Alphabet's Eric Schmidt to step down as executive
chairman
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[December 22, 2017]
By Salvador Rodriguez and Sonam Rai
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>
said on Thursday its Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will step down in
January, ending a 17-year-run in which he played a central role in
building a promising startup called Google into a global technology
powerhouse.
He will continue to serve on the Alphabet's board of directors and act
as an adviser on focused on technical and science issues, the company
said. (http://bit.ly/2BXJzz6)
"The time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition," Schmidt
said in a statement.
"I'm incredibly excited about the progress our companies are making and
about the strong leaders who are driving that innovation," said Chief
Executive Larry Page in a statement.
Schmidt, who was recruited to the company by Google co-founders Page and
Sergey Brin, served as chief executive from 2001 through 2011, acting as
what the three jokingly referred to as the "adult supervision."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Dec/22/images/ads/current/lincoln_heating_lda_christmas_2015.png)
Schmidt then became executive chairman, often traveling the world
touting the company's accomplishments, negotiating with governments on
regulatory matters and speaking about the state of the tech industry.
"He helped them mature into the powerhouse business it is today without
throwing away the uniqueness that was Google during those early days,"
said Joe Beda, chief technology officer of Seattle startup Heptio and a
Google employee from 2004 through 2014.
Among Schmidt's accomplishments were taking the company public in 2004,
shepherding critical product initiatives like the Android mobile
operating system, and overseeing a massive 2015 corporate restructuring
in which Google became a business unit of the holding company Alphabet.
Bismarck Lepe, CEO of San Francisco startup Wizeline and a Google
employee from 2003 until 2007, said Page and Brin focused on the
company's technology and the product strategies, while Schmidt focused
on how to scale every product to a global level.
Schmidt "was incredibly smart and incredibly technical, which made him a
perfect fit," Lepe added.
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![](../images/122217pics/busine33.jpg)
Executive Chairman of Alphabet Eric Schmidt speaks during a press
conference where Alphabet Inc, the owner of Google, announced the
project "Sidewalk Toronto", that will develop an area of Toronto's
waterfront using new technologies to develop high-tech urban areas
in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Blinch
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Dec/22/images/ads/current/modern_brake_lda_christmas_2015.png)
Schmidt's tenure was not without its problems. Google, Apple and several other
tech companies were hit with a class action lawsuit 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 $415
million in 2015.
The company has also been hit with lawsuits alleging that it pays women less
than men. It also faces a series of antitrust actions in Europe, though Schmidt
was instrumental in convincing the U.S. Federal Trade Commission not to pursue
antitrust actions in the United States.
Schmidt spent more than a decade at Sun Microsystems and ran the now-defunct
networking company Novell before joining Google in 2001. The 2004 initial public
offering came at time when the industry was still reeling from the dot-com bust,
but it helped lay the groundwork for the current boom.
Shuman Ghosemajumder, chief technology officer of Mountain View, California,
startup Shape Security and a Google employee from 2003 until 2010, recalled that
shortly after the IPO, Schmidt spoke at an all-hands meetings and said that he,
Page and Brin had the ambition of making Google a $100 billion company.
"Did you mean a $100 billion market cap or $100 billion in revenue?" one
employee asked.
"And Eric said 'You pick,'" recalled Ghosemajumder. “That was definitely
inspiring to me.”
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Dec/22/images/ads/current/napa_bch1-3108.png)
Alphabet now carries a market cap of $741 billion, and this year, it is
projected to surpass $100 billion in annual revenue, according to analyst
estimates.
(Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan Weber and Tom Brown)
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