Eric E. Schmidt

Eric E. Schmidt
Born April 27, 1955 (1955-04-27) (age 55)
Washington, DC
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Princeton University
Occupation Engineer, Chairman and CEO of Google
Salary $557,466 compensation in 2006[1]
Net worth increaseUS$6.3 billion USD (2010)[2]
Website
Google Inc. Profile

Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955(1955-04-27))[3] is an engineer, Chairman/CEO of Google and a former[4] member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc.[5] He also sits on the boards of trustees for Carnegie Mellon University[6] and Princeton University.[7] He is the author of the lex lexical analyzer software for Unix.

Contents

Biography

Schmidt was born in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Yorktown High School,[8] Schmidt attended Princeton University where he earned a BSEE in 1976.[9] At the University of California, Berkeley, he earned an MS in 1979 for designing and implementing a network linking the campus computer center, the CS and the EECS departments,[10][11] and a PhD in 1982 in EECS with a dissertation about the problems of managing distributed software development and tools for solving these problems.[12] He was joint author of lex (a lexical analyzer and an important tool for compiler construction). He taught at Stanford Business School as a part time professor.[13]

He lives in Atherton, California, with his wife Wendy.[14]

He is also on the list of ARTnews 200 top art collectors.[15]

The Schmidt Family Foundation addresses issues of sustainability and the responsible use of natural resources. Wendy Schmidt, working with Heart Howerton, a San Francisco architectural firm that specializes in large-scale land use, has inaugurated several projects on the island of Nantucket that seek to sustain the unique character of the island, and to minimize the impact of seasonal visitation on the island's core community.

Career

Early career

Early in his career, Schmidt held a series of technical positions with IT companies, including Bell Labs, Zilog and Xerox’s famed Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He joined Sun Microsystems in 1983, led its Java development efforts and rose to become Chief Technology Officer. In 1997, he was appointed CEO of Novell.

Schmidt left Novell after the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin interviewed Schmidt. Impressed by him,[16] they recruited Eric Schmidt to run their company in 2001 under the influence of venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz.

Google

Schmidt joined Google's board of directors as chairman in March 2001 and became the company's CEO in August 2001. At Google, Schmidt shares responsibility for Google's daily operations with founders Page and Brin. As indicated by page 29 of Google's 2004 S-1 Filing[17] Schmidt, Page, and Brin run Google as a triumvirate. Schmidt possesses the legal responsibilities typically assigned to the CEO of a public company and focuses on management of the vice presidents and the sales organization.

According to Google's website, Schmidt also focuses on "building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and on ensuring that quality remains high while product development cycle times are kept to a minimum."[18]

In 2007, Schmidt was cited by PC World as #1 on the list of the 50 Most Important People on the Web, along with Google co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin[19].

In 2009, Mr. Schmidt was considered one of "The TopGun CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.[20][21]

Apple

Schmidt was elected to Apple's board of directors on August 28, 2006. On August 3, 2009 it was announced that Schmidt would resign his board member position at Apple due to conflict of interests and the growing competition between Google and Apple.[22]

President Barack Obama

Schmidt was an informal advisor to the Barack Obama presidential campaign and began campaigning the week of October 19, 2008, on behalf of the candidate.[23] He had been mentioned as a possible candidate for the new Chief Technology Officer position which Obama created in his administration.[24] In announcing his endorsement for Obama, Schmidt jokingly said that with his $1.00 salary, he would be getting a tax cut.[25] After Obama won, Schmidt was a member of President Obama's transition advisory board. He proposed that the easiest way to solve all of the United States' problems at once, at least in domestic policy, is by a stimulus program that rewards renewable energy and, over time, attempts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.[26] He has since become a new member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology PCAST.[27]

Compensation

While CEO of Google in 2008 and 2009, Schmidt earned a base salary of just $1, and other compensation of $508,763 in 2008 and $508,763 in 2009. He did not receive any cash, stock, or options.[28] Schmidt is one of the few people who have become billionaires (USD) based on stock options received as an employee in a corporation of which he was neither the founder nor a relative of the founder.[29] In its 2006 'World's Richest People' list, Forbes ranked Schmidt as the 129th richest person in the world (the ranking was shared by Onsi Sawiris, Alexei Kuzmichov, and Robert Rowling) with an estimated wealth of $6.2 billion. Schmidt earned a salary of $1 in 2006.[30]

Views

During an interview, aired on December 3, 2009 on the CNBC documentary "Inside the Mind of Google", Schmidt was asked "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?" His reply was: "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." [31][32] At the Techonomy conference on August 4, 2010 Schmidt expressed that technology is good, but he said that the only way to manage the challenges is "much greater transparency and no anonymity." Schmidt also stated that in an era of asymmetric threats, "true anonymity is too dangerous." [33]

In August 2010, Schmidt clarified his company's views on network neutrality: "I want to be clear what we mean by Net neutrality: What we mean is if you have one data type like video, you don't discriminate against one person's video in favor of another. But it's okay to discriminate across different types, so you could prioritize voice over video, and there is general agreement with Verizon and Google on that issue."[34]

