Stanford Graduate School of BusinessAI@GSB Dean’s Perspectives: Rick Osterloh, SVP at Google
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Rick's week at Google 1:01
Rick Osterloh says his week is split between product direction, the technology behind it, and the road map. He also meets with outside partners, such as a consumer electronics CEO, and launches products, as he did in New York with the new Google Books laptop line. A normal week also includes one-on-ones with his team on whatever problems need attention.
Phones and new devices 6:03
He says smartphones will stay central, since about a billion and a half are sold each year. But he expects new devices to add to the phone rather than replace it, just as laptops and smartwatches did. He points to smart glasses and other wearable, audio-led devices as likely next steps, and says Google is about to introduce smart glasses again.
Efficiency and friction 16:00
Small annoyances point to bigger chances to improve daily life. A long DMV wait, a traffic light, or a slow public process should not be accepted as normal. The speaker links this to a Stanford design thinking class where students were told to keep a notepad and write down anything that bothered them. That habit, he says, helps you see where society, products, and business can work better, and AI can help remove a lot of that bad friction.
Decision making under speed 19:02
The pace of business has clearly sped up, especially because AI shortens product cycles. Good decisions start with asking who should make them and how fast they really need to be made. For major calls, you gather the best data you can, but you still need judgment and intuition when the information is incomplete. He recommends Thinking, Fast and Slow as a hard but valuable guide.
Open systems and AI 31:00
Google keeps to an open systems approach. Android and Chrome are open source, and Google Cloud uses open APIs so outside companies can build on them. The same idea will guide AI. He expects every kind of model and assistant to work well on Android, because open competition gives users more value.
Glasses and voice 33:04
He sees smart glasses as a strong fit for Gemini Spark because AI and voice together make hands-free use practical. Google has worked on glasses and AR since 2010, and a version with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster is about to launch. He also says voice is now a real interface, and tools like Gemini Intelligence let you speak naturally, correct yourself, and get words into action much faster than typing.
Personal and family use 36:00
At home, he uses AI for calendar planning, especially by merging sports schedules into Google Calendar. He also uses it many times a day for research and decision support. His children use it differently: his college-age computer science son has fully adopted AI development tools, while his high school and freshman college sons are still figuring out when it should help with learning and when it should not replace it.
Career advice 41:00
His advice is to find what you are good at and pair it with something you truly want to keep doing. He came to Stanford unsure of his path, found product work through a summer job at Amazon, and then stayed with it for decades. He says careers have ups and downs, but if you keep learning, build good relationships, and treat people with respect, you can do well over the long term.
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