Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin said Tuesday they are giving up their top jobs at the search giant and its parent Alphabet.
Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai will now take over the responsibilities of Page, who had been chief executive of Alphabet; and Brin, who had been president of Google, according to a Tuesday statement.
“We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company,” Page and Brin said in the statement. “Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet.”
The pair added that Pichai will be the “executive responsible and accountable for leading Google, and managing Alphabet’s investment in our portfolio of Other Bets” — the fringe technology unit that, among other things, has housed a flying-car startup that lately has occupied much of Page’s attention.
Page and Brin will remain directors of the company.
Alphabet, which also owns self-driving car technology company Waymo among its many businesses, emerged in 2015 as part of a corporate restructuring. Page had wanted to focus on developing newer businesses, which collectively lose money, while leaving Alphabet’s biggest and most profitable unit, Google, for Pichai to oversee. Brin had stayed on as Alphabet’s president.
While still closely associated with the company they founded in 1998 as Ph.D students at Stanford University, Page and Brin have become a rare presence at the Mountain View, Calif., company, according to reports.
Their retreat into the background, particularly for Page as CEO, had drawn criticism from both employees and US lawmakers that demanded answers from him rather than Pichai about controversial company projects.
Last year, Bloomberg reported that Page has been spending more his time on own Caribbean island, and that he is only drawn to projects such as flying cars and attempts to halt the human aging process.
Alphabet shares were up $9.05, or 0.7 percent, at 1,303.79 in after-hours trading.
With Reuters