Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has quickly walked back his criticism of his old company’s remote work policy, blaming it for AI challenges and falling behind competitors.
“I was worried about Google and their working hours,” Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal“I regret my mistake.”
A recording of his recent lecture at Stanford University, posted on the university’s YouTube channel on Tuesday, had more than 40,000 views by Wednesday afternoon before it was removed.
In the video, Schmidt claimed that Google’s stance on working from home caused it to lose its leadership in AI to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Google decided that work-life balance, going home early and working from home were more important than winning,” Schmidt told the students. “And the reason startups work is because people work like crazy.”
“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” continued Schmidt, who left Google for good in 2020.
“But the fact is, if you all leave university and start a company, you’re not going to let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete with the other startups.”
Schmidt demanded that the controversial video be removed. Wall Street.
Schmidt did not elaborate and did not respond to Fortunes Request for comment.
The former CEO led Google from 2001 to 2011 and served as executive chairman until 2018. He then sat on Alphabet’s board until 2019 and remained as a technical advisor until February 2020.
Is Google really being held back by its WFH policy?
Schmidt’s original claim that GoogleThe lack of innovation in the AI department was due to employees working from home more than those at OpenAI, which immediately came to a halt. Assets Please note that the same 3-day office policy applies to them.
Likewise, anthropological workers are allowed to work from home for 75% of their working week.
“Flexible work arrangements do not slow down our work,” countered the Alphabet Workers Union, which represents more than 1,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada, in a post on X.
“Staff shortages, changing priorities, constant layoffs, stagnant wages and a lack of project tracking by management – these are the factors that slow down Google employees every day.”
CEOs believe that home office kills productivity – studies prove otherwise
Even though the former Google boss has since withdrawn his complaint that employees are destroying their productivity because they do not come to the office often enough, this complaint has been heard by employees constantly for two years.
Elon Musk’s aversion to teleworking is perhaps best documented: As his first official act after taking office, the billionaire ordered the end of Twitter’s “work from anywhere” policy and transformed the site into today’s “Hardcore” X.
He took the same approach at SpaceX and Tesla, where he wants employees to be in the office at least 40 hours a week.
“The whole Covid stay-at-home thing has tricked people into thinking you don’t actually have to work hard,” he previously wrote on X.
His stance is bold, but not unusual: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said The Economist that working from home “is not really conducive to creativity and spontaneity.”
Meanwhile, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg made a radical U-turn on his vision of a “future-oriented” remote company when he called for employees to return to the office in 2023 – because those who work in person “achieve more.”
However, studies on the effects of home office on productivity speak against this.
A comprehensive study by Stanford workplace expert Nick Bloom recently found that hybrid working not only reduces turnover by 33%, but also has no negative impact on performance or productivity.
It turned out that flexible regulations increase productivity by 1% and bring companies “saves in the millions”.
In fact, research shows that RTO requirements are one of the main reasons for the drop in productivity.
Having proven during the pandemic that they can work just as efficiently from home as they can while tied to a desk, workers now forced to return to the office are voting with their feet—or accepting the situation but making minimal effort.
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