Former Google CEO blames work-from-home policy for company lagging behind OpenAI [Video]

A hot potato: As artificial intelligence companies race ahead in their development of generative AI technology, Google is being left behind by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the reason for this is simple: his former company prioritizes working from home and flexible hours for its employees.

Schmidt served as Google CEO from 2001 to 2011 and was executive chairman until 2015. He recently took part in a discussion led by Professor Erik Brynjolfsson and students at Stanford University, where he made his feelings on remote work clear.

Brynjolfsson noted that Google had been a leader in the AI field, with researchers inventing the transformer deep learning architecture in 2017 – the technology powers many of today’s LLMs, and is the T in ChatGPT. But the company has since fallen behind OpenAI and …