Former Google CEO blames ‘work from home’ for tech giant’s delays in AI race

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has blamed Google’s remote work policy for the tech giant falling behind in the AI ​​race.

During a conversation with Stanford students posted on YouTube Tuesday, the professor asked Schmidt why he thought Google had lost its lead to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic.

“Google decided that work-life balance, getting home early and working remotely were more important than winning,” the former CEO said.

“And the reason startups succeed is because the people there work incredibly hard,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt, whose net worth is $23.3 billion according to Forbes magazine, took the helm of Google in 2001, serving as CEO until 2011 and then as executive chairman until 2015.

He then served as a technical advisor to parent company Alphabet before leaving the company altogether in 2020.

“I apologize for being so direct,” Schmidt told the Stanford students. “But the fact is, if you all leave the university and start companies, you’re not going to let people work from home and come in one day a week if you want to compete with other startups.”

Stanford professor Erik Brynjolfsson said he asked current Google CEO Sundair Pichai the same question, but he “didn’t give me a very specific answer.”

Some studies have shown that employees are less productive when they work from home—and some have shown that bosses “feel” that their employees are less productive when they work remotely. Other studies have shown the opposite.

Google has opted for a hybrid work policy, with the tech giant ordering employees to come to offices about three days a week, according to a 2022 report.

Hybrid seems to be a popular option, with about 74% of U.S. companies reporting they are using or planning to use a permanent hybrid work model in 2023, according to a report by Zippia.

Last summer, Google reportedly informed its employees in an email that it would be tracking badge swiping to monitor office attendance.

According to research from the Integrated Benefits Institute, return-to-office orders often force employees to leave their jobs. As many as 47% of workers said they would quit their jobs if their employer ordered them to work permanently in-person.

But Google isn’t the only tech giant adopting hybrid work principles. OpenAI is implementing the same three-day system as Google, according to a report by Fortune.

Google seems to be in disarray in the AI ​​race. It failed to launch its AI chat bot ahead of OpenAI’s wildly popular ChatGPT.

Its original rival, the Bard chatbot, did not prove to be much competition for ChatGPT upon launch.

And Google’s more advanced Gemini launched with glitches that made it difficult to generate images, which Pichai said was “completely unacceptable.”

Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.