It's a very weird criticism - the membership list for these things is extensive, and it would honestly have surprised me if Schmidt wasn't a member of some of them. The Bilderberg conspiracies are especially funny, because so many of them amount to whispering darkly about stuff that's literally posted on the Bilderberg Meeting website. It's an off-the-record meeting of the rich and power to talk about the issues of the day, you say? Well yes, that's the stated intention!

On a related note, the parent comment would be way better off looking at Schmidt's co-author on The New Digital Age. Jared Cohen came out of the Department of State, headed up Google Ideas, and is now looking at technical issues around censorship and "countering extremism". It's hard for me to understand how a vague reference to the Bilderbergs could possibly be more meaningful than the very open "hiring State Department staffers" connection.

Keeping the proceedings/minutes entirely secret doesn't exactly inspire a lot of trust.

Why aren't any representatives from the 99.9% of humanity invited to these meetings? Many (most?) would prefer a more democratic sort of world leadership.