Jamie Condliffe - 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Eric Schmidt was quizzed about the relationship between Apple and Google, among other things. His take? They’re like countries trying to get along politically — not teenagers brandishing guns at each other. Right.

In response to the question “How has Google’s relationship with Apple changed in the past year?”, Schmidt answered:

“It’s always been on and off. Obviously, we would have preferred them to use our maps. They threw YouTube off the home screen [of iPhones and iPads]. I’m not quite sure why they did that.

“The press would like to write the sort of teenage model of competition, which is, ‘I have a gun, you have a gun, who shoots first?’

“The adult way to run a business is to run it more like a country. They have disputes, yet they’ve actually been able to have huge trade with each other. They’re not sending bombs at each other.

“I think both Tim [Cook, Apple's CEO] and Larry [Page, Google's CEO], the sort of successors to Steve [Jobs] and me if you will, have an understanding of this state model. When they and their teams meet, they have just a long list of things to talk about.”

His view is, arguably, idealistic. Managing relations between two companies like Apple and Google might feel like running a country — but often time to outside observers, things certainly can look a little childish. Elsewhere, Schmidt talks about the success of Windows 8 (he’s not used it!), keeping Samsung on-side, his take on patent litigation and a future in government. It’s well worth a read. [Wall Street Journal]