Technology in Pittsburgh

Yesterday, the Eyeflow team was privileged to attend the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s breakfast event featuring Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt.

Mr. Schmidt and the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s leader Audrey Russo first participated in a “fireside chat” style conversation while PTC members breakfasted on eggs, bacon, and potatoes. The conversation revolved primarily around Pittsburgh’s vibrant technology industry, the benefits of having technically-oriented universities such as Carnegie Mellon in the city, and – surprisingly enough – the benefits of online gaming and how teenagers are not wasting their time while indulging in this pastime.

A bevy of questions from the audience followed ranging from Google’s stance on investing in renewable energy sources (they’re for it) to which direction Google will take as they move towards diversifying their product offerings (downloads store, possible hosting services etc.)

This chat was followed by a 45 minute break after which point, Mr. Schmidt gave a more formal talk to an audience including members of the international press as well as CMU students, and those who stayed on after the first talk concluded. (Click here for more pictures)

What WASN’T discussed

Mr. Schmidt provided a lot of insightful information about Google’s investment plans, his stance on the web and how technology is affecting politics, health care, and industry. He did, however, fail to speak about that which Google does best: Search.

Clearly, Eric had to speak to his audience which consisted of a rather mixed group of entrepreneurs, tech company VPs and the like, so I can’t fault him for avoiding the nuts and bolts of the Caffeine update or the new page rank distribution algo. However, the subject of search and where Google sees itself in terms of it’s biggest service didn’t come up once.

Was it because, though he spoke extensively about the need for transparency online, Google must by necessity keep its search algorithm highly secret? Was it because the diverse audience would have been bored by such tech speak? Probably. But I was still a bit disappointed by the complete lack of search discussion.

Takeaways

The main points I took away from Eric’s commentary were as follows:

• Pittsburgh is a great place to be right now if you want to start up or are already in the Tech industry
• Search Engine Optimization will still be important for the foreeable future since there will be increasing competition online in all industries
• Google is about to become much, much more than a search engine
• Gaming online is apparently not a giant waste of time.

Eric came across as being a really down to Earth, truthful and sincere person who was genuinely concerned with social ethics and the state of the world and especially developing countries. It was a real treat getting to hear his insights.

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