Internet will ‘disappear’, Google boss tells Davos

DAVOS, Switzerland — Google boss Eric Schmidt predicted on Thursday that the Internet will soon be so pervasive in every facet of our lives that it will effectively “disappear” into the background.

Speaking to the business and political elite at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Schmidt said: “There will be so many sensors, so many devices, that you won’t even sense it, it will be all around you.”

“It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room and … you are interacting with all the things going on in that room.”

“A highly personalised, highly interactive and very interesting world emerges.”

On the sort of high-level panel only found among the ski slopes of Davos, the heads of Google, Facebook and Microsoft and Vodafone sought to allay fears that the rapid pace of technological advance was killing jobs.

“Everyone’s worried about jobs,” admitted Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.

With so many changes in the technology world, “the transformation is happening faster than ever before,” she acknowledged.

“But tech creates jobs not only in the tech space but outside,” she insisted.

Schmidt quoted statistics he said showed that every tech job created between five and seven jobs in a different area of the economy.

“If there were a single digital market in Europe, 400 million new and important new jobs would be created in Europe,” which is suffering from stubbornly high levels of unemployment, he said.

The debate about whether technology is destroying jobs “has been around for hundreds of years”, said the Google boss. What is different is the speed of change.

“It’s the same that happened to the people who lost their farming jobs when the tractor came … but ultimately a globalised solution means more equality for everyone.”

Everyone has a voice

With one of the main topics at this year’s World Economic Forum being how to share out the fruits of global growth, the tech barons stressed that the greater connectivity offered by their companies ultimately helps reduce inequalities.

“Are the spoils of tech being evenly spread? That is an issue that we have to tackle head on,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft.

“I’m optimistic, there’s no question. If you are in the tech business, you have to be optimistic. Ultimately to me, it’s about human capital. Tech empowers humans to do great things.”

Facebook boss Sandberg said the Internet in its early forms was “all about anonymity”, but now everyone was sharing everything and everyone was visible.

“Now everyone has a voice … now everyone can post, everyone can share and that gives a voice to people who have historically not had it,” she said.

Schmidt, who said he had recently come back from the reclusive state of North Korea, added he believed that technology forced potentially despotic and hermetic governments to open up as their citizens acquired more knowledge about the outside world.

“It is no longer possible for a country to step out of basic assumptions in banking, communications, morals and the way people communicate,” the Google boss said.

“You cannot isolate yourself any more. It simply doesn’t work.”

Nevertheless, Sandberg told the assembled elites that even the current pace of change was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Today, only 40 percent of people have Internet access,” she said, adding: “If we can do all this with 40 percent, imagine what we can do with 50, 60, 70 percent.”

Even two decades into the global spread of the Internet, the potential for opening up and growth was tremendous, she stressed.

“Sixty percent of the Internet is in English. If that doesn’t tell you how uninclusive the Internet is, then nothing will,” said the tycoon.

The World Economic Forum brings together some 2,500 of the top movers and shakers in the worlds of politics, business and finance for a four-day meeting that ends on Saturday.

source: interaksyon.com

Google’s Schmidt to sell roughly 42 percent of stake

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his stake in the Internet search company, a move that could potentially net the former chief executive a $2.51 billion windfall.

Schmidt, 57, will sell 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock through a stock trading plan, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The plan, which Google said would give Schmidt “individual asset diversification and liquidity,” allows Schmidt to spread trades out over a period of one year to reduce the market impact.

Shares of Google were down $4.11 at $781.26 in after-hours trading on Friday.GOogle Stock

A Google spokeswoman would not comment on why Schmidt is selling the shares at this time.

Wedbush Securities analyst James Dix said Schmidt’s stock sales did not worry him or signal a loss of confidence in the company by Schmidt.

“I’d be more worried if the current CEO or CFO sold a lot of their stake,” said Dix.

