Larry Page will be Alphabet’s chief executive, while his fellow co-founder Sergey Brin will be president of the umbrella company and former Android chief Sundar Pichai will replace Page as Google’s new chief executive.
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“We probably won’t put it on the agenda to sue them over it, but if they want to make us a very generous offer for our domain names, we’ll certainly consider it”, Steve Lockwood, the company secretary, told the New York Times. Sundar Pichai, who is now the senior vice president of products at Google, will become the new CEO of Google Inc.
All of Google shares will automatically convert to the equivalent number of Alphabet shares following the reorganization. The products you use everyday like search, maps, YouTube and the Android operating system will retain the Google name.
Google’s new operating structure will emulate that of noted U.S. financier Warren Buffet, who owns dozens of companies through his Berkshire Hathaway holding company, all of which operate independently.
Page said he and Brin chose the name Alphabet “because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations”.
But perhaps the most surprised recipient of the news was BMW, which already runs a registered business called Alphabet. It is said that some “slimming down” will occur in the firm after its addition to the parent company. Sundar Pichai, Page’s deputy, will be promoted to become CEO of Google Inc., which generates the bulk of Google’s $60 billion in annual revenue. “Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort”. “Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence”, said Page in his blog post.
The move will also likely provide a bit more transparency over the financial performance of individual businesses within Alphabet, rather than just lumping it all in with Google, and Alphabet’s experimentation could get more funding than it otherwise would have when included in with the core advertising business.
Not much will change from the perspective of a Google user.
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“He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our internet businesses”. The Alphabet shares will still trade under the GOOG and GOOGL symbols on NASDAQ. And, like any good holding company, it’ll probably help them pull off some more tax tricks to cut that bill down, too.
