Why is Google losing the AI-race? Eric Schmidt blames it on ‘one day a week…’

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has claimed remote working is one of the top reasons why Google is losing the AI-race. Schmidt recently expressed his reservations about remote work while speaking to students at Stanford University during a lecture, a video of which has now surfaced.

‘I’m sorry to be so blunt’

Schmidt made the remarks in response to a question from professor Erik Brynjolfsson. Brynjolfsson spoke out about how Google has fallen behind in AI development, saying, “They’ve kind of lost the initiative to OpenAI, and even the last leaderboard I saw, Anthropic’s Claude was at the top of the list. I asked [Google CEO] Sundar [Pichai] this, he didn’t really give me a very sharp answer. Maybe you have a sharper or a more objective explanation for what’s going on there.”

Schmidt noted that he no longer works for the company, and said, “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early, and working from home, was more important than winning. He added that he believes startups work because “people work like hell.”

“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” Schmidt continued. “But the fact of the matter is, if you all leave the university and go found a company, you’re not gonna let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against the other startups.”

However, the outlet SFGATE noted that Schmidt was exaggerating when he said “one day a week.” Back in 2022, workers were required to come into offices three days a week.

Schmidt is not the only executive who has spoken out against remote working. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, too, has previously expressed his reservations. “It doesn’t work for younger kids in apprenticeships, it doesn’t really work for creativity and spontaneity, it doesn’t really work for management teams,” Dimon told The Economist in a 2023 interview.