Eric Schmidt was CEO at Novell in 2001 when he was asked to and did indeed take the top spot at Google. Schmidt’s decision was not so readily apparent at the time. Schmidt: “People say, ‘Google, interesting technology, wonderful brand, but how do you make money?’ The Wall Street Journal noted that although Google was attracting 50 million unique visitors a month, Yahoo was generating four times that number and Yahoo was not exactly making a mint Google’s basic business model remains questionable””]
Source: https://www.csoonline.com/article/2126409/the-single-greatest-career-move-in-history.html