Eric Schmidt: prediction

Transcript context

…Sure. But that may be a reason why we’ve had wage stagnation also. Yeah. A couple of things. First, I think the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s had greater growth on average, largely because of the demographic boom of World War II and the baby boom generation. We face the inverse going forward. So I’m really glad to look at an audience of people who will be working very hard to fund my retirement. And there are so many people like me, that you’re going to have to work even harder, right? And that drives a lot of the economics around productivity. It’s why, for example, AI systems will make you more productive and not cause you to lose your jobs. That’s a way to understand that. With respect to the middle-class wages, I would argue that in many cases they’re missed opportunities to apply technology to these industries. An example would be that, if we use technology to make cars faster, cheaper, more efficient, and so forth and so on, they would cost less or at least be easier to manufacture. So I’m all about applying technology to nontechnology sectors to improve their productivity. I’m convinced that a small number of software people applied to each of these industries — looking at how they operate, redesigning the way their business processes work — will make a huge difference. Indeed, Google has a set of businesses that are trying to do that across a set of industries. To close, I have a few questions about what I call the Eric Schmidt production function, that is how you have been productive. First, very simple: What would you describe as your greatest talent in business?…

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