My stunted interview with Google's Eric Schmidt
I've always wanted to interview Google CEO Eric Schmidt one-on-one, and this week I finally got the chance.
Eric Schmidt is all smiles before declining to answer any questions not related to Google Health in a one-on-one interview.
(Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET News.com)That Schmidt was sitting down with me proved even billionaires can let bygones be bygones. Our professional relationship got off to a rocky start shortly after I joined CNET News.com in mid-2005. OK, so it was a really rocky start. To refresh your memories: We Googled some personal information about Schmidt and wrote about what we found. He didn't like it, and News.com was on the receiving end of a very stern corporate silent treatment from Google for nearly two months.
Since then, in fairness, my relationship with the search king has been considerably better. But a sit down with Mr. Schmidt? Of course, I'd fly cross-country, even if there's a certain absurdity to flying 2,500 miles to interview a guy who works about 40 miles from my office.
I had a list of questions: I was eager to ask Schmidt about recent disappointing ComScore figures for paid search performance and how Google will weather a recession given that lending companies appear to be cutting their ad spending, how Google's going to monetize YouTube and, of course, how it plans to counter a Microsoft-Yahoo tie-up if that should happen.
My editors agreed to send me to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2008 annual conference. I got a last-minute ticket and stocked up with camera, digital recorder, and the list of questions. I arrived a day early to do a preview of the news and get my footing.
The morning of Schmidt's keynote I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so I was in my near front-row seat well in advance. After covering the keynote and the news conference afterward, I waited for a Google spokesman to take me to see Schmidt. Walking to a green room in the Orange County Convention Center, the Google spokesman told me I could only ask questions about Google Health.
What?! I asked the spokesman if he was serious, and he said "yes." This wasn't what I was expecting. What is Google afraid of?
Schmidt greeted me and agreed to let me take several photos. That was nice. I was told I had 12 minutes and I dove in with several probing questions about Google Health (hey, so you play nice and then try to ask the real questions).
Was it difficult for Google to get health industry players like Aetna, Quest Diagnostics, and Walgreens onboard? "It took a while," he said, adding that Google lined up health experts to be on an advisory health council and they are integrating their systems to work with Google's GData. "It was OK. It wasn't that hard."
How significant to Google was this project? "We prioritized...(looked at) what do people actually do with search in terms of the volume, and the importance of health came out No. 1...We tend to think of Google Health as an extension of search. You could argue it's also an application."
Like with Google News, Schmidt said he hopes that Google Health will lead to more people using Google search and clicking on ads. "Every month we say to ourselves should we add ads to Google News or add more news features to Google News and every month we decide to add more Google news features because...we make so much money from people just using Google search that we don't need to get the extra money from News...A Google News user is more likely to be a Google searcher and therefore clicks on ads more."
This led into a question about Google's reliance on search advertising and how the company would weather a recession. Schmidt cut me off, waved his hand and said, "I'm not going to talk about anything other than Google Health."
Sheepishly, I said, "So, I don't suppose I can ask you about Microsoft and Yahoo?" The answer: "No."
Oh damn. This was bad.
"So what?" you're probably thinking. "Quit your whining, you worthless, note-scribbling toadie and stop annoying this man!" OK, fair point. But give and take with the press is part of being in a position of responsibility at a highly visible public company. Saying everything but the topic at hand is off limits is, well, lame.
When President Bush holds a press conference about, say, buying books for a bunch of sweet school kids in Alabama, he doesn't get to say to the gathered mass of reporters: "I'm happy to take questions, but only if we talk about the books we just bought for these sweet school kids. The economy and the war in Iraq are off limits. So fermez la bouche, Seymour Hersh!"
Of course, he's free to dodge the questions. Some presidents over the years have perfected the art of the dodge. Some, well, they could still use a little work.
Anyway, so back to the interview: Then I said, "um, OK" and looked desperately at my notes and all the questions I had that wouldn't get answered. OK, I'll admit it, I was stymied. I not-so-subtly tried to use Google Health as an entree to other questions.
Can you discuss your strategy with regard to social networks and whether that will play a part in Google Health? "It may over time...It makes sense that people who are in health situations are going to want to have a social community."
And how does this fit in with your mobile strategy? "Everything we do we're doing for the mobile wireless space as well, so the interface you see will be available in our mobile strategies...We'll re-whack the pages a little bit...In mobile, we're having tremendous successes."
Will Google Health work with other Google properties like Gmail and Google Docs, and what about YouTube? I ask him, grasping for any connection to use.
"In YouTube you could imagine that health videos stored on YouTube would be easily indexable...There are a lot of Google Health videos already on YouTube." (Earlier, during his keynote, he had this nugget to say about YouTube: "Ten hours of video is being uploaded into YouTube every minute. God knows what the quality of that video is! But it's coming.")
So, what will search, on Google Health and in general, look like in five years? "It's hard to predict what we'll do in five years...You could imagine eventually we would know how to rank much better health information."
This guy was good. Total talking points. I'm not sure why he declined to answer these "off topic" questions, other than that he could.
I was told I could ask one last question and I asked him what question have I not asked that I should have? Among reporters, this is generally our last-ditch, I-gotta-get-something-good-or-my-editor-is-going-to-kill-me question.
"I don't think you have highlighted sufficiently the platform characteristic of this," Schmidt responded. "Everyone is assuming it is personal health record...I think of it as a platform upon which many services can be built and it is through that platform that the real innovation occurs."
As a follow up to that I squeezed in a question about Microsoft's health care platform HealthVault and how does that differ from Google Health? Getting up from his chair, Schmidt said, "That's it."
Just like that it was over and I was hustled out the door.
So, my one-on-one with Schmidt wasn't exactly what I had hoped it would be. But at least I'm getting closer to a free plane trip somewhere in the continental United States on a non-holiday, non-blackout date in the near future.
The only people that you could make a case about having a responsibility to talking to the public via reporters, are elected officials.
He had no obligation to talk to you. Granted it is a bit lame to restrict the conversation to such a narrow topic, but it is his choice.
Why would you even ask about the Borg attempting to assimilate Yahoo?
Would you have expected him to saying anything new or even slightly different then all the statements and press releases from Google? It was a pointless question since he has already given his opinion on it.
You should have grilled him on the serious privacy implications of the project. That has real meat, and Google constantly needs to be taken to task on the issue of privacy.
That is what a real reporter would do. A tech tabloid reporter would try to get more sensationalist blather about MS/Yahoo.
were you not informed of the LAME interview requirements before
hand? Google has the right to restrict the interview - but shouldn't
Google had mentioned that before "tricking" you into flying 2,500
miles? And I'll repeat - why should "I" use Google? Google doesn't
care about the customers - they are just as GREEDY as NBC &
Hollywood & Record Labels. I vote a solid DOWN with Google.
Hope they crash & burn.
This is proof yet again that the 'do now evil' mantra of Google is long dead, and Google should never be trusted to get anywhere near our health care information. Google's only interest is to control said information for all perpetuity and do as they wish. These last-second interview rules are the latest example of that.
FYI, my bet the earlier comment that the editors at c|net aren't true journalists is a GOOG fanboy troll. At least that's a more harmless method to take hard questions and criticism rather than trying to pull a Patricia Dunn.
Cancerous.
Which is to say you are absolutely biased and anything but fair or "truth-seeking".
It's very clear that CNET has had an anti-Google agenda for a very long time now, and Schmidt is not oblivious to this fact. Nor are most of the rest of us.
You went to Schmidt hoping to get the very article you just wrote. If, however, he'd answered your questions, we would have just seen a variant of this article where, instead of questioning the "quality of video" provided by youtube, you would have been questioning the "quality of answers" provided by Schmidt.
I'm not afraid of reading articles that question Google's integrity, nor Schmidt's... yet, I am wholeheartedly disgusted when I come across bloated pieces of intentional derailment.
"Then I said, 'um, OK' and looked desperately at my notes and all the questions I had that wouldn't get answered. OK, I'll admit it, I was stymied."
... oh no, not stymied!
Are you trying to be a journalist or a thesaurus-stymied, overly-emo livejournal user? I'm confused.
Actually, I'm not.
This is not journalism, it's sensationalized harassment. Stop it.
After all, Google hates Microsoft and so does DNCNet.com.
And GoogleRich head honchos like Schmidt give millions to the Democrat party, which DNCNet.com supports also.
So I'm sure he was cut a lot of slack for that.
Blame Google all you want... but they actually deliver a product that we find valuable. What does CNET deliver?
Don't go calling Eric Schmidt lame. They told you before you walked in the room that the interview would be focused on Google Health. You had an opportunity to provide some exclusive insight, and you blew it. If you can't see how lame these stories are try reading some other tech blogs who actually provide some insight and analysis.
