Sundar Pichai will always be focused on innovation, says Larry Page

Sundar Pichai is going to be the new head of Google and Larry Page explained the decision in a blog post

Google has morphed into a new holding company called Alphabet under which a host of Google-owned company and the search giant will now operate. All shares of Google will now trade under Alphabet and while Larry Page becomes CEO of Alphabet, India-born Sundar Pichai is going to be the new head of Google.

In an official blogpost, now Alphabet CEO and Google co-founder Larry Page wrote about the change and explained the new decisions.

Sundar Pichai is Google’s new CEO. (Source AP)

On the decision about Alphabet, Page wrote, “Our (Google ) 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. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.”

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Page then goes on to explain that Alphabet is “mostly a collection of companies” and that the biggest of “of course, is Google.”

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He writes, “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).”

Page justifies the decision saying that they believe that will allow them “more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related.”

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The idea, he says, “is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed.” Google’s financials will be provided separately from the rest of Alphabet as whole, he adds. Interesting Google X Lab where the company’s moonshot projects are undertaken will be a separate entity in Alphabet.

Page also talks about the decision to promote product-czar Sundar Pichai to the post of the new Google CEO.

“A key part of this is Sundar Pichai. Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I’ve been tremendously enjoying our work together. He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our Internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company,” writes Page.

The Google co-founder added that it had been clear to the board for some time that Pichai must be made the company’s CEO.

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He adds, “I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he (Pichai) is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Sundar, helping him and the company in any way I can, and I will of course continue to do that. Google itself is also making all sorts of new products, and I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation — continuing to stretch boundaries. I know he deeply cares that we can continue to make big strides on our core mission to organize the world’s information. Recent launches like Google Photos and Google Now using machine learning are amazing progress. Google also has some services that are run with their own identity, like YouTube. Susan is doing a great job as CEO, running a strong brand and driving incredible growth.”

The decision to morph Google into Alphabet has sent shares of the search giant soaring by 7 per cent, reports Reuters.

Read Larry Page’s full blog here.