Remote working has once again caught attention as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says it is one of the major reasons Google is lagging behind in the AI-race. A video posted on YouTube recently surfaced in which Schmidt was addressing students during a lecture at Stanford University. Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief who headed the company as CEO from 2001 to 2011 and later as executive chairman till 2015, has expressed his strong objection to remote work in this video.

Schmidt was asked about his opinion of startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, which are ahead of Google in terms of AI. He said, “Google decided that work-life balance and getting home early and working from home is more important than winning.” He said the reason other startups do well is because “people work hard.”

Before criticising Google’s work culture, Schmidt said that although he is no longer an employee of the company, he told students that working from the office one day a week is not the right way to go.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” Schmidt added. “But the reality is that if you all quit university and started a company, you’re not going to let people work from home and only let them work one day a week if you want to compete with other startups.”

Responding to the question, Schmidt said that top tech companies often miss out on the next leap in the industry, stressing the value of innovative thinking and inspired leaders like Elon Musk. He also praised Taiwan Semiconductor, and highlighted their approach to providing practical experience to new PhD talent by starting from the “basement floor” of their factory.

Schmidt’s sentiments are also shared by other high-profile executives, such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has been vocal about the drawbacks of remote work and has urged employees to return to the office.

But is this correct? Does Google expect employees to come to the office only 1 day out of 5 working days? According to a report, Google was requiring employees to come to the office three days a week in 2022. According to another report published by CNBC in June 2023, Google has also started tracking office badge attendance and using it as a metric in performance reviews.