Google creates the ‘Alphabet’ umbrella; names new CEO
In an interesting turn of events, Google has launched a new publicly traded parent company called Alphabet, which will include the search giant as one of its several entities.
Larry Page will be the CEO of Alphabet and Sergey Brin will be President. Sundar Pichai has been appointed the CEO of Google.
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.
Larry Page said in an official blog post on Google, “As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, ‘Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one’. Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet (http://abc.xyz).”
Mr Page explained, “This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related. Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed.”
Alphabet will also include Google’s X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, their drone delivery effort. Google is also looking to grow its investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure.
On Mr Pichai’s appointment, Mr Page said,”Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And 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.”
