Eric Schmidt Quotes & Sayings

Google is more than a business. Google is a belief system. And we believe passionately in the open Internet model. — Eric Schmidt

Companies come up with elaborate, often passive-aggressive ways to say no: processes to follow, approvals to get, meetings to attend. No is like a tiny death to smart creatives. No is a signal that the company has lost its start-up verve, that it's too corporate. Enough no's, and smart creatives stop asking and start heading to the exits. — Eric Schmidt

By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded. — Eric Schmidt

As Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "You must be proud of your enemy; then your enemy's successes are also your successes."87 Be proud of your competitors. Just don't follow them. — Eric Schmidt

Praise is underused and underappreciated as a management tool. — Eric Schmidt

Since I have access to every, every crisis in the world because it's always blaring at me on cable television, that doesn't mean I have to worry about every one of them. This is also known as knowing where the off button is. — Eric Schmidt

We're about to see an acceleration in technological platforms that, for marketers, will be on a scale rivalled only by the arrival of color TV. — Eric Schmidt

Say yes to more things. — Eric Schmidt

In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it. — Eric Schmidt

I still believe that sitting down and reading a book is the best way to really learn something. — Eric Schmidt

People are good at intuition, living our lives. What are computers good at? Memory. — Eric Schmidt

When things are running perfectly smoothly, with people and boxes on charts enjoying a one-to-one relationship, then the processes and infrastructure have caught up to the business. — Eric Schmidt

We want to make sure the thing you're looking for is on Google 100 percent of the time. — Eric Schmidt

In other words, if you can't win the game, change the rules. — Eric Schmidt

One person's definition of evil is another person's different definition. — Eric Schmidt

Google dress code was: "You must wear something". — Eric Schmidt

Favoring specialization over intelligence is exactly wrong, especially in high tech. The world is changing so fast across every industry and endeavor that it's a given the role for which you're hiring is going to change. Yesterday's widget will be obsolete tomorrow, and hiring a specialist in such a dynamic environment can backfire. A specialist brings an inherent bias to solving problems that spawns from the very expertise that is his putative advantage, and may be threatened by a new type of solution that requires new expertise. A smart generalist doesn't have bias, so is free to survey the wide range of solutions and gravitate to the best one. — Eric Schmidt

I use Google+, and I find the quality of the comments are very sophisticated because there is more trust inside of Google+ than there is inside of Twitter and Facebook, for example. — Eric Schmidt

One advantage of hierarchical, process-laden organizations is that it's easy to figure out with whom you need to talk: Just look for the right box on the right chart, and you've got your person. But the steady state of a successful Internet Century venture is chaos. — Eric Schmidt

People assume that computers will do everything that humans do. Not good. People are different from each other and they are all really different from computers. — Eric Schmidt

General Electric CEO Jack Welch said in Winning: No vision is worth the paper it's printed on unless it is communicated constantly and reinforced with rewards. — Eric Schmidt

The business should always be outrunning the processes, so chaos is right where you want to be. — Eric Schmidt

Knaves are not to be confused with divas. Knavish behavior is a product of low integrity; diva-ish behavior is one of high exceptionalism. Knaves prioritize the individual over the team; divas think they are better than the team, but want success equally for both. Knaves need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. — Eric Schmidt

To me, what you want to do is find a way to let this play out between the virtual world and the physical world ... Ultimately, I think society will get there. It will be messy, but we'll get there. — Eric Schmidt

Google is very much a not-invented-here, build-it-ourselves culture. — Eric Schmidt

I leave out the parts that people skip. — Eric Schmidt

The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists. — Eric Schmidt

This is a common refrain you hear in Silicon Valley: the CEO who picks up the stack of newspapers outside the front door, the founder who wipes the counters. With these actions, the leaders demonstrate their egalitarian natures - we're all in this together and none of us are above the menial tasks that need to get done. — Eric Schmidt

Give the wrong people a big challenge, and you'll induce anxiety. But give it to the right people, and you'll induce joy. — Eric Schmidt

A technical insight is a new way of applying technology or design that either drives down the cost or increases the functions and usability of the product by a significant factor. — Eric Schmidt

You need to have confidence in your people, and enough self-confidence to let them identify a better way. — Eric Schmidt

Bitcoin is a remarkable cryptographic achievement and the ability to create something which is not duplicable in the digital world has enormous value — Eric Schmidt

We say we're stubborn on vision and flexible on details. — Eric Schmidt

Google docs and spreadsheets don't work if you're on an airplane. But it's a technical problem that is going to get solved. Eventually you will be able to work on a plane as if you are connected and, then when you get reconnected to the Internet, your computer will just synchronize with the cloud. — Eric Schmidt

For those who say you're thinking too big ... be smart enough not to listen. For those who say the odds are too small ... be dumb enough to give it a shot. And for those who ask, how can you do that? ... look them in the eyes and say, Ill figure it out. — Eric Schmidt

Establishing a successful hiring culture that delivers a steady stream of outstanding people starts with understanding the role of recruiters in sourcing candidates. Hint: It isn't their exclusive realm. — Eric Schmidt

