Google's soul man, Eric Schmidt, announced that he will officially resign as executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet in January 2018. After his resignation, he will be transferred to technical advisory, but will remain on Alphabet's board of directors.
Schmidt is the most senior executive at Google and Alphabet. In 2001, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin invited Schmidt to join Google, and from 2001 to 2011, Schmidt was the CEO of Google.
Schmidt is considered the creator of the Silicon Valley myth and a key figure in the rise of Google's tech empire. Under his leadership, Google grew from a search engine to a wide-ranging tech giant with a market capitalization that has ballooned to $740 billion.
Larry Page's assessment of Schmidt: "Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision of the future of technology. Silicon Valley people said of him: "Schmidt is definitely a pivotal person, and his experience is rich, which can be called the old fox in the industry." ”
Google's "Troika"
Schmidt wasn't the founder of Google, but his status was no less than that of Google's founder, along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who called Google's "troika."
Schmidt holds a B.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Princeton University and a B.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduation, Schmidt worked for large companies such as Bell Labs and Sun Microsystem. Prior to joining Google, he was chairman and CEO of Novell, a small technology company, and co-author of the programming compiler Lex.
In 2001, Schmidt listened to the advice of two venture capital tycoons, John Doyle of KCPB and Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital, and accepted an offer from Google to serve as Google's CEO for ten years.
At the time of his entry, Schmidt earned $250,000 a year, which was definitely a high salary in Silicon Valley at the time, and was also awarded a large number of stocks. After Google went public in 2004, Schmidt, along with Page and Sergey Brin, announced that he would receive only $1 a year, which lasted until 2010. But Schmidt was already wealthy long before he joined Google, and with a large number of Shares in Google, Schmidt entered the list of the richest people in the United States.
Schmidt is so respected by the two founders that he was able to work in the CEO position for up to 10 years is because he is very good at grasping his role. He believes that the founder has the right to decide the company's strategy and technology direction, and his first job is to maximize the conversion of Google and the two founders' decisions into revenue and profit.
Schmidt has revealed when he first met the two founders of Google in 2001. Schmidt said: "They have a different view than I do in every way. I couldn't figure out whether their views on things were refreshing visions or wild reverie. ”
Schmidt's greatest contribution to Google was that he transformed Google from a pure search engine into a provider of search services for enterprises and the largest advertising platform on the Internet. Schmidt's sophisticated and innovative mind saw the most harmonious connection between search and advertising, and created the revolutionary monetization model of search advertising, tapping into the huge business potential of search engines. Until now, more than 80% of Google's revenue still comes from the search advertising business.
Later, Google began to involve operating systems, browsers and other businesses, not only released the Android operating system, but also launched the Chrome browser, which posed a challenge to the traditional giant company Microsoft and the technology new favorite company Apple.
In 2003, Google made an important strategic decision to develop a mobile operating system. At that time, Android founder Andy Rubin had already started a business in Silicon Valley, and the company's name was Android. However, Rubin was very mysterious at the time, only saying that he wanted to make a highly customized operating system, and the outside world knew very little about it.
In 2007, Google announced the acquisition of Android and named Android google's operating system. At the same time, Google has adopted an open strategy, pushing other mobile device companies in the industry to develop mobile phones with the Android operating system installed.
Android is the most ubiquitous mobile operating system in the world. Gartner data shows that in the third quarter of 2017, Apple's IOS system share was 11.9%, and Android's system share was 87.9%.
Google, which has an Android operating system, began to promote the development of the first smartphone. In 2008, Google launched its first Android smartphone. But the move also embarrassed Schmidt.
Schmidt was also a director of Apple from 2006 to 2009. During that time, Apple is also launching the iPhone, a disruptive product that changes the way people communicate on the move. While the iPhone and Google phone became competitors, Schmidt had to make a trade-off.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave Schmidt a compromise solution, in order to avoid a conflict of interest, if the board meeting was about the iPhone, then Schmidt had to take the initiative to leave the room.
But Schmidt eventually opted out of Apple's board.
Active cutting
In 2011, Schmidt, who had been Google's CEO for a decade, volunteered to resign, saying at the time: "Google no longer needs to be regulated by adults." ”
The end of the decade of glory in a rapids, the outside world is full of opinions. Some believed that Schmidt wanted to achieve political ambitions, and Schmidt had a close personal relationship with then-US President Barack Obama, who was also an adviser to the Obama administration, and there were rumors that Schmidt was seeking to join the Obama administration.
Schmidt's long-standing support for Democratic politicians has earned him a good reputation in American politics and made many connections. John Battelle, author of Search, once said: "Schmidt became a buffer between Google and society and politics, and organized industry lobbiing government agencies to protect the interests of the tech industry." ”
Some argue that Schmidt chose to leave the CEO position at his peak because Google's prospects were uncertain. At that time, although Google was able to rise peacefully in the shadow of Microsoft's giants, Google did not have a natural advantage in the face of competition from new Silicon Valley favorites such as Apple and Facebook. Coupled with the fact that Google faces stricter scrutiny in places like China and Europe, there are also questions about Google's ability to innovate.
