Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has since moved on to greener and perhaps more dangerous pastures, told an audience of Stanford students recently that “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.” Evidently this hot take was not for wider consumption, as Stanford — which posted the video this week on YouTube — today made the video of the event private.
It would not be surprising if it was at the behest of the talent. “I misspoke about Google and their work hours,” said Schmidt in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. “I regret my error.”
Several news publications have already run headlines about the video, and 1.4 million people viewed a clip of Schmidt trashing Google’s remote work practices on X.
At another point in the video, Schmidt tells the audience to keep what he’s telling them private, then acts somewhat surprised when his interviewer points out cameras in the room. At another point, he tells the audience that AI startups can steal IP and hire smart lawyers to clean it up later, once they’ve created a successful product. Presumably, the former Google CEO did not know the entire interview would be posted online.