Sundar Pichai has made all of us from India proud. And possibly reached the pinnacle of his professional career!
Apart from being the CEO of Google, he has now been entrusted the responsibility of CEO of Alphabet (Google's parent company) as both Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin take a back seat from day-to-day operations. It's an amazing responsibility for Sundar Pichai, who has been at Google since 2004.
The announcement was made in the form of an official statement on Google's blog just a few hours ago, where it was announced that Larry Page is stepping down as the CEO of Alphabet, handing over the reins of the entire Alphabet group of companies (of which Google is a part) to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
"While it has been a tremendous privilege to be deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the company for so long, we believe it's time to assume the role of proud parent -- offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!" Page and Brin wrote in a blog post, stepping back from the technology giant they founded 21 years ago.
In accepting the added responsibility, Sundar Pichai wrote how he has been benefiting from Larry Page and Sergey Brin's advice, guidance and insights ever since he met them first back in 2004.
"The good news is I¡¯ll continue to work with them, although in different roles for them and me. They¡¯ll still be around to advise as board members and co-founders," Pichai wrote on Google's official blog.
Alphabet, which owns more than a dozen companies apart from Google, companies like self-driving car technology business Waymo, health care software company Verily, high speed gigabit internet connection network Google Fiber, advanced AI firm DeepMind, and more, became the holding company for all businesses that didn't easily fall under Google's mandate in a 2015 restructuring of Google.
Along with Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, Alphabet is one of the richest tech companies in the world, and to think that Sundar Pichai is heading the group is a testament to his leadership skills and core values.
However, Sundar Pichai inherits Alphabet's mandate at a troubled time, where there's wide-scale discontent among Google employees and regulatory issues to deal with. For all this and more, the buck now stops at Sundar Pichai and no one else.
Congratulations to Sundar Pichai, but he will do well to remember that with great power comes great responsibility.