As the pandemic began to impact the world, many companies began adopting a remote work approach, allowing employees to continue their activities from home. In some cases, even after the pandemic, this way of working remained the focus.

However, for Google, the ability to allow workers to stay home may have been one reason the company has lagged behind in the AI ​​race.

According to Eric SchmidtThe former CEO of Google believes that remote work for Google employees was one of the reasons the company was late in the artificial intelligence race, as it was overtaken by names like OpenAI.

In April, in a speech to students at Stanford University (via the Stanford Online YouTube channel), Schmidt responded to a question about why Google was lagging behind in AI. The CEO stated, “The reason startups succeed is because people work hard.”

Furthermore, the former CEO also told the students present at the conference: “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the truth is that if everyone left university and started a company, they wouldn’t allow people to work from home and only come one day a week if you want to compete with other startups.”

As remote work becomes routine for many companies, many business leaders have also started pointing out the problems that such a move could cause. The former Google CEO is not the only one who is against this idea, as several other executives have also left similar thoughts.