Blitzscaling 08: Eric Schmidt on Structuring Teams and Scaling Google

This is session 8 of Technology-enabled Blitzscaling, a Stanford University class taught by Reid Hoffman, John Lilly, Allen Blue, and Chris Yeh. This class features Reid Hoffman interviewing Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc. (formerly Google).

[rx]

Reid is the greatest host ever, he leaves the guest to freely talk, he never interrupts him and his large knowledge of the topic bring huge value to all interview. Kudo, Reid!

[OurNewestMember]

4:43 "what would you do differently?" Make the decisions faster and make fewer mistakes
19:39 the greatest product are for the people who are building
21:32 scaling: think of it as a funnel: it's very tight (building up a product that scales), and then you can explode
26:00 the industry overvalues experience and undervalues strategic and intellectual flexibility
46:04 what not to do? Surprisingly no -- don't narrow your focus. Al sides starts with doing one thing really well, but it's easier to recruit with a broad vision
56:44 hire ridiculously smart people. They just have to have a path to what they're trying to create

[SiddharthKulkarniN]

"The industry over values experience and under values strategic and intellectual flexibility"
-- Eric

[kefamutuma]

Watching this from Nairobi in 2018.. One of the best videos i've come across.. love how you guys tackle the actual issues rather than talking of the high level stuff.. Thank you Ried and Eric

[bariswheel]

Story time with Eric, never gets old. Fantastic.

[JonnyWisdom]

This guy is a fantastic mentor, modest, calm headed, rational & methodical.

[akanjacobs]

'Hire the divas, they expect a lot, the drive people hard, the are controversial, they care passionately, they drive the culture of excellence and they will drive you to that excellence.' - Eric

[samdoidge]

"All success starts from doing one thing really really well" - Eric Schmidt

[MrDivad]

- the way you build great products, is you have small teams, with strong leaders, who obsess over trade-offs and they push things off, and they say we have got to get it done, they put a lot of pressure on the team, they work all night, and produce a product that just barely works. Then they iterate.

[HanYang]

love his brutal honesty without ego lol really worth listening what he has to say in this interview

[kefamutuma]

"The greatest products have almost always have been designed for the benefit of the people using them" - Eric. Goes to say that the best products are those that solve a personal problem.

[davidderidder]

Thanks Eric and the interviewer. Great stimulating conversation.

[saladbowl]

I love how self-aware and low-ego he is. Great leader.

[mattl]

Google is an advertising company with hobbies. The founders sound like children... it's amazing they've become so successful.

[kefamutuma]

I just love listening to people who understand product.. It's so hard to wrap your head around culture and all other high level stuff if you do not have a product that works..These are some of the brightest CEOs

[weeksy_j]

1:17 ~ "All of the solutions wouldn't get us to the autonomy of Berkshire Hathaway"

Very interesting. Interesting to see they studied really only one scenario, but very insightful.

[Patrickjoseph]

Two of the greatest minds in human history coming together. Stunning conversation

[alleaktien-insider]

Reid, great series! I'd love to see an updated 2020 series of this or "the next level". One of the best series on Youtube.

[MariahLichtenstern]

"We want more empowered people...." - Reid Hoffman

[GirishVenkatachalam]

I met this guy in Bangalore when he was CEO of Novell