Newsletter
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two co-founders of Google and Alphabet, put out their annual founder’s latter today, and well, it’s a big one. The two co-founders announced that Sundar Pichai will be taking over as CEO of Alphabet in addition to Google.
Page and Brin will be staying on the board of directors, but Pichai will be in charge of the entire company now.
Alphabet is now well-established and doesn’t need so many people in charge
In the founder’s letter, Page and Brin note that Alphabet is now well-established. With Google and the Other Bets running as independent companies, as the plan was all along.
So, the two co-founders decided that now was the time to simplify the management structure.
Page said, “we’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company.” Saying that Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President.
“Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO fo both Google and Alphabet”, says Page.
Now, Pichai is going to be the executive responsible and accountable for leading Google and managing Alphabet’s portfolio of Other Bets.
A job Pichai has essentially been doing for a few years already
While it sounds like a big promotion for Pichai, it’s actually pretty much what he’s been doing for the past few years as CEO of Google. When Alphabet was established, and Google became its own company underneath Alphabet, the majority of the responsibilities within the company, fell in Pichai’s lap.
Both Page and Brin believe in Pichai and approve of what he has done with Google since taking the reigns in 2015. Pichai has worked at Google for over 15 years, and has been the CEO for four of those years.
However, that doesn’t make the job of CEO for both Google and Alphabet any easier.
Google is now 21 years old, and as Page and Brin noted in the founder’s letter today, Google is all grown up. And it’s time that the management structure at Google to reflect that. Page and Brin are still pretty astonished at what Google has become over the past 21 years. Going from a small company that was organizing websites back in 1998, to being so much more in 2019. From making smartphones, to providing internet to remote areas with Project Loon and even doing self-driving cars with Waymo. Google has really morphed into something that no one could have foreseen back in 1998.