[CipherThrowaway]

> He's not wrong though.

It's more of a "not even wrong" statement. It's the kind of useless and reductive analysis poor leaders trot out from a position of personal frustration after failing to surmount the challenges involved in steering a complex, messy, human institution towards success.

It's incredible how consistently this maladaptive "everyone just work harder!!" mentality crops up among failed leadership in institutions of all kinds and sizes. In this respect, Schmidt is no different to the average frustrated restaurant owner, blaming his business failures on his staff's work ethic, "no one wants to work hard these days" and other copes.

Let's say we go ahead and assume that long grinds and 100% in-office attendance is the only way a successful and highly engaged team can look. Getting to that point would still require leadership to perform the actual hard work of creating the right conditions and incentives for that successful, engaged work to emerge. Shaking your fists at the air and saying "work harder people! we need to win!" doesn't cut it.

If Schmidt allowed himself to look more closely and reflect more deeply, he would realize that Google is and was full of extremely hard workers. But their "hard work" more likely took the form of navigating Google's political structures and chasing up internal promotions and prestige.