"Basically, a bunch of lame excuses for her failure to perform, despite high level support from Google. Worst of all, she blames Google for her failure... then writes sensationalist headlines."
That doesn't ring true...it's simple case of having an interview set up with Schmidt and Elinor being told moments before the sit down that you can only ask about one topic...all others taboo. The interview was stunted. This isn't a situation that any journalist wants to be in...and she tried to make the best of it...and reported on GoogleHealth. Eric Schmidt doesn't have to answer questions...his perogative, but we are we supposed to just accept the terms of service, which hamper our ability to do our job, in silence. She did the interview and she reported on the whole episode.
Mr. Schmidt didn't choose to answer a question about the differences between Microsoft and Google approaches in their health services.
We aren't sitting on the sidelines waiting to be handed crumbs from the companies we cover.
The Decider also gets tough on us, writing:
"And you wonder why CNET writers are not taken for anything but tabloid writers.
If you think what she wrote has any merit you need to seriously consider another profession."
I obviously don't agree with The Decider's point of view, but we aren't limiting what he can say (within reason) and we are trying to have a conversation. And, readers have choice of what they choose to consume. We chose to question why the CEO of Google wouldn't allow the obvious questions about the ecomony, ads etc that he would expect any journalist to ask.
DF
I remember being told that you are only the eyes and ears of those who cannot be there, and your questions ought to reflect what the public would/might ask if they had the opportunity.
Ego driven interviewers bore me. Those who keep hammering a question that has not been answered are failing on two points.
The first is that you switch the question, or the angle from which you are raising the question.
Then you allow the non answer to stand as the answer. Your readers/listeners/viewers will reach their own conclusions. Your opinion is of no importance.
The claim too often heard theses days by aggressive journalists assuming rights that they do not have, is ?I?m only doing my job?.
The ?job? gives you no rights at all. The claim is as weak as the claim ?that I was only following orders?.
People have been hanged that used that defence!
I also have a problem with the ?list of questions? routine.
While the interviewer ought not allow a politician to waffle on, about party policy for example, the interviewer ought to be following where things lead. All too often an interviewee touches on something really interesting only to have the interviewer resolutely drag them back to the ? next on the list of questions?.
The mind set that this is ?my interview? is an indication of incompetence guarantees that nothing new will emerge from the exercise.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, including anonymous Talkbackers who are whining about reporters trying to ask a CEO some questions. We ask questions, that's we do. You say that we shouldn't ask questions unless we are allowed to do so by the subject, that we shouldn't be so forward as to try to get in a question about recent Google's paid click numbers. Or that we are ego driven----nonsense.
Eric Schmidt doesn't have to answer questions, just like you don't have to read what we write. We at least can ask the questions we believe are of interest to our news readers. Google Health is of interest to our readers, and we will be reporting on it for many years to come, but not at the exclusion of other topics.
- 20-20 Hindsight
-
by netscr1be
March 4, 2008 4:55 AM PST
- Note to Moderator: I don't care if this gets posted. There's been enough public comment. I would Elinor AND her editors to see it though.
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
See all 53 Comments >>Wisdom is experience and knowledge applied with good judgment. Unfortunately, the most abundant source of experience, knowledge and good judgment is ... bad judgment.
Please take the following as constructive criticism from a peer intended to help you in the future.
You talk about being 'surprised' when you found out the interviews Schmidt was giving out around the time of the Google Health announcement would only be about Google Health.
Then you go on to being 'stymied' because he actually sticks to his plan.
I have to ask; before you got C|Net to pony up for the trip, before you went flying across the country, before you made up your list of questions - you didn't check the Google flacks what - if any - interview parameters would be in place?
Schmidt's behaviour was not out of line - your expectations and assumptions were.
Put yourself in their chair. If I were a Google flack and this is the level of professionalism coming from C|Net (at a time when they may have been working to restore relations) I'd be careful about providing access in the future. They get feedback too.
The really big question I didn't see addressed in any of the comments so far (20 armchair quarterback inanities is about my limit for one day) is where were your editors?
THEY were the ones who hung you out to dry - not Schmidt. Editors are supposed to provide the check and balances that prevent this sort of thing from happening.
You took quite a beating over this Elinor. Go find someone to give you a hug and then treat yourself to something good.
--PB--