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Google CEO on the secret of Israeli innovation

Date: Sunday, September 6, 2015

If a member of the Weizmann Institute community was curious as to what the CEO of Google thinks of Israeli high-tech and entrepreneurship, there was no need to “google it” - hundreds came to hear Eric Schmidt in person at Wix Auditorium on June 7, where he sang the praises of Israel’s culture of innovation.

 

“Israel is thriving in terms of innovation because you have a culture that makes it possible to question authority and to challenge everything. You don’t follow the rules.” said Mr. Schmidt. “The influence that Israelis have on science and technology is tremendous; that’s why I’m here, and that’s why I invest here.” He was on campus with executives of the investment firm he heads, Innovation Endeavors, which is highly active in Israel.

 

He went on to say that the best inventions in modern history have been made by individuals who “did not accept what is dogma and tried to do something different.” The most important developments at Google, he said, like Google Maps, Google Translate, and Google Voice Search, were done in a “totally outside-the-box” fashion, not relying on accepted methods. The company’s Project Loon, he added, is the epitome of such thinking. Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space; the project aims to provide Internet access for the fully two-thirds of the world’s population currently without Internet access.

 

Curiosity-driven basic research of the kind pursued at the Weizmann Institute, he said, is critical to developing tools that improve lives. The creative minds that are thinking and dreaming about what’s possible in the future - things that seem like science fiction today, like self-driving cars and computers which can “think” like humans - are poised to be the leaders in science in industry in the years to come.