“If you’re going to be in tech and you’re going to win, you’re going to have to make some tradeoffs,” Schmidt said. “Remember, we’re up against the Chinese; the Chinese work-life balance consists of 996, which is 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.”
Schmidt added that working from home is especially harmful for young people who may be highly educated but have little or no experience in the workforce. Schmidt said he learned plenty in the early days of his career at Sun Microsystems (where he eventually became CTO) by just being present at the office and hearing his older coworkers argue in person.
“How do you re-create that in this new thing?” he asked about remote work.
A spokesperson for Schmidt declined to comment.
“Eric misspoke about Google and their work hours and regrets his error,” a spokesperson for Schmidt said in a statement to Business Insider.
Schmidt, during the interview published Wednesday, snuck a glance at White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, as he joked work-life balance does have its place in at least one line of work.
“I’m in favor of work-life balance, and that’s why people work for the government,” he said.
