Eric Schmidt: preference

Transcript context

…Isn’t that skill and not luck? Okay, I’ll let you define that. [laughter] But basically, the best things in your life will come from the people that you hang out with. I mean the people that you love to work with, and the people with whom you have passionate talks all night about and that kind of stuff. And if you can find those people, sign yourself up on their ship. That has worked incredibly well for me. I had the benefit of being early in the computer industry, so that’s like super luck. But my real opportunity is, I look at each of these stages, I was picked early, I worked with smart people, people took a risk on me, and I learned. I want to make sure that you all hear that. So today, when, as entrepreneurs, remember that the quality of the people that you work with — the people you hire, the people on your board, and so forth — will determine an awful lot of your outcome. In the media, there’s this fascination with founders and how brilliant they are, but corporate success is a team sport. As much as we love and identify our founders, it is the people who work for them every day, who worked the 16 hours a day, and they did so because they loved the founders, they loved the vision of the company, and they cared a great deal about that. Then, when they went home to see their families, exhausted, they said, “I was proud to go to work, and I was proud to do this.” Those are the people you want to associate with because those are the people that will change the world. Eric Schmidt, thank you very much.…

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