Who they are
The "adult supervision" hired to run Google in 2001, Schmidt was CEO from 2001–2011 and Executive Chairman through 2017, guiding the company from search engine to globe-spanning platform. Post-Google, he has become one of the loudest voices in Washington on AI, China, and national security. His book How Google Works (with Jonathan Rosenberg) is a standard reference on smart-creatives, OKRs, and the operating culture of early Google.
Core Ideas
- Smart creatives — hire people who combine technical depth with business instincts
- OKRs as operating rhythm — Google's version of quarterly clarity
- Don't manage the plan, manage the team — his repeated framing
Related
- Google — the company he scaled
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin — his founder partners