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Eric Schmidt
Born	April 27, 1955
Occupation(s)	Chief Executive Officer of Google Inc Board of Directors of Apple Inc.
Website	Google Inc. Profile

Eric Emerson Schmidt, Ph.D (born April 27, 1955 in Washington, D.C.) is Chairman and CEO of Google Inc and a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. He also sits on the Princeton University Board of Trustees. He lives in Atherton, California with his wife Wendy.

Education

Dr Schmidt obtained a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MS in 1979 and a PhD in 1982 in EECS from the University of California, Berkeley. He was joint author of lex, a lexical parser and an important tool for compiler construction.

Early Career

Schmidt was a member of the research staff at the Computer Science Lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and held positions at Bell Laboratories and Zilog. In 1983, Schmidt joined Sun Microsystems as software manager. At Sun he led the development of Java, Sun's platform-independent programming technology, and defined Sun's Internet software strategy. He later became chief technology officer and corporate executive officer.

Sun Microsystem as CTO

While at Sun Microsystems, Eric Schmidt was interviewed by Fast Company, a Silicon Valley News Agency. During the interview, Eric Schmidt indicated he believed that sex oriented businesses were the future of the computing industry , and described very unusual views about sex in the workplace. Several months after these interviews were published, Schmidt was recruited by Novell to the CEO position. One notable excerpt from these inteviews:

Picture the headquarters of Sun Microsystems: a campus basking in the California sun, a few blocks off Highway 101, at the shallow end of San Francisco Bay. Nestled in a corner office, deeply buried in the complex of discreet low-rise buildings, Eric Schmidt, Sun's chief technology officer, is leaning back in a plush executive chair. Eric is thinking about sex. A smile is on his lips, and a deep, satisfied light radiates from his eyes. He has grasped a liberating truth: sex -- not microchips and software -- is the key to the future of business.

Although Schmidt claims to be a co-creator of Java, the hailed creator of Java, James Gosling stated in several interviews regarding Schmidt's role with Java that as CTO of Sun, Schmidt tried to kill the project several times. Only after Java had attained some level of success with Browser based technology, Schmidt began to proclaim himself the co-creator of Java, claims James Gosling denies.

Novell

From 1997 to 2001, Schmidt was CEO of Novell. Eric Schmidt was appointed by Novell's Board of Directors to replace then acting Novell CEO Joe Marengi, who had previously been temporarily assigned to the post while Novell's Board conducted a CEO search after former CEO Robert Frankenberg resigned from Novell. Schmidt's first executive action was to dismiss Ty Mattingly, the Novell Corporate Officer who recruited him into Novell, then subsequently dismissed Joe Marengi from Novell as well. During Schmidt's tenure at Novell, the company's revenues fell from almost 2 billion dollars per year to under 1 billion dollars per year. Novell saw the largest gains in its stock prices in over a decade, based upon a stock buyback scheme Eric Schmidt masterminded with key Wall Street shareholders that resulted in the stock increasing in value to over 40.00 per share. Schmidt's leadership of Novell was wracked with lawsuits with Ray Noorda's Canopy Group and key technologists of the company. During Schmidt's tenure, industry observers saw Novell's channel sales collapse and the company loose its leadership role in the Network computing markets, with Microsoft taking over 50% of Novell's installed base in network server sales.

Schmidt did successfully develop Novell's Border Server Products and spun them out of Novell. These businesses then became major suppliers of video servers and caching servers with a large percentage of the customer base being affiliated with the adult entertainment industry and sex video oriented businesses.

In 1999 and 2000, Schmidt in concert with Novell's Chief Counsel, David Bradford, began filing lawsuits against Novell Distributors and Channel Partners for selling NetWare upgrades as original boxed product. Novell's Distributor Channels collapsed in 2000 due to the majority of Novell's Channel Partners dropping NetWare in favor of Microsoft based platforms. David Bradford left the company in 2000 following the collapse of Novell's Sales Channels.

