Remote working has blunted Google’s competitiveness in the AI race, says the company’s former CEO and chairman, Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt was speaking to students at Stanford University during a lecture in April when he was asked about the lead that startups like OpenAI and Anthropic currently have over Google when it comes to AI.

“Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning,” Schmidt said.”And the reason the startups work is because the people work like hell.”

“I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the fact of the matter is, if you all leave the university and go found a company, you’re not going to let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against the other startups.”

Representatives for Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

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