Eric Schmidt, 62, had joined Google back in 2001 to provide “adult supervision” to the young co-founders of the company – Larry Page and Sergey Brin – as the chief executive officer. He continued in that role until 2011, after which he took the position of the executive chairman. During his 10 years as CEO, he played a huge role in taking Google from being just a search engine to a modern technology giant with its hand in a number of businesses. Even after becoming the executive chairman, Schmidt was still involved in most big decisions being made at Google, but it seems that he will take a back seat after transitioning to a technical advisor next month.
“Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology. Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical advisor on science and technology issues. I’m incredibly excited about the progress our companies are making, and about the strong leaders who are driving that innovation,” said Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet, in a statement.
Alphabet has revealed that they will now appoint a non-executive chairman of the board. In addition to being a technical advisor, Schmidt will continue to be a part of the Alphabet’s board of directors and focus on his philanthropy work.
“In recent years, I’ve been spending a lot of my time on science and technology issues, and philanthropy, and I plan to expand that work,” said Schmidt in a statement.
Image Credit: Twitter
