Schmidt to step down as Alphabet chairman
SAN FRANCISCO: Alphabet Inc said on Thursday its executive chairman Eric Schmidt will step down next month, ending a 17-year-run in which he played a central role in building Google into a global technology powerhouse.
He would continue to serve on the Alphabet’s board of directors and act as an adviser focused on technical and science issues, said the company.“The time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition,” said Schmidt in a statement.
Schmidt, who was recruited to the company by Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, served as chief executive from 2001 through 2011, acting as what the three jokingly referred to as the “adult supervision”.
Schmidt then became executive chairman, often travelling the world touting the company’s accomplishments, negotiating with governments on regulatory matters and speaking about the state of the tech industry.
Among his accomplishments were taking the company public in 2004, shepherding critical product initiatives like the Android mobile operating system, and overseeing a 2015 corporate restructuring in which Google became a unit of the Alphabet.
But Schmidt’s tenure was not without its problems. Google, Apple and several other tech companies were hit with a class action suit in 2011 alleging that executives including Schmidt and the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs conspired to keep wages down by not hiring one anothers’ employees. The suit was settled for US$415 million (RM1.7 billion) in 2015. Reuters