Schmidt seems a bit like Bloomberg in that his main interest, now that he has amassed wealth and power, is to use it to hang out with powerful people, more than accomplish anything in particular with them.
(For Bloomberg, it was an obsession with becoming British aristocracy)
Bloomberg was probably the most effective mayor in modern NYC history, and spearheaded the creation of Silicon Alley as well as modern LIC, Williamsburg, and Dumbo.
From the NYT, May, 2002: "A gasp could be heard two months ago in Williamsburg, home to many gaunt people in tight clothes, when a Bedford Avenue storefront that had long housed the local art supply store reopened as Sam & Seb, the neighborhood's first baby store."
It's a real stretch to suggest Bloomberg is somehow responsible for Williamsburg given the artsification -> gentrification was well under way by the time he was elected in 2001.
mixed legacy. undoubtedly he was an unusually competent technocratic manager.
he (via his command of the NYPD) was also a serial violator of civil liberties, particularly of minority communities. he also was directly involved in the "aristocratization" of many parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn and presided over what has gone on to become a major housing affordability crisis in the city.
The DoD has a surprisingly positive history with having outsiders on influential boards like this. I say this from experience: I've served on a few. The DoD knows that it needs ideas that come from outside, and so it runs a variety of external advisory boards. Some of this helps, e.g., DARPA explore very-early-stage research options. And in my experience, they tend to listen.
Schmidt knows what he's doing in this context. He already serves as one of the members of PCAST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_President%27s_Co... , which exists to advise the President in a non-partisan way on matters of science and technology. The members of PCAST have serious chops, and serve a very useful function in helping get sane science and technology policies formulated.
(And I use the phrase "serves" very carefully: This is not a path to fame and power; chairing PCAST working groups is a pretty non-trivial amount of work, for no real reward. Most of the people I know who've been involved in the process do it because they feel like it's a way to have a positive impact in the U.S. and in their fields.)
