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Why Eric Schmidt Left As CEO of Google?
Edsj writes "According to The New Yorker: 'Schmidt, according to associates, lost some energy and focus after losing the China decision. At the same time, Google was becoming defensive. All of their social-network efforts had faltered. Facebook had replaced them as the hot tech company, the place vital engineers wanted to work. Complaints about Google bureaucracy intensified. Governments around the world were lobbing grenades at Google over privacy, copyright, and size issues. The “don’t be evil” brand was getting tarnished, and the founders were restive. Schmidt started to think of departing. Nudged by a board-member friend and an outside adviser that he had to re-energize himself, he decided after Labor Day that he could reboot. He couldn't.'"
So basically what they're saying is "Eric Schmidt is pro-evil".
You're killing me. The CEO of one of the most well known companies in the world steps down because he doesn't like the company motto and the new man at the top upholds "don't be evil". Hilarious. How do you come up with this stuff?
You heard it here first.
As far as I know the share structure of Google gives enough voting rights to the founders to retain absolute control even with a minority of the shares.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, mr. schit
sergey brin emigrated to the usa at age 6 from russia. it is my understanding his strong anti-censorship views comes from what his parents imparted on him from their experience in the totalitarian ussr
so good for you mr. brin, bless you. maybe google can be a force for good in this world and not a data abusing behemoth like facebook as long as you draw breath
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A CEO getting butthurt over not following something in their company core values shouldn't be running that company. Not everything can be easily quantifiable by dollars and cents, but you can bet your ass that that corporate philosophy has made them money over the years. Schmidt is short sighted.
or at least not clearly right. Context from TFA:
This doesn't mean that Schmidt wanted to move away from "don't be evil", he may have just been worn out from trying to uphold it for as large and diverse a company as Google is.
Two sides to every story -
I viewed the China censorship affair as a large corporation ignores a country's laws because it was powerful enough to be above the government.
I don't think that's a force for good at all, I think that it sets a very dangerous precedent.
Why lolcats added to headline proofreading department?
10 years as CEO of a Fortune 500 company isn't a bad record. The average is 6.5 years. Schmidt leaves with Google much larger than when he started, profitable, and in good condition. He's done far better than the CEOs of most of the Fortune 500 in the last decade.
From TFS: "Facebook had replaced them as the hot tech company, the place vital engineers wanted to work."
Could someone explain?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Wait, so we can't change our posts but they can change the summaries!
YRO!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Leave Google to go work on PHP spaghetti code? Puhleese.
Maybe people have left Google, but show us the numbers. I highly doubt they went to FACEBOOK.
I'm a 2000 man.
Sigh. Not this shit again. Is China the evil villain now? I wasn't paying attention to Faux News. I am still at EyeRaan as the Axis of Evil chapter. In my non-American view, the US is the short, medium and long term threat to freedom in the world. The last global economic meltdown originated from there. The most Draconian laws (copyright, intellectual property laws, RIAA etc.) emanates from America. America can and did invade any country it likes on any pretense and get away with it. It can kidnap, imprison without trial and torture anyone regardless of nationality and get away with it. It has nuclear, chemical and biological weapon stockpiles that at any moment could fall into the hands of Sarah Palins and their ilk. It has mercenary fanatical soldiers who will carry out any order, even shooting civilians in cold blood. And worst of all, Americans still believe that they are the good guys. This belief is what scares me. Historically, China on the other hand had not much interest in the outside world other than the buffer zones around it. China want to become a world player but from what I have seen, it does not want to become the world police, judge and executioner.
They, to paraphrase, "lose some energy and focus" when they do not get their way. Interesting way to put that.
That really describes everyone. I often "lose some energy and focus" when my boss tells me to change the way I am tackling a problem, because he doesn't think the same way I do.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Oh, look! Another moron who's never heard of a thing called a "monopoly".
Monopolies are answerable to the government in the country in which they reside. Furthermore, there is no monopoly that has the (legal) authority to put you in jail, confiscate your property, or terminate your life. I can live a free life without electricity or telephone service. Less convenient but quite doable.
Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally.
So do corporations.
For a corporation to do that, two conditions must be met first:
1) there must exist a government
2) that government must be corrupt
Without a corrupt government, corporations do not have the powers you mention.
Without any government at all, let's say as happens in some parts of Africa, no corporations exist.
Google's PR problems started at the same time that Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp saw them as a serious competitor for the advertising dollar. That is why "Governments around the world were lobbing grenades at Google" after Murdoch went around the world talking to governments about the evils of the net and most likely calling in favours. Even the streetview wireless thing was really a non-event until it was blown way out of proportion by the Murdoch press.
Some things have improved, some things have gotten worse. It's hard to say, overall, that most people in the USA are much happier than the Haudenosaunee (Iroqois) were 500 years ago, even living a bit longer perhaps on average. Are those alive now in the USA much happier or more physically fit than the Arawak in Haiti who Columbus and his successors wiped out?
See, for example: ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:
"They
These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus."
So, sure, we have fancy laptops and the internet, and that is great. But do most of us have real families, real communities, and meaningful work anymore?
See also:
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
We can't go back to those days and keep our big populations. But we can at least honor the memory of what was good about those times, and try to bring that goodness into the 21st century. Some people are trying:
http://www.blessedunrest.com/
Overall, I think Eric Schmidt was trying, too. I'm sort of sorry now I made fun of him and Knol here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle/msg/5bd385feed4127d7
"""
Gold Leader: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are semantic wikis and desktops going to be against Virgle?
General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small cgi script on a shared server or desktop to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense.
-----
Commander #1: We've analyzed their attack on Knol, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your Golden Parachute standing by?
Governor Schmidt: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.
"""
Still, if he had listened to the points I was trying to make about Google and Post-Scarcity, maybe he would have had more success? ... Essentially, by focusing on "profit" (and so Empire to defend that profit and related "ownership" and "equity") this is the kind of deadly farce of the bubble of Empire that Google and Virgin are (in jest) proposing bringing to Mars. It's just the "uns
http://www.pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Project-Virgle.html
"This is an email I posted to the Project Virgle email list. Project Virgle was an April Fool's joke by Google and Virgin, which many did not see as that funny.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
There's a difference between having the power (or "means" or "capability" or "opportunity") to do something and having the authority to do it.
A mugger has the power to acquire resources through threats or actual violence. The IRS has the authority to do so. When the mugger attacks you they are breaking the law. When the police seize your property to rectify a tax debt, they are enforcing the law.
This is a matter of definitions, not politics. Government is the system a society chooses (or fails to overthrow) as a mechanism to develop and implement the rules of law. Corporations are organizations which exist under those rules. Sometimes corporations break rules just as muggers do. It is within their power to do so, but they do not have the authority. Sometimes they get caught, sometimes they get away with it. That's the nature of reality. But the meaning of the words is such that only a system of government has the ultimate authority to use force to enact its will. Any non-government entity which acquires that authority does so at the behest of the government(s) it serves or operates under (which is usually the same thing).
When a Corporation mis-behaves, it is the job of the Governments who have jurisdiction over those incidents to correct the behavior of the Corporation in question. When a Government mis-behaves, it is the job of the Citizens to correct the behavior of that Government.
The grand-parent post used the word "power" when they should have used the word "authority". It is, by definition, true that "Governments have the authority to deprive you of your life, liberty or property." The circumstances under which various governments have that authority vary from country to country, and from state to state.
If you don't like what corporations due, vote with your dollar and your ballot. If you don't like what your government does, vote with your wallet, ballot and feet. (It looks like voting with bullets doesn't work anymore.)