Former Google (GOOGL) CEO Eric Schmidt is walking back on his controversial comments about remote work, which recently drew scrutiny on social media.
During a lecture at Stanford University, Schmidt blamed Google’s lag and mishaps in developing artificial intelligence technology on remote work.
Related: Uber CEO blames remote work for a significant loss
“Google decided that work-life balance, and going home early, and working from home was more important than winning,” said Schmidt. “And the reason startups work is because the people work like hell.”
He also warned university students who are planning to start a company that their business will not have a competitive edge if they allow their employees to work from home.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt, 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,” said Schmidt.
Schmidt’s comments caused outrage on social media, with many users on X claiming that employees should not be the blame for a company’s failures.
Oh yes. It’s the employees’ fault. Not management, whose job is to manage projects and employees. Sounds like a cop out.
— goonie (@rambalinwreck) August 14, 2024
Every successful startup often begins in someone's home. It's not remote work that leads to failure; it's the founder's oversight in establishing the right values for the company—often getting caught up in fancy offices and nice things instead of focusing on what truly matters.
— Peter Marshall (@Peter_JMarshall) August 14, 2024
When I work at home I work double the hours as in the office! Lazy incompetent people is what leads to losing productivity! Managing people that work at home is challenging but def worth it!
— Lainie (@LainieEKC) August 15, 2024
The footage of the lecture was originally posted on YouTube, but was swiftly removed after Schmidt’s comments sparked criticism.
In response to the backlash, Schmidt revealed in a statement to the Wall Street Journal that he “misspoke” at the lecture.
“I misspoke about Google and their work hours,” said Schmidt in the statement. “I regret my error.”
Many employees across the nation argue that working from home boosts their productivity. According to a recent survey from USA Today, only 16% of white-collar workers said they are more productive working in the office, compared to the 46% who said they are more productive working from home.
Google, which is owned by Alphabet, currently allows most of its employees to work a hybrid schedule, where they are expected to work in the office three days a week. Some employees at the company can even be granted permission to work from home full time “by exception only,” according to an internal memo from last year.
In response to Schmidt’s controversial comments on remote work, the Alphabet Works Union, which represents Google employees, said in a tweet that remote work doesn't slow down their productivity.
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“Flexible work arrangements don’t slow down our work,” said the Alphabet Workers Union. “Understaffing, shifting priorities, constant layoffs, stagnant wages, and lack of follow-through from management on projects - these factors slow Google workers down every day.”
Google’s AI struggles
Schmidt’s comments come after Google recently faced a few challenges with developing its AI technology. Its AI tool Google Gemini, which was released in December 2023, has been clowned for failing to accurately create images of people, and even did so in a way that did not correctly depict a person’s ethnicity.
Google later paused the tool’s ability to create images as it worked to fix the issue and even apologized for the botched release.
“It’s clear that this feature missed the mark,” said Google in a statement in February. “Some of the images generated are inaccurate or even offensive. We’re grateful for users’ feedback and are sorry the feature didn't work well.”
More recently, during an event on Aug. 13, which demonstrated Gemini’s new features on Android via a live demo, Gemini failed to accurately complete a task twice.
Omg… Gemini live demo failed twice in a row. It worked on the third try but 🫣 #MadeByGoogle pic.twitter.com/Q6ilHnlyLT
— Ray Wong (@raywongy) August 13, 2024
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