Eric Schmidt is an American software engineer, a businessman, and the Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Inc. In 2017, Forbes ranked Schmidt as the 119th-richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $11.1 billion dollars.
Schmidt served as the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011. Eric Schmidt helped grow the company from a Silicon Valley startup to a global enterprise. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and broadened its offerings while maintaining a culture of strong innovation. His background uniquely prepared him to lead Google's efforts toward technological solutions that focus on users. With founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and the rest of the executive team, Eric oversaw the company's technical and business strategy.
Prior to joining Google, Eric was the Chairman and CEO of Novell and Chief Technology Officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc., where he led the development of Java, Suns platform-independent programming technology. Earlier in his career, Eric was a member of the research staff at Xerox Pal Alto Research Center (PARC) and held positions at Bell Laboratories and Zilog. He holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University as well as a masters and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Eric is a member of President Obamas Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. Eric also chairs the board of the New America Foundation.