Schmidt handed over the baton of Google CEO to Larry Page, who himself remains Google's executive chairman. But this time the power shift was seen as Schmidt's intention to weaken his influence at Google.
In 2015, with google's expansion, the company ushered in the most important split in history. The company's core businesses such as Android, search, advertising, artificial intelligence research and some non-core businesses remain under Google's command, while most of the non-core molecular businesses such as fiber broadband business fiber, hardware business nest, investment fund Google ventures and Google capital are spun off, and Google is the same level as a subsidiary of Google, under the umbrella of the parent company Alphabet.
Alphabet CEO was served by Page, and Schmidt continued to serve as Alphabet's executive chairman. The baton for Google's CEO went to Sundar Pichai, the former google's senior vice president of product and engineering.
Misjudge artificial intelligence
Behind the success, there are also mistakes.
Schmidt has voluntarily admitted two of his mistakes, one is the hesitation of social networking, did not fully participate in the beginning of the rise of social networking, and gave up the opportunity to opponents, allowing social giants such as Facebook and Twitter to rise.
Another misstep is a lack of foresight in ai technology. Schmidt had judged that AI technology would not achieve large-scale success during his tenure, and believed that AI could only be used as a specific tool in specific tasks, and that it would take decades for it to be widely used. The consequences of this judgment still influence Google's decisions today. Whether it is Alphago or Google's tensorflow, it is an application for a certain field, and it is not yet universal.
In May this year, Alphago and Ke Jie engaged in a man-machine battle, and Schmidt was present. He mentioned his views on artificial intelligence to the first financial reporter: "I studied artificial intelligence in the 80s, but many attempts failed, I also gave up, at the end of the 80s, deep learning neural networks were invented and quickly upgraded, today's method is 20 years ago computers do not have." ”
In December 2017, Google announced at the developer conference held in Shanghai that it would officially establish the Chinese Intelligence Research Center, headed by Li Feifei, chief scientist of Google Artificial Intelligence and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Stanford University. This is a big step for Google to take in-depth research direction of artificial intelligence in China.
The development of artificial intelligence technology in the past decade has made Schmidt change his mind. Schmidt told the first financial reporter: "The innovation speed of artificial intelligence is even exponential. For example, with the advent of neural networks and deep learning, machines can learn on their own and begin to speed up iterations. ”
Specific to the application area, Schmidt also said: "I think the biggest impact is translation, which is a fact that I have never thought of in my life." He believes that when the computer has vision, the computer can reason, and there will be qualitative changes.
Of all the AI applications, Schmidt is most optimistic about medical treatment. He told the first financial reporter: "The medical field needs a lot of training data, physiological health data is too sufficient, there are treatment rates and mortality rates. Technology can promote human health, and physiology and pharmacology will contribute greatly to humanity in the next 5 years. ”
Schmidt believes that the most promising way to develop artificial intelligence in the future is the combination of humans and artificial intelligence. He doesn't think it will cause mass unemployment and threats. He took the "dependency ratio" as an example, saying that aging and longer life expectancy of the population make the task of "raising" that everyone bears become heavier, but the reason why the economy can continue to develop is the empowerment brought by artificial intelligence.
Tech companies around the world are racing the AI track. In Schmidt's view, whether it is Amazon's echo or other companies, they are using the most suitable way for themselves to use artificial intelligence and establish a common language.
"There is also a lot of competition in terms of human-machine interaction, machine-to-machine interaction, and this kind of competition is definitely happening in China." Schmidt said.
But Schmidt doesn't think the development of AI will be mastered by a handful of elites and giant companies. He told the first financial reporter: "There are many Entrepreneurs in China and the United States, and they can iterate continuously. This is the era of intelligence, and there are many more companies to be born, such as driverless, medical, intelligent transportation and distributed intelligent cloud. When we use tensorflow for a wide range of industries, we can keep innovating. ”
Schmidt remains highly concerned about the development of Chinese technology. He is familiar with Chinese innovative companies such as Didi, Alipay and WeChat, DJI drones, etc., Schmidt said: "Many companies and products with a distinct Chinese brand have begun to enter the global market and have a very important position. ”
In 2015, Schmidt praised WeChat when he attended the techcrunch China Summit. "This is one of the most interesting pieces of software." Schmidt said, "Because he can solve many consumer problems at the same time." Why wasn't this product invented anywhere else in the world? I think the problem is the maturity of the banking and circulation industry. Because the integrated services provided by WeChat may not be as useful in the United States, but they are particularly meaningful in China. ”
Schmidt is about to throw away the tech empire he's painstakingly managed for 17 years. Although it is not a complete farewell, because he will continue to work as a technical consultant for Google, his career at Google is over.
The legend ends and a new chapter begins. The departure of giants is always lamentable, but it is precisely because they are willing to let go to the next generation that young people have the possibility of realizing their dreams, after all, the world belongs to the younger generation. Just, Schmidt's seat, who should fill it?