Monday, August 10 saw Google announce a complete corporate restructuring. The most prominent changes announced include naming of Sundar Pichai as the new CEO for Google’s core business and formation of a new umbrella company called Google Alphabet. Alphabet will be run by the company’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Brin will adorn the position of the president, whereas Page will be the CEO of Alphabet.
Google announced its new operating structure through a blog post titled G is for Google, which got published on the company’s official blog on Monday.
For those who are wondering what exactly Alphabet will do: it will play the role of the parent company for several smaller companies. The list of companies operating under Alphabet include names like Google (it will have its focus on different Internet products). YouTube, Android, ads and search will keep on operating as parts of Google Inc.
Following this revamp, the other Google departments that have spun off into different sub companies of their own include Google X lab (the department responsible for coming up with innovations such as drone delivery, driverless cars, Google Glass), Calico, Life Sciences, and the robotics division of the tech firm. Other than all these, Google Capital and Google Ventures will also operate as independent parts of Alphabet.
All companies under the umbrella of Alphabet will continue with their existing leadership. For instance, Nest will still run under the leadership of Tony Fadell, Dan Doctoroff will remain the boss of Sidewalk Labs, and Calico will retain Arthur Levinson as its CEO. Susan Wojcicki, the YouTube CEO, on the other hand, will now have to report to Pichai.
Google X will still have Brin at the top. Eric Schmidt, the ex-Google CEO (he adorned the position from 2011 to 2011), will be operating at the executive chairman of Alphabet.
Larry Page said that he and his team have no plans of making this new parent company a huge consumer brand having related products. According to him, the top bosses at Google want companies operating under the umbrella of Alphabet to be independent and capable of developing brands of their own. Page added that all Alphabet companies will be headed by powerful CEOs, people who know how to run businesses independently.
The new standalone companies will now possess greater freedom for taking risks. They will be allowed to keep on investing in different experimental projects such as driver less cars and that too without any kind of interference from other Google units.