Category Archives: Julian Assange

Google’s Eric Schmidt Says Tim Cook Is Wrong, Julian Assange Is ‘Paranoid’

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Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, spent more than a decade as the Google's CEO, taking the company from a startup to a global tech giant. He spoke with ABC News' Real Biz about disagreements with Apple CEO Tim Cook, this whole privacy thing and why he thinks WikiLeaks' Julian Assange is "paranoid."

Schmidt teamed up with former product chief Jonathan Rosenberg to pen a book called "How Google Works," released today by Grand Central Publishing. Rosenberg joined Google in 2002 and managed search, ads, Gmail, Android, apps, and Chrome and today is an adviser to Google's co-founder Larry Page.

Google has won the top spot in Fortune's list of "Best Companies" five times, and is one of the stalwarts of Silicon Valley innovation, with Google Glass, driverless cars and, of course, those money-making ads.

Schmidt and Rosenberg's book focuses on the management of Google, revealing Schmidt's leadership secrets of how to get everyone on your management team to agree on a big decision.

In an interview with ABC News chief business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, Schmidt said: "You need buy-in and you need ownership for whatever the corporation is going to do," to avoid the "bobble head" effect in which "everybody goes yes and then the moment they leave the table, they go and they fight against you."

"Start your staff meeting by asking everyone their opinion and making sure everyone speaks," he suggested.

Instead of beginning the meeting with the most senior head honcho in the room dominating the conversation, he said it's important to get a discussion going from all of the people involved in the meeting to make sure the best idea comes out as fast as it can and then "set a deadline."

The Mountain View, California-based company is not only famous for its decision making, it's also known for its sneaker-wearing culture of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and their motto, "Don't be evil." But Schmidt's book reminds readers that Google is indeed a mammoth, global corporation.

The C-Suite Insider: Google's Eric Schmidt Wakes Up at 8 AM

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Google's Eric Schmidt Says Tim Cook Is Wrong, Julian Assange Is 'Paranoid'

Going Underground: Assange on Google’s ‘revolving door’ with state dept (EXCLUSIVE) (E119) – Video

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Going Underground: Assange on Google #39;s #39;revolving door #39; with state dept (EXCLUSIVE) (E119)
Afshin Rattansi goes underground on when WikiLeaks met Google. Julian Assange discusses the meeting he had in 2011 with Eric Schmidt, then a top executive and now chairman of Google, and 3...

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Going Underground: Assange on Google's 'revolving door' with state dept (EXCLUSIVE) (E119) - Video

Assassination threats come from the US, says Assange

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange revealed he received death threats as he spoke out about his continued self-imprisonment at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

In an exclusive Irish radio interview, Assange told Sen Moncrieff on Newstalk: Theres some limits to the people I can meet because of the number of assassination threats emanating from the United States against me and my family.

He also said that he has received support from Irish politicians.

Several Irish politicians have been good enough to visit me here in the embassy and some have shown public support, he told Moncrieff on the show.

A podcast of the interview has been made available by Newstalk.

On leaving the embassy, he said: I think that things are likely to resolve within the next year but its not a certainty. It depends on how things stand geopolitically.

Assange sought refuge at the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over alleged sexual offences. He denies the allegations.

Last month, he told Sky News that he will eventually leave the embassy with his asylum status intact.

Chatting with Moncrieff, he quipped: Its quite interesting, Paddy Power, the Irish gambling firm, you can actually make a bet on just that apparently its 100-1 if I leave with a jet pack so I should start a little investment company and ask people to pay in at 20-1 and then we could get a return at 100-1.

-Listen to the interview here

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Assassination threats come from the US, says Assange

Julian Assange on Snowden, disliking Google, and his …

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It would be too much to say that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange feels optimistic. He's been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than two years now, withcameras and police"a 3 million surveillance operation," he calls itjust meters away.

"There's a sense of inevitability now," Assange saidwhen we asked if his situation mightchange.

Assange: "Thesituation is clarifying politically and legally."

Ars: "I just want to be clear on this pointare you saying you're hopeful you'll be free soon?"

Assange: "I wouldn't say hopeful. I would say it's inevitable. It's inevitable that we will win the diplomatic standoff we're in now."

It's getting late in London, where Assange is doing a barrage of press interviews on the eve of his new book, When Google Met Wikileaks(it goes on sale in the US later this week). We called at the agreed upon time, and a man who didn't identify himself answered the number, which was for a Londoncell phone. He saidcall back in five minutes, and onlythen was the phone finally handedto Assange.

We're supposed to focus on thebook.But first, we want to know whatlife trapped in the embassy involveswhere doeshe eat, sleep, do laundry?What isthe roomhe's in now like?

"For security reasons, I can't tell you which sections of the embassy I utilize," he said. "As to the rest, in a way, it's a perfectly normal situation. In another way, it's one of the most abnormal, unusual situationsthat someone can find themselves in."

Assange usheredWikiLeaks through severalmassive leaks of secret US government reports and a tumultuous relationship with some prominent newspapers. first came the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of military reportsonthe Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, thena leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables from the State Department.

Hesought asylum from Ecuador when he was on theverge of being extraditedto Sweden to face sexual-assault charges in that nation. If he leaves the embassy, he'll be arrested, although it isn't clear where he'll be sent first. It'swidely assumed the US has an ongoing investigation intoAssange over the leaks.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange talks about Bitcoin …

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1 day ago Sep. 18, 2014 - 3:27 PM PDT

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange doesnt normally give a lot of interviews from his sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London but when he is promoting a new book, exceptions can be made. So the Australian freedom-of-information activist did one of Reddits trademark Ask Me Anything interviews on ** about some of the topics he writes about in the book, including Google chairman Eric Schmidt, the future of Bitcoin and the terrorist group ISIS. What follows is a heavily condensed version of that interview.

On the potential of decentralized data protocols like Bitcoin:

Bitcoin is an extremely important innovation, but not in the way most people think. Bitcoins real innovation is a globally verifiable proof publishing at a certain time. The whole system is built on that concept and many other systems can also be built on it. The blockchain nails down history, breaking Orwells dictum of He who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future.

On Bitcoins long-term value as a currency:

Heres footnote 185 [from Assange's book]: On the day of the conversation [with Eric Schmidt], Bitcoin had risen above the US dollar and reached price parity with the Euro. By early 2014 it had risen to over $1,000, before falling to $430 as other Bitcoin-derived competing crypto-currencies started to take off. WikiLeaks strategic investments in the currency saw more than 8,000 percent return in three years, seeing us through the extralegal US banking blockade.

On what Google could be doing to fight surveillance culture:

I think it is misguided to be looking to Google to help get us out of this mess. In large part, Google has us in this mess. The companys business model is based on sucking private data out of parts of human community that have never before been subject to monitoring, and turning that into a profit. I do not think it is wise to try to reform something which, from first premises, is beyond reform.

On Assanges personal relationship with Eric Schmidt:

Eric Schmidt is personally likeable in the sense that most billionaires are. You cant get there without making friends. Obamas also likable, but runs an extrajudicial kill list each tuesday and has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined. The problem with Google, as in the US administration is not the personalities. It is the structure, the business model and social and ideological matrix in which its decision makers are embedded.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange talks about Bitcoin ...