Google’s two co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have decided to retire their ‘Googleyness’ in favor of new Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
Dec. 4, 2019
Since restructuring the company four years ago, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have largely tried to stay out of the spotlight, but in an open blog on Tuesday, the pair announced that the dual-crown would be passed on.
The man who would be king is current Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who will take over the almost-trillion dollar empire which was created by Brin and Page at Stanford University more than 20 years ago. The pair will retain their positions on Alphabet’s board, but have decided to drift into the shadows and focus on the ‘bigger picture’. This means they will remain in close contact with Pichai and be on hand with advice and consultation on the general direction of the company, while Pichai himself will become the sole CEO of both Google and its parent, Alphabet. It has been reiterated that the day-to-day activity at the company will be unchanged.
Google has been a subsidiary of Alphabet since 2015, following a major restructuring of the company. The move was seen as rather controversial at a time when Big Tech — which includes the likes of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) — was growing rapidly and monopolizing industries.
Google’s stock price remained relatively unaffected by the news, despite a year of fluctuation that has led many to ponder what exactly is going on at Google.
Who is Sundar Pichai?
There can be no better endorsement of Pichai than the following statement by Page and Brin: “We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company.” Only last week on the MyWallSt ‘Stock Club’ podcast, our experts discussed how it is important for founders to know when to step down.
Pichai has weathered the many storms that have befallen Google in the past year, including a number of sexual misconduct cases, employee strikes, and numerous antitrust attacks.
Pichai’s Google story began with his hiring in 2004, going on to oversee the innovation of Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps and Android. In his tenure as Google CEO, Pichai has gone on to develop Google into an every-day facet of all our lives, launch the Pixel hardware brand as well making huge strides in cloud software and artificial intelligence.
One of the world’s most cash-rich companies looks set to enter its second act externally while containing its culture internally. To do this, it needs a wartime leader, and they may already have that in Sundar Pichai.
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