The Internet is the largest experiment involving anarchy in history. — Eric Schmidt

I used to say that you'll have 10 IP address on your body ... and it looks like that's going to happen through medical monitoring. — Eric Schmidt

Keep in mind, from the outset, that the best way to avoid having to fire underperformers is not to hire them. — Eric Schmidt

The rise of Google, the rise of Facebook, the rise of Apple, I think are proof that there is a place for computer science as something that solves problems that people face every day. — Eric Schmidt

The coach doesn't have to play the sport as well as you do. They have to watch you and get you to be your best. — Eric Schmidt

I've never met a person who does not want a safer world, better medical care and education for their children, and peace with their neighbours. I just don't meet those people. What I meet, over and over again, as I travel around, is that the essential human condition is optimistic - in every one of these places. — Eric Schmidt

People are surprised to find out that an awful lot of people think that they're idiots. — Eric Schmidt

information systems will streamline many of them for people living in those countries, such as integrated clothing machines (washing, drying, folding, pressing and sorting) that keep an inventory of clean clothes and algorithmically suggest outfits based on the user's daily schedule. Haircuts will finally be automated and machine-precise. — Eric Schmidt

Tom Lehrer line - "Life is like a sewer: What you get out of it depends on what you put into it"112 - and a promise that if they put real effort into the exercises, he will help them. — Eric Schmidt

Work-life balance. This is another touchstone of supposedly "enlightened" management practices that can be insulting to smart, dedicated employees. The phrase itself is part of the problem: For many people, work is an important part of life, not something to be separated. The best cultures invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many interesting things to do both at work and at home. — Eric Schmidt

A great start-up, a great project - a great job, for that matter - should be fun, and if you're working your butt off without deriving any enjoyment, something's probably wrong. — Eric Schmidt

The issues of wireless versus wireline gets very messy. And that's really an FCC issue, not a Google issue. — Eric Schmidt

The trend has been mobile was winning. It's now won. — Eric Schmidt

There is a science to managing high tech businesses, and it needs to be respected. One of them is that in technology businesses, leadership is temporary. It's constantly recycling. So the asset has limited lifetime. — Eric Schmidt

When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do. Well, that's a bug. We have more bugs per second in the world. We should be able to give you the right answer just once. We should know what you meant. — Eric Schmidt

Google Maps are phenomenal. Yep, ask an Apple user. — Eric Schmidt

The Internet is fast becoming a cesspool where false information thrives. — Eric Schmidt

Sheryl Sandberg: "It is the ultimate luxury to combine passion and contribution. It's also a very clear path to happiness."115 She couldn't be more right. You will not be as successful as you could be if you only like what you do and don't love it. Trite, perhaps, but true. Sheryl is also right in saying that combining passion and contribution is a luxury: not that it's expensive, but just rare. It's something that many people either can't figure out (how many people truly know their passion at the outset of their careers?) or can't afford (you may love whittling garden gnomes, but the world loves engineers and your spouse and children love a regular paycheck). — Eric Schmidt

The tectonic, technology-driven shifts that characterize the Internet Century have rendered some of the commonly accepted strategic fundamentals we learned in school and on the job incorrect.56 — Eric Schmidt

Your default mode should be to share everything — Eric Schmidt

In practice, ship and iterate means that marketing programs and PR pushes should be minimal at launch. If you are in the restaurant business, you call this a soft opening. When you push the babies out of the nest, don't give them a jetpack or even a parachute - let them fly on their own. (Note: This is a metaphor.) Invest only when they get some lift. Google's Chrome is a great example of this - it launched in 2008 with minimal fanfare and practically no marketing budget and gained terrific momentum on its own, based solely on its excellence. Later, around the time the browser pushed past seventy million users, the team decided to pour fuel on the fire and approved a marketing push (and even a TV advertising campaign). But not until the product had proven itself a winner did it get fed. — Eric Schmidt

It looks like the thing that separates out the capable students from the really successful ones is not so much their knowledge ... but their persistence at something, — Eric Schmidt

The thing that people seem to miss about not just Google, but also our competitors, Yahoo, eBay and so forth, is that there's an awful lot of communities that have never been served by traditional media. — Eric Schmidt

The funny thing about advertising is that it's not a zero-sum game ... Historically, in the digital ad world, pie has gotten larger and it's possible for everyone to win, and it's perfectly possible that will continue to be true for quite some time. — Eric Schmidt

Our colleague Ellen West related a story to us that was told to her by a member of the Gayglers (Google's diversity group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees). He told Ellen that the Gayglers had discussed whether or not Google could be considered the first "post-gay" company at which they had worked. The consensus was that it was close, since at Google "it doesn't matter who you are, just what you do." Bingo. — Eric Schmidt

creativity loves constraints. — Eric Schmidt

We are certain that for every one of these rock stars we meet in our daily work, there are dozens or even hundreds more who are doing their best to unseat us from our perch. Maybe all of them will fail, but probably not. Probably, somewhere in a garage, dorm room, lab, or conference room, a brave business leader has gathered a small, dedicated team of smart creatives. Maybe she has a copy of our book, and is using our ideas to help her create a company that will eventually render Google irrelevant. Preposterous, right? Except that, given that no business wins forever, it is inevitable. Some would find this chilling. We find it inspiring. — Eric Schmidt

dissent must be an obligation, not an option. — Eric Schmidt

The characteristic of great innovators and great companies is they see a space that others do not. They don't just listen to what people tell them; they actually invent something new, something that you didn't know you needed, but the moment you see it, you say, 'I must have it.' — Eric Schmidt

