New Delhi, Sept. 26 -- Flexible work has been hailed as the future of work. But Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, believes it may come at a cost to innovation and global competitiveness.

Speaking at the All-In Summit earlier this month, Schmidt said remote and hybrid arrangements make it harder for young professionals to learn the ropes. "Think about a 20-something who has to learn how the world works," he said. "I learned a great deal from listening to older coworkers argue at Sun Microsystems. How do you recreate that in this new thing?"

Schmidt, who led Google for a decade before serving as executive chairman until 2020, has previously warned that a culture of flexible work could slow down tech giants in the AI race. Last year, he ...