Nearly everyone with an Internet connection has weighed in on the death of Steve Jobs, but here’s one person’s reaction that you definitely don’t want to miss: Google Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt has spoken out with striking candor in video and written interviews, praising his friend, business partner, and rival as the “greatest computer entrepreneur in history.”
Speaking to Bloomberg Businessweek for an article published online Thursday, Schmidt relates how he began making deals with Jobs in the 1990s, when Jobs had left Apple to find NeXT and Schmidt was an executive at Sun Microsystems.
“He was exactly the same way he was at Apple: strongly opinionated, knew what he was doing. He was so passionate about object-oriented programming. He had this extraordinary depth. I have a PhD in this area, and he was so charismatic he could convince me of things I didn’t actually believe.”
Much later, after NeXT was purchased by Apple in 1996 and Jobs took over as CEO, Schmidt observed: “Apple was near bankruptcy, the company had been for sale, there were a series of management changes …”
Schmidt continues:
What I remember thinking at the time is that you shouldn’t take a job unless you know how to win. I had no clue how to do what he did. When somebody tells you they’re going to do something and you say, “I don’t understand how you’re going to do that,” and they succeed? That is the ultimate humbling experience. My interactions with Steve were always like that. He was always ahead of me. When he started working on tablets, I said nobody really likes tablets. The tablets that existed were just not very good. Steve said: “No, we can build one.” One of the things about Steve is, he was always in the realm of possibility. There was a set of assumptions that Steve would make that were never crazy. They were just ahead of me.
As Schmidt recounts, he himself was invited to join Apple’s Board of Directors ten years later, in August 2006, at which point he had been Google’s CEO for almost exactly five years. He noted that Jobs’ decision to open Apple retail stores was universally derided as crazy, and now they are the top-grossing retail stores in the U.S.
He also goes into some detail on how Jobs’ battle with pancreatic cancer didn’t keep him down, telling Bloomberg: “It took enormous courage for Steve to go through the operations, the treatments — without violating his privacy, it’s just horrific what he had to go through. I think he made all the board meetings I was at. He was obviously ill sometimes, and sometimes he was fine.”
But Schmidt reserved his most complimentary praise for Jobs in a video interview with Charlie Rose on Bloomberg Television.
As Schmidt tells Rose, when asked about Jobs’ legacy:
“I’m sure he’ll [Steve Jobs] be remembered as the greatest computer entrepreneur in history. I doubt anyone will be able to do the things that he’s done. Remember, he did them twice, first in building the first version of Apple and then the second one. He’ll also be seen as the person who perfectly merged art and science in a community that doesn’t have a lot of artists. In many ways, Steve proved that artists win and nerds don’t. I’ve never seen anyone with those skills and I am concerned we will not see anyone like that in the future. That is how profound Steve’s artistic and technology union really was for all of us.”
He also goes on to make the comparison that many in the press have made, but coming from Schmidt it means even more: that Schmidt was a modern day Michelangelo.
“When I spend time with Steve, he talked a lot about solving end user problems, but doing it in an artistic way. He saw beauty as a part of everything he did. If you look at his history, he was obviously involved with Pixar and movies and so forth. He cared a lot about how the average person around the world consumed things. Was it beautiful? Was it artistic? Was it clever? If you look at the Apple stores, over and over again he is a combination of technology and artist. An analogy from history would be Michelangelo who did both. There have been very very few such people in history.”
Concerning the reports that Jobs had a notoriously stubborn personality, Schmidt explains to Rose that Schmidt was like “all creative people,” in that he didn’t “have a lot of time for people who sort of ‘don’t get it,'” but points out that “while he certainly had strong opinions, you could talk to him and he would listen to you. Especially if you were right.” But Schmidt adds that serving on Apple’s board from 2006 to 2009, “was great fun and a great honor for me.”
He notes that during that period, he saw Jobs “personally” lead Apple’s efforts to change the markets in media and entertainment.
All of Schmidt’s many positive remembrances of Jobs mean even more considering the fact that the two increasingly became business rivals towards the end of Jobs’ life, with Schmidt being pushed out of the Apple board after three years. At the time, Schmidt said he “couldn’t stay on the board anymore,” but Jobs was more descriptive of the friction leading to Schmidt’s departure, stating in an unusually forthcoming press release:
“Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”
Various reports circulated in early 2010 that the relationship between the two men had soured to that point that Jobs was said to “hate Schmidt,” and reportedly called Google’s dont be evil motto “bullshit.”
“All those reports in the press were wrong,” Schmidt told The New York Times. “After I left the board, they had me to events and to private dinners.”
Indeed, by March of 2010, Jobs and Schmidt were spotted enjoying coffee together in Palo Alto.
And it is very clear from his statements following Jobs’ death that Schmidt ultimately view him as an inspiration and a pivotal figure in the information technology revolution both individuals spearheaded, each in their own, sometimes overlapping efforts. Watch Charlie Rose’s full, hour-long interview of Schmidt here or below, and read the full Bloomberg Businessweek piece here.
