[footpath]

https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2019/1203/

Slightly more organized info in the intro bullets.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the CEO and President, respectively, of Alphabet, have decided to leave these roles. They will continue their involvement as co-founders, shareholders and members of Alphabet’s Board of Directors.

[endorphone]

In a way this seems like an admission of the failure of the "Alphabet" thing. The idea behind that originally was that all of these other projects were going to become so significant that it wouldn't make sense to have them or their management coupled with Google.

But a half-decade later, it's still 99.9% Google, so just double-up the Google guy to lead both tiers. Same as it ever was.

[dragonwriter]

> The idea behind that originally was that all of these other projects were going to become so significant that it wouldn't make sense to have them or their management coupled with Google.

No, the idea was that they were high risk speculative efforts and that it didn't make sense to have their branding mixed up with Google, which is a stable, established industry leader.

[londons_explore]

The original reason was that smart people like career progression. Money alone isn't enough to keep them - they want something good on their business cards. Otherwise some will leave to become CEO of another company.

By making a group of companies, you can have many CEO's, more directors, more VP's, etc. and therefore keep hold of more smart people who are after external recognition more than money.

[dannypgh]

I don't think it was mostly motivated by management separation, as much as it was desire to break out revenue and expenses by unit. And this is unchanged.

[tyre]

> The idea behind that originally was that all of these other projects were going to become so significant that it wouldn't make sense to have them or their management coupled with Google.

This isn't entirely true. A major consideration was fear of anti-trust litigation. If all of these are the same company/orgs/departments, then you could reasonably say that this "search company" is far too powerful. If there's a search company and a youtube company and a self-driving car company (etc.) then you can make a (specious) argument that you're not vertically and horizontally a monopoly.

[numbsafari]

Removing the “firewall” between Google and Google Health will prove to have been a big mistake. They should have stayed separate under Alphabet.

[raverbashing]

Sundar seems to be turning into Google's Ballmer, for better and for worse.

The lack of direction, apart from the bigger projects is noticeable.

[taneq]

What do you mean, "failure"? Google hasn't been hit with an antitrust lawsuit which makes it an unmitigated success!

[C14L]

> still 99.9% Google

Maybe they should just rename the whole thing to "AdWords" then...

[Mikeb85]

It's not an admission of failure. Two businessmen created one of the most successful, influencial businesses ever and are passing the torch. They're rich AF and probably want to retire.

[anonytrary]

Even if your observation is correct, it's not a bad thing. A failed experiment is hardly a failure. I doubt the legal border between Alphabet and Google won't prove useful in the future.

[hinkley]

I'm of mixed emotions here.

I am both cautious enough of Google that I've started avoiding using some of their products, and still have an opinion on how they should organize themselves that has very little to do with those feelings.

I was sort of hoping Alphabet would be a spot they could stick all of the projects that aren't going to make a billion a year. I think it still makes sense to maintain projects that 'only' clear $20+ million a year in another division. That would cover a lot of projects that are getting cancelled and causing them serious PR problems (like accusations of being a group of spoiled man-children who can't be relied upon to stick with anything for longer than four years).

Basically there's a lot of space to make money and products that they won't touch, and I don't think it has anything to do with Wall Street. It's just an artificial limitation they've imposed upon themselves.

[dickeytk]

I think Waymo still has a solid shot

[snarf21]

I don't think it was a failure at all. It was a hedge against slowing ad revenue growth. They didn't want the billions they spend on moonshots dirtying the books of the ad business. This was specifically to keep the stock price moving up and up. I think they should find someone new to be CEO of Alphabet so they can focus on the non ad business companies.

[hdhgzwhegh]

Alphabet was always mostly just a shell game for manipulating headlines about failing or political projects away from Google.

[golemotron]

The reason reason is that antitrust is coming. Larry and Sergey are stepping out of the fire.

[slowenough]

not that I know anything but it seems like the decision was complex both to create the Alphabet and now to kind of merge it under one CEO.

I think some of the reasons could be they no longer see a risk of anti Monopoly regulation targeting them so they don't need to keep everything so divided. they genuinely want to give Sundar a go. They need a process to gradually fade out The original founders, but also importantly ensure those founders isolate their risk from any future missteps the companies take, and vice versa.

maybe the two co-founders were simply getting in the way.

[sidcool]

Anyone who thinks Google is a failure should reconsider. They have had their share of bad decisions, but nothing has yet challenged their dominance. They keep spreading to other areas of tech. They may not dominate the AlphaBets, but they sure attract attention and investment.

[nostromo]

I'm curious what their continued involvement will look like.

For a while after Bill Gates stepped down as CEO, there was this awkward tension where Steve Balmer was CEO, but people still treated Bill like he was the one in control -- because he was.

[s1k3b8]

> I'm curious what their continued involvement will look like.

Page and Brin, combined, are currently the majority shareholders of alphabet. Each controls 27% of the voting power ( 54% combined ). They are still in charge. They just won't be involved in the day-to-day operation of the company. Sundar will still report to Page/Brin and the board of directors.

[grappler]

“cofounder” isn't “what you're doing now”; it's “what you did 20 years ago” but it's important because people put weight on what the founders say and think. “[large] shareholder” is sort of a role, and often goes together with “member of the board”.

Bill Gates is probably a good example to look to. He also stayed on the board (as chair) and remained a large shareholder, and was looked up to as the cofounder. So I'd imagine “like Bill Gates but with less active interest and involvement”.

[irjustin]

The difference here is that Page and Brin have always been willing to give up the CEO seat i.e. day to day operations.

They're 100% still in control of direction and people will always treat them as the boss (esp voting power), but the dynamic will not have nearly as much friction.

[lonelappde]

Page and Brin have been out of the big picture for a long time.

[binary_vitamin]

> For a while after Bill Gates stepped down as CEO, there was this awkward tension where Steve Balmer was CEO

Bill was simply playing politics.

[tjmc]

So who takes the role of President now? Neither the parent article or the one you cited makes that clear.

[bwilliams18]

I would assume nobody. Unless it's explicitly stated in the Alphabet corporate charter, there's nothing that requires them to have an employee with the title President, or any employee with any particular title at all.