A hot potato: If there's one person who hates today's work-from-home culture and mindset, it's Eric Schmidt. The former Google CEO has once again blamed WFH policies for US tech firms struggling in the face of China's infamously brutal "996" work system. According to Schmidt, if American companies want compete, it will require a work/life-balance sacrifice.
Schmidt, who served as Google's CEO during its early years between 2001 and 2011 and was Alphabet chairman until 2017, made his feelings on American work culture pretty clear during a conference interview published by the All-In podcast.
"If you're going to be in tech and you're going to win, you're going to have to make some tradeoffs," Schmidt said. He noted that China's work-life balance consists of the 996 system, which is working 9am to 9pm, six days per week. Although 996 was outlawed in the country in 2021, Schmidt said all Chinese tech companies still use the regime.
Schmidt claimed that working from home can be especially harmful for younger people who, despite being highly educated, have little or no experience in the workplace. He cited his early years at Sun Microsystems as an example of why this is beneficial: Schmidt said he learned a lot just by being in the office and hearing older coworkers argue in person.
"How do you re-create that in this new thing [remote work]?" he asked.
Schmidt has publicly complained about people daring to have a work-life balance in the past. Last year, he said that Google has fallen behind OpenAI and startups such as Anthropic in artificial intelligence development. The reason, Schmidt claimed, was because "Google decided that work-life balance and going home early, and working from home, was more important than winning."
Schmidt further spoke about the artificial intelligence industry during his recent podcast appearance, comparing the AI race between the US and China.
Schmidt said he had thought that the two superpowers were competing at a peer level in AI, and that the White House was doing "good work" in restricting chip exports and slowing down China's advancements. "But they're really doing something different than I thought," he added.
While many US companies are obsessed with achieving AGI – an artificial superintelligence that OpenAI's Sam Altman believes will be here by 2030 – China is more focused on developing AI for daily use, such as apps and robots. Schmidt says this is due to the country's hardware limitations and "the depth of their capital markets don't exist." The former Google CEO called the difference in priorities a concern.
Schmidt is currently CEO at aerospace manufacturer Relativity Space, where he presumably spends no time working remotely.