Notes from Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch–“Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the stage at Atmosphere, a special event where Google and an array of speakers presented new cloud technologies to CIOs. Quentin Hardy, National Editor of Forbes Media, conducted a one on one interview with Schmidt, which was followed by audience questions.
Q: Warren Buffet says that when you acquire great wealth you find yourself in more interesting circles/situations. What are 1-3 things you’ve learned that have knocked your socks off?
A: I was surprised at severity of financial crisis. I was surprised that so many smart people knew so little about what was going on. I wanted to work on helping fix that, it’s fundamentally an information problem. I’ve been working on advanced manufacturing issues in the US as well. That’s another surprise, the decline of American manufacturing.”
Well, there is still a significan amount of manufacturing in the US, but he’s right–there could be more. It’s up to us manufacturing geeks to get our companies focused in the right direction.
