Eric Schmidt Says He ‘Screwed Up’ Social Networking At Google

It’s not often an exec is this honest about his/her own faults, but Google’s Eric Schmidt admitted that not only did he “clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it”, but that he “screwed up” when it came to social networking.

Telling the D9 conference-goers yesterday, Schmidt (ex-CEO, now Executive Chairman) said that he admires Facebook and has even “tried very hard to partner with Facebook”, though Microsoft got in there first – not that they’re “driving the consumer revolution in the minds of consumers,” he claims. Instead, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are the “gang of four” that “provides something that you can’t do otherwise”. [Bloomberg]