Eric Schmidt on Management at Google

Posted on November 24, 2008 Comments (5)

Eric Schmidt speaks at the Management Lab Summit on May 29, 2008 in Half Moon Bay, California. Conversation with Professor Gary Hamel.

“The culture can be thought of as a ship and iterate culture with transparency for what people are doing. And that model scales pretty well.”
“I have two jobs, two roles. The first is to make sure every issue that is important is really debated to find, not the common outcome, but the best decision… second thing is to put pressure to make it happen quick.”

“it [managing better] starts with listening, it has to do with curiosity“
“everything has to be based on some fact”
“It’s only about the people.” [respect for people is critical, Google really acts as though the people are their most important asset - John].
“What is the number 1 goal of the company? It is end user happiness with search. What is the number 2 goal? It’s end user happiness with advertising. What is the number 3 goal? The construction of the Google network of partners to effectuate the first two. What is the number 4 goal? To grow and scale the business… You will eventually get extraordinary returns for your shareholders and maximize advertiser happiness if all those things happen… There are a lot of business executives that get confused on what the goal is and they think that shareholder value is the goal. Shareholder value is a consequence of the goal.”

5 Responses to “Eric Schmidt on Management at Google”

Anonymous
November 25th, 2008 @ 10:05 am

Wow an interview with the guru manager himself. That's great that you highlighted some of his main points. I think business managers everyone can really learn from what he has to say. Great post!
Jon Miller
November 28th, 2008 @ 12:52 pm

Brilliant. Thanks for posting this.
Management Improvement Carnival #48 « Quality and Innovation
December 1st, 2008 @ 9:12 pm

“A blog post by John Hunter reflecting on Management at Google, and featuring a video of Schmidt and Hamel chatting. I am a big fan of Google because they skillfully implement effective, agile quality systems in an environment highly conducive to innovation…”
Justin H
December 4th, 2008 @ 10:42 pm

Great post. Thanks. "Everything has to be based on some fact." Importance of listening, etc.
Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Eric Schmidt on Google, Education and Economics
March 9th, 2009 @ 9:03 am

“That is a brilliant [actually not brilliant at all - John] strategy take the best people hire them in American universities and then kick them out” It happens. “Its shocking.” It happens. “I know we are fighting against it.”

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