If you tap “Eric Schmidt” into Google, a New York Times story will come up on exactly how much he does not like being Googled.

Take, for example, the time when CNET News assigned a reporter to find out as much as possible about the CEO of Google, using only Google, in 30 minutes. Google responded by severing all relations with CNET for a year.

So what does a Google search pull up? He is 52, has $4.8 billion in the bank and lives with his wife Wendy in Atherton, California. The search will also make you begin to suspect that Mr Schmidt’s fear of his own search technology is not entirely unfounded: a website entitled fundrace.org, which tracks political donations, lists Mr Schmidt’s name and address next to a $25,000 donation to the Democratic party in 2004.

In reality, there is actually very little to be found online about the Google CEO, compared with what you can dredge up about other Silicon Valley characters.

We know from a 2001 introduction to one of his lectures that he is “an avid pilot and political junkie who never tires of debating the great issues of our day and the relative merits of small plane jet propulsion systems”. He was recently elected to the board of Apple Computer and he earned a salary of $1 from Google in 2006 and a bonus of $1,723, with the rest of his wealth coming from stock options.

And that’s about it. As for his CV on Wikipedia: Schmidt studied electrical engineering at Princeton and got his PhD from Berkeley. He went on to develop the Java programming technology at Sun Microsystems (eventually becoming chief technology officer) after research stints at Xerox and Bell Laboratories. Then comes the strange part: Mr Schmidt, a low-key computer programmer, left what many regarded as the Best Job in the World at Sun Microsystems to turn around a failing software company called Novell. The results were impressive enough to qualify him as a candidate for the position of “grey hair” (ie, chairman) of Google, founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Within five months of his appointment in 2001 he had become CEO. Soon after that, he become one of the very few people in America to become a billionaire through stock options alone.

Why did Google hire him? In the words of Mr Brin: “He was the only candidate who had been to Burning Man.” (Burning Man is an alternative arts festival held out in the Nevada desert every year.)

So who is Eric Schmidt? Computer geek or Gordon Gekko? Gordon Gekko or Burning Man hippy? A fearless promoter of free information, or a privacy zealot who won’t leave the house without an armoured car? You won’t find the answer by Googling him.

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