We always thought Eric Schmidt was an extremely press savvy guy. He never speaks out of turn, and like a seasoned politician, he answers questions without actually answering questions.
So it comes as a surprise that Schmidt would trash talk Microsoft at an investigative journalism conference at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism of all places -- potentially among hundreds of reporters. It's also odd given the fact that a call between Schmidt and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang about thwarting Microsoft has reportedly attracted the attention of antitrust regulators.
Mark Glaser, who caught a snippet of Schmidt's conversation, said Schmidt was bashing Microsoft in the lobby at the conference:
"Google CEO Eric Schmidt . . . was out in the hallway talking to Bill Keller of the New York Times, bad-mouthing Microsoft, from what I overheard . . .
I wonder if Schmidt is hoping that by being friendly with investigative types they won’t go after Google? Hmmm," Glaser wrote on Media Shift, a PBS media blog.
Photo: Flickr/Charles Haynes