Schmidt, who served as Google’s chief executive until 2011, currently owns roughly 7.6 million shares of Class A and Class B common stock. The shares represent 2.3 percent of Google’s outstanding stock and roughly 8.2 percent of the voting power of Google’s stock.

The fact that Schmidt will still own a significant amount of shares after the sales means he’ll have a good deal of “skin in the Google game,” said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice. But he said it could hint at Schmidt playing a less central role within the company going forward.

“My speculation is that Eric’s relationship with Google is evolving,” said Rice. “I would assume that as he decides he wants to diversify away from Google – both his career and financially – he’s got ideas of what he would like to do with some of his funds.”

Schmidt, who helped turn Google into the world’s No.1 search engine during his decade as CEO, handed the reins to Google co-founder Larry Page in April 2011.

As executive chairman, Schmidt has been particularly involved in government relations, taking a leading role in the company’s discussions with antitrust regulators in the United States and the European Union. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation into Google last month without any action. Google has offered to change some of its business practices to appease European competition regulators.

“As Google moves to maybe more tactical battles, as opposed to the strategic battles it’s been waging with the government, once those are concluded, maybe his role can be lessened,” said Needham & Co’s Rice.

Schmidt has also made headlines apart from Google. In January, Schmidt traveled to North Korea with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson for a “personal” trip. The trip was criticized by the U.S. State Department as ill-timed – coming weeks after North Korea conducted a rocket launch in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Shares of Google are trading at all-time highs, finishing Friday’s regular session at a record closing price of $785.37. At that price, Schmidt’s share sales would be worth $2.51 billion.

Google said that Schmidt entered into the stock trading plan in November
Schmidt was ranked 138 on the Forbes list of global billionaires with a net worth of $6.9 billion in March 2012.

Given Schmidt’s changed role at the company and the amount of his wealth tied up in Google’s stock, it was not unreasonable for him to diversify his holdings, said Wedbush Securities analyst Dix.

“As good as Google stock is, it isn’t as good as cash if you actually want to buy something,” he said.

source: interaksyon.com

Google chief’s daughter on ‘very strange’ North Korea visit

SEOUL — The teenage daughter of Google chairman Eric Schmidt has shed some light on her father’s secretive trip to North Korea, writing a first-hand account of the visit to a “very, very strange” country.

In a blog posting at the weekend entitled “It might not get weirder than this”, Sophie Schmidt provided a candid take on the controversial three-day trip earlier this month that was criticised by the US government.

Schmidt, 19, had accompanied her father on the visit as part of a delegation led by Bill Richardson, the former US ambassador to the United Nations.

On their return, the two men answered a few questions about the nature of the visit, but Sophie Schmidt’s informal account was in many ways far more revealing.

“Our trip was a mixture of highly-staged encounters, tightly-orchestrated viewings and what seemed like genuine human moments,” she wrote.

“We had zero interactions with non-state-approved North Koreans and were never far from our two minders.”

While much of the blog posting is taken up with the sort of observational musings common to any first-time visitor to Pyongyang, it had some interesting insights into the official side of the delegation’s trip.

In particular, it fleshed out the main photo-opportunity of the entire trip when they visited an e-library at Kim Il-Sung University, and chatted with some of the 90 students working on computer consoles.

“One problem: No one was actually doing anything,” Schmidt wrote.

“A few scrolled or clicked, but the rest just stared. More disturbing: when our group walked in… not one of them looked up from their desks. Not a head turn, no eye contact, no reaction to stimuli.

“They might as well have been figurines,” she added.

One of the world’s most isolated and censored societies, the North has a domestic Intranet service with a very limited number of users.

Analysts say access to the Internet is for the super-elite only, meaning a few hundred people or maybe 1,000 at most.

On his return, Eric Schmidt said he had told North Korea it would not develop unless it embraces Internet freedom — a prospect dismissed by most observers as inconceivable.

Sophie Schmidt’s description of the “unsettling” e-library visit suggests the delegation was all too aware that it was being shown a facade.

“Did our handlers honestly think we bought it? Did they even care? Photo op and tour completed, maybe they dismantled the whole set and went home,” she wrote.

And her top “take-aways” from the whole experience?

1) Go to North Korea if you can. It is very, very strange.

2) If it is January, disregard the above. It is very, very cold.

source: interaksyon.com

Google's ex-CEO gets $101M pay package in new job

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Shifting from Google's CEO to executive chairman proved to be lucrative career move for Eric Schmidt.

Google Inc. awarded Schmidt a compensation package valued at $101 million last year, according to a Friday regulatory filing. The amount is 322 times higher than the $313,219 package that Schmidt received in 2010 during his final full year as the Internet search leader's CEO.

Schmidt, 56, ended a decade-long stint as Google's CEO last April and turned over the job to Google co-founder Larry Page.

Shortly before the change in command, Google gave Schmidt stock and stock options valued at nearly $94 million, according to the company's proxy statement. Google had designed the stock and stock option package to be worth $100 million, but the compensation formula spelled out by securities regulators arrived at a slightly different calculation.

To top it off, Google raised Schmidt's salary from $1 annually as CEO to $1.25 million as executive chairman. His 2011 salary ended up being $937,500 because he spent the first three months of the year in the lower-paying job as CEO.

The rest of Schmidt's 2011 compensation consisted of a $6 million bonus and perks worth nearly $264,000. Schmidt deposited half of his bonus last year in a company plan that can defer payment for up to five years.

Page's compensation package totaled $1 last year, consisting solely of a nominal salary. He has maintained a $1 salary since 2005, although in some years he has accepted the Google's companywide holiday bonus. That's what happened in 2010 when Page's pay package totaled $1,723.

Weekly paychecks, annual bonuses and stock options haven't been essential to Schmidt or Page since Google's initial public offering of stock in August 2004. That IPO turned them, along with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, into multibillionaires who are perennials on Forbes' list of the world's richest people.

Forbes' latest rankings estimate Page, 39, and Brin, 38, are each worth nearly $19 billion. The magazine pegs Schmidt's wealth at nearly $7 billion.

Like Page, Brin limited his pay package last year to $1.

Since Google's IPO, Schmidt's total compensation package as CEO had never exceeded $560,000, based on an analysis of Google's past regulatory filings. From 2004 through 2010, Schmidt's combined compensation totaled $2.2 million.

In his new job as executive chairman, Schmidt serves as a company ambassador who meets with government regulators, explores potential acquisitions and makes public appearances.

In its proxy statement, Google described Schmidt's big stock and stock option package as a way to recognize his accomplishments as CEO. When Schmidt took in job in 2002, Google had annual revenue of $86 million and fewer than 300 employees. In Schmidt's final full year as CEO, Google had grown to a company with $29 billion in revenue and more than 24,000 employees.

Even after last year's big windfall, Schmidt is still raising cash. In February, he filed plans to sell up to 2.4 million shares of stock currently worth about $1.4 billion.

Page and Brin are in the process of selling 5 million Google shares apiece under a program scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Page, Brin and Schmidt have been Google's controlling shareholders since the IPO, thanks to a special class of stock that gives them 10 times the voting power of other shareholders. To ensure they remain in power as Google doles out more stock to pay employees and finance acquisitions, Brin and Page are pursuing a 2-for-1 stock split that will create new class of shares with zero voting power.

The unusual stock split announced last week has been derided by corporate governance experts who oppose disenfranchising other shareholders.

But the proposal is almost certain to be approved at Google's June 21 annual meeting because Page, Brin and Schmidt support it.

Friday's regulatory filing disclosed that the idea for the stock split was first broached in June 2010. Google's board then formed a special committee to analyze the pros and cons. After some haggling with Brin and Page over the limits on their control, the board reached a compromise earlier this month.

source: mb.com.ph