In a massive restructure at Google today, Google co-founder Larry Page has announced on the company’s blog post, that Sundar Pichai is the CEO and shifting himself and co-founder Sergey Brin to a larger holding company called Alphabet. As CEO and President of Alphabet, Page and Brin will oversee Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing. Alphabet will also direct Google’s early-stage funding operations, dubbed Capital and Ventures. Pichai will control Google search, ads, maps, the Google Play Store, YouTube, and Android at Google.
The reorganization also involves significant financial restructuring, as detailed in an associated SEC filing. All Google shares will now be traded as shares of the larger Alphabet holding company, news that drove the company’s share price up more than four percentage points in the wake of the announcement. “We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes,” Page writes in the post. “But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.”
Alphabet is the new Google
This sees Sundar Pichai take up a prominent role in Google. The has been the former Chrome OS and Android chief who has played an increasingly central role in Google’s day-to-day operations. Page said in the post.
“It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google, 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. Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.
Image Credit: ibtimes.co.uk
