Google CEO, Eric Schmidt Forecasts His Company's Future
Monday, February 05, 2007SUSIE GHARIB: Whatever the direction the Internet heads in over the next 10 or 20 years, Google will play a major role. The search engine is one of the web's biggest players and Google intends to keep it that way. On Friday, its CEO Eric Schmidt addressed a Silicon Valley conference about the future of the Internet. After his speech, Schmidt talked with Paul Rogers of the "San Jose Mercury News" and PBS affiliate station KQED. Rogers began by asking Schmidt about what the Google founder sees as the three possible ways the web could develop in the future.
ERIC SCHMIDT, CEO, GOOGLE: The most conservative of course, is that the sort of strange things that occur on the Internet, the bad things, identity theft and so forth make everyone upset, so upset that they begin to actually regulate some of the creativity and obviously a bad outcome. But it's a possible outcome and there are people, people who care about control and power, who probably don't want the Internet freedoms that are so abundant today. They probably want that vision. We obviously do not. There is a middle ground where firms emerge that can somehow handle identity and management of some of this and they're somewhat regulated. That's a possible scenario. And the third scenario is the scenario we have all been looking for which is true collaboration, true innovation, truly empowering everyone. Obviously we hope the third, but it's not guaranteed. That's the issue that I would like for people to be discussing.
PAUL ROGERS, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: What can Silicon Valley do to insure that the third option is the one that ultimately becomes the future?
SCHMIDT: Well, first place, this is not a technical issue. This is a political issue. People are afraid. People are worried about terrorism. They're worried about thefts and so forth and so on. So governments, legislators, politicians, policy analysts have to begin thinking about how will we write the regulation or the legislation that will both empower people but also protect them from some of the true bad things that are going on, things like infinitely bad spam and things like that.
ROGERS: In your speech, you also said that search is still the killer AP and that it's life changing. What did you mean by that?
SCHMIDT: Everything that you do with information, in an information- rich world begins with search because there's too much to just say, hey I'm going to look at this channel or hey, I'm only going to look at this or I'm only going to read this one source of information. You're going to be searching because of the explosion in information and that's obviously good for Google.
ROGERS: What is the state of Silicon Valley? Have we recovered fully from the tech bubble and what do you see as the challenges going forward?
SCHMIDT: The region is incredibly innovative and the recovery is driven by new models and new ideas. The same freeway, the same buildings, a new model, a new idea, new investors, new passions and that is a cycles that gone on for many, many years in Silicon Valley. It's absolutely completely recovered and I think we're going to have a great few years ahead of us.
SCHMIDT: Clean (ph) tech investing in Silicon Valley certainly is on the upswing. There's more venture capital money flowing into it. Do you expect that that sector is going to continue to expand or is it always going to be sort of a niche business here in the valley and also, what can Google do to get a piece of that action?
SCHMIDT: Google is a customer of such technologies and evidence says that this is going to become a major portion of Silicon Valley over the next 10 years just as biotech became a large portion of the bay area over the last 10 and computers 10 years before that and the reason is that it's a solution that is necessary, important, has good economics and great technology and the researchers are working on it now.
ROGERS: In your talk, you also mentioned four questions that you have about the Internet going forward. Can you explain what those are and why you are concerned about them?
SCHMIDT: Well, what will happen when another billion people get online? Will they demand more from governments or will they just say, "I'm happy." What will happen when everyone records everything? What happens to my privacy when I write down everything I do and then I'm a little embarrassed about what I did 10 years ago? What happens when everything gets photographed because everyone has a camera? We don't know, but we know that end users are going to use these technologies for change. And they're going to drive politicians, political leaders, governments absolutely crazy doing this.
ROGERS: In a recent piece that you wrote for "The Economist" magazine, you said that the last few years have taught us that business models based on controlling consumers or content don't work. Could you explain what you meant?
SCHMIDT: Almost all of the historic models have limitations in what consumers could do. You could only watch television on a television. You could only listen to radio on a radio. Technology now allows you to mix and match, to do anything you want. The business models that empower end users are the ones that will win. The business models that say no to an end use will ultimately be replaced by one that empowers end users because eventually the consumer gets what they want.
GHARIB: Schmidt also says the growth of the global marketplace is helping to inject new life into Silicon Valley. He notes there's a new generation of smart young people who want to be part of the valley experience.
