this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024

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Video of Eric Schmidt blaming remote work for Google’s woes mysteriously vanishes (techcrunch.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has since moved on to greener and perhaps more dangerous pastures, told an audience of Stanford students recently that “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.” Evidently this hot take was not for wider consumption, as Stanford — which posted the video this week on YouTube — today made the video of the event private.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Because Google was so focused and strategic before the pandemic rollseyes.

The issue is Google’s broken governance and incentive system, which gives product owners and executives incentives for new products and actively disincentivizes maintaining and improving existing products...and that was a thing from well before the pandemic hit.

It's why Google launched three pay systems and had five messaging systems at the same time.

And, finally, this is all because of the strategy set by senior leaders.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

a) you're right. Everyone who says this is right

b) If the senior leaders have designed their own ivory towers to force obsequious behaviour from their own people, they sure as shit won't listen to totally reasonable analysis from people who don't work for them. As such, they have engineered their own demise. I wish them well with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah and they make ad revenue hand over fist. So anything else is just “experimental” to them aka a cost center. Since they don’t commit to these side products they don’t become profitable and inevitably get cancelled.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Also the ads are just so obscenely profitable that anything else will always just be a small side project. Google ad revenue is $200 billion/year.

If a new product has revenue of $500 million/year it’s still peanuts that are just a distraction and can be canceled with zero impact.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

He retired? This fuck better not get an appointment in the next administration.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Did the students boo him? I hope so.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Of course not. They were taking notes as they expect to be next in line to grind the peasants.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Cunt

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Work/life balance, going home early, and working from home is winning.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If he has time to complain about other people, then he is probably not essential to the operation. Maybe he should be fired instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Fucking billionaire luck babies telling others they need to work harder. Such a piece of shit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It honestly took me a while to figure out why people were criticizing him. I read his remarks as a positive and didn't realize he thinks having a work-life balance is a bad thing. Odd coming from someone who is fucking retired. "You work, I live. Things are balanced."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Odd coming from someone who is fucking retired.

I'd suspect he sacrificed work-life balance his whole career (yes, CEOs are known for golfing and vacations, but I bet they still think of work 24/7). So just like people complaining about student loan forgiveness, some people get so angry if they perceive someone might have an easier experience than they did.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

CEOs sometimes think like this, but they seem to forget how much more they are paid when it comes up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Personally I don't like student loan forgiveness because I think a free public university system is a better investment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, same reason I don't like insulin, I want a permanent cure for diabetes... In the meantime fuck diabetic people, am I right?

/S in case people are confused

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Free education will make the world a better place in the future for everyone. Debt forgiveness is just for people who don't want to pay their bills because they studied something that doesn't pay.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Curing diabetes will make the world a better place in the future for everyone. Insuline is just for people who want to eat candy all day because they hate themselves

Ps: it's hilarious how quickly you showed the true colours you pretended to hide in your first post

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

100%

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm genuinely confused by this? I know CompSci and engineering majors that are having trouble with loans and are you saying that they should have tried a more profitable degree... What?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I'm saying people made choices.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I’m saying people made choices.

Normally we call that 'victim blaming'; even when the victimization is financial by the univer$ity.

I get you have this "do the crime, do the time" thing for people choosing to spend on education; but aside from multi-decade reform plan that isn't even as marketable to voters as "let's just consolidate healthcare and save money", what do we have that'll help people avoid the looming debt trap that has such a chilling effect on others entering post-secondary education?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

We have inflation for that. Wages will eventually go up.

And there was no crime here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And I'm saying they were coerced into it because of the poor handling of public funding for universities thus making it the governments fault that sometimes people got fucked by loans no matter what degree they got.

To advocate for fixing a systemic problem and not also advocate for fixing what the systemic problem has caused is weird. Fixing these issues aren't exclusive like you seem to think they are.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

No one was coerced to do anything. Cheaper options were available at state schools, community colleges and boot camps. Many people instead chose debt and more expensive schools instead.

If we're going to drop a trillion we really don't have on something, I'd prefer to build for the future while you don't want to pay your bills.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You do NOT get a choice about getting an education in a vast, vast majority of life paths in the developed world.

