The idea behind the new organisation is to slim down Google, with Alphabet taking over companies such as Calico, focused on health and life sciences, but also drone delivery effort Wing, and its venture capital arm Google Ventures.
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The blog post also discusses Sundar Pichai’s role as Google, saying that Pichai has exceeded expectations since stepping up as Product Chief in October of 2014, making him the ideal candidate for CEO of Google. Alphabet is essentially a holding company that will encompass “a collection of companies”, including Google itself – a version of it said to be “a bit slimmed down”, as companies that have been part of Google but separate from its main Internet products will now fall under Alphabet instead.
Reading Larry Page’s intro note on ABC.xyz, I couldn’t help but compare it to Hooli.xyz, the fictitious company from HBO’s Silicon Valley that is modeled somewhat after Google.
In addition, Alphabet Inc. will take the place of Google Inc.as the publicly traded entity, and Google shares will, like magic, automatically transform into an identical number of Alphabet shares.
2015: Page announces creation of new holding company, Alphabet, to include Google’s core business and other entities.
All of the news surrounding this is still developing, so we will be sure to have more information as it becomes available. It is likely that we will find out more about what the restructuring means for Google and Google’s companies in the coming days and weeks. “Now we’ll get a chance to see”. Sundar Pichai, now a senior vice president, will become CEO of Google.
Google co-founder Brin will become president of Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt will be executive chairman. “We believe this allows us more management scale, so we can run things independently that aren’t very related”.
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Both classes of the Mountain View, California, company’s stock rose more than 6 percent in after-hours trading following the announcement Monday afternoon. Google also has some services that are run with their own identity, like YouTube. Buffett is CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate that owns more than 80 subsidiary companies and lets each operate with substantial independence. Shares will continue to be traded on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.
