Eric Schmidt, “Building artificial intelligence for the good of humanity”
Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Alphabet, Inc.
Schmidt is the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. and is responsible for the external matters of all the holding company’s businesses, including Google Inc., advising their CEOs and leadership on business and policy issues.
Prior to the establishment of Alphabet, Eric was the chairman of Google Inc. for four years. From 2001- 2011, Eric served as Google’s chief executive officer, overseeing the company’s technical and business strategy alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a strong culture of innovation, growing from a Silicon Valley startup to a global leader in technology.
Prior to joining Google, Eric was the chairman and CEO of Novell and chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Previously, he served on the research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Bell Laboratories, and Zilog. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University as well as a master’s degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Eric is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. He also chairs the board of the New America Foundation, and since 2008 has been a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Since 2012, Eric has been on the board of the Broad Institute and the Mayo Clinic. In 2013, Eric and Jared Cohen co-authored The New York Times bestselling book, The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives. In September 2014, Eric published his second New York Times best seller, How Google Works, which he and Jonathan Rosenberg co-authored with Alan Eagle.
