Eric Schmidt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Eric Schmidt - Essay Example For those who hope to be leadership material, Eric Schmidt's rise to the top of the leadership ladder is worth studying. Who is this man and how has he managed to become such a successful business leader He didn't do this overnight. Schmidt has been involved in electronics since his graduation from Princeton in 1976, and he presently has a doctorate in computer science. He began in research labs, moved into executive positions with Sun and Novell, and presently is CEO of Google ("Dr. Eric Schmidt"). Schmidt has the credentials to be at the top of his field, but in the business world of the 21st century, more than experience is necessary to meet market expectations. According to Dean of Dartmouth Business School, good leaders need a giving spirit, a balanced perspective, self-awareness, and a moral compass (Damos). Most people see the business world, especially in the United States, as reflecting corporate greed, the bottom line, and fierce competition. By looking at current corporate success in a global community, it quickly becomes evident that drastic change has taken place. No one is in a better position to understand this than Eric Schmidt. With the Internet the major source of information, he has to be the information guru, the leader who finds ways to educate other leaders and show by the growth in his company how to establish a strong customer base. In a recent interview for the Financial Times Limited in London, Schmidt said that gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and felt that the company was very early in the total information already available within Google (Daniel & Palmer). The race to accumulate the most comprehensive database of individual information worldwide, has, according to Daniel and Palmer, become the new battleground for search engines. Even as Schmidt looks to the future, he is faced with issues about privacy brought into play by his recent acquisition of DoubleClick, which could build up a detailed picture of someone's behavior by combining its records of web searches with information from DoubleClick's "cookies." Schmidt acknowledges these concerns and has promised to work on technology to reduce them. It is obvious that Schmidt has followed the tenets that create a good leader by his recent election to Apple's board of directors (Apple). Besides the fact that this will benefit both Google and Apple, Apple's brand recognition is connected to innovation and new product development, which will extend to Google. Already, the company has created iGoogle, a personal page for Google users that will bring recognition because of Apple's iPods, iLife, and iTunes. As of April 2007, Google said its profit soared almost 70 per cent in the first quarter. The company met Yahoo's challenge when it introduced its new search platform called Project Panama, which has not had a short-term impact. However, Google keeps moving ahead. Schmidt said in a statement to CNN: "The global growth of our core