For the past decade and what would seem like an eternity in the technology business Eric Schmidt has been the CEO of Google. He brought the company from a small search engine to the advertising giant, OS making, Facebook and Apple fighting Google we know today. On the heels of Google’s just announced Q4 2011 earnings which were above market speculation, the announcement of a new CEO surprises us all. Eric Schmidt’s successor will be the pictured Larry Page a Google co-founder and the transition takes place April 4th.
Schmidt is certainly not leaving Google, but will transition to becoming “Executive Chairman” with a more focused set of responsibilities. Those will include “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership,” as outlined in a public statement. He will continue to work with fellow co-founder Sergey Brin who continues his role working on “strategic projects, in particular working on new products,”.
Schmidt stated: “We’ve been talking about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision-making for a long time. By clarifying our individual roles we’ll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I’m excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come.”
The new CEO had this to state:
Page: “Eric has clearly done an outstanding job leading Google for the last decade. The results speak for themselves. There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly. Eric is a tremendous leader and I have learned innumerable lessons from him. His advice and efforts will be invaluable to me as I start in this new role. Google still has such incredible opportunity-we are only at the beginning and I can’t wait to get started.”
A tweet from Schmidt summed up his feeling on the new move he said, “Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!,”. It is clear he feels the company has a solid foundation, and clear path going forward with a need to spice things up. The move should go without a major hitch as Page has been in training for this position for some time. Hopefully Google continues on its path, and brings a new approach to its business at hand.