Eric Schmidt has a long and storied career but was able to make a bigger name for himself at Google before he was transitioned as an executive chairman at Alphabet. The man was the CEO of Novell from 1997 to 2001 and then went on to become the CEO of Google from 2001 all the way to 2011 before Google co-founder Larry Page came in to fill the role. Since Alphabet was spun off as the parent company for Google, Mr. Schmidt has been an Executive Chairman for the company, but he is now stepping down and adopting the role of technical advisor.
This move ends a 17-year run that Mr. Schmidt has had playing central roles with Google and Alphabet. He will retain his current position until sometime in January, but will continue to have a role with the company. As mentioned, once he steps down he will take on the title of Alphabet’s Technical Advisor, but he is still on the company’s board of directors as well. The Technical Advisor role will have him focused on both technical as well as science-related issues and developments for the company.
Google attributes Mr. Schmidt as the person who was able to refine Google from what it originally was and into the mature powerhouse business that it has become today. The company feels he was invaluable to the evolution of the company, as this was done without “throwing away the uniqueness that was Google during those early days.” During his time as CEO at Google, the trio of Schmidt, Page and Brin were jokingly referred to as the “adult supervision.”
During his time at Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were allowed to focus on the company’s technology and product strategies, while Schmidt focused on how to scale every product to a global level. Alphabet feels he has done a great job at helping them transition into the parent company that Google needed, and this move will enable Schmidt to focus his time and energy on his other passions while still being beneficial to Alphabet.
Source: Alphabet
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