Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt blamed Google’s work-from-home policy as the reason the tech giant is lagging behind in the AI race.
In a conversation with Stanford University students posted on YouTube on Tuesday, a professor asked Schmidt why he thought Google had lost its lead to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Google decided that work-life balance, going home early and working from home were more important than winning,” the former CEO said.
“And the reason startups work is because people work like crazy,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt – who has a net worth of $23.3 billion, according to Forbes – took the helm at Google in 2001, served as CEO until 2011, and then served as executive chairman until 2015.
He then worked as a technical advisor at parent company Alphabet before leaving the company entirely in 2020.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” Schmidt told the Stanford students. “But the fact is, if you all leave university and start a company, you’re not going to have people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete with the other startups.”
Stanford professor Erik Brynjolfsson said he asked current Google CEO Sundair Pichai the same question, but he “didn’t give him a really clear answer.”
Some studies have found that employees are less productive when they work from home—and some have found that bosses “feel” their employees are less productive when they work from home. Other studies have shown the exact opposite.
Google has opted for a hybrid work policy. The tech giant requires its employees to be in the office about three days a week, according to its 2022 report.
Hybrid seems to be the most popular option, with about 74% of U.S. companies saying they are using or planning to use a permanent hybrid work model in 2023, according to a report by Zippia.
Google reportedly emailed its employees last summer that the company would begin monitoring its employees’ attendance at the office using badges.
Orders to return to the office often result in employees having to leave the company. According to a study by the Integrated Benefits Institute, 47% of employees say they would quit their job if their employer required them to work full-time.
But Google isn’t the only tech giant to implement hybrid work policies. According to a Fortune report, OpenAI is implementing the same three-day system as Google.
Google seems to be lagging behind in the AI race. The company failed to launch its AI chatbot ahead of OpenAI’s hugely popular ChatGPT.
The original chatbot competitor Bard did not prove to be much competition for ChatGPT after its launch.
And Google’s more sophisticated Gemini still came with glitches at launch that affected its ability to produce images, which Pichai said was “completely unacceptable.”
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
