The billionaire technologist has quietly founded a startup that aims to “bring people closer, simplify communication, and enhance engagement” through artificial intelligence.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2025/01/09/eric-schmidts-new-secret-project-is-an-ai-video-platform-called-hooglee/
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Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2025/01/09/eric-schmidts-new-secret-project-is-an-ai-video-platform-called-hooglee/
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Today on Forbes, Eric Schmidt's new secret project is an AI video platform called Hooghly.
00:10Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has spent the last few months working on an artificial intelligence
00:15project that aims to capitalize on the booming landscape of AI video generation.
00:21The startup, which has not been previously reported, was founded last year under the
00:26name Hooghly, according to sources with knowledge of its development and business materials
00:31viewed by Forbes.
00:33Schmidt's family office, Hillspire, is currently financing and housing it.
00:38Schmidt, the billionaire so-called AI whisperer, has become a sometimes polarizing voice in
00:44Silicon Valley and Washington on the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, alternately
00:50claiming that it will, quote, double everyone's productivity, characterizing these systems
00:55as, quote, nuclear weapons of a different kind, or predicting, as he did last December,
01:01that it may become so sophisticated that, quote, we seriously need to think about unplugging
01:06it.
01:08Several months earlier, however, Schmidt and a small cohort quietly incorporated Hooghly
01:13LLC, a company that broadly describes its mission as, quote, democratizing video creation
01:20with AI.
01:22Its website, which consists of a single landing page and does not name Schmidt nor any of
01:27its staff, claims that it's, quote, creating innovative solutions that bring people closer,
01:32simplify communication, and enhance engagement.
01:36Schmidt declined to comment.
01:39To lead the nascent project, Schmidt has tapped longtime collaborator Sebastian Thrun, a fellow
01:44technology veteran who co-founded Google's Moonshot factory and autonomous car unit Waymo.
01:51Thrun also created the now-defunct aviation company Kitty Hawk, and currently manages
01:56Schmidt's secretive military drone startup, Project Eagle, which Forbes first revealed
02:01last year.
02:03Hooghly's other staffers include former research scientists from Meta's generative AI lab,
02:08as well as Kitty Hawk's former general counsel, according to business incorporation documents
02:13and public posts linking these individuals to Hooghly and Schmidt.
02:18Last October, former Meta staff scientist Beechin Wu wrote on LinkedIn that he and the
02:23team at Centropy, a small startup he founded last year to develop text-to-image video generation
02:28models, business records show, which does not seem to have released a public product,
02:33would be, quote, joining forces with the legendary Eric Schmidt to embark on a new adventure.
02:39A Google Scholar profile for one of Centropy's former engineers also lists a verified hooghly.com
02:45email address.
02:47Thrun and Wu did not respond to requests for comment.
02:51Hooghly appears to be the first artificial intelligence project that Schmidt has personally
02:56incubated after investing in a number of AI companies, such as anthropic and quantum computing
03:01startup SandboxAQ.
03:04Forbes estimates Schmidt is worth more than $26 billion.
03:09The billionaire has also funded an open AI grant-making program and the AI science nonprofit
03:14FutureHouse.
03:16Trademark applications filed by Thrun on behalf of Hooghly last September describe its product
03:22as both an AI video creation software and a social networking platform.
03:27The company's website also suggests a social component, stating that it hopes, quote, to
03:32change the way people connect through the power of AI and video.
03:37A source familiar with Hooghly told Forbes that some of Schmidt's staff have referred
03:41to the project as a TikTok alternative, though it's unclear how the product would compete
03:45with one of the world's most popular social platforms.
03:48Schmidt, who helped run Google for more than a decade, once said he'd considered buying
03:53TikTok in the light of the divest or ban law that could see the app prohibited in the U.S.
03:58in the next few weeks, but ultimately preferred federal regulation over a ban.
04:03It remains to be seen how Hooghly will distinguish itself from incumbents like Runway, which
04:08released its first text-to-video generator in 2022, and open AI's Sora, which launched
04:14in beta last February and recently became publicly available.
04:19Last year, TikTok's parent company ByteDance debuted an AI video generation app called
04:23JiMeng AI to Chinese users.
04:26Similar products have also been introduced by Meta, Google, and Adobe in recent months.
04:33For full coverage, check out Sarah Emerson's piece on Forbes.com.
04:38This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:41Thanks for tuning in.