TechCrunch published an interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Since Google is responsible for at least 35% of all snark in the valley, I thought it would be worth pointing out a few things.
Look at what he reveals about their HR strategy. They don’t “value experience very much” and they like to hire people who like to work with other people. That’s great for a college like environment where everyone hangs out and talks about what would be cooler than cool. But is it good for innovation?
He goes on to say that “all the interesting things have been built by two people.” Google has more than 5000 people in R+D. That would be 2500 two person teams to build cool stuff. What cool stuff have they launched in the last 5 years?
Instead of building stuff, they’re buying it. Blue Lithium, Begun.ru, YouTube, Digg. If the strategy is to acquire the great things that two person teams are building, why spend $75 million a month on R+D?
He says they need to solve the problem of making larger teams effective. That’s nuts. The problem they need to solve is that they have larger teams that aren’t effective. Getting rid of the teams is a cleaner solution. That way, they’ll have more money to buy all the start-ups that are smoking them on innovation.
