Alphabet loses Sergey Brin and Larry Page... the co-founders of Google
End of an era... Alphabet (aka Google's parent company) suddenly/shockingly announced that Google's co-founders will retire as CEO and President of Alphabet. ASAP. They're replaced by Sundar Pichai, an Indian-born, Wharton-educated 15-year Google vet who worked on the hugely important Chrome and Android divisions — then he became Google CEO in 2015. Here's Sergey and Larry's take on their new roles as mere board members and muggle shareholders:
- "We believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents — offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!"
DON'T BE EVIL... It's right there on page 5 of Google's S-1 document from their 2004 IPO. Sergey and Larry founded Google to enable moonshot ideas to change the world (and to help people cheat at trivia). But Google's highly googleable motto conflicts with its recent controversial moves:
- Project Maven involved Google's artificial intelligence helping military drones.
- 4 Googlers were just fired, and they claim it was for trying to organize a labor union.
- Thousands of Googlers protested the company's soft handling of sexual harassers last year.
- Project Dragonfly was Google's attempt to make a special censored search engine for China.
Alphabet needs 1 decisive leader... Larry and Sergey founded Google in 1998 under the religion of do-gooder-ness, collaboration, and trust falls. Today, it's picket lines, political scrutiny, and employee unrest. That recent chaos requires 1 leader, not the awkward trio it had until yesterday. Wall Street rewarded the fresh CEO by inching shares higher Tuesday night after news broke.