• Silicon Alley Insiderv, Wednesday, April 8, 2009 12:15 PM

How good is Eric Schmidt, really? Not that good, says Silicon Alley Insider's Joe Weisenthal, who likens the Google CEO to former eBay boss Meg Whitman, a non-founding CEO "who was lauded as a genius for years thanks to the success of the company...but whose contribution to that success was likely highly overrated." As Google's revenue growth slows, Google shareholders might want to ask themselves what Schmidt has done that "any moderately competent executive" wouldn't have done at the helm. Is he really a great CEO, or has he merely just been in the right place at the right time?

For starters, Weisenthal points out that eight years into Schmidt's tenure, Google still only has one revenue stream: AdWords. Just about everything else the company's tried has failed. That means Schmidt has yet to build a revenue-generating product that didn't exist before his arrival in 2001. That doesn't mean Schmidt doesn't deserve kudos for overseeing seven years of extraordinary expansion; he does, especially for growing the international business. However, his M&A record is much spottier, Weisenthal says, with DoubleClick looking like a smart acquisition, while YouTube may yet turn out to be a flop. His deals with AOL and MySpace also both turned out to be flops.

Once the economy recovers, Google's core business will pick back up, but the microscope will be firmly set over the company's forays into social media and mobile, which are seen as the next growth platforms for online advertising. So far, both sectors have disappointed in terms of spending growth. Google needs to be leader in both fields.

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