaos May 12, 2023 9m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Eric Schmidt was played rather than Eric taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
Meta's Sheryl Sandberg: Lead, lead again Oct 6, 2017 29s clip played
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