Complete Interview with Google CEO, Eric Schmidt on Mad Money

Jim: All right, let's get right to it... You have a stock that's at $500 bucks. I get stopped all the time by people who know I love Google, and they say, will you get the guy to spit the stock? I can't afford $500 bucks. Why don't they split it? Right away... tell me how stupid that is?...

Eric Schmidt: This is New York. They can afford $500 dollars...

Jim: I like that, but I actually get this question when I go to, say, North Carolina too...

Eric Schmidt: Well, that's more serious... but we're not going to split the stock... at least not for a while. It's just better... people think that the value of a stock is really the dollars, so we'll keep it higher.

Jim: All right, good. I think that's right. I like individuals to buy one share. BRK-B did the same thing.

Eric Schmidt: It worked really well for him.

Jim: A lot of people feel that you don't provide enough guidance... enough management share...

Eric Schmidt: We don't provide any guidance... that would be the same thing as "none"...

Jim: True, and that's because you...

Eric Schmidt: Because we don't want it to get in the way of running the business... All right, if we starting giving quarterly guidance, all of the sudden, the whole company would start focusing on the quarter, rather than trying to change the world.

Jim: Totally true. I wish other people would do it. Now, there are 31 out of 33 people (i.e., analysts) recommending the stock so clearly it may not have mattered that you're not hand holding us.

Eric Schmidt: Well, these are the smart people...

Jim: Right. No, it's true. Now, information technology and advertising. I think you guys have revolutionized everything. Could you tell me... a lot of people... Goldman Sachs is using a percentage of the GDP (i.e., gross domestic product) that you are... I think that that's a little too... they are... right now, you're 0.7% of the GDP of the United States... yeah, 7 basis points... actually .07%...

Eric Schmidt: That's quite a difference...

Jim: Hey, catch me... Here's what I want to know... There's $600 billion in advertising. Isn't it fair to think that, one day, you'll capture 10% of it?...

Eric Schmidt: Well, we could... And, by the way, the number's larger than the $600 billion. It's about $1 trillion globally... And it's perfectly possible that the online world will be half (i.e., $500 billion), and Google could be 8% of that (i.e., $40 billion). We won't get 100%. And then we don't know how long it will take, but we know that everybody's moving from these traditional mechanisms to more targeted, more measurable ones, and online is where the measurements are.

Jim: Right now, predominantly desktop, but we know that, in countries that are more advanced than us, like Japan, mobile computing... Is your mobile computing going to be up to snuff, and can you make us much money in mobile computing, because the cell phone companies have historically taken too much of a toll?

Eric Schmidt: Well, we can make more money in mobile than we do in the desktop eventually. And the reason is, the mobile computer is more targeted. Think about it. You carry your phone. Your phone knows all about you, right?

Jim: Oh, everywhere.

Eric Schmidt: It knows exactly what you're up to, so we can do a very targeted ad. Over time, we will make more money from mobile advertising. Not now, but over time.

Jim: Okay, now... there are questions that I'm reading about you in the paper. There's a lot of stuff about you guys in the paper every single day... You're competing against the original content players, like The New York Times said earlier this week.

Eric Schmidt: Well we think we send a lot of traffic to them. What actually happens is, people come to Google, and they look for information, and they immediately go to the content provider. And we don't want to disintermediate them out. We want to take them... because we need their content... we need them to be successful. We build advertising products for them, and so forth. So, very much, we maintain that separation.

Jim: Okay, so when I read those kinds of articles, I should just think twice about whether they aren't... Uh, there is a kind of a bias... You know, you guys have gotten so big, I feel that, when I pick up an article... Yesterday, there was an article about how you didn't have (the Republic of) Georgia in the map...

Eric Schmidt: Well that turns out not to be true. We had the same amount of Georgia before the war as after the war. And we're adding more Georgia going forward, because it's such an interesting place.

Jim: Well, I've got people complaining. I do all my show back and forth with GMail. You were out on Monday, GMail.

Eric Schmidt: Well that was just a screw-up... ...and we fixed that. We're not perfect.

Jim: Well, there you go...

Eric Schmidt: ...and we fixed that. We're not perfect.

Jim: Okay, now... I want talk about philosophically... I know we've got some real time here... philosophically... when my daughter got her 5th grade assignment... the first thing that happened was, at the top of the assignment... "you are not allowed to Google it"...

Eric Schmidt: Really?...