I know a lot of people and exactly two of them are working in the field they got degrees in. You cannot always control the direction of your life, anything from medical issues to family emergencies to economics in your region can profoundly impact your chances of landing a career in your chosen study field, or even just getting a simple job that can pay back tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars as the interest snowballs.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

You absolutely have a choice.

Clearly there should be debt forgiveness for people with medical issues. Otherwise people should think ahead.

And I started all of this by saying that university should be free. I'm not the enemy here. You signed an agreement to pay those bills, now do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Otherwise people should think ahead.

The vast majority of people are thinking ahead when they get a loan to get an education. The rest of your comment is telling people with problems "fuck you, got mine" and I'm done with it. Enjoy your block. Enjoy your blessings and enjoy being hateful to people who had different luck in life, I'm sure abandoning human decency will really help in everything you do.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm sorry you can't handle when someone disagrees with you. I'm not abandoning human decency when I say things like "university should be free" and "if anything all education loans should be refinanced with a interest rate ceiling". You are a coward.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Free education will make the world a better place in the future for everyone.

This is true.

Debt forgiveness is just for people who don’t want to pay their bills because they studied something that doesn’t pay.

This is utter garbage. Judgemental much? Maybe your own experiences and feelings aren't the same for everyone.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

I do not have a degree. Still here and happy. Make better choices.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

¿Por qué no los dos?

I too prefer free tertiary education. But that also does not relieve the millions saddled with predatory loans.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not all loans were predatory, some people just made dumb choices all on their own. If anything there should be a reasonable limit on the interest rates and the loans should be refinanced.

And, as for why not both, we actually can't afford either. Investing for the future is a better deal for society than fixing people's personal mistakes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean we can't afford either? Are you telling me that somehow all other developed countries are able to afford free or cheap higher education but somehow the US cannot? We could also slowly start to cancel current student debt. Sure, it is at $1.77 trillion right now but that does not have to be wiped away all at once. Prioritize getting rid of predatory loans, then those those with financial hardship, then go from there.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, we can't afford it, because we chose to spend all of our money on the military.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

This sounds like we could afford it, we just need to take that money back from the military…

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Did some companies really go back to the office100%? We sure did not, going to the office is more of a social thing, maybe for all hands meetings, customer presentations and that kind of stuff.

The company wins because they can have a shiny office in the city that does not need to have workplaces for all employees but maybe 20% of them at a time.

With all the weird stuff that people do at home, productivity is still higher. In times of crunch working from home has saved me more than once. Etc blabla is this really still a discussion nowadays?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

In my time managing a team of about a dozen WFH employees, I had 10 of the 12 overworking every damn week. They were putting in time off-the-clock just because they were sitting at their desk without anyone coming in to shut off the lights and because they were comfortable at home. In the four years or so that I did that job, I had more problems with people overworking themselves than slacking off.

There were a couple times employees were obviously doing the bare minimum and playing video games. Since I managed in-person teams as well in the past, I know that this is normal, there will always be some percentage of employees that cannot stand working and try to do anything to avoid it. This happens WFH as well as in offices, but when it's WFH the company managers and owners don't have visibility on it, and thus feel not in control, and that's the very worst feeling for most of these folks who run companies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

told an audience of Stanford students recently that “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.”

Yeah, so I know for whom I wouldn't want to work after graduating.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

and nobody in the Stanford audience had the balls to yell out "IT FUCKING IS" at him after he said it. Cowards and sycophants, all.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They have nap pods, full restaurants, and snack bars, and "fun" office spaces so you don't want to leave the office.

Someone I knew worked there and wouldn't actually buy groceries. He just at at the office for all his meals. He didn't own a car. Rode his bike down or used public transportation.

It saved him like several hundred per month.

They know this and will try to use it as a way to suck you in and keep you in the office longer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I have heard from many sources that at least the past ~4 years, if you are seen using the fun office things, you're seen as not busy enough and will be pipped/fired

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

https://killedbygoogle.com/

I don't know man, it looks like the lack of focus started well before 2020.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Well, clearly, their executive team all need to be in the office. Their actual workers can be trusted to work from home.