Larry Page entrusts work done by him to Pichai.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: Sundar Pichai, the Indian-origin Senior Vice President of Google, who oversees some of the elite services of the tech giant, including Chrome and Android, has been given a G+ by Larry Page to head the global business of the company, which is currently a portfolio managed by the co-founder himself.
Pichai’s new title comes after a management reshuffle to reduce the work load of Page, who according to sources, would like to dedicate more time in strategizing the overall business of Google.
According to Google officials, Pichai will now have the additional charge of Google’s core products such as search, maps, Google +, commerce, infrastructure and advertising. Adding to this Pichai will head the team of six executives, who earlier reported directly to Page. This includes heads of the research, search and social media.
Page has kept the online video streaming service YouTube, which is under the supervision of CEO Susan Wojcicki, untouched from the restructuring exercise. Wojcicki currently reports directly to Page.
Pichai joined Google in 2004 and since then he has climbed up the ladder to become one of the top officials at Google. Pichai, the brain behind Google’s successful Chrome project, was moved up the position, given the responsibility to head the Android division in 2013.
Pichai is considered as the Midas of Google, who holds the fortune of turning anything that he touches into Gold. The search and advertising revenue of Google, which accounts to a yearly revenue of $50 billion, started signs of slowing down since the beginning of this year. The search and advertising revenue of Google had a growth of 26% last year but when it comes to the third quarter of this year, the growth rate has dipped to just 17%. This sudden fall in the revenue has been cited as the immediate reason for the reshuffle in Google’s top tier.
As Pichai is given more responsibilities, all signs are pointing at him as the future CEO of Google in the making. Pichai was seen heading major launches and conferences of Google, the latest being the launch of Android One in India and the Google I/O Developer conference that happened in June this year.
If Pichai becomes the CEO of Google, he will add to the slew of Indian origin CEOs to head US-based Tech Giants. Earlier during the year, Satya Nadella, another Indian origin technocrat was appointed as the CEO of Microsoft.