News comes out today at the somewhat interesting web address of https://abc.xyz/ that Google as we know it is no more. That might be a bit dire sounding but it’s really not so bad. In his blog post, Larry Page outlines how Google has never been a conventional company and will never be a conventional company. With that in mind, he announced Alphabet, the new umbrella under which Google and its various other ventures will be housed.
There’s been discussion about what exactly this means to the Google we all woke up knowing this morning. In the grand scheme of things it may simply mean a tighter focus on the core business needs of Google, while other services and ventures that may not fit what Google is really about – think things like X Labs, Calico, etc. will now branch off into their own companies, all under the Alphabet umbrella.
In other words, the all-encompassing Google of this morning may simply have been re-branded as Alphabet, while Google’s core search/advertising business will continue to operate under the Google name. Google’s X Labs, which most wouldn’t think has anything even remotely to do with Google’s search/advertising business will be its own entity, as will Google’s health initiatives such as Calico and Life Sciences. Alphabet will oversee all of these ventures with Larry Page as CEO and Sergey Brin as President. Google’s stock will be converted to Alphabet stock, and the new leaner/meaner Google will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet.
Page outlined this change as a way for each business to grow stronger with its own CEO leading the charge. In its older form, Page and Brin sat atop the entire mountain with various Senior Vice Presidents reporting to them. In this new world, they will assist the new CEO’s as necessary:
In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We’ll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation.
In that same vein, Page announced that current Senior Vice President of Google Sundar Pichai will become the new CEO of Google.
Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations.
The whole letter is definitely an interesting read (if not a bit over my head at times) but gives a good idea of what Page and Brin hope to do with this new parent company. Towards the end Page offers a list of what they’re most excited about:
We are excited about…
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Getting more ambitious things done.
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Taking the long-term view.
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Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
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Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
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Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
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Making Google even better through greater focus.
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And hopefully… as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.
So what do you think about Alphabet, and the “slightly slimmer” Google? Who might be a fitting CEO for X Labs? Let us know what you think in the comments or on your favorite social media site.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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