Google’s former chief executive has sounded the alarm about the tech industry’s ability to compete with China, warning that working from home won’t help.
Eric Schmidt, who headed Google for 10 years in the early 2000s, said this in a conference interview published by a newspaper. all in In a September 2025 podcast, he said he doesn’t believe in remote work, in part because it won’t help American tech companies compete with China’s cutthroat work culture.
“If you want to get into the technology industry and win, you’re going to have to make some tradeoffs,” Schmidt said. “Remember, we’re 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 are highly educated but have little work experience. Schmidt said that early in his career at Sun Microsystems (where he eventually became CTO), he learned a lot just by being in the office and directly listening to his older colleagues having discussions.
“How do you recreate that with this new thing?” he asked about remote work.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Schmidt declined to comment.
996 obsession
China’s 996-hour work schedule was outlawed in 2021, but Schmidt claimed on his podcast that all Chinese tech companies still do it. This kind of work obsession is making its way into Silicon Valley. A growing number of Bay Area startups, especially AI startups, now expect their employees to work 72-hour weeks. Wired.
For some enthusiastic young people, Silicon Valley’s gradual transition from nappers to office sleepers is welcome news. Many people in their 20s grew up in a hustle culture inspired by the movie Zuckerberg. social network, I am willing to sacrifice work-life balance for the sake of startup success. wall street journal Reported. Fintech startup Lamp also claimed that its own data shows a spike in Saturday work, showing that “996 is real” as “more San Francisco-based employees are working on Saturdays.” Meanwhile, the change in business card transactions for restaurants, delivery, and takeout was an increase of 0.4%, which may not be as statistically significant.
Schmidt previously criticized his former company, Google, for having somewhat lax policies regarding remote work and productivity. “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home were more important than winning,” he said in a speech at Stanford University in 2024. Stanford University later deleted the video and Schmidt retracted his comments.
“Eric made a gaffe about Google and its work hours and regrets his mistake,” a spokesperson for Schmidt said in a statement. Business Insider.
After implementing generous work-from-home policies during the pandemic, Google has reduced remote work and required some remote employees to come into the office three days a week. As the AI race heats up, Google’s Sergey Brin has told employees working on his company’s AI model Gemini to work in the office “at least” weekdays, adding that 60 hours a week is “the sweet spot for productivity.” new york times Reported.
In a September interview, Schmidt joked that work-life balance plays an important role in at least one job, glancing at venture capitalist and now former White House AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sachs.
“I’m for work-life balance. That’s why people work for the government,” he said.
A version of this article was published on Fortune.com on September 25, 2025.
