Topic
19 facts from 4 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1902
Schmidt says current AI trained only on math known in 1902 cannot discover general relativity, which he uses as a test of real discovery.
“build a model that has all the math known in 1902. Can you discover general relativity? In other words, you know nothing past 1902. The current evidence is that you can't.”
2001-2011
Eric Schmidt was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011.
“Eric was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, and has since become one of the leading voices on AI, advising governments, writing books, and arguing that AI will change the world more than most of us expect.”
2006
Eric Schmidt joined Apple's board in 2006 while Google was developing Android.
“Summer of 2006. That next year, Eric Schmidt joins the Apple board. He sees how far along and how good the iPhone is.”
2026
Schmidt says ten major math problems thought to be unsolvable were solved with AI in the month before the interview.
“In the last month, ten major math problems, which I cannot possibly understand, were solved, and they were not thought to be solvable.”
Undated
Kanjun Qiu says Imbue's investors include Nvidia, Eric Schmidt and a nonprofit institute, rather than venture investors.
“our investors are Nvidia, Eric Schmidt, uh, nonprofit, Haotester Institute.”
Undated
Rana El Kaliouby lists Eric Schmidt, Yann LeCun and Mark Cuban among Samaya AI's investors.
“that includes former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Jan LeCun, Mark Cuban, who we've had on the show.”
Undated
Eric Schmidt describes his career as spanning the IBM mainframe, PC, internet, social media and AI eras.
“I started off in the IBM uh mainframe era, and through the PC era, then the internet area, then the social media era, and now AI.”
Undated
Schmidt says advanced two-nanometer chips, largely made in Taiwan, are one driver of AI progress.
“Literally, the physicists making the chips faster, moving down to two nanometer chips, which are largely made in Taiwan, incredible improvements in memory”
Undated
Schmidt says AI models take about six months to build and two months to test, and become antiquated within about five months of release.
“The models, for example, take roughly six months to build, two months or so to actually test, and they're released and they're antiquated within five months.”
Undated
Schmidt says frontier AI models cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make.
“The models themselves cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Some estimates are much higher. I'm using conservative numbers.”
Undated
Schmidt estimates AI capable of genuine new discovery is five to ten years away.
“We don't the the. This is a long-winded way of saying we don't know. It's somewhere between my estimate is five to ten years.”
Undated
Schmidt says Anthropic writes most of its code using its own AI.
“Anthropic is busy writing most of its code using its own code. In other words, the the human tells it to write something, it writes the code, and then the code gets rewritten by the computer.”
Undated
Schmidt says math progresses fast because it is scale free and needs no new data, unlike physics and chemistry.
“The mathematicians invent stuff in their own head, whereas in physics and chemistry, you actually have you have to have real or simulated data.”
Undated
Schmidt says he helped write the US AI strategy while Brussels wrote its own about five years before the interview.
“five years ago, Brussels wrote the um AI they their AI strategy. I helped write the one for the US.”
Undated
Schmidt says he proposed to President Macron that firms with up to 20 employees be subject only to health and safety labor laws.
“for a company that's between zero employees and 20, the only laws that apply are health and safety. None of the other ones do, but when you get to 21, all of them do”
Undated
Schmidt describes distillation as asking a large model many questions to learn to imitate it, and says Chinese models appear to have used it.
“There's a technique called distillation, where you basically ask the big model a series of questions, and then with that, you learn enough to think like the big model.”
Undated
Schmidt says European acquaintances were upset about a US decision restricting access to the Methos model.
“My European friends were particularly upset about the banning of Methos.”
Undated
Schmidt says he told people he worked about 63 hours a week at Google, mostly in meetings.
“I used to tell people my job is to sit in meetings 12 hours a day, five days a week, and I work on the weekend too.”
Undated
Schmidt names Google's failure to stay ahead in social media while he was CEO as his biggest professional failure.
“There was a moment when Google had was ahead of everybody else in social media. It was fairly short. And I think, and I take, I was a CEO at the time.”
Episodes