Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is a pretty smart guy. After all, he built Google from a garage to a billion-dollar empire, so he’s probably pretty savvy. When he says the only way to escape your embarrassing past is to change your name, then more than likely he’s onto something. That’s one of many controversial claims Schmidt has made in a recent interview.
“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable, and recorded by everyone all the time,” said Google’s CEO to the Wall Street Journal, adding that the only way to get out is to change your name. He also had some interesting things to say about where he’d want to take Google in the future, and what Google’s role in your life would be in a few years. “We’re trying to figure out what the future of search is,” said Schmidt. “One idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type. I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”
Will this lead to a rise in weird name changes? Given that we’ve already had several this year, I think Schmidt’s actually a little behind the curve on the name-changing bandwagon; then again, these folks were changing their names to crazy stuff, not to escape from crazy stuff.
Tags: Google, Eric Schmidt, social networking, name changes, the future of google, google to predict your behavior, name changes to escape google, privacy