Biography
Schmidt was born in Washington, D.C. (some sources state Falls Church, Virginia), the son of Eleanor, who had a degree in psychology, and Wilson Schmidt, a professor. He grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, US. After graduating from Yorktown High School, Schmidt attended Princeton University, where he earned a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1976.
At the University of California, Berkeley, Schmidt earned an MS in 1979 for designing and implementing a network linking the campus computer center with the CS and EECS departments, and a PhD in 1982 in EECS with a dissertation about the problems of managing distributed software development and tools for solving these problems. He was joint author of lex (a lexical analyzer and an important tool for compiler construction). He taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business as a part-time professor.
Schmidt and his wife Wendy (born 1957) were living in Atherton, California, in 1999.
In 2011, Schmidt was reported to have been dating Lisa Shields, a communications executive for the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based foreign policy think tank. In September 2012 he was reported to be dating concert pianist Chau-Giang Nguyen, who was formerly engaged to Hollywood Oscar-winning TV and movie producer producer Brian Grazer.
Schmidt was on the list of ARTnews 200 top art collectors in 2008.
Schmidt is also a member of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Read more about this topic: Eric Schmidt
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