Chairman and Google CEO Eric Schmidt was born on April 27, 1955 in Washington D.C. Schmidt went to Yorktown High School in Virginia then proceeded to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 1976. Two years later, he received his MS from University of California–Berkeley Campus and then got his Ph.D. in 1982. Schmidt taught as a part-time professor at the Stanford Business School.
Eric Schmidt’s involvement with the IT industry started with his stints with several big names in the game, including Zilog, Bell Labs, and Xerox’s famed Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). In 1983, he went to Sun Microsystems, spearheaded the development of its Java applications, and was eventually named as the company’s chief technology officer. Novell named Eric Schmidt as the company’s CEO in 1997.
Eric Schmidt joined Google in August 2001 as a member of the Board of Directors. By August of the same year, Google named him CEO. Together with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt heads the company’s daily operations, mainly with the company’s legal responsibilities and management of the vice presidents and the sales organization.
In 2006, Apple elected Eric Schmidt to be one of the members of its board of directors. That same year, Forbes ranked him as the world’s 129th wealthiest person with an estimated net worth of $6.2 billion. Eric Schmidt shared the ranking with Onsi Sawiris, Alexei Kuzmichov, and Robert Rowling. For 2006, he reportedly received a total of only $1 for his salary.
Eric Schmidt is among those who became billionaires by basis of their stock options revenues received as an employee in a company where neither him nor a relative is a founder.
A strong supporter during Barack Obama’s presidential run, Eric Schmidt is now serving on President-elect Barack Obama’s transition advisory board. He has constantly supported the use of renewable forms of energies as a solution to all problems the country is facing.
Magazine PC World has recognized Eric Schmidt’s contributions to the development of the Internet and has cited him as the #1 Most Important People on the Web for 2007, along with Google creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin.