Sundar Pichai is ascending at Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc.: He becomes chief executive of the entire tech giant as co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin step down as CEO and president, respectively.
The change, announced Tuesday afternoon, took effect immediately.
Page and Brin, who founded the search giant in 1998, will continue to serve as "board members, shareholders and co-founders," they wrote in a letter.
The pair have been stepping back from the company's leadership for a while, preferring to stay out of the public eye and to focus on projects that particularly interest them.
And this wouldn't be the first time they have handed the reins to another executive. Eric Schmidt took over as CEO from Page in 2001, a few years before the company's initial public offering, and kept the job for a decade. Page resumed the CEO role in 2011.
But Page and Brin have always retained power in a different way: through their holdings of Alphabet stock. Their shares give them a combined 51.3% of the votes, so if they join forces they can unseat a CEO who dissatisfies them.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 and became its CEO in 2015, when the larger company changed its name to Alphabet and restructured itself to make Google a subsidiary. He joined Alphabet's board of directors in 2017.
"I'm excited about Alphabet and its long-term focus on tackling big challenges through technology," Pichai said in a statement. "I'm looking forward to continuing to work with Larry and Sergey in our new roles. Thanks to them, we have a timeless mission, enduring values and a culture of collaboration and exploration. It's a strong foundation on which we will continue to build."
