Google CEO Eric Schmidt searches for book deal
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who will be stepping down from the top job in April, will soon find out where his next check is coming from: New York publishers are bidding on the wonkish business leader's first book, according to several publishing industry insiders.
Context & Ripple Effects
Schmidt's move from running Google to writing about it is the latest chapter of a carefully staged exit. In January alone he has been reported to receive a $100 million equity grant tied to the transition, the subject of a Guardian analysis arguing he was pushed rather than volunteered to give way to Larry Page, and — per the New York Post on January 24 — eyeing television. A book auction slots naturally into that sequence: publishers are bidding, per unnamed insiders, on the wonkish executive's first book before he even leaves the corner office in April.
The timing matters because Schmidt still holds the CEO title while the auction runs, giving bidders a manuscript prospectus written at the peak of Google's momentum — Canalys data out this very month shows Android overtaking as the world's leading smartphone platform, and Strategy Analytics credits Android with nearly tenfold tablet share growth in Q4. His 2009 long-form appearances (BusinessWeek and a TechCrunch interview covering search, books, news, mobile and competition) show he already trades comfortably in the ideas-market this book deal formalizes.
First-order effects
- New York publishing houses are competing in a live auction for Schmidt's first book, with the winning house getting an insider account of Google's rise drafted while its author is still chief executive of one of the world's most valuable companies.
Second-order effects
- A book advance stacks on top of the reported $100 million equity grant and the television interest the Post flagged last week, letting Schmidt assemble a post-CEO portfolio of media income streams rather than a single landing spot.
Third-order effects
- If departing tech chiefs routinely convert their tenures into books and broadcast deals while their companies are still ascendant, the executive memoir hardens from retirement keepsake into a strategic asset for shaping how an era — and its regulation — gets remembered.
The trend: Exiting technology CEOs are packaging their tenures into multi-channel media platforms — books, TV, speaking — timed to land just as they hand over operational control.