See also

References

  1. Google Inc. Executive Compensation
  2. Forbes Magazine (September 30, 2009). "Eric Schmidt". Forbes Magazine. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Eric-Schmidt_OYW6.html. Retrieved May 18, 2010. 
  3. "Google’s view on the future of business: An interview with CEO Eric Schmidt ". The McKinsey Quarterly. http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Googles_view_on_the_future_of_business_An_interview_with_CEO_Eric_Schmidt_2229. Retrieved 2009-01-26. 
  4. "Dr. Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple’s Board of Directors". Apple. 2009-08-03. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/08/03bod.html. Retrieved 2009-08-03. 
  5. apple.com
  6. "April 13: Google Chairman, CEO Eric Schmidt To Give Keynote Address at Carnegie Mellon Commencement, May 17 - Carnegie Mellon University". Cmu.edu. http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2009/April/april13_commencement.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-21. 
  7. princeton.edu
  8. McCaffrey, Scott (15 May 2008). "New Inductees Named to Yorktown Hall of Fame". Sun Gazette. http://www.sungazette.net/articles/2008/05/15/arlington/news/nws92a.txt 
  9. Wolff, Josephine (2007-02-06). "University Library joins Google Book Search". The Daily Princetonian. http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/02/06/news/17198.shtml. Retrieved 2008-05-28. 
  10. Eric, Schmidt. "The Berkeley Network - A Retrospective" (PDF). http://www.krsaborio.net/research/acrobat/1980s/8002_bsd.pdf 
  11. Eric, Schmidt. An Introduction to the Berkeley Network. Google. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=an.introduction.to.the.berkeley.network%20schmidt&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws 
  12. Schmidt, E. E. (1982). Controlling large software development in a distributed environment. U.C. Berkeley EECS Technical Reports. http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=0788297CI&q=&uid=792371362&setcookie=yes. 
  13. "Stanford". Stanford Graduate School of Business. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/NEWS/headlines/duffie_schmidt.shtml. Retrieved 2009-01-26. 
  14. "Taylor Eigsti, a 15-year-old jazz pianist featured on the August 4 cover of the Almanac, performed for President Clinton Friday night at the Atherton home of Novell CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy"."LOOSE ENDS"
  15. ARTnews, The ARTnews 200 Top Collectors, 2007
  16. "CEO Eric Schmidt stood out because he 'was the only candidate who had been to Burning Man.'" From "Markoff and Zachary on Google"; quoted are John Markoff and Gregg Zachary. See also Business Week's "Eric Schmidt, Google" from 29 September 2003: "One of the first orders of business was joining his new 20-something colleagues at Burning Man, a free-form festival of artistic self-expression held in a Nevada desert lake bed. Sitting in his office shortly after his return, tanned and slightly weary, Schmidt couldn't have been happier. "They're keeping me young," he declared."
  17. "Amendment No. 9 to Form S-1 Registration Statement Under The Securities Act of 1933". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. 2004-08-18. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504142742/ds1a.htm. 
  18. "Google Management: Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Executive Officer". Google Inc.. http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html#eric. Retrieved 2006-12-01. 
  19. Null, Christopher. "The 50 Most Important People on the Web". PC World. March 5, 2007. Retrieved on March 5, 2007.
  20. The Market's Best Managers - Forbes.com, Forbes.com
  21. Brendan Wood International Announces 24 TopGun CEOs in the US, Reuters.com
  22. "Google CEO Eric Schmidt Resigns From Apple Board of Directors". Mac Rumors. 2009-08-03. http://www.macrumors.com/2009/08/03/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-resigns-from-apple-board-of-directors/. Retrieved 2010-03-21. 
  23. Langley, Monica; Jessica E. Vascellaro (October 20, 208). "Google CEO Backs Obama". http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122446734650049199.html. Retrieved 2008-10-20. 
  24. Godinez, Victor (October 20, 208). "Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly angling for job in Obama administration as national Chief Technology Officer". http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/10/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-report.html. Retrieved 2008-10-24. 
  25. tax-cut
  26. "Gore/Alliance for Climate Protection: All-In for Plug-Ins". Calcars.org. http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/1022.html. Retrieved 2010-03-21. 
  27. Membership list of PCAST
  28. CEO Compensation for Eric E. Schmidt Ph.D., Equilar
  29. "Earlier this year, he pulled in almost $90 million from sales of Google stock and made at least another $50 million selling shares in the past two months as the stock leaped to more than $300 a share." Mills, Elinor (August 3 2005). "Google balances privacy, reach". CNET. Archived from the original on 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050815014210sh_re_/news.com.com/2102-1032_3-5787483.html. Retrieved 2006-11-15. 
  30. "Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin agree to a $1 salary according to company's latest proxy". CNN. 2005-04-08. http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/08/technology/google_salary/index.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-03. 
  31. "Google CEO Eric Schmidt on privacy". YouTube. 2009-12-08. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6e7wfDHzew. Retrieved 2010-03-21. 
  32. "Media - Facebook must be weary of changing the rules". Ft.com. 2009-12-11. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/efc1281e-e687-11de-98b1-00144feab49a.html. Retrieved 2010-03-21. 
  33. "Google's Schmidt: Society not ready for technology". CNET. August 4, 2010. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20012704-56.html. Retrieved 2010-08-07. 
  34. Goldman, David (August 5, 2010). "Why Google and Verizon's Net neutrality deal affects you". CNNMoney (CNN). http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/technology/google_verizon_net_neutrality_rules/index.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
  35. Battelle, John (2005-12-01). "The 70 Percent Solution". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/12/01/8364616/index.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-02. 

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