Google co-founders step down, Pichai takes the helm

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have formally handed over power to 47-year-old Sundar Pichai.

The message was announced Tuesday as Page and Brin both stepped down from Alphabet, Google ’s parent company. Previously Page was the CEO and Brin was the president of Google. Now the two roles are combined and given to Pichai. He will officially become the CEO of Alphabet.

(Pichai)

Page and Brin remain on the company's board as major shareholders.

Page and Brin said in their annual open letter that we have never been greedy for power. Now the company has better management and Google and Alphabet do not need two CEOs. Pichai is the best candidate.

This also means that after Nadella, another Indian manager took over a Silicon Valley tech giant.

The letter recalls the past and recalls that when Google went public in 2004, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one. Throughout Google’s evolution as a privately held company, we have managed Google differently. We have also emphasized an atmosphere of creativity and challenge, which has helped us provide unbiased, accurate and free access to information for those who rely on us around the world.”

Such principles remain important and support the company in completing new technology bets.

After upgrading and forming Alphabet, the company has brought machine learning into various fields such as energy and transportation, but the core is still the search business.

It has completed the development of transportation and medical aspects such as Waymo, Verily and Calico, and has been on track and matured.

The two founders said that Google was founded in 1998, and now in 2019, if it is a person, it is already 21 years old and mature.

“we believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!”

(Page and Brin)

Pichai has proven himself in the CEO position of Google, and he has worked hard for 15 years, leading the way to solve difficult problems, humble and technical, no one is more suitable than him to lead Google and Alphabet to the future.

In fact, inside and outside the open letter, it was also revealed that such a handover was not without any sign.

Four years ago, Google reorganized into Alphabet, separating its core business from other "adventure" businesses.

For more than 20 years since Google was founded, its business has continued to expand.

In addition to search, new businesses are: maps, photos, and YouTube; a global ecosystem of Android and Chrome platform devices; Google cloud services; and technologies around machine learning, cloud computing, and software engineering.

Increasingly large businesses contributed to Google's business restructuring in 2015.

Alphabet's largest subsidiary is Google, which inherited its original core Internet business.

Other subsidiaries include DeepMind, GV, CapitalG, Google X, Google Fiber, Verily, Waymo, Wing and Loon, etc. These subsidiaries are responsible for investment, unmanned vehicles, broadband networks, drones, cutting-edge experimental projects.

The reason for establishing Alphabet is to make the core Internet service business clearer, while allowing other departments to have greater autonomy to run companies other than the Internet business.

Among them, the core business continues to form Google, with Pichai as CEO. The parent company, Alphabet, has Page as the CEO and Brin as the president.

However, starting December 4, Page and Brin have officially announced their retirement from parent company positions.

Pichai will be the CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet. He will lead Google and manage the investments of other Alphabet subsidiaries.

Subsequently, Pichai stated in another open letter that he has served Google for more than 15 years, and the only thing that is constant is change. This evolving process, also referred to by the two founders as "difficult excitement", is part of Google.

It is worth mentioning that Page and Brin's decision did not surprise the outside world.

Because the two have rarely appeared in public, whether it is an investor conference call or Google ’s most important developer conference.

Brin's last public appearance even dates back to the 2012 I/O Developer Conference.

Another founder, Page, announced a management reorganization as early as October 2014, and is no longer responsible for daily product-related decisions.

Google's stock has even risen slightly.

So what's so special about Pichai, the "chosen person" in the founder's mouth?

Pichai was born in July 1972 in Tamil Nadu, India. He is 47 years old.

Its extraordinaryness was also revealed in his youth. When he was 12 years old, he had the first rotary phone at home. Some media described him as "like a human phone book, as long as you dial the number once, you will not forget it."

He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur with a bachelor's degree and majored in metallurgical engineering. Later, he obtained a Master of Science degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, and then won an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

After graduation, Pichai first worked at Applied Materials, a semiconductor company, as a product management position, and later joined McKinsey for management consulting.

In 2004, 32-year-old Pichai joined Google and contributed to the development of Google's product business.

The first was to lead Chrome to defeat Internet Explorer, which still had a major share in the market at that time, and then oversaw the development of Google's core products such as Gmail and Google Maps.

With these outstanding achievements, he also took the position of vice president of Chrome and applications.

Another product that proves its strength is Android.

In March 2013, Andy Rubin, the father of Android, was relocated, and Pichai became the new director.

By promoting the integration of the Android platform with Google's search, Chrome and other major applications, Google's strong advantage in the Android system has been directly established.

In October 2014, Google made another wave of management adjustments, and Pichai's powers expanded further: In addition to continuing to be responsible for the core Android and Chrome businesses, it also took over research, search, maps, Google+, business and advertising products, and basic Facilities and other services.

At this time, he joined Google for ten years and became the "second person." But this is not the ceiling he has promoted within Google.

On August 10, 2015, Google announced organizational reorganization, with Pichai as chairman and CEO of the new Google company.

Google's two founders, Page and Brin, are the CEO and president of the parent company Alphabet. Their focus is shifting towards non-Google businesses-Google X and the self-driving Waymo business.

The former serves as a corporate research center, and new products appear from time to time. What is most impressive is its self-driving car business. This technology, which was favored by Page from the beginning, has become a world leader.

In July 2017, Pichai took another step forward and joined the Alphabet Board. This move is also considered to be a manifestation of Page training its successor.

As of December 2019, Alphabet has officially announced that Pichai has been promoted to the role of Google CEO and concurrently holds the position of Alphabet CEO.

Page and Brin, both 46-year-old "successful entrepreneurs", will remain on the board of Alphabet as major shareholders and serve as advisors.

In this promotion of Pichai, it is not without criticism. In the past two years, under the impact of informal employee benefits, improper use of artificial intelligence, and sexual harassment by Andy Rubin, Google employees have further declined his favor.

As for where Google and Alphabet go in the future, it depends on Pichai's plan.