Many foreign media pointed out that Pezi and Brin left the daily operations of Alphabet (or Google), which is the end of an era, and when they left, the company was in a lot of difficulties.
Editor’s note: This article comes from Tencent Technology, released with permission.
On December 3, Google ’s two co-founders, Pezi and Brin, announced their resignation from their current senior executive positions at the same time. The news aroused the attention of global public opinion, and major media reported and commented. Many foreign media pointed out that Pezi and Brin left the daily operations of Alphabet (or Google), which is the end of an era, and when they left, the company was in a lot of difficulties.
New York Times: The end of an era
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are graduate students at Stanford University. They founded Google more than 20 years ago. They announced on Tuesday that they would resign as executives of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
This move marks the end of an era for Google. Page and Brin have been the company’s incarnation since the company was founded. They are the two most influential figures in the technology industry, comparable to Apple and Microsoft founders Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Their early work on the Google search engine helped collect massive amounts of information on the World Wide Web. Their ideas on how to run an Internet company–such as providing generous benefits to employees, such as free shuttles to the office and making ordinary employees feel like they have a stake in the company–have become Silicon Valley standards.
In recent years, Page and Brin seem to have lost interest in running the companies they founded. The reorganization of Google into a holding company is partly to solve this problem.
Washington Post: Pichai’s burden will be heavier
After Pezi and Brin resigned, Pichai inherited full responsibility for a company that was subject to antitrust investigations and Trump bombardment. Under Pichai’s leadership, in the face of a series of media disclosures and employee protests, Google has been trying to become more open-mouthed.
Some things will remain the same: Brin and Page hold most of the company’s voting stock, which means that major board decisions still require their approval.
Los Angeles Times: Second hand over control
Before resigning, the Google co-founders have been away from the company’s leadership for some time, they prefer to stay away from the public eye and focus on projects that they are particularly interested in.
This is not the first time they have given company control to another executive. Eric Schmidt took over as CEO of Google from Page in 2001, when Google was not yet public. Schmidt remained in office for ten years, and Page resumed his role as CEO in 2011.
But Page and Brin have always retained power in a different way: through their Alphabet stock. Their shares gave them a total of 51.3% of the vote, so if they unite, they can fire the CEO who dissatisfied them.
Wired: A pair of guys who hate each other changed the world
An era of Google is officially over. As the company faces a series of antitrust investigations and mounting employee protests, its two co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, announced on Tuesday that they will resign from leadership positions at the company. In the future, the two will still effectively control the company, although they will no longer run it daily.
Page and Brin founded Google in 1998 when they were both graduate students in computer science at Stanford University. “I think he hates it. He has a strong opinion of things, and I think so too,” Page said of Brin on Wired in 2005. Brin countered: “We all feel that the other party is annoying.”
But the two complemented each other and turned a search engine startup into a Silicon Valley giant with ambitions to change the world through technology and the motto “Do No Evil”, which was later abandoned.
Brin and Page are exiting as Google struggles with some of the most difficult challenges yet. As the company continues to “print money” (get a lot of money), the US Congress, state attorney general, and federal antitrust regulators are carefully investigating its market dominance. Just this week, European regulators announced a preliminary investigation into Google and Facebook to investigate how they collect and use personal privacy data for their advertising business.
BBC: Power has not been given up
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced on Tuesday that they will no longer run Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
The purpose of forming Alphabet is to make Google ’s technology giant ’s activities “clearer and more responsible” because it has searched the InternetCables are expanding into other areas, such as autonomous vehicles. When Alphabet was founded, the two founders said they wanted to focus on new business development plans.
The move of the two founders to leave Alphabet represents the most significant leadership change for Google (and Alphabet) since its inception-the two dynamic combinations of Brin and Page are no longer in the company they founded Take on important management roles.
In fact, however, this has been going on for some time-the company’s public profile has always been Pichai, followed by YouTube CEO Susan Wasiki. But Tuesday’s statement was clear-Page and Brin did not manage the company.
However, although the two apparently relinquished management responsibilities, this does not mean relinquish ultimate power. They control 51% of the voting rights on Alphabet’s board. This will not change. They likened their new role to the company’s “proud parents” and watched the company with deep interest and care. But if they feel it is necessary, they can overturn any decision Pichai made.
CNBC: Reliance on other businesses in the future
With the departure of Pacy and Brin, Alphabet may need to rely more on its other businesses, including self-driving car development companies Waymo and Lucious, as Google’s core Internet advertising business shows signs of slowing. Google showed a slowdown in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2019, and profit in the third quarter was lower than the previous year. Although the company’s cloud computing business is growing, it still struggles to generate significant revenue in hardware.
Page and Pichai have been overseeing the company for years of chaos, while Google employees have expressed their dissatisfaction with company policies. Thousands of Google employees stepped out of offices around the world last year to protest Google’s $ 90 million termination compensation paid to former Android business leader Andy Rubin (though Google found the allegations of misconduct against him to be credible).
CNN: stepping down under the company’s operating difficulties
Twenty years after starting Google in a garage in Menlo Park, California, Larry Page and Sergey Brin will abandon executive positions at Google’s parent company Alphabet.
The company announced on Tuesday that Page and Brin will resign respectively as CEO and president of Alphabet. Pichai is the current CEO of Google and a longtime executive of the company. In addition to his current role, he will also take over as CEO of Alphabet.
This time Google ’s high-level personnel reshuffle took place when Google faced more and more censorship. Regulators and politicians in the United States and Europe question the company’s sheer size, data privacy practices, and potential impact on society. Page was once a face of the company, but now it has basically disappeared from the public eye.
At the same time, Google is facing growing tensions with its employees. Last week, Google fired several outspoken employees for alleged violations of the company’s data security policies. Some employees quickly accused Google of suppressing critics and preventing employees from organizing to protest the company. (Tencent Technology Review / Cheng Xi)