Jim: Yes, you're not allowed to Google...

Eric Schmidt: It's like the old thing, "you can't use a calculator"... now you can't use Google?

Jim: Yes, well I was thinking slide rule, but you can't... Talk about the impact...

Eric Schmidt: But kids use Google all the time, because it's a new way of learning. When I was in... when I was growing up, they made me - in Virginia - memorize the names of the capitals of every county in the whole state... completely useless information. It took me a week.

Jim: Completely and utterly...

Eric Schmidt: Today, you just look it up. So people are going from knowing everything to learning how to search very quickly... The kids need to learn how to search, because they're going to have search everywhere. They're going to have little devices that they're going to carry with them like an iPod, that will have all the world's information with them, for their whole lives.

Jim: So you're not worried about intellectual laziness...

Eric Schmidt: No...

Jim: ...because you guys have basically absorbed what it took me four years of college to do, which is how to do thorough research to be able to do a paper, to be able to...

Eric Schmidt: But what's interesting is now, when you walk down the street, there's a question... You can say, wow, that's interesting... you can have the answer. I'm riding the train between here and D.C. and, all of the sudden, I read the history of the train line. I could never have done that before.

Jim: Okay, well... A lot of times I just think that what has happened is that Google has become so powerful that we have taken it for granted, and wouldn't know how to do a lot of things that we...

Eric Schmidt: But see I don't believe in this sort of lazy people, dumb people idea... I think...

Jim: But you've thought about it. Clearly, you had to have thought about it.

Eric Schmidt: No, no... but I actually think people are smarter, because they have access to more information. Google just organizes it. The people are still asking the questions, their still acting based on it, and they have so much more information available to them.

Jim: All right, okay... Now, a lot of people feel... and I know that we're going to spend the next segment talking about what really drives the stock... that, with the 26% growth that you hit for domestic this quarter, that you've tapped out domestically, and that your growth is going to almost entirely have to be international.

Eric Schmidt: Well, by the way, most people would say 26% growth is pretty good...

Jim: (laughing) I agree, but there's 31 analysts who say, listen Jim, you ought to focus on this...

Eric Schmidt: Well, first place, we don't really know what's going on with the global economy, and Google will do better in any kind of slowdown than non-targeted advertising, but we might be affected by it... you never know. The important point is that our model continues to work, as people are shifting from offline to online. And that shift is inexhorible. It's going to happen no matter what.

Jim: Do you think that we're going to see, and I've got a picture of it I believe... Let me do this... Google home page... (pointing to a monitor of the live Google website home page)... Let me do this before we get to the break. If we can get the Google home page up for a second? I think you've revolutionized advertising and I think you know it too... Why can't you sell, "as presented by Anheuser Busch" right here? (pointing to where a advertising banner could be placed at the bottom of the Google home page)... Why don't you sell the home page?

Eric Schmidt: We absolutely could.

Jim: And how much do you think people would pay to be on that page?

Eric Schmidt: Some number of billions of dollars.

Jim: Well, why not do it?

Eric Schmidt: Because people wouldn't like it. We make the decisions based on what the end user wants. We prioritize the end user over the advertiser.

Jim: You're willing to throw away potentially...

Eric Schmidt: We absolutely...

Jim: ...what I believe would be a half a billion dollars in revenue right now by selling that page?

Eric Schmidt: We absolutely are not going to sell that page.

Jim: But, but wait a second. If I'm a shareholder, what kind of attitude is that?

Eric Schmidt: Because you want to be a shareholder for 20 years, and you want every one of those users to come back to Google over and over and over again.

Jim: But the domestic (i.e., revenue numbers) would be jump started like you wouldn't believe...

Eric Schmidt: You could take a magazine and you could print nothing but ads in it and, eventually, people would stop reading it.

Jim: Well, right now, you're far from that. Do you think that we will see, within our lifetime, the international business dwarfing the United States business?

Eric Schmidt: The world is a really big place, and advertising is global. We're already in a majority international, and I think eventually it's going to be 65/35... something like that.

Jim: Right now, it's about, what?... It was 52%...

Eric Schmidt: 52/48... But it's clear to me that the world is... And, by the way, look at the growth of India, look at the growth of China... Big deal...

Jim: All right, stick with me. I've got granular questions about what's going to happen, that the Street needs more than my global, "my kids are lazy because of Google." All right? Stay here...

