Former CEO Eric Schmidt explains why Google fumbled its lead in AI

“Google decided that work life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning. And the reason startups work is because the people work like hell.”

He continues:

“There's a long history of companies winning in a genuinely creative way and really dominating a space and not making the next transition. It's very well documented. And I think that the truth is, founders are special. The founders need to be in charge. The founders are difficult to work with. They push people hard.”

Eric recalls having dinner with Elon Musk recently. Elon had a flight that night at 10pm for a midnight meeting with the team at xAI.

“The reason I'm being so harsh about work ethic, is that these are systems which have network effects. So time matters a lot.”

In most businesses (e.g. Coke vs Pepsi) time doesn’t matter. But if you’re in a business with network effects, working hard and moving faster than your competitors is critical.

Full video: Stanford Online “Stanford ECON295/CS323 I 2024 I The Age of AI, Eric Schmidt“ (Apr 2024)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Eric Schmidt insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt"