Former Google CEO Describes ‘Brutal’ Review Process For New Projects

Google’s 20% Project lead to several of the company’s top products we use today, though it was “brutal” for employees.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt shares details about the “brutal” review process employees had to go through when pitching ideas for new products.

During a Q&A session at the Collision conference in Toronto, Schmidt was asked about his approach to forecasting futures and whether he uses a bottom-up or top-down approach.

Source: Wikipedia

Collision is a conference geared toward startups and investors, so the questions asked were all within that realm.

One question prompted Schmidt to drop some interesting tidbits about Google and what it took for employees to get their ideas off the ground while he was CEO.

Google popularized offering time to work on side projects as an employee benefit — known as the 20% Project. Several of those projects became top products like Gmail, AdSense, and Google News.

Schmidt revealed his approach to managing the 20% Project and how it differed from how he explained it while working for Google.

Schmidt On Google’s 20% Project

Responding to the question about forecasting, Schmidt spoke about the approach he and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin took during his time at Google.