[commercial break]

Jim: We're talking with Eric Schmidt. I have to tell you, I'm going back with a $750 price target...

Eric Schmidt: I've never seen a Google employee with than many tatoos...

Jim: Well... 'toos are big... 'toos are big. You guys've got to get a little more hip. I would show you my ring here too (pointing to his belly button). I've got a nice ring here... Uh, what do you... I know we were talking in the break. I know you've got some stuff that you wanted to ask me.

Eric Schmidt: Well, I have a real simple question, right... You think the market's going to turn pretty quick here.

Jim: Yes I do.

Eric Schmidt: But when's business going to turn in America, right? Because Google will do well I think as this turns but, you know, things are kind of rocky right here.

Jim: Well, I've got to tell you, the market has always anticipated between six and nine months, in terms of business. For instance, housing right now... I don't mean to get too far afield. I have the CEO of Google here. But the housing market I think is nine months away from a turn... you see those stocks turning. The stocks tell me more. In your particular case, I believe that you will get back to your old prices, because inflation is coming down, and I'll pay more for the out-year earnings. Let me tell you the things that keep me up at night about Google, and what I'm really worried about. It's different from what the analysts are worried about. First of all, I think... when I first started trading... IBM... I never thought anybody could touch them. Big, big, big... and then flat. MSFT... Big, big, big... and then flat. I worry that there's a price... there's a level... where Google just simply can't get any bigger. Your concern on that?

Eric Schmidt: Well, you know, all these tech companies hit something called... they hit the "S curve" and the S curve is basically... they go like this (motioning upward on a climb) and through this very, very rapid growth period, and then slows... and it slows because of laws of large numbers, basically... Just, you know, you're growing, you're adding billions of revenue... You just can't put enough numbers on the board. So the way you solve that problem is by having new businesses. So we're busy working on new businesses. The display business, which is a huge opportunity, which we should become a significant player, but we're not today. We're working very hard on that. Mobile should be a large one. So the way you address that S curve slowdown, in any technology business, is you keep adding other businesses that are growing. And there's enough in advertising...

Jim: But didn't Ballmer think of that?... And Gates?... (from Microsoft) And it didn't seem to work?...

Eric Schmidt: Well, that's a different generation. This is an advertising generation, and advertising is a very, very multi-sector thing. We can do these kind of ads, which we do really well, but there's a lot of other opportunities for us, and they'll organize themselves as the technology allows. Some of them will grow faster than the others, but that's how we address that question.

Jim: Okay... Uh, I used to manage money for INTC executives. In the late 80s, when they decided to switch from a commodity product, to the 86, which became the Pentium, the thing that they saw and recocognized was that they're only enemy would be the government. They literally believed that, one day, they could have 80-90% market share. They were the 20th largest semiconductor company. I worry that, at a certain place, the world... well, certainly the U.S. government... will come down on you, because you're just too darn powerful. Each month, I see your share go up. At a certain level, people are going to go to Washington and say this isn't right.

Eric Schmidt: Well, we've actually talked about this, because our algorithms are doing better, it appears that we're gaining share... Certainly our advertising business... we have the best technology in the business, and so forth... So, how do we behave, right?... We shouldn't behave the way Microsoft did, all right... I think everyone agrees with that. Certainly, I would never do that.

Jim: You're not going to say those nasty things about the Attorney General?

Eric Schmidt: No, no... We're just not going to do that. So how do you be big without being evil, is the way we need to say it. Well, one of the things is that we don't trap end users. So, if you don't like Google... for whatever reason... if we do a bad job for you, we make it easy for you to move to our competitor. We're trying to make sure that a competitive market is maintained by everything that we do.

Jim: I know the Yahoo deal (to work in conjunction with Google for distribution of advertising) which, on the surface looked anti-competitive, isn't.

Eric Schmidt: But look at it. The Yahoo deal is non-exclusive, text ads only. It's a classic outsourcing deal for some of its advertsing. They can choose to implement it or not. It's a good deal for them, it's a good deal for us. That's the kind of deal... And, by the way, they're free to work with whomever else they wish.

Jim: Now, one of the things that's been brought up repeatedly in all the analyst reports - and it was mentioned in conference call - is that you must be seeing some cyclicality. We know the airlines are in trouble... we know that travel's in trouble... we know the autos are in trouble. That has simply been completely and utterly wrong, hasn't it?

