eric schmidt posts
FeedPosted Apr 12th 2010 3:15PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Management, Newspapers, Google (GOOG)
Google (GOOG) has been the bain of the publishing industry -- both printed and electronic -- for years. Its Google Books project scans books by the hundreds in order to make the content accessible online and for free. Have a newspaper website? Google probably scans it daily to aggregate pieces of your content at Google News (again, for free). Google CEO Eric Schmidt, though, thinks that newspapers can follow the Google model and make money using their content online, and not hide everything behind a pay wall.
Continue reading Google CEO Schmidt: We See Profits in the Newspaper Industry Again
Posted Dec 4th 2009 11:30AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), News Corp'B' (NWS), Media World
The newspaper industry continues to blame Google (GOOG) for its woes, and Google continues to claim its innocence. The search engine giant's CEO, Eric Schmidt, says that his company could actually help the newspaper industry survive the shift from print to digital ... a shift that's been more than a decade in the making, he was kind enough not to note.
According to Schmidt, publishers need to dig into the online environment and find new ways to generate revenue. "With dwindling revenue and diminished resources," he wrote in an op-ed piece published in News Corp's (NWS) Wall Street Journal, "frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame."
Continue reading Google to media: Your problems aren't our fault
Posted Aug 20th 2009 12:00PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG)
Yesterday, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) had its fifth birthday as a public company. Google, which has done nothing short of astounding in the last half-decade in terms of turning much of the advertising world upside-down, has defied many of the critics who probably never believed it would become as strong as it has in such a short time. That's because that kind of thinking was linear, and Google operated on an exponential scale using data and formulas to make things works quickly and efficiently, not haphazard management belief and inefficient decision making.
And so here we are. After the IPO that Google made accessible to anyone in a dutch auction back in August of 2004, the company's shares have made it all the way to $700 and above from their initial IPO price of $85, and closed yesterday at just over $443 per share after dipping almost down to $250 last December. Google has risen during the most intense part of a recession that's just now being acknowledged as being close to over.
Continue reading Five years after IPO, Google is still a renegade
Posted Jun 10th 2009 12:30PM by Elizabeth Harrow (RSS feed)
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Options, NASDAQ
Internet search titan Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is apparently closing in on its goal to produce renewable energy at a price point cheaper than coal. In an interview with Reuters Tuesday, Google's green energy czar, Bill Weihl, said that the odds of success have improved during the past year, and predicted, "In three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there."
After announcing in late 2007 its quest for "green" energy, the company's Google.org division began investing in solar thermal, geothermal, and wind technologies. The tech firm's keen interest in alternative energy sources was a contributing factor last year when President Obama named Google CEO Eric Schmidt as one of his advisers.
Continue reading Google nears green energy goals; CEO Schmidt slams Bing
Posted Dec 24th 2008 12:30PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Dell (DELL), eBay (EBAY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Amer Intl Group (AIG), Oracle Corp (ORCL), News Corp'B' (NWS), Blackstone Group L.P (BX)
This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.
There's no doubt about it -- times are tough. People are struggling to find work and to pay the bills as the value of their homes and savings dwindle. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.
Or do they? It's all relative, of course, but world's billionaires have been taking some big hits too. We take a look at Sheldon Adelson, Kirk Kerkorian, and Lakshmi Mittal in their own separate posts, but here are some other billionaires who have lost billions this year (courtesy of Forbes and Business Sheet).
- Brothers Anil and Mukesh Ambani of India's private conglomerate Reliance lost $32.5 billion and $28.2 billion, respectively.
- Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha, lost $16.5 billion. Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) are down about 32% since the beginning of the year.
- Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT) founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen lost $12.3 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively, while CEO Steve Balmer lost $6.5 billion. Shares of Microsoft are down 46% since the beginning of the year.
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin, cofounders of Google Inc. (NYSE: GOOG), lost $11.9 billion and $11.7 billion, respectively, and CEO Eric Schmidt lost $3.8 billion. The share price of Google has fallen 55% since the beginning of the year.
- Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL), lost $8.2 billion. Shares of Oracle are down 21% since the beginning of the year.
- Media maven Sumner Redstone lost $7.2 billion. Shares of his private investment firm National Amusements fell 70% this year.
Continue reading Money losers of 2008: Billionaires who lost billions this year
Posted Dec 4th 2008 5:45PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Employees

Say it isn't so:
Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) may be tightening its always-loose belt and reigning in costs as the economy tries to pick its way out of a recession. The company that prepares free gourmet lunches for employees and gives extraordinary time for employees to develop pet projects is pulling things into reality a bit.
Revenue growth at the search giant has slowed in the last year, as even internet advertising has slowed down in the face of a prolonged economic crunch that we're experiencing. Like many of us here at BloggingStocks have said for years, almost all of Google's revenue
comes from online advertising. It was late to the game in trying to develop other revenue sources (yes, even a year makes a difference), and the incremental gains the company has seen in revenue still mostly revolve around some form of advertising. What happens when customers have no budget to advertise?
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the
Wall Street Journal that "We have to behave as though we don't know" (what's going to happen). Google will be cutting efforts to projects that have not caught on, aren't generating revenue and
also cutting back efforts on products that aren't exciting. Google's leader indicated that the company needs to "prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business." That's great, except the "ads" part..
Google still has the model of envy when it comes to ad-based online revenue, but now it's having to stretch ads into more of its properties, like Google Finance and Google News. Can Google find more revenue engines than those small text ads that appear next to its search results? It has to -- it can't continue the same way of generating its cash flow and expect things to turn out alright in the future. Is Google a one-trick pony? Could be, although it's still too early to tell.
Posted Oct 22nd 2008 2:30PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Google (GOOG)

Even
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) is feeling the economic pinch. Actually, what started as a pinch has turned into a train wreck, and now even the world's largest web search provider will be slowing hiring and turning down the heat on possible acquisitions. Google CEO Eric Schmidt
told Bloomberg Television that advertising budgets are "under stress." I'd say that's an understatement.
In all likelihood, this will be Google's toughest test in its 10-year history. Its entire business revolves around advertising income. Although the company does it better than anyone -- and new media advertising is finally becoming mainstream -- the company's exposure to an ongoing slowdown could be cause for concern. Although the company may "do no evil," it will certainly have some profit evil creeping up on its results in some form soon.
Schmidt added that, "All of us are vulnerable . . . it's a race between a contraction in advertising, which would affect everybody, and a very positive shift from offline to online.'' The question is this: can Google take more of the dollars that are shifting to online advertising faster than the overall contraction in advertising spending over the next year or so (or longer)? Given Google's history, it will almost certainly continue to be successful, but it's hard to see the company taking such huge chunks of market share that the advertising slowdown won't chip away at its results.
Posted Oct 20th 2008 12:50PM by Jonathan Berr (RSS feed)
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Presidential Elections
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt appears interested in joining Barack Obama's cabinet. He's not campaigning for the job, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was "too busy" running the world's largest search engine company.
Of course, anyone who wants a cabinet position never admits it. It's considered a faux pas. Schmidt, though, seems to be interested in making a difference beyond Google. He does not want to sit back on some deserted island counting his billions as he downs exotic frozen drinks.
The Journal, citing unnamed tech and media executives, speculated that Schmidt "might desire a role in an Obama administration, possibly the chief technology officer post Sen. Obama has said he would create." Exactly what that job would entail is not clear. It sounds like the type of job where Schmidt would sit in an office somewhere in the White House thinking grand thoughts and writing grand reports that would gather dust almost as soon as they were published.
Continue reading Google this: CEO Eric Schmidt wants to join the Obama cabinet
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