Last month Eric Schmidt visited the Netherlands. He there took part in a seminar with the Dutch Queen, but was also interviewed for the Dutch TV Show “Nova College Tour”. In this show it is an interview in a room full of students who also got to ask him some questions.
Eric Schmidt was the Schmidt we know: nice, nerdy (he admitted he was a nerd in his first sentence) and very skillful in staying away from difficult questions and difficult answers.
The show didn’t have many ‘big remarks’ in them, which we usually expect from Schmidt, but it was a nice talk to listen to, even though it had a rough start.
A few things stood out:
When asked how to best optimize a YouTube video he answered:
“Do something incredibly controversial or outrages”
Which lead to some weird talk about taking clothes off.
About how good the Google algorithm is:
“I was surprised by that”
One thing which Schmidt happily admitted was that he did not buy Facebook stocks:
“I absolutely did not. That would be inappropriate”.
And he ‘admitted’ that Steve Jobs ‘kicked him off’ the Apple board.
About Google being neutral or biased:
“We’ve been accused of being biased in every direction, which tells me we are completely neutral”
There were also many questions were asked about privacy related matters, which Schmidt skillfully ‘dived’, the EU regulations and Google Translate as well as China.
Watch the entire interview here (there are some Dutch pieces in there):
