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Journalism of Courage
On Tuesday it was announced that Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, will take charge of parent company Alphabet as co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin step down from their top roles. Pichai, who has been Google’s CEO for over four years will manage both companies, while Page and Brin will remain members of the company’s board.
“While it has been a tremendous privilege to be deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the company for so long, we believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents — offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!” Page and Brin wrote in a letter bidding adieu to active management roles on Tuesday.
The 47-year-old IIT Kharagpur graduate, who has spent 15 years at Google, rose to prominence while leading the development of Google’s Chrome browser. He later led product development and engineering across all of Google’s services for a year before bagging the CEO position and oversight of Google’s advertising and cloud computing business.
As the news about Pichai’s new appointment spread, Indians around the globe took to social media to congratulate him. Many spoke of how he had made India proud and showed the next generation how to turn their big dreams into reality.
Pichai’s name was among the top trends across social media, and dominated the trends on Twitter in India. There was praise for the CEO, and also some jokes.
https://twitter.com/ankushbanerjee_/status/1202090635299377155
https://twitter.com/himanshupunj23/status/1202075430913748992
https://twitter.com/rameshsrivats/status/1202066310282149890
While publicly stepping back, the two Google co-founders still control more than 51 per cent of shares. As of April, Page held 26.1 per cent of Alphabet’s total voting power, Brin 25.25 per cent and Pichai less than 1 per cent. Alphabet shares rose 0.64 per cent following the after-hours of the appointment.
Alphabet — an umbrella corporation that Page and Brin created in 2015 — still boasts Google as its central fixture and key moneymaker. But it’s also made up of “other bets,” or longshot projects, including drone company Wing and self-driving car firm Waymo.
