Google CEO on the Economy: 'The Worst is Behind Us'

Schmidt, who was joined by Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the informal meeting, continued, "I had been in error in assuming a lag that it would be US first and Europe second...(At Google) we are increasing out hiring rate and our investment rate in anticipation of a recovery."

The two powerful tech executives fielded questions on a wide variety of topics.  Some highlights from the interview:

Brin: I think it's healthy for the industry to have many competitors. Certainly Microsoft has made its contributions.

Schmidt: It's best for you all to judge our competitors.... We've been heavily criticized for having a self-reverential view of the world but I would offer that our business success of just trying to do a really good job of what you do is a really good strategy.

Brin: (Before Android) phones basically lacked powerful browsers and also lacked the ability to easily to install and run different applications without having to do something special for every carrier/handset combination...I think Android has really addressed that very well but has also pushed the rest of the market...if you look at the iPhone...remember that the (software development kit) and essentially the ability for third party to build applications came out after Android was announced. And similarly you've seen now the same kinds of applications market for RIM and Windows Mobile...I might be overstating it, think having the software platform has freed a number of the hardware makers of spending so much time on software themselves.

Brin: There are a bunch of new things we've had come out recently...I'll highlight one. You can today restrict (search topics) by dates mentioned, but that is based on dates mentioned in the text.  (You) cannot restrict based on the date the text was authored. (Such a search feature is) currently internally in prototype.

Schmidt: With respect to book search, lost in all the conversation about what was going on... is (that) we were doing something that we thought was appropriate. We were sued by a bunch of publishers -- after 3 years we have come to an agreeable settlement and we're presenting that to the judge. This is a reasonably normal process and it happens all the time. This is getting a lot of attention because of its potential impact. We're very very happy with the settlement...Does putting the books in the hands of somebody like Google who has so much other resources establish a problem?...It's absolutely possible for another company to do the kinds of stuff we're doing. There's nothing particularly exclusive of the way we're operating.