The guys behind iinnovate, a podcast on innovation and entrepreneurship recently got some face time with Google CEO Eric Schmidt to talk about Google's internal dynamics, the competition, and the direction Google plans to take in the future.  If you're not a fan of podcasts, Goolge Watch has a nice summary article that relays the important aspects of the chat or you can choose one of these discussions.

Schmidt talked to iinnovate about the workplace environment at Google (stressing that not all of it was as chaotic as the media would lead you to believe), the strengths of the competition, and automatic advertising - what he considers Google' largest future potential business.

His comments come in stark contrast to those of Steve Ballmer, who took several jabs at Google in a speech last week.  While Ballmer focused on what Google was doing wrong, Schmidt talked about what his competition was doing right:

"The big competitors we face are well-managed and they are innovating in spaces that we don't innovate and they're using their strengths there in ways that we can't or choose not to. In that sense I think their execution is impressive."

Schmidt also took the interview as an opportunity to express his lack of concern over anti-trust regulation that some have apparently said is on the horizon.  According to Schmidt, Google's practice of working with multiple partners and releasing user data will keep it immune from any monopolistic meddling from Washington.  We'll see.

And while he cited automated advertising as the company's largest source of potential future revenue, he also mentioned translation services, mobile, and video markets as areas the search company might be able to scrape a few bucks out of.