Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says flexible working is fine for government jobs, but winning in tech means 'tradeoffs' (www.businessinsider.com)

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the All‑In Summit that remote work undermines on‑the‑job learning and that "work‑life balance" can hurt a company's ability to compete — especially in fast‑moving AI. Speaking from his experience leading and advising Google, Schmidt argued young engineers learn crucial skills by overhearing and debating with senior colleagues in person, and said winning in tech requires making “tradeoffs.” He repeated last year’s critique that Google’s flexible work policies set it back against scrappy AI startups, a comment he later said he "misspoke" about. Schmidt also invoked international pressure, noting competition with Chinese firms and their intense work culture (the so‑called “996” pattern), and quipped that work‑life balance is “why people work for the government,” prompting multiple apologies. For the AI/ML community, Schmidt’s remarks spotlight a persistent non‑technical driver of innovation: organizational practice. The core implication isn’t about model architectures or compute, but about how mentorship, serendipitous collaboration, and concentrated effort patterns can accelerate learning, iteration speed, and product breakthroughs. If taken seriously, his view could steer companies and policy makers toward tighter in‑person collaboration norms or hybrid models that emphasize training and synchronous work — tradeoffs that may reshape hiring, retention, and how quickly teams translate research into deployed AI.