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Google GOOGL+1.60%’s former CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt says Google fell behind on AI because of remote work.
“Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning,” Schmidt said during a talk at Stanford University in July, responding to a question about why startups such as OpenAI are leading in AI innovation. “And the reason startups work is because the people work like hell.” The His remarks were first reported by Fortune.
Schmidt isn’t the first CEO to rail against remote work. Executives at companies from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to Dell, Amazon AMZN+2.39%, X and more have taken harsh — sometimes even threatening – stances on remote work.
The evidence regarding remote work’s impacts on productivity is mixed. Some studies have found that working from home boosts productivity — as much as 24% — while others say the opposite.
Google last year adopted stricter policies on remote work. In-person employees would have their attendance tracked to make sure they followed the three-days-per-week in office rule, and managers could factor their absences into performance reviews. The workforce at large has resisted such changes.
And while Schmidt says Google is behind on AI relative to startups, it remains one of the AI leaders among its Big Tech peers. Investors reacted negatively to Google’s hefty expenditures on AI — and a lack of clarity from CEO Sundar Pachai about when those costs will pay off. But Wedbush analyst Dan Ives used Google as an example of Big Tech’s AI success in a recent note to investors.
Google’s AI tools helped its Cloud division record record revenue in the most recent quarter.
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