8/10/2015
Google’s Sundar Pichai will replace Larry Page as the company’s CEO, as the company separates its core products from its moonshots. Pichai was formerly the senior vice president of products, overseeing most of Google’s biggest names. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Google's GOOGL -0.2% product czar Sundar Pichai will replace Larry Page as the company’s CEO, the search giant said Monday — a move that is part of Google splitting its core business from its ultra-ambitious “moonshot” projects.
Pichai, who as senior vice president of product oversaw Google’s main offerings like search, advertising, Android and Youtube, has long been considered the heir apparent to Page, who became CEO in 2011.
The announcement came with news that Google is rebranding itself as Alphabet, a “collection of companies,” the largest of which is Google. Page will be CEO of Alphabet and Google cofounder Sergey Brin will be its president.
The new Google will keep search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube and Android. Alphabet will oversee Google X projects — businesses such as Calico, Nest and Fiber — as well as Google Ventures and Google Capital, the company said. Pichai will become CEO once the merger is completed.
The split setup will allow Page and Brin the freedom to pursue far-flung projects like Google’s explorations into areas like glucose-monitoring contact lenses, internet balloons and anti-aging research. Google, now led by Pichai, will focus on its core businesses in advertising, mobile, search, video and more.
That shuffle is more of a change in name than in practice. Since October, when Pichai was promoted to senior vice president, he has already been running most of Google’s products, leading industry observers to predict he would take over for Page soon.
“It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google,” Page added. “I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations.”
Pichai, a 43-year-old, soft-spoken leader popular within the company, joined Google in 2004 as a product manager, then moved up through the company by overseeing development of its Chrome browser. In an interview earlier this year with FORBES’s Miguel Helft, Pichai laid out a vision for improving Google’s core products, focusing on three areas: search, monetization and platforms like Chrome and Android.
Pichai’s dedication to the less shiny — and more reliably profitable — parts of Google make him the perfect foil to Page and Brin, who continue to look wide-eyed into the future and seem more than happy to let Pichai run the day-to-day business of Google.
Once the company restructuring is finished, Google observers will get a more detailed look at its finances. “When finalized, Google anticipates that it will result in two reportable segments for financial reporting purposes, with the Google business presented separately from other Alphabet businesses taken as a whole,” the company wrote in a filing.
The management shakeup includes another move: Omid Kordestani, Google’s chief business officer who just returned to the company in October after a five-year absence, will again be leaving Google to advise Alphabet, the company said in an SEC filing. It’s unclear who will be his replacement at Google.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google Chief Legal Officer David Drumond will also leave their posts at Google once the merger is finalized to take up those same roles at Alphabet. No replacements were named in the filing. Ruth Porat, Google’s new chief financial officer, will become CFO at Alphabet and retain her role at Google.
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