Google didn't have to search far for this big change in its leadership team.
Google's co-founder Larry Page will leave his role as the CEO of Alphabet, but remain on the board of the company with his fellow co-founder Sergey Brin, the co-founders announced in a Tuesday letter. Google's current CEO Sundar Pichai will take over Page's role leading the Google parent company and remain in his current job.
To make their announcement, Page and Brin circled back to some of their original founders' letters, saying how Google's 21-year history makes it a "young adult," and it's "time to leave the roost." "With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies," Brin and Page continued, "Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a president." So Pichai, who has "worked closely with us for 15 years," will assume Page's role and keep the one he's currently in.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It sounds like a big change for the people who had led Google since its founding, but Kara Swisher of Recode doesn't think it's such a big deal. Pichai has seemingly been the company's de facto leader "for a while" and Brin and Page "have essentially gone AWOL anyway," Swisher tweeted, largely thanks to their side projects like Page's investments in flying taxis.
-
Why 'faceless bots' are interviewing job huntersIn The Spotlight Artificial intelligence is taking over a crucial part of recruitment
-
Who will win the battle for the soul of the Green Party?An ideological divide is taking root among the environmentalists
-
The Week Unwrapped: Why are we watching the ocean floor?Podcast Plus, what can we learn from a football club on the brink? And which jobs will fall to AI first?
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
-
Crypto firm Coinbase hacked, faces SEC scrutinySpeed Read The Securities and Exchange Commission has also been investigating whether Coinbase misstated its user numbers in past disclosures
-
Starbucks baristas strike over dress codespeed read The new uniform 'puts the burden on baristas' to buy new clothes, said a Starbucks Workers United union delegate
