Google Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin Step Down from Roles at Alphabet
More than 20 years since launching Google, its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down from their executive roles at the technology giant’s parent company, Alphabet.
Page and Brin, both 46, are leaving their respective roles as CEO and president of Alphabet effective immediately, the company announced on Tuesday. They will continue to serve as members of Alphabet’s Board of Directors, as well as continue their involvement in the company as co-founders and shareholders.
Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Google, will take over as CEO of Alphabet in addition to his current role.
“I’m excited about Alphabet and its long term focus on tackling big challenges through technology. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with Larry and Sergey in our new roles,” Pichai, 47, said in a press release. “Thanks to them, we have a timeless mission, enduring values, and a culture of collaboration and exploration. It’s a strong foundation on which we will continue to build.”
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Page and Brin wrote about their transition in a blog post and referenced their first founder’s letter, in which they stated that “Google is not a conventional company.”
“We believe those central tenets are still true today. The company is not conventional and continues to make ambitious bets on new technology, especially with our Alphabet structure,” they wrote in a new letter. “Creativity and challenge remain as ever-present as before, if not more so, and are increasingly applied to a variety of fields such as machine learning, energy efficiency and transportation. Nonetheless, Google’s core service – providing unbiased, accurate, and free access to information – remains at the heart of the company.”
The two co-founders said that Google has since “evolved and matured” beyond a simple search engine, with the company providing popular consumer services such as Maps, Photos and YouTube, as well as its own Made by Google devices.
Alphabet was created in 2015 as a corporate restructuring of Google, becoming its parent company. At the time, Pichai was announced as the new Google CEO while Page and Brin took on roles at Alphabet.
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“With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it’s the natural time to simplify our management structure,” Page and Brin wrote in the blog post. “We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President.”
Despite relinquishing their roles at Alphabet, the two said they still plan on speaking to Pichai “regularly.”
“Sundar brings humility and a deep passion for technology to our users, partners and our employees every day. He’s worked closely with us for 15 years, through the formation of Alphabet, as CEO of Google, and a member of the Alphabet Board of Directors,” they wrote. “He shares our confidence in the value of the Alphabet structure, and the ability it provides us to tackle big challenges through technology. There is no one that we have relied on more since Alphabet was founded, and no better person to lead Google and Alphabet into the future.”
In addition to being the CEO of Google and Alphabet, Pichai also serves on the Alphabet’s Board of Directors.
