Nice Interview with Eric Schmidt
The LA Times has a nice interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Eric is such a thoughtful guy, and it shows. The interviewer keeps pushing him to put the company into familiar boxes (for example, Google the next Microsoft), and Eric keeps on message about how Google has to keep reinventing itself, that it's not just following a path tread by other companies before it. He emphasizes the importance of partnering in media businesses, and points out that even though Google is a technology company, its revenue is based on media business models. Here's a nice clip:
Q: When I talk to start-ups and venture capitalists and others in Silicon Valley, I hear the same trepidation in their voice when they talk about Google that they used when they would talk about Microsoft in the past. Microsoft didn't set out to have that foreboding image, but it developed because it was so good at doing what it did at the time. How do you avoid becoming Microsoft south?A: The fact of the matter is we're in a different business. It's not a zero-sum game. Our customers are one click away from moving to a different search engine. That is not true in operating systems and it's not true in PC applications. It never was true.
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Comments: 5
Thanks for the post. It is so frustrating, I want to read the article to which you link. I go to the site. I am a busy person as we all are, the LA times site says the article is free but I have to register. Waste time filling in all the forms. Guess what, becuase I do not have a zip code (I live in UK) it will not let me register. I made up some numbers just to get in but no use.
Yours, a very frustrated reader,
Maxine.
Maxine, I usually turn away from a newsite when they want me to sign up first, but do as I always do: use the infamous 90210 zipcode (Beverly hills, tv series.. rings a bell?).
And also: didnt it take more time to write that comment than to fill out the form ;)
I'm sorry, but I just can't follow writing about schmidt with a general positive attitude.
As of end of last year many said G was more disliked then Microsoft. At the same time I've seen interesting studies showing how overpowering the hype about them is compared MS.
G touches many people's lives, like Adsence publishers and advertisers. There concept of "inocent until proven guilty" or acceptable censorship are just like schmidt: self-serving with little regard for established "fairness" (think about Google China as another obvious example)
The single most important issue facing Eric & co. is deciding on their core strategic capability. Technology R&D versus media & sales is the eternal choice for a lot of portals and internet services.
Choosing media and advertising is extremely tempting. Operationally and day-to-day these skill and departments have the biggest impact on the bottom line.
But time again technology disrupts the game.
In the long term, it is technology that provides the essential breakthrough disruptions. You miss the boat in technology, even when you revenue is from advertising, and you are sunk.
Keep reading these O'Reilly books
In response to Pelle, I did fill out the LA Times form. It would not let me in even so becuase I live in the UK so do not have a US zipcode. I am not complaining so much about filling out the form, rather that I filled it out and then right at the end it asked me to do something I could not, so I could not read the article linked to here. Something wrong, somewhere.
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