Google has unveiled a broad corporate restructuring intended to accelerate its transformation from a search and advertising company into a conglomerate with stakes in some of the most promising long-term tech markets.
In a surprise blog post, made public after the stock markets closed, Google’s cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced a radical shake-up of the company’s corporate structure and management.
Google will fall under a new parent company called Alphabet Inc with control of its core search engine business set to be handed to rising star Sundar Pichai, who had been linked with the CEO role at Twitter.
Page will take up the role of CEO at Alphabet with Brin acting as president.
Alphabet will include not just Google but the company’s huge array of other operations. The company said that its reorganisation would help it concentrate on its more speculative, experimental work.
In the blog post Page wrote: “Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort.
“We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure.”
He continued: “Long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes.
“But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.
“[Google] is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. 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.”
Following the announcement the company’s shares increased by over 5% in after-hours trading.