Sundar Pichai Is New Google CEO

Google unveiled a surprise corporate reorganization Monday, forming a new parent company dubbed Alphabet that will include the Internet search unit as one of several entities. Google chief executive Larry Page announced the change, saying he would hold the same title at Alphabet, the new holding company for the tech giant's newer ventures such as the research arm X Lab, investment unit Google Ventures and health and science operations. At the search unit Google, the CEO will be current vice president Sundar Pichai. "Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable," said a statement from Page, a co-founder of the tech giant with Sergey Brin 11 years ago. "So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as president." Page said Alphabet is "mostly a collection of companies," the largest of which is Google. Under the new structure, "this newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead." Alphabet will include units focusing on life sciences such as a glucose-sensing contact lens and the health research firm Calico, Page said. Google X, which handles research on self-driving cars and Internet balloons, will also be a separate unit Other units to be separated include the drone delivery project Wing, Google Fiber's high-speed Internet, the home automation unit Nest and investment arms of the California technology giant. "Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren't very related," he said.

• Strong leaders, independence - "Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed."

Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly traded entity, and all shares of Google will automatically convert to shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights, Page said. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. The Google unit will include search and search ads, maps, apps, YouTube, Android and related technical infrastructure, according to a regulatory filing. AFP