New Delhi.
India-born Sundar Pichai was named CEO of Google on Tuesday by the company’s founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin in course of a re-organization that created a mother company called Alphabet.
Pichai, 43, a Chennai native who went to IIT Kharagpur and later to Stanford and Wharton, will take charge of a slimmed down Google that Larry Page said will be stripped of companies “that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products,” which will all go into Alphabet. Page will be CEO of Alphabet.
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13 May 2025
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today joined a big Twitter rush to congratulate India-born Sundar Pichai on his appointment as the CEO of the newly restructured Google.
“Congratulations @sundarpichai. My best wishes for the new role at @google,” Modi tweeted after the announcement.
Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad too tweeted his greetings, saying: “Really proud to note that #India born @sundarpichai has been appointed as CEO of @google”.
Microsoft Chairman Satya Nadella and Pichai’s former colleague and SoftBank President Nikesh Arora conveyed their best wishes.
Nadella tweeted: “Congrats @sundarpichai, well deserved.”
Arora, who was Pichai’s colleague at Google, described the new chief as “a brilliant guy, clear thinker, gets things done and a wonderful person at that”.
In a lighter vein, he tweeted: “Now I feel cheated :).”