Eric Schmidt: Well, it's bizzarre because, while autos are in trouble, because the automobile dealers are really smart, they move to more targeted advertsing to sell the inventory that they have. So we can do well, if people transition to more targeted, more measurable, more ROI-based advertsing. The ones that are being hit, unfortunately, are these non-measurable advertsing things. There's no reason to put money there.

Jim: You should explain... that's newspapers and magazines...

Eric Schmidt: ...and traditional display ads.

Jim: When my kids... when I tell them to read The New York Times, they have no idea what I'm talking about. What they say is they go to Google. That's what The New York Times is. What do you say to the executives at The New York Times, using that as an example, who have a $500 million ad budget, that you are... Why are you not just the parasite?...

Eric Schmidt: Well, in fact, we have a big deal with The New York Times, and with a bunch of other newspapers, for precisely this. And what we do, when people come to Google looking for news, we send them to The New York Times, and we also show some of our ads on their sites, and they get the majority of the revenue. So they make money, both on the traffic coming to them as well our ad system, along with their own advertising.

Jim: All right, now let's speak about the... a question that, again, I'm trying to address all the questions that are holding the stock down in my view. You've got a tremendous... the amount of downloads in YouTube are extraordinary. But over the...

Eric Schmidt: Do you know it's up to 1.3... let's see... 1.3 million minutes ever 10 minutes of upload. In other words, every minute, we're putting that many videos in. It's unbelievable.

Jim: But, at the same time, what advertiser wants to put a 30-second advertisement on YouTube?... Who wants to look at that, versus the advertisements we're using at the Olympics now, which are just gigantic... $1.7 billion in revenue. I mean, isn't it true that people just don't like ads on YouTube?

Eric Schmidt: But we haven't figured that model out yet, right... You're comparing a 50-year-old mature model, which worked really, really well once every four years, right... in the Olympics... or once every two years... versus something which is completely beginning. We know we have enormous amounts of traffic. Literally hundreds of millions of people watching those videos...

Jim: So you're just saying that somebody will figure it out in your organization?

Eric Schmidt: And hopefully, it's going to be us that figures it out. So we're trying different things. We tried pre-roll and post-roll and so forth. Not any one of them is really got it... we've got a couple of new ones coming out in the next month. We'll give them a try.

Jim: You're making so much money that we don't have to worry about it, right. It isn't like it's going to hit your bottom line here...

Eric Schmidt: It does hit our bottom line big time right now... but, eventually, we'd like to make some money at it. But, even if we don't... even if, ultimately, it's a loss leader... let me tell you that the fact that so many people come to YouTube means that they ultimately go to Google and do Google searches and click on ads. So don't be too worried about all that traffic going to YouTube. I'd be worried if people weren't using YouTube... Since it's an enormous success globally, we know we will eventually benefit from it.

Jim: All right, last question to Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google... I want to know... The press, everyday... It's kind of like the iPhone... Everyone says the Android is coming, the Android... you'll never see anything like the Android... There could be a September release... Here, I'm talking about mobile computing which... Remember, Google is dominating, taking big share from Yahoo, for AOL, from everybody, when it comes to desktop... but owning mobile may be up to you guys developing Android and being successful. Where is it? How big it can be? Can you give me a Steve Jobs' "10 million this year" kind of thing?

Eric Schmidt: No it can't.

Jim: Why not?

Eric Schmidt: Because it hasn't shipped yet.

Jim: Okay, but tell me...

Eric Schmidt: It's going to ship between now and the end of the year. It's software...

Jim: No, no, no... I need "September"... I need "October"...

Eric Schmidt: ...between now and the end of the year, and it's going to be software...

Jim: Well why don't you just take away my ratings, and give them to some other show?...

Eric Schmidt: And, by the way, it's software, so it's really going to be other people... And our goal is to get lots of people to use the software to build a new platform... a completely different kind of platform than anybody else...

Jim: Well, like cloud computing...

Eric Schmidt: Absolutely.

Jim: Oh, by the way, your last... There was a Pacific Crest speech that one of your guys gave that just basically said that cloud computing is interesting, but that Microsoft should be terrified. Should Microsoft be terrified by cloud computing?

Eric Schmidt: I never worry about Microsoft.

Jim: Very smart. Eric Schmidt, you are a delight... CEO of Google... and where's my pen? I want to write Google $750... Well, whatever, you get the point!