I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time. — Eric Schmidt

if the past is any indicator of our future, today's big bets won't seem so wild in a few years' time. — Eric Schmidt

When a CEO looks around her staff meeting, a good rule of thumb is that at least 50 percent of the people at the table should be experts in the company's products and services and responsible for product development. This will help ensure that the leadership team maintains focus on product excellence. Operational components like finance, sales, and legal are obviously critical to a company's success, but they should not dominate the conversation. — Eric Schmidt

I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next. — Eric Schmidt

Most companies' culture just happens; no one plans it. That can work, but it means leaving a critical component of your success to chance. Elsewhere in this book we preach the value of experimentation and the virtues of failure, but culture is perhaps the one important aspect of a company where failed experiments hurt. — Eric Schmidt

We used to think that the enterprise was the hardest customer to satisfy, but we were wrong. It turns out, consumers are harder than the enterprise because the consumer will not give you a second chance. — Eric Schmidt

In the Internet Century, a product manager's job is to work together with the people who design, engineer, and develop things to make great products. — Eric Schmidt

It's a mistake to predict the size of markets that are so new. This model has shown no signs of slowing down. So we are going to get as much of it as we possibly can, and when we get close to that we'll figure out other problems. — Eric Schmidt

We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about; — Eric Schmidt

Smart creatives thrive on interacting with each other. The mixture you get when you cram them together is combustible, so a top priority must be to keep them crowded. — Eric Schmidt

If you thought when you got your job at 20 that it would never change you were misinformed. Retrain yourself to be curious. — Eric Schmidt

I think of Google as a set of overlapping things. It's a consumer platform, consumer phenomenon of which search is its fundamental activity, but there are many other things you can do than search ... I think of Google as an advertising company who services the broader advertising industry in the ways that you know. — Eric Schmidt

No matter what a person's job is, they should be encouraged to have opinions about the business, industry, customers and partners, — Eric Schmidt

At Google, operations are not just an afterthought: they are critical to the company's success, and we want to have just as much effort and creativity in this domain as in new product development. — Eric Schmidt

Google's architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We're a perfect back end to the problems that they're trying to solve. — Eric Schmidt

If I give you a penny, then you're a penny richer and I'm a penny poorer, but if I give you an idea, then you will have a new idea but I'll have it too. — Eric Schmidt

The computing world is very good at things that we are not. It is very good at memory. — Eric Schmidt

We didn't see any statistically significant relationship between our buzz and our short-term sales ... Is that the end of the story? I would say no. This is one study on a set of brands in a particular company within a certain segment of the consumer-packag ed-goods industry. It is by no means a generalized result that applies to all industries. — Eric Schmidt

A lot of the Google inventions came from engineers just screwing around with ideas. And then management would see them, and we'd say, 'Boy, that's interesting. Let's add some more engineers.' — Eric Schmidt

Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences — Eric Schmidt

Twitter is not a technology company, it is a publishing company. — Eric Schmidt

A mind set in its ways is wasted. Don't do it. — Eric Schmidt

If you forgo your plan, you also have to forgo fear. — Eric Schmidt

Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it's a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference. Yes lets you stand out in a crowd, be the optimist, see the glass full, be the one everyone comes to. Yes is what keeps us all young. — Eric Schmidt

As Sun cofounder Bill Joy noted, no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else. — Eric Schmidt

The building block of organizations should be small teams. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, at one point had a "two-pizza team" rule,41 which stipulates that teams be small enough to be fed by two pizzas. — Eric Schmidt

I had always assumed that the right way to do it was to these engineers, put them in offices by themselves with doors that they could close so they could think deep thoughts. This is a terrible idea. — Eric Schmidt

Remember, when you go to YouTube, you do a search. When you go to Google, you do a search. As we get the search integrated between YouTube and Google, which we're working on, it will drive a lot of traffic into both places. So the trick, overall, is generating more searches, more uses of Google. — Eric Schmidt

For a meritocracy to work, it needs to engender a culture where there is an "obligation to dissent". — Eric Schmidt

Leadership requires passion. — Eric Schmidt

Dictatorial tendencies rarely contain themselves to just one aspect of work. — Eric Schmidt

ego creates blind spots. — Eric Schmidt

Creating a meritocracy requires equal participation by both the hippo, who could rule the day by fiat, and the brave smart creative, who risks getting trampled as she stands up for quality and merit. — Eric Schmidt

At the most senior level, the people with the greatest impact - the ones who are running the company - should be product people. — Eric Schmidt

The business world traditionally rewards people for being closer to the top (case in point: outrageous CEO salaries) or for being closer to the transactions (investment bankers, salespeople). — Eric Schmidt