Due to a serious tactical error on Schmidt's part in directing Novell to sue Ray Noorda's Canopy Group over a dispute involving the settlement proceeds from the Digital Research DOS lawsuit between Caldera and Microsoft, Ray Noorda sold over 90,000,000 shares of Novell stock in 1999 and 2000. This massive stock sale by Ray Noorda drove Novell's stock prices down which had been artificially inflated by Eric Schmidt's buy back scheme to under 6.00 per share. Novell's Board of Directors were reported in the News Media to have dismissed Eric Schmidt from Novell following the collapse of its stock valuation, sales channels, and departure of key technologists from the company, coupled with lawsuits and allegations in US District Court, District of Utah of Sexual Harrassment and Retaliation by Novell Executives during Schmidt's administration.

Google

After being dismised from Novell after the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin with the assistance of executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, Inc., recruited Eric Schmidt to run their company in 2001 under pressure from venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz.

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, 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."

Schmidt is one of the first people to become a billionaire (USD) based on stock options received as an employee in a corporation of which neither he nor a relative was the founder (Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer was the first to accomplish this), in part because of large sales of Google stock such as sales of over $140 million in 2005. In its 2006 'World's Richest People' list, Forbes ranked Schmidt as the 129th richest person in the world (the ranking was shared by three other people) with an estimated wealth of $4.8265 billion.

Schmidt was selected to Apple's board of directors on August 28, 2006.

In 2007, he 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.

Interesting Google and Eric Schmidt facts

• Schmidt has visited Burning Man.
• He is a hobbyist aviator.
• "Google Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt was by far the biggest benefactor, giving $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2000, $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2004, as well as maximum $2,000 contributions to 2004 Democratic presidential candidates Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Richard Gephardt."
• Earned a salary of $1 in 2006 with a holiday bonus of $1,723.

See also

• Google Inc.
• List of billionaires
• 70/20/10 Model — business model pioneered by Schmidt.

References

1. apple.com
2. princeton.edu
3. "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"
4. "How Companies Have Sex". Fast Company. Retrieved 1996-10-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
5. "Amendment No. 9 to Form S-1 Registration Statement Under The [[Securities Act of 1933]]". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. 2004-08-18. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
6. "Google Management: Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Executive Officer". Google Inc. Retrieved 2006-12-01.
7. "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." Elinor (2005)
8. Null, Christopher. "The 50 Most Important People on the Web." PC World. March 5, 2007. Retrieved on March 5, 2007.
9. "CEO Eric Schmidt stood out because he "was the only candidate who had been to Burning Man."" From "Markoff and Zachary on Google"; being quoted in the quote 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."
10. "Schmidt is an avid pilot and political junkie who never tires of debating the great issues of our day and the relative merits of small plane jet propulsion systems." from "Unwinnable Wars: Personal Perspectives on Technology Leadership"
11. ""Google's 'evil' agenda exposed in new book"
12. "Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin agree to a $1 salary according to company's latest proxy." from

Mills, Elinor (Wed Aug 03 05:20:30 PDT 2005). "Google balances privacy, reach". CNET. Archived from the original (HTML) on 2005. Retrieved 2006-11-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

External links

• iTunes: Google making of a modern company. Video
• CNET: Google balances privacy, reach (July 14, 2005), which uses Schmidt as an example of the personal information held by Google.
• AlwaysOn: Interview (April 22, 2003), in which he discusses the future of computing, and mankind
• Eric Schmidt in discussion with Esther Dyson on BT Big Thinkers (September 25, 2006), where he talks about how he is carefully managing Google through many challenges
• Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt Joins Apple's Board of Directors Press release by Apple Inc.
• Princeton University Board of Trustees
• Eric Schmidt interview by iinnovate

• 1955 births
• Living people
• American chief executives
• Google employees
• Electrical engineers
• University of California, Berkeley alumni
• Princeton University alumni