Eric Schmidt: Attacks On Execs Have 'Gone Too Far' (VIDEO)

Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat down with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business Network for an extensive interview that probed Schmidt's take on everything from Google to Twitter, Obama to bankers.

See what Schmidt has to say about Microsoft ("Hopefully we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsoft made 10 years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened to them"), Google's hunger for content, and what he thinks about Twitter -- as well as his take on health care reform, the "demonization" of CEOs, and his discussions with Obama about serving in his administration.

WATCH:

Comments

[mtt04]

OK you people stop criticizing execs who rip off shareholders by cooking the books. It is their right to bloat the company with debt so execs can have big fat paydays.

And yes leave the bankers alone they meant well, they just didn't realize their greed and avarice could cause the next great depression. They just thought they were screwing the counter-party.

Schmitty old boy, we will will stop criticizing execs and the powers that be when you stop taking power and money from the people.

Until then screw you.

[mamacat]

Does he mean that verbal attacks against corrupt execs have gone too far, or does he mean that the corporate funded attacks against public policies to rein in corrupt businesses have gone too far?

I hope he meant the latter, but I suspect that he meant the former.

[sloreader]

Funny how people tend to react when an individual or small group of individuals believes they are entitled to take their share of things right out of the middle of the proverbial pie. Toss in a spate of Ponzi schemes, bailouts and grandiose bonuses on the taxpayer's nickel and it looks like the corporate PR guys will have their work cut out for them for quite some time.

[FreedomCorpse]

I beg to differ from Schmidt and leave it at that.

[dtrobert]

CEOs are under attack because the vast majority of CEOs are paid to do absolutely nothing, at least nothing that might benefit the companies they ostensibly work for. CEOs are in the business of siphoning their companies dry for their own benefit.

[hypnotoad72]

Well said.

To add:

Yeah. Stocks are really great. Just ask while people kept their stock in while those at the top took out -- money didn't magically vanish. The stock was devalued as the top cashed in.

It seems like a double-whammy. When they don't stack the system against the people who pay into it in good faith, they then set up a catastrophe and still get people to pay into it -- via tax money.

The day Wall Street does more than cater to the shareholders (which is why prices go up, quality goes down, jobs are cut or devalued, and "profits" are claimed to rise -- and how are they anything except false profits) is the day we'll have real progress again. Thankfully, shareholders also happen to be customers and employees and people do remember what Enron execs told their employees to do (buy their stock) while they quietly sold it behind their employees backs.

That's my perception, please correct me where I'm wrong. All I know is, plenty of people - republicans AND democrats - are wary of this system, and many have pulled out entirely. They don't want to be fooled again. I don't blame them. While some minor amount remains...

Lastly, we'll forgive them if they forgive us. We are not dispassionate. That is a strength, believe it or not.

[Patriot86]

The CEO's job is to transfer as much money as possible to his pocket and to the pockets of top management...if the company fails and stockholders get nothing...so be it. They don't care. How do you regulate people who will destroy their own companies for personal profit?

[hypnotoad72]

Actually, I don't think they've gone too far enough. They have lost a lot of credibility over the years, with their own actions -- not to mention some nasty accusations they label America's working class.

On the plus side, at least he is not Carly Fiorina. There are worse out there...

[WoodyCPM]

Psychological profiles via MMPI and other instruments have been administered to CEO's, corporate executives and have revealed a character and personality profile similar to sociopathic and psychopathic inmates in prison. Their ability to deceive, manipulate and connive for advantage over others appear boundless, unhindered by a conscience or an ability to perceive the impact their actions have on others.

[WoodyCPM]

"There is class warfare alright. But it's my class, the rich class, that is waging war and we're winning." - Warren Buffet

[WoodyCPM]

Pick on you? Workers at a Chinese steel mill recently drug the CEO of their company into the street and beat him to death.

[hypnotoad72]

And they executed a couple of crooked financiers...

No wonder they claim America is the best country on Earth. They can break every law in the book and get away with it. That's not the definition of "best". Maybe "sleaziest", but not "best".

[rf-hawaii]

Henry Ford paid his workers well so they'd be good consumers.

CEO's don't seem to understand that simple logic anymore.

[hypnotoad72]

He paid them because he knew people who worked good deserved good pay, and that being able to afford products being made kinda helps make an economy in the first place.

America progressed so much... until 1980.

[DosGatos2]

There is no need to haul all CEOs to the gallows. Not all companies are too-big-to-fail (although tolerate more market concentration than is healthy). Not all industries have the ability to bring the world financial markets to their knees either.

Nine out of 10 businesses fail in their first 3 years. If, like Google founder Schmidt, you took "start up risk" and grew a successful business, you deserve big rewards. If on the other hand, you are a mere managerial CEO, stepping in to run a going concern and took no start up risk, you do not deserve to be similarly rewarded--and you should not earn 400X what the average worker makes, because you didn't take the greater risks a founder does.

Founders create jobs. Managerial CEOs destroy jobs--and suck capital out of a business, cutting not only jobs, but also benefits and pay for workers and reduce shareholder returns in order to grant themselves large stock grants and huge bonuses. If a founder fails, he goes out of business and gets nothing. In contrast, when the incompetent managerial CEO Carly Failorina was fired from HP, she got millions.

Executive pay should be capped at 10x that of the average worker. Proper pay caps would protect shareholders, reduce tensions between workers and management (and maybe incent CEOs to increase worker pay so they could get more too), increase investment and create jobs while also reducing income inequality and increasing tax receipts.

[m1penner]

Eric Schmidt is not the founder of Google. Mr. Schmidt was an executive at Sun Microsystems, I believe in a high position related to the development of Java. He then moved on as the CEO of Novell and later Google. Mr. Schmidt seemed like one of the decent CEO's but with these comments he seems totally out of touch with the current reality that CEO pay has long ago spun out of control. People are just realizing how we have allowed executives to haul off an outsized percentage of a company's profits with the false belief that they deserved it because they were making us all rich. Out in front of the booms were the CEO's taking credit for the booms via their increasingly obscene pay packages. Now those same CEO's have kept themselves front and center, still claiming they deserve huge payouts in spite of the fact millions have now been thrown out of work and their houses and their claims have proven to be fraudulent. Mr. Schmidt says he understands the anger but please "don't pick on us." I doubt he has a clue about the anger.

[hypnotoad72]

Great. Google or bing. There's a disgusting irony that... oh wait, yahoo is still in business. Thankfully. Pity they had that CEO shakeup, not all CEOs are bad...

[MyTake]

Any CEO that takes these huge amount of cash and stock out of a corporation and hides that wealth in off shore tax exempt accounts is beyond bad; it is criminal not to support the taxation system of your country to pay for the military protection of that country.

We are talking GREED and CRIME ridden corporations and CEO's. Get them identified and PROTEST THEM before you country collapse's under your gigantic government debt.

[RJII]

boo hoo. let them eat 22 carat gold encrusted cake.

[Osusuki]

I guess the old saying, "Don't trust anyone over 30" is still true. Only these days it means "Don't trust anyone who's worth over 30 million dollars." Even the best innovators succumb to John Galt disease before it's all over. Pity. I used to respect the guy.

[hypnotoad72]

Wholly right: "Over 30 million dollars".

Fanned.

[MyTake]

Ah, Mr. Schmidt, I still have not recovered from your speech to the Washington Economic Club, as sponsored by Vernon Jordan, so I didn't play this video.

You have to explain what you were doing for 3 days at the Bilderberg meeting held in Chantilly, Virginia in June 08. Here are some of the U.S. attendee's at that meeting: http://illegalprotest.com/2008/06/08/list-of-bilderberg-2008-attendees-globalists-exposed/ . Gee, there is some serious INSIDER information going on in that meeting and what were Bernanke, Paulsen and the soon-to-be Obama economic team of Geithner and Summers doing there.

Anyway, since that meeting, you seemed to have been placed onto a national stage with scripted comments such as "high unemployment is the new norm" etc..

And since you went back to the 2009 Bilderberg meeting, it is clear they have you under their sphere of influence and anything you say in public is simply manipulative.

Maybe they can hand out a Nobel prize to you too, everyone else is getting on in the U.S., it seems.

[hypnotoad72]

I wish their names were on that list. I just don't have the time to start looking around right now...

But the fact many of President Obama's picks are on that list... the inference is understandable...

[MyTake]

It gets worse. Obama, as did his predecessors, appointed 300 names from the Council on Foreign Relations, a David Rockefeller controlled 3000 membership enterprise, across his administration. And did you notice Rockefeller's name on the Bilderberg list?

Your government has been usurped. Corporate lobbying controls Congress & the Senate while the BB/CFR controls the Administration, the Treasury and The Reserve. And the evidence is sitting there on those membership lists for everyone to see. And when the allied corporate media heads show up on those lists, little wonder the common public do not know of them or what they are up to.