Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appears on Chainlink event
SmartCon 2022 • November 08, 2022
SmartCon 2022, which was sponsored by Chainlink and had among its hosts the founder of that technology - Sergey Nazarov, has attracted big players from the traditional web2 sector like multi billionaire and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Mr. Schmidt says that he used to be a skeptic, because 'the market went ahead of reality', and that it wouldn't be able to scale. His appearance at SmartCon 2022 for a 45 minute interview with Mr. Nazarov, might signal a change of attitude towards web3. He called, referencing an example of raising capital, the technology 'a new of tying compensation and incentives to network and scale'.
Himself coming from a web2 giant like Google, Mr. Schmidt believes web2 and web3 will in the future be combined into more powerful systems. He also repeatedly says that applications that cannot be realized with web2 but are enabled by web3, are the ones to look out for and get involved in. An example of application enabled by web3, that he mentions, is 'distributed analytics', which could be used to inform the banking industry better.
About regulation, he says he wouldn't want it to be 'premature', and advises companies working with regulators to take it slow and 'get it right' first. He mentions the US where the regulatory landscape is developing erratically, and it's not clear who are going to be the regulatory bodies.
One of the promises of blockchain technology has been decentralization, but Mr. Schmidt warns that this is similar to how web2 started out, which has clearly consolidated with power in the hands of a few big corporations like Google and Microsoft. He therefore advises to watch where the inevitable web